Entry #15 More Pictures

This site only lets me download a few pictures at a time. Soooo here are some more Mosque shots!

Entry #14 A Fabulous Entry

As promised in my last entry this one is going to be fabulous!! Don't get to excited, it is just some pictures of our visit to the Grand Mosque in Kuwait. I think that anyone taking the time to check this blog out enjoys pictures more than me blah blah blahing so this will indeed be fabulous.

We went to the Mosque on an arranged trip with the school. I had to completely cover up and was provided with the required ensemble. Isaac seemed quite confused by my outfit and wouldn't come to me when I tried to hold him. The Mosque was impressive, however it paled in comparison to the Mosque in Oman. I think we set our standards very high when we started with the Omani Mosque. Unlike the Omani Mosque kids were allowed on the tour and the kids had a great time running around. Just as we were leaving Zoe looked up at the ceiling and said "that is so beautiful".

Entry #13 A Quick Update

School is in full swing here as we approach the first reporting period. Our marks are due into the office on the 22nd so Jamie and I are trying to get our marking finished and figure out how to use the computer program for the actual reports. Parent teacher interviews are next week and like home, only the parents you really don't need to see come in! I am excited because we will be meeting with Zoe's teacher to see how she is doing.



We are still waiting to get into the new "blue building". There was a meeting today where we were told that if the building was not ready in the next two weeks the school would break the contract with the landlord and other arrangements would be made. We would request to stay where we are but insist that some work be done in the apartment. We love our neighbours (Seth, Christie and Lewis) and often just leave our doors open and visit back and forth; everyone in the building is great.



Halloween is approaching and there will be pumpkin carving and trick or treating for the kids. We will be going through the teacher buildings so it should be a lot of fun. I was planning on bringing Zoe's old monkey costume for Isaac but a monkey costume takes up a lot of space in luggage so that idea was scrapped. Instead he will be a cowboy or pirate. I brought a beautiful pirate princess costume for Zoe but she hates it because it has pants! So she might be wearing her gurgiyan costume from October.



Sorry no pictures for this entry. I will do something fabulous for my next blog!

Entry #12 A Day at the Beach

Entry #11 Beautiful Oman

So we made it back from our first trip outside Kuwait. We left for Muscat, Oman on September 30th and arrived home on October 5th. It was a busy five days but well worth it. We stayed with Lee, Randi and their little boy Joe (Jamie and I have known Lee since High School). They were incredibly generous and great hosts. It was great chatting about old friends and places but also nice to learn new things about the Middle East and more specifically Oman.

We spent a few days at the beach and did some shopping in the Muscat Souk (market). We visited the Grand Mosque and were blown away by its beauty. Lee and Randi have a backyard so we played outside with the kids and enjoyed some drinks there as well. One day we borrowed Lee's car for the day and went on a road trip. We went to a town a few hours outside Muscat called Nizwa to a market and fort there. A few of the highlights of that day are;

1) Me tripping in a gas station parking lot and rolling across the ground. I have a substantial bruise on my leg and some nice scraps on my arms to remember that moment. Jamie seemed to get a good laugh at my expense.

2) Us driving, for what seemed like hours, to get to the top of this mountain on a WINDY, STEEP, DIRT road and realizing at the top that we were going to run out of sunlight so we spent 15 minutes at the top and then headed back down the mountain. When we got to the bottom Jamie was relieved that no one got car sick...five minutes later Isaac threw up.

3) Getting stuck in traffic coming back through Nizwa and having to hear Zoe say for the 1 millionth time "I don't want to go on an e-venture. I want to watch Finding Nemo!"

4) Filling up a Shell station just outside Nizwa and learning after we filled up that they didn't accept VISA and realizing we had no Omani money. It was a tense 15 minutes with me near tears in the parking lot, Zoe yelling from the backseat she wanted to watch Finding Nemo, Jamie trying to convince the guy to take 10 Kuwaiti Dinars and Isaac smelling like vomit. The 10 Kuwaiti Dinars would have been more than enough to cover the cost but the gas station attendent didn't believe us. There was talk of the police and leaving our IDs to come back the next day to pay. Finally, a family pulled up at the next pump and asked what was going on and they phoned someone to find out that 10 KD was indeed enough to cover the cost of the gas. Everyone was happy and off we went in our borrowed car smelling of vomit.

Looking back it makes for a great story; not so funny at the time.

Here are some pictures. I hope they capture the beauty of Oman. The first two are of our crazy road trip and the last three our of the Grand Mosque in Muscat.