What are we doing?

This is what one calls 'stating the obvious', but I certainly haven't been blogging.

The kids have been in zoo camp this week.  They are mostly loving it except for a girl called Taylor who referred to Tommy as "Mr Brag Face" on the first day and has been since the only person in his class he doesn't like.  (I copy my friend Kathy's "you don't have to be friends with everyone, but you need to be friendly to everyone" rule, so hopefully things are better now.)  As we all know, Tommy definitely can be a know-it-all (it's all in the tone, and we are working hard on that).  Lizzie seems to like zoo camp okay, but claims not to see any animals during her seven hours at the zoo each day.  The nicest part of zoo camp is that Tommy is in a group with my friend Sarah's daughter Molly and they really get along.  On the way home yesterday, Tommy said to her, "you're definitely one my best friends" and she agreed.  (She couldn't be number one best because of Luke, of course.)

My big news is that all week I've been helping a partner I used to work for on an appellate brief!  It's been very fun, but makes me realize my brain is not functioning at a high level.  I know you blog readers are shocked.

Here are some photos - we've been having lots of fun here!

We went to the Science Center and saw naked mole rats which was interesting because Uncle Andy gave us a
great book (by Mo Willems) about naked mole rats.  They are super gross in real life.

Hanging out at home petting Lakota, with ear protection.

More ear protection - but in this picture it makes more sense as she's obviously trying to pop the balloon with her teeth.

Lots of bike riding.  We are now working without training wheels - but she hasn't got it yet.

Look who else is bike riding!

He fell off while climbing down.  He's okay.  

Zola and Elise.  Zola's going to college, but I babysat for her when she was a baby.  So that's a bit of a strange feeling.

Lynn (Zola and Elise's mom) and my old backyard!!

Somebody had two immunizations and she didn't cry AT ALL.  

Fun day at the Museum of Flight (except for Tommy learning about the Challenger explosion, speaking of which you should all listen to the TED radio hour that talks about that, it's so interesting)

Museum of flight (and socks with sandals)

Tommy holding a really pretty orange sea snail which I did not photograph well at all.

Dad opening up the bee hive and adding a box for more honey!  It was really fun to watch from the guest room window.

Summer

I have some amazing news:  we seem to be absolutely over the jet lag.  Lulu has been sleeping until eight am, but I think it has more to do with her four-year-old immunizations (not one tear was shed during those shots; she was so impressive) than jet lag.

We have kept busy, with very exciting things like trips to (much) colder beaches than the ones we left, and Costco.  It's hard to appreciate Costco until you don't have it, but there is something magical about that shrine to consumerism.  I love it there.

I promise more posts to come - I have some very cute pictures of a friend's baby who is very adorable and the type that just sort of snuggles into you and relaxes.

It's chilly here but happy summer to all of you anyway!  Wheee.

Hello from chilly Seattle

My lord, the last two weeks in Muscat felt like a sprint to the finish.  I can't tell you how many times I told Eli I thought I might collapse before the day ended (which is pretty lame as he has a stressful job and doesn't usually complain about being tired).  Anyway, we have weathered the goodbyes and the parties and the end of school and the leaking AC units and the three cockroaches and, well, everything else but most importantly the 13 hour and 15 minute flight from Dubai to Seattle.  The major catastrophe was that Lizzie spilled orange juice all over herself and her seat during the first meal and I'm not sure if you realize this (I certainly didn't), but orange juice that is spilled into an old seat cushion and then warmed by a human body smells very much like urine.  So paranoid was I that Lizzie had wet herself, about half way through the flight, she screamed, "MAMA, QUIT TOUCHING MY BUM".  Yes, everybody heard.

I watched that movie about Mr. Banks and I loved it (but I also love Mary Poppins) and that one where Matthew McConaughy is super skinny (liked it quite a lot) and another one that I won't be confessing to have watched on this here internet.

I'm so tired that I'm not really making sense even to myself, but I shall soldier on because I know you all want to hear about this.

The kids are thrilled to be in Seattle and have successfully destroyed my parents' house and yard.  Tommy spilled green food coloring while doing a chemistry experiment (still wants to be a chemist) and stained my dad's clothes and the kitchen floor.  They are wearing us all out with their need to become reacquainted with every detail of my parents' house.

Last night, the kids were up until sometime after five pm when Tommy fell asleep while eating ice cream.  Then, we all went to bed and guess who woke up at midnight and never went back to sleep??? ME.  Lizzie slept until three ("Mama, my brain is just keeping me awake!") and Tommy until 3:40.

Tonight will likely be worse as they will wake earlier and I will be taking a sleeping pill.  On the bright side, I have replenished my parents' netflix queue so the kids will just need to wake me once every two hours or so (ha).

PS:  Have you read that All Joy and No Fun book?  I'm 15% in (I hate reading on my kindle but English books are pricey in Muscat) and, to be honest, I'm finding it interesting.

A random one

This morning was Tommy's portfolio review and the whole thing had me laughing so hard I was crying.  A choice example was, in his plant log (you know, they planted a seed and then observed it daily), he wrote:  "My dear old plant I fear is dying!"  He just kills me.

Anyway, here are some more random ones:

A red rainbow for Tommy; a pink rainbow for Lizzie.  There are words that she can read! Exciting times over here.

In a kitty sort of a mood.  She's cute as anything in these costumes so of course she wants to be Elsa (from Frozen) for Halloween.

One of the best things about Muscat is our dentist.  She is one of my favorite people here, has kids exactly T & L's ages and is the most patient dentist you have ever met.  Here is Tommy experimenting with "Mr. Thirsty" before the cleaning begins.  My children absolutely love going to the dentist which is just so nice.

Guess who got layers at her last haircut.  She gets lots of compliments on her hair these days and she loves that I don't make her brush it in the morning anymore.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I often don't brush my hair in the morning, either.  Nice.

Sid and Ollie's dear cat Nicholas passed away last week, and it has hit Tommy hard.  These are drawings of Nick. 

Luke spent the night on Thursday.  This is Friday morning.  The boys had a great time,
but their parents are feeling quite sad that Luke is moving away from Muscat this summer...

Our family motto

I hadn't actually realized that we have a family motto (I picked up this whole concept from my Mormon mommy blog habit) until I was looking at prints on scoutmob, and saw it.  And then I thought, "ohmigosh, that's what I want our kids to know."  So, I ordered it (and this beauty as well, which now hangs in the kitchen so that I am reminded of it when I am doing dishes for the third time that day), got it framed for nothing (one of the benefits of living in Oman) and it now hangs in T & L's room.  Here is the link, in case you want to put it in your house, too.

Anyway, I'm not actually sure the kids have noticed it and only one of them can read it at this point (but Lizzie is making lots of progress!), but maybe it will sink in no matter what.  It may sound silly (or neurotic?) but Eli and I have lots of conversations about what we want to teach our kids and what kind of people we hope they will be (it could be that I do more of this talking and Eli does a lot of listening) and if my kids work hard and are kind, then I will view my attempt at parenting as successful, no matter what they are (this weekend Tommy wants to be a chemist and Lulu wants to be a rock climber).

It's June! Everybody is leaving!

I haven't been around much lately, because I've been busy and also a bit whiny.  Nobody wants to read a whiny blog. Eli and the kids had a holiday on Tuesday (not sure what it was for, but I think the Prophet's Ascension?) and we went to a fancy hotel for the day with our friends the Engstroms.

Our friends the Engstroms are leaving Oman in two weeks forever and this is quite a loss for all of us.  Two of us have not begun to process this - and won't until they return in September to an Engstrom-less life.  The other two of us try not to talk about it too much, because I've started getting snappy when Eli points out that if we hadn't chosen the expat life, we never would have met the Engstroms.

Note the Luke-Tommy handhold.

This is right after I said that it's appropriate that Eli and John were taking the photo because they are always at work, anyway.
 (I am gearing up for some lonely, boring Saturdays come September.) 

Quick trip to Dubai

We left Thursday for a long weekend in Dubai.  Eli and I have decided that before the kids and I leave each year for the summer, we will try to spend a few days together, and this year we went to the Atlantis.  It's a pretty spectacular place, in a pretty cheesy way, but oh my god did we have a good time.  The Atlantis has a waterpark in the resort and we spent chunks of each of our full days there.  Tommy is now tall enough to ride the slides without weight restrictions (some are so vertical that he would fly off of them if we went, but try to explain that to him), and the resort is structured for people to go in pairs on double tubes.  So Eli and I swapped going with him.  Before the trip, I wondered if he would be scared of the slides but he just LOVED them.  He told me more than once that it was the best day of his life, each day.  And in return I told him he is the bravest seven-year old I could imagine, which is of course, his aim in life.

I was anxious about the border between the UAE and Oman, because so many people had told us how confusing it was, but I finally just sat down with one of my fellow type-a moms who explained it all to me, and we made it through with no problems at all.  The drive over was very long (six and a half hours?) but the ride back was much shorter and easier (four and a half hours).  The kids were great, but we let them watch movies on the ipad.

The pictures below are of the resort...But none of the waterslides as we didn't take the camera there.

There are 65,000 fish in this tank.

There's an aquarium there, too -- see those huge grouper below??

These pretty pink fish that I had never seen before are hermaphrodites.  A male swims around with 10-15 females (his harem) and when the male dies, one of the females becomes a male.

Here is an interesting story that happened on our trip:  one morning at breakfast, we were chatting and I somehow started explaining to Tommy the eighties fad of rabbits foot key chains.  Does anybody else remember those?  Anyway, he looked at me as I was talking with a look of disgust and said, "that is savage, mom."  And I started telling him I was sure they weren't real rabbits feet (?) and he just looked at me and said, "why would anybody want those? What was good about them?" And I told him they were soft.  But it was a weird conversation because he was just so right and I had no such awareness when they were around.

We checked out on Sunday morning and then went to Ikea and Ace Hardware.  At Ikea, we checked the kids into the play space and took off for an hour and a half.  It was pretty fun and we got a bunch of stuff we needed and plenty that we did not need.  But you know the best part of Ikea Dubai?? The shawarma.  We decided to stuff some lunch into the kids before leaving, and the store has proper shawarma, for so cheap.  (Interesting fact:  the gas station across our roundabout also has very good shawarma, which I know thanks to my friend Antonia as I am not one myself to sample gas station food.)  I don't think it's about the shawarma (as you can get nice shawarma at the gas station), but there is a rumor that Ikea is going to open in Muscat and expats can have very long conversations about this topic.