Dads fishing trip

So part of the deal of me heading over to the US by myself for training and to attend my sisters wedding was that Steve got a boys trip to go fishing.


They decided to head over to the UAE to Fujairah, which is the little point that sticks up off the peninsula and separates the Arab (Persian) Gulf with the Indian Ocean.


It's also the main fuel stop for ships in the area and is where many take anchor waiting for their next sailing instructions.


Steve, John and Joern all headed out on thursday. I didn't hear from Steve again until Saturday evening when he said his flight would be late.


They brought home pictures that proved they did in fact catch fish but not many other details are known about the trip.


They do want to do it again though and are even talking about July since thats when the best fishing is.


I cant imagine being on a boat all day in 120F heat...guess they really did enjoy themselves.

Environmental Fair

It seems every couple of weeks there's some sort of exhibition, fair, or convention going on in town. Most of the time we try to avoid them like the plague since the crowds can be awful and the traffic twice as bad.


The enviro fair was really targeted for the kids and since we had a booth there that I had to man for a few hours I realized it was something the boys might really enjoy.


We decided to go on the last day to make sure the crowds were gone.


The boys had a great time, they loved all the corny costumes and activities.


Their favorite part was the aquariums and Tylor found his favorite thing - a big turtle.


He also got to try cotton candy which he really wasn't a fan of, after carrying it around for awhile and letting it melt all over his hands he finally let his brother finish it off for him.


But not before everything in his sight was completely sticky.

Beach Trip and Counting to 10

We took advantage of a nice weekend, before it gets too hot, and headed up to the beach.


We timed it just right so it was low tide with nice calm water.


The boys had a great time finding hermit crabs, sea worms, and crabs.


Tylor was able to wade around in the water throwing around a big rock to see how big it splashed when it landed.


We had lunch, loaded the boys in the car and had a very quite ride home with the boys sound asleep in the back.


The next day while getting ready for swimming lessons the boys found Steve gear still in a pile from when he emptied his car out for the ride to the beach.

They had a great time dressing up like daddy in hard hats and safety glasses. 

And Jaydon has taught Tylor how to count to 10...

Easter Egg Dying

To continue the Easter fun we decide to color eggs the next day. We started with doing the crayon shaving eggs.


These are a fun different way to color eggs, you use a pencil sharpener on your old crayons to get a pile of shaving then sprinkle them on hot eggs.


They melt and make all kinds of neat designs.


It is a little tricky to do with young kids because of the hot eggs and we find the parents alway end up with burned finger tips.


After we did the crayons we did some traditional egg dying. Jaydon was very careful about the egg dying, following directions very closely and picking out the colors he wanted on each egg.


Tylor on the other hand just wanted to splash the eggs into the dye and did not want anyone to help him.


We had dye everywhere, and constant battles with Tylor as he tried to get the eggs out with his hands and put them in a new color. We went through a whole roll of paper towels before the adventure was finally done (and not very many pictures since it was all hands on deck to contain the mess).


After we got the boys off onto the next activity Steve and I decided that that had been the most stressful thing we had done in weeks. Thank goodness we have black countertops too!

Easter Egg Hunt

The compound had an Easter egg hunt for all the kiddos in the big park behind our house.


I tried to explain to Jaydon that the easter bunny hides the eggs for him to find but since he could see all the parents out there setting up he had a hard time understanding what I was trying to tell him. I had to continue the story by saying that Doha is really far for bunnies to come so parents have to help out too. It was a very hot day and the park was in the full sun. The little kids got find eggs first.


Tylor had a great time getting the eggs and discovered very quickly that they were full of chocolate.


Because of the heat everything had melted so Tylor was a mess for most of the morning.


Jaydon's turn to hunt eggs came and he knew just what to do.


He was a little disappointed that most of the eggs had chocolate inside since he doesn't like the stuff (weird, I know!).


After the egg hunt they had an egg race.


Tylor was more interested in eating the chocolate egg rather than leaving it on his spoon.


Jaydon followed the instructions very well and made sure his egg never once came off the spoon.





The boys enjoyed they're easter experience and later that afternoon we realized that the park is much cooler because it gets some shade when the sun gets lower.


We will have to keep that in mind for next year!