Trip to Dubai with grandma and grandpa Connor

Steve's parents decided to spend their Thanksgiving holiday with us and get out of the cold Alaska weather. Their flight was Fairbanks, Anchorage, Seattle, Dubai to Doha. So we decided to use the opportunity to meet them in Dubai and spend the weekend at the Atlantis resort.


We'd heard a lot of good things about the place and booked a nice suit room for us and the kids with an adjoining room for the grandparents. The boys absolutely loved the hotel especially the gigantic fish tank.


We spent hours just watching the fish and probably could've spent our whole time in front of it.


Well Tylor certainly could have.


When we got tired of the big fish tank they also had an aquarium to walk through.


Tylor loved it all and made buddies with fish.

Jaydon's favorite part was the petting tank.


Unfortunately, Jaydon did get a little sick with a fever before we left so we spent more time in the hotel room then we were planning too but it was fine since the grandparents needed to recuperate from their trip halfway around the world and the room had a beautiful view.


We also got the chance to spend one morning with dolphins.


....No not that kind, the real ones.


The boys were enthralled and loved every minute of it.


We got to kiss, dance and pet the dolphins.


They even performed a few of their fancy jumping tricks for us.


Tylor was delighted and kept asking for "more, more".


We also spent the afternoon at the Waterpark. At the kids play area they had a gigantic bucket that would douse the kids with 1000 gallons of water, Tylor loved it and Jaydon hated it (he also wasn't feeling quite well yet). After getting soaked Jaydon decided the lazy river was more up his alley. We spent a few minutes there and he actually preferred just playing in the water with this new googles. I finally convinced him to go back to the kids play area and not more than 30 seconds in the water he tripped skinned his knee and was done for the day. Nothing too bad though that a few dipping dots couldn't fix.


It was a fun (though expensive) weekend and everybody enjoyed it.

People who help us

Was the theme at Jaydons school.


They got some of the EMT volunteers to come and visit the kids.


Jaydon loved it and got right into the make-believe.


He's a very empathetic boy so could easily relate to taking care of people. The teacher said he was full of nonstop questions the whole time they were there.


Tylor is also doing great at school. He loves going every morning.


And when he comes home he never misses an opportunity to squish the cat. And Mav actually puts up with it for a while.

Halloween .... again

This is definitely the longest Halloween season on record. Halloween landed in the middle of the eid holiday so thanks to Facebook most of the families in the compound agreed to delay it to the following weekend. But when the 31st actually arrived those of us who were here couldn't just let the holiday go by. So that meant on the rescheduled Halloween night the kids were raring to go.


Tylor revised his candy collecting technique and would walk up to the bowl, grab two handfuls and bring it back to Daddy for safekeeping. This kept his hands free to be able to snatch any candy that had fallen on the ground from the other kids.


Jaydon continued asking for no chocolate and we did discover a few benefits of having two Halloweens within a week of each other. Finish your dinner or you can't go trick-or-treating had a lot more meaning this time. And last weeks collected candy got dumped into this week's giveaway bowl (with some careful sorting to cull out the pieces Tylor had already gotten his hands on). We also had no doubt that we got our moneys worth from the costumes we bought and shipped over. I've certainly had my fill of angry birds for a while!

Think pink walk

The woman's group at my work participated in the think pink walk this year. It was the weekend after the eid so we knew attendance would be low because most people would still be on holiday. So we extended the invitation to include families. Jaydon and I headed out for an evening walk along the corniche.


It ended up being a very typical Doha experience. First the parking lot at the end of the walk that they told to park at to get buses to the start of the walk no longer existed. It was now a construction site for a new park and no buses to be seen anywhere. Fortunately we were early enough that we just drove to the start of the walk and decided we'd figure out how to get back to our car later. We asked everyone to arrive a bit early so we could get a group picture in our pink shirts.


As we were organizing for the picture we saw the balloons getting let off at the starting line. The organizers decided that enough people had arrived and started 20 minutes early. After we got over the chaos of the starting line we had a nice walk along the corniche, it was a beautiful night and Jaydon enjoyed his ride in the stroller.


When we got to finish they had promised us "entertainment". Well this was a small stage set up and a crew of techno dancers, lights and all, singing and dancing for us. I thought it was horrible but Jaydon loved it. He's never seen anything like it, except for maybe something he's seen on Samina's Filipino TV channels. After the show we had to figure out how to get back to our cars. By then the corniche was in it's typical weekend gridlock. One of the ladies had a friend nearby was willing to come pick us up because there were no taxis in sight. It took her an hour to get to us and get us back to our cars (which would've been a five-minute drive without traffic). Jaydon thought the whole thing was just one big grand adventure.


He got to stay out late, see the lights of the city, enjoy a dancing singing show, and spend quality time with his mommy and her work-friends (who gave him all kinds of attention and candy). In the end I was happy we participated but was even more happy that we had left Steve and Tylor at home!

Halloween

Halloween finally arrived and we were very happy that we bought washable costumes that had been able to survive all the pre-parties.


We fed the boys an early dinner, dressed them up once again and headed out for some Halloween fun. Jaydons good buddy Clarissa and her mom, both dressed as Minnie Mouse also joined us.



It was a beautiful night with perfect weather.


Tylor caught on to the idea immediately and made it a point to have the most candy possible in his hands at all times.


Jaydon for some completely unknown reason doesn't like chocolate (I even consider him half made of the stuff). So when people answered the door, rather than saying trick-or-treat he would say, "do you have anything other than chocolate because I don't like it?"


Most people felt sorry for the poor kid who didn't like chocolate on Halloween and if they didn't have anything readily available in their bowl would scurry into their house to see what else they could find for him. I tried to explain to him to just take the chocolate and give it to his mommy but after a few houses he gave up and he went back to his old method.


Tylor learned that perseverance and lots of saliva can open just about any kind of candy wrapper out there. I have no idea how much he actually ate but he had a great time. We saw lots of Jaydon and Tylor's friends dressed up in fun costumes like Lina and her sister Jenna who were both princesses.


We stayed out way past their bedtime and later than most of the other kids, But it was such a beautiful night we just didn't feel the need to head home.

Eid holiday

This year for 2nd eid we took it easy and stayed in Doha. I had a training course in Brussels that overlapped with eid so it didn't make much sense to travel anywhere. Steve had the boys on his own for the first couple days. 
He took advantage of the nice weather and did some plantings, first the boys than the Jasmine. 
We also had the special treat of the Dora show coming to town.  The Dads opted out of this activity with the kiddos...
Jaydon and Clarissa had a wonderful time seeing their first show. 
The rest of the vacation was spent having fun at friends houses. 
Being silly. 
And playing with bubbles. 
Steve bought a new automatic bubble machine which the boys spent hours playing with.

Those little toys are well worth the investment - you just can't beat the fun of being surrounded by bubbles.  So busy watching the bubbles they weren't watching where they were going.

Nursery Halloween party

Of course one of the days at nursery was deemed Halloween party day.


All the kids were encouraged to come in their Halloween costumes or fancy dress as they sometimes it.


I was off on a training course so Steve got to be Mr. mom and get the boys ready all on his own.


The boys and all the other kids at school super cute in their costumes.

Clarissa's birthday party

The grand finale of this jampacked weekend was another birthday party.


This time for Jadyon's best buddy Clarissa.


More fun playing outside and eating lots of yummy party food.


And of course don't forget the cake (they were Minnie and Mickey, very cute...)


Tylor had a great time playing with all of Carissa's toys.


He especially loved being able to push somebody else in the stroller.

Halloween party

Day 2 of our super busy weekend started with a Halloween party for kiddos at the compound.


We got all dressed up in our angry bird suits and headed out for some fun. Tylor made a perfect and super cute king pig.


They had face painting which helped the kids really get into the spirit.


Tylor found a new buddy, the scarecrow.


He just couldn't get enough of it and ended up sitting next to his friend for a lot of the party.


When the energy of the party started to get low they brought out the bubbles.


Tylor took care of some chores.


Got to keep that AstroTurf the right height :)

Jacob's birthday

Birthday time again.


Jaydon's best buddy Jacob is turning three.


It was a beautiful day so all of the yard toys came out and the kids had a great time outside.


The party was cars themed and even included temporary tattoos.


The party finished with a visit from the tickle monster (one of Jacobs favorite books) befor all the sugar-uped kids headed to bed.