Hannah's Pre-K Field Trip...To the Porsche Dealership

Hannah brought home a field-trip permission form...for a journey to the Doha Porsche dealership. The unit they were studying was called "Going Places" and it at least partially emphasizes traffic and road safety. This made me laugh for all sorts of reasons. It's typical of the "other worldly" place that this is.  That said, the day was actually lots of fun and their kids' program was impressive! Here are some pictures.

Our kids came in two groups of around 18.  Our group started off in the classroom.

They got a full lesson in road signage by a very strict instructor
who expected everyone to participate and pay attention.

Here are the signs they had to learn.
A couple of kids in Hannah's class (equivalent of American pre-k) can already read! 

Next, they all got in these pedal cars.

And off they went!
The indoor track was quite extensive, including tunnels and stop lights,
a roundabout, and even a teeter-totter sort of thing (shown here).

After the driving extravaganza, they then served everyone lunch!
The adults also received a "tea service" (hot coffee or tea served in nice china/tea cups).

After lunch, the kids drew pictures of what they learned.

And then each kiddo got a hat, a neck strap with a photo-ID "driver's license" attached (with their real names and photos included) as well as a take-home guide about traffic safety, and of course, a Porsche sales booklet... They also each got a really nice aluminum business card holder...?

Hannah now considers herself a Porsche driver. 
Anyone interested in being betrothed to this little pint of pink better take note of that expectation...

Birthday Party #2:In which a flock of wild geese invades andFour birthday candles miraculously become five.

And some pictures from the party:

And then for a bonus, here's a flashback: Jack and a rather bald Hannah (a.k.a. Goozie Magoo) having an important conversation in the fall of 2006. Hannah was almost 5 months old, and Jack was a newly minted 6 year old, still with his top baby teeth and little boy voice.  And yes, he has a mohawk.

 

And because I'm her mother and cannot stop there, here's Magoo singing the Manna Mannah song from the muppets and then running through her vocabulary at 21 months old. God bless her, now the child talks from sun up to the moment she passes out each night.

When I ask her "What does a kitty say?," she answers, "Golly Gah" because that's what she called cats. When I ask "Can you say Hank?," she answers, "Bubba." Love it.

Birthday Party #1: On the Date

Hannah Grace is now five years old.  Never a family to limit our birthday demands celebrations, we had two parties.  The first one was just the five of us and found Hannah picking what we would have for dinner (Mac and Cheese, yes out of a box), as well as an ice cream cake from Cold Stone.  Woah...it was good...red velvet cake layered with vanilla ice cream that had sprinkles mashed in it.

Here 'tis...

And it's official: five years old.

June 14, 2011

Wa'allah: Whatcha Doin'?

Sweet Wa'allah is somewhere around eight months old now.  Notice how his eyes are much lighter than they were in earlier pictures?  In person, you can see hints of yellow starting to peek through, too.

Aside from plenty of whistling and clucking, Wa'allah now says "Whatcha doin'?" and "Where'd ya go?", both in a whispering voice.  He also says, "Hello Buurd" in John's voice and "whew!" in mine.  He's still very sweet--has never bitten me (I don't think he's bitten John?), and he still frequently cheagles around the house. I brought him back a new load of toys from the US, and he's really been enjoying those. His favorite are cheap pastic cat balls like these, which he throws around and then shreds into little tiny pieces.

When I was in Texas, I asked about El Jefe, our sweet Pionus that we had to leave behind, and I was told that the woman who had him "woke up one day and he was gone."  So there's another sad goodbye that makes me sick to my stomach with guilt.  Sigh.  We are going to have to work hard to make sure that we don't have to do this with our animals again (leave them behind).

Making Cookies for the Homecoming

Yes, well, this was a week ago, but at least I'm getting the post done at all!  John and Hank returned back from their Texas adventure, and to celebrate, we made chocolate chip cookies to take to the airport.  Here's some pictures from that...

And I had a total Gaga moment: the butter here comes in European quantities, which is not quite the same as American.  So I had to pull out the kitchen/postage scale. I had so much fun weighing the butter, that I ended up weighing the flour and sugars, too.  This totally took me back to Gaga and her postage scale, which I thought was so crazy at the time...but now as I get older...

RPH: Finally, Some Good Ol' Car Swag

Flys Watter, a Cool and Refreshing Drink...or...

I made the long, arduous journey across the parking lot (less than 50 yards) to go to our compound store.  Can you imagine anything more convenient than a 7-11 (without the garish lights) right across the street from your house?  Where a coke costs 1.5 QR (about 50 cents USD)?  Where there's milk and frozen chicken and bread and laundry soap and toilet paper and pool toys and shampoo and candy and fresh fruit and fresh onions and eggs and flour and just almost everything else you could imagine all packed neatly inside a tiny little 25 X 35 foot air-conditioned box?  And it costs about the same as going to the grocery (only a slight bit higher, definitely worth the convenience).

In fact, it's so close and so impressive that I just got off my lazy rump--right in the midst of drafting this post--and walked over there to take a picture.

There's so much stuff--in terms of variety--packed into that store, that I'm never surprised that they have the random thing I went looking for.  Well, today, I was in desperate need of a fly swatter.  The flies here are bad right now...

Me, after looking around and seeing no swatters in plain sight: "Um, do you happen to have a fly swatter?"

Kind Man: "Yes! Fresh water.  Right here."

Me: "Um, no, I'm sorry, I mean a flaaaiiii swot-ter."

Kind Man: "Oh yes!  For the pool! Right here!" (points to blow-up beach balls, swim rings, floaties)

Me: "Yes, I'm not being clear, I'm sorry...you know when a bug is flying through your house [making wild hand motions above my head like a swarm of locusts is descending upon us] and you want to [slapping motion] SMACK it?"

Kind Man, now confused: "Laundry detergent?"

Flute Tune Challenge for This Week...or Maybe More

I've really missed having a piano.  We had one for a few years--an old one that was pretty but wouldn't stay tuned, and I really loved playing it.  Who knew that those 8 years of lessons would come in so handy all those years later???  There was no place for a piano in our last Texas house, so I actually haven't had access to one in almost 10 years.  Electronic keyboards are fun but are not the same.  Even the slightest delay between pushing the key and getting the sound ruins the whole experience for me.  What I really want is a small, plain upright practice piano.  Here, one of those costs $5,000-$8,000, so you can imagine that's not on the shopping list.

So John has his guitar, Hank has his violin (which he doesn't play enough!), Jack has his recorder, and Hannah has her belly dancing.  For my birthday, I bought myself a flute.  In middle and high school, I played clarinet but was blessed to have friends who helped me learn a little about the flute--the fingerings are surprisingly similar and I've taken enough music lessons that reading music remains easy (like riding a bike).

On amazon.com.

The flute I bought was nothing fancy.  I had to buy one while I was in Texas, and the ones I saw in a couple of music stores cost $800-$1,000.  Way.too.much. at least for now.  I found this flute on amazon, and after consulting with my flute-playin'-sister, we agreed that it was worth the money for a starter flute.

And it is a perfect starter flute.  It plays sharp, but that could be my fault in how I'm blowing, but I can pull the neck joint out about 3/4 inch and that gets it in better range.  It's pretty, shiny, new, and works well.

And the really fun part is how much stuff is available online now!  This Flute Tunes site is completely free and includes lots of sheet music, often with accompaniment.  The "easy" stuff is sometimes "easy" enough for me to sight-read--sometimes it takes a little practice.  The intermediate stuff is definitely worthy of extended practice, and the advanced stuff is way too hard.

I've been playing probably 4-5 hours per week and having so much fun.  No, I will NOT be posting videos.  There IS a limit to my willingness to over-share and publicly humiliate myself, and this surpasses that limit.

My song for last week was...
It's a Long Way to Tipperary
I could play this at speed with the accompaniment, but the sharpness of my tone was a little grating and I'm not so great at the lowest notes (low D, C#, C).  They get all breathy and faint but should improve with practice...

My song for this week is...
Pauls Steeple
This one is fast for my abilities, but I can get through the first four sections after one day...still a little bobbling here and there, but I can keep up with the track while it's playing.  I like the range of this one better (notes don't get too low or too high).  This will take lot more practice to play with any grace, but I'll work on it as long as it's fun...

You can go to either page and click the play button to hear the music.

No, I will not be providing in-person performances either, unless Hank agrees to a violin/flute duet.

Yes, this is an excellent way to spend time indoors when it's 115 degrees and windy outside. :)

Henna Hannah Henna Fest

Hannah and I are a little crazed over henna. I posted about it as part of Arabian night a little while back.  But that was only the start of our obsession.  At my favorite grocery (Family Foods For the Win!), they sell tubes of pre-mixed henna with a little funnel attachment to help you draw.  I'm pretty sure that real henna artists consider these a total sham, but for two transplanted Texuns, they do just the trick.

Here are two examples of our henna project from last month...

If you apply it to the palms of your hands or the soles of your feet, it stays way longer...

...unless of course you go swimming every day, and then you're like a perpetual henna tabula rasa...

Now, finally this last picture is of Herself in the scarf she picked at Souq Waqif.  She and I made the trip there one morning to pick up goodies for our loved ones back home.  She desperately wanted to "wear it like a real Qatari lady," so I did my clusmy best to wrap it around her hair.  The shop owner was so amused that he gave Hannah a little Qatari flag as a gift.  She walked through the souq carrying that flag with her head covered.  As you can imagine, we got quite a few glances from a large variety of people.  Remember: imitation is a sincere form of flattery...

A Blog Post, in which John Learns to Make Sushi &Then We're Inspected by the TSA

Thanks to wonderful Aki and Company, we're still on a sushi rampage. After my own newbie indoctrination and practice, my next step was to teach John how to make it. For a couple of weeks before all this traveling started, we had "sushi Friday" (remember, Friday is Sunday here). The first time, I got everything set up, and then we rolled the sushi together. The second time, John did lots of the setting up, too. I'm pretty sure these are pictures from the first round.

We made the rice balls with salmon and shrimp on top as well as two different kinds of maki (rolled sushi): one with crab and the other with spicy tuna.  Both with veggies. Sitting around with a "project" where we could work and talk was really fun...but then eating it was even more fun...

Some how, some way, we had procured a bottle of Tabasco brand spicy soy sauce.  Several years ago, we started buying this at the HEB in Texas, and oh heavens is it delicious...a nice little Tabasco kick but nothing overwhelming, and that soy saltiness makes a perfect friend for the pepperiness.  Unfortunately, HEB stopped carrying it, and we hadn't been able to find it in Texas since.  I think John brought this bottle from the actual Tabasco factory in LA--he made a trip to NOLA about six weeks ago.

So not only did John become a sushi hero, but he also devised a little concoction of wasabi paste and Tabasco soy sauce for dippin' those little rice buggers in.  And the funny part is watching him consume these fire balls from heaven...every once in a while, that wasabi peppernaciousness goes up the inside back of his nose and he sort of jumps and yelps or gasps in pleasure.

So then came my turn for my first trip back to the USofA, and what did I do?  I ordered a "case" (8 bottles) of Tabasco soy sauce from the factory...delivered to my wonderful in-laws' door, packed into my suitcase, and hauled back to Doha.

When I got back to our desert home, I was relieved to see that all my treasures had arrived unscathed.  In fact, only one bag had a "hey, we rummaged through your stuff" notice in it...the bag with the soy sauce.  Then I looked at the box...

Glad to know the TSA is keeping us safe.

Texas Girl and Boy

I have some blog posting to do, and it's going to be all totally out of order.  Since I posted, we've had three separate trips to Texas (John's made two, and I've made one).  So just be patient with me...

First post is to reassure my family that, yes, my children do remember they are Texans.

 

Gracie Lou dons her first Mexican dress, ordered from Leo's Imports of San Angelo, Texas and then paraded around Doha, Qatar.

John Freeland Small doctoring up his pinto's with some mild Tabasco sauce. 
He also eats it on his eggs.  Cause he's a good Texas boy.