Trip to the US for Christmas

This year we spent Christmas in Colorado. I found a great fare on tickets which took us from Doha to Spain to Dallas to Grand Junction with 28 hours of travel time. We left at 2 AM and most of the flight was on American Airlines so I expected the worst. But all in all it didn't go to bad. Especially considering that Jaydon got a stomach bug 18 hours before we got on the flight. We arrived exhausted which meant a pretty good nights sleep the first night. We always find the second day is the worst after travel so the first day we try to pack in and as much as we can.


We headed out to cut down our own Christmas tree.


It was much colder than anything we were used to so we bundled up the boys in jackets, hats, boots, and mittens and headed out to the cut-down-your-own-tree farm. Tylor is not accustomed to wearing winter boots and a big jacket that restricts his movements. He took three steps out of the car tripped on a rock and landed face first into the dirt. He scratched up his nose and I had to pull rocks and dirt out of his mouth. It was not the best way to start out the adventure especially with jet lagged kids.


He decided he wanted to be carried from then on.


We found the perfect tree and Jaydon helped grandpa cut it down.



That evening the local palisade library had a special Christmas event for kids. We listened to stories and watched a mini play about the Night Before Christmas. Then got a special visit from Santa Claus.


This is the first year Jaydon had any interest in talking to or sitting with him. Tylor on the other hand had absolutely no interest. He didn't want to be anywhere close to him. After Jaydons chat with Santa we headed out to dinner.


By then Tylor had reached his limit, he slept most of the dinner and Jaydon spent most of it laying on my lap. The next few days we took it easy letting the boys adjust the new time zone. They did their best to help out, like when grandma made apple pies.


They thought eating the apple peal strings was the best.


And who doesn't have fun with that silly apple peeler machine.


The local model train club was also having an event to show off their years worth of hard work.


The boys thought the model trains were the neatest.


We spent a lot of time just watching the little trains go round and round the tracks, in and out of the tunnels, and listened to them make their choo-choo train noises.


On our way out we toured some of the life-size trains they had on display. Again those winter boots tripped up Tylor, literally, and he landed headfirst into a pile of iron rail tools. He got a bump the size of a golf ball on his forehead and a scar that still exists today. With a scratched nose and bruised forehead he was ready for Christmas, or at least the photos anyways.

Christmas party

The compound had a Christmas party for the kiddos. There was lots of holiday treats and fun games, Jaydon got to 'go fish' for candy canes and Tylor learned all about un-decorating Christmas trees. They also had face paints available for the parents to use.


Jaydon was very still and let me paint holly, candy-cane and a snowflake on his nose.


Tylor tried to be like his big brother but just couldn't sit still (not even for the picture).


I forgot my camera so the only pictures are from when we got home.

Trip to the beach

With the weather being so nice someone decided to plan a weekend at the beach.

Most of the group went camping overnight but we opted out since we were getting on a plane to the US in a couple days and wanted the boys as rested as possible. We just spent the afternoon at the beach which was plenty of time for Jaydon and Tylor the play in the water and the sand.

But for some reason when I was packing our stuff I completely forgot the swimsuits. Maybe it's my subconscious refusing to accept that you can swim in December at the beach.

So Jaydon spent the day in his tighty whiteys and Tylor spent the day in a diaper full of sea water.


They didn't mind and loved having the hotdogs and marshmallows and all the other good stuff to eat.

We'll just have to leave the camping to another day.

Purple dancing boys

These videos don't need much explanation. Just a couple of silly boys dancing to Barbie Girl.

 Jaydon heard this song playing at Chili's one day at lunch and just had to hear it again. Now it's one of his favorites.

 I can't help but wonder when this video might resurface to completely embarrass Jaydon...



We also had some Christmas carolers come by the house to get us in the holiday cheer. The boys thought it was pretty neat.

Dinner at the souks

One of the places we always like to bring company when they come to town is the souks. There's lots of neat little shops with rugs, spices, and other local souvenirs.


When we've got the kids along one of the must sees as the animal souk.


They have all kinds of animals and let the kids play and touch them to their hearts content.


This is certainly not somewhere you want to bring someone from the Humane Society. The conditions for the animals is quite deplorable, but the kids don't know any different and had a great time holding the birds and petting the rabbits.


The baby iguanas were so tame they just sat on Jaydons hand.


He was convinced he had found his new best friend. Its a good thing I've actually had one of these before or I may have been tempted to actually buy one for him.


I know their cuteness and niceness wears off very quickly.


After stocking up on saffron and dates we headed out to another dinner outside to enjoy our nice weather.

Thanksgiving

This is the first Thanksgiving in a couple years where we've actually been at home. Steve found all of the parts to his rotisserie grill and smoked up a turkey.


We went over to our friends Natalie and Patrick's house. Jaydon and Jacob got their own kids tables to eat at.


The weather was perfect for a nice meal outside.


Tylor quickly decided his favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner is the cranberry sauce.


He ate it by the spoonful. The food was great and we had plenty of leftovers to last for a couple days.

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!