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!

Parents Day at school

The boys nursery had a parents visit class day. Well on Jaydon's day I forgot and then had a meeting scheduled over the visit time so even when I did remember couldn't go. Apparently Jaydon was very sad that i didn't make it and every teacher who saw me for the next week had to tell me about how disappointed he was that I didn't come. So on Tylor's day I made sure to come.


He really didn't know what to think of mommy being at school, he became very clingy and didn't want to do any of the activities (which was fine with me since I wasn't in clothes very conducive to child activities like painting and playing on the floor). But when the hour was up and it was time for parents to leave Tylor decided he did not like that idea. He threw a full body tantrum (and apparently this was the first time the teachers had seen him do this). But what also happened it that the next morning when I dropped him off he threw a fit again. It's like my visit to the class made him realize that it is possible for mommy to be there too and was going to do everything he could to keep me there. This went one for about 2 weeks before he finally would go to class with no tears in the morning...hopefully next year they decide to just skip parent visit day...

Boys on their own

While i was traveling all around the US Steve stayed home with the boys who all seemed to do just fine.


They went to birthday parties on the weekend (Steve sent me this photo with the caption of "How am I going to get him clean?"


... apparently it required a lot of scrubbing and a few tears. Tylor played dress up at school and did lots of playing.


He's also learned how to 'smile' on demand which is super cute since he isn't much of a smilier.


Jaydon has also become quite an artist.


This painting actually looked like what it was supposed to be when it was finished - a fish.


Our kitchen is very thouroughly decorated with all the masterpieces.

Sailing San Fran bay

Sarah learned that the Air Force has purchased a new sailboat that was open for anyone to rent with a captain for a small fee.


She had asked us months back if we were interested and it sounded like a great idea. Given the price I assumed it was a quick tour of the bay and back to shore. Once I arrived I realized it was scheduled for bright and early the morning after the wedding. Now I can't think of an idea worse than getting on a sailboat the morning after a wedding.


Jet lag made sure that I didn't sleep-in past 6 once the whole trip (as soon as I'd get a little adjusted I'd move west a few more time zones) so i was up nice and early and started hydrating early. The weather looked a little rough and it was very foggy. Several of us tried to bail out but peer pressure won over and we all set off. The captain of the boat was a great guy and was just the kind of person you'd want to be stuck on a boat with for several hours.


During the safety talk Jen (my brother's girlfriend) had her hangover greet her head-on, so to say. We hand't even untied the ropes yet and already had puking over the side of the boat (imagine what the captain was thinking). We debated whether to leave her behind but she insisted she was fine. We headed out.


Got our picture under the Golden Gate Bridge and realized she was not so fine. She spent the rest of the trip with a bucket at her side at all times.


Also, none of us realized this was an all day tour so we came completely unprepared, no food, no water, no sunscreen.


The captain took pity on us and after making a tour around Alcatraz brought us to Angel island were we got some lunch. None of us were feeling 100% yet so there was a lot of chicken soup ordered for lunch. Jen's came back to greet her as soon as she got back on the boat.


The captain realized we were not die-hard sailors so he turned the engines on and brought us back to shore for, what else, some drinks. We thanked him and said goodbye and rushed off to our dinner date with at our cousin Michele's house. She lives in a cute house in San Fran and had invited all the Forte's over for a low key family reunion dinner. She also has 2 kids the same ages as Jaydon and Tylor so I got to appease my Dr.Seuss withdrawals by reading them stories all night and playing with their puzzles and dress-up clothes. It was quite a day.

Trip to Houston...

...all by myself. It all started after my sister got engaged over Christmas. She planned for her wedding to be in March so I started figuring out how best to get back for the big event. Steve was not thrilled about another trip to the US so soon after the last and jet-lag for the kids takes so long that you really need 2 weeks to make a trip worthwhile.
I ended up finding a training course in Houston that matched the dates perfectly. So I signed up for it and got Steve to agree to by Mr.Mom for the 12 days I was gone (he did negotiate a boys only Oman fishing trip as part of the deal).
Since I was heading to the US kid free I wanted to make the most of it and decided to make a quick stop in Florida to see my Grandfather who turned 95 on March 17. It was great to see how well he's doing. He still goes down to the gym, had lunch one day out at the beach and even made me breakfast of bacon and eggs one morning single handily. He's gained back a lot of his strength since his surgery last year which is great for Grandma Squeak who is now able to do more of the things she likes to spend her time doing (rather then staying at home keeping an eye on gramps). It was great to see them both and I was happy that the trip worked out so well to see them.
After Florida I headed to Houston for my week long training class. It was a good class and the weather was perfect all week. I enjoyed some yummy food and spent way too many evenings at the Galleria mall...well I did have to fill up the extra suitcase I brought. On Friday I went to class for about 2 hours and then rushed off to the airport. Sarah's wedding was that evening so I knew I was taking a chance scheduling my flight to arrive only 2.5 hrs before it started. I put everything I needed in my carry-on so the airline was welcome to lose my bags. I scoped out the fastest way from the airport to the venue and since I was so prepared Karma looked kindly on me and we landed early, my bags were on the carousel waiting for me, the taxi got me through the beginnings of friday afternoon rush hour (and I had a nice chat with the driver who was from Sudan) and I arrived with enough time to even take a shower before the big event.

The wedding was beautiful. Sarah and her husband Neal were so cute together.


My dad did a very well received speech and gracefully danced around the floor with my sister.

I saw lots of family members I hadn't seen in a long time. I felt a little guilty the boys weren't able to share the fun but we did lots of skype calls with them in the morning at breakfast with the i-pad getting passed around the table so everyone could say hi.

After the wedding I spent a few more days in San Francisco enjoying the city and catching up with family before heading back to reality. One big bonus is that I was able to book the whole itinerary in business class (Doha-Dubai-Atlanta-Ft. Myers-Houston-San Fran-Paris-Doha, for those who are interested) for cheaper then the roundtrip Doha to Houston which meant the company was happy to pick up the tab - now that's optimizing.
BTW - I highly recommend the website itasoftware.com for any of you overseas travelers. You can't actually book tickets through it but it's excellent at helping you determine the best options for your complicated itinerary.

Morning at the beach

Summer time is quickly upon us so we decided to spend one morning at the beach before it gets too hot for such adventures.

The local beach had a promotion so it was only QR25 (~$6) for the morning - it's usually QR100-200.

The temperature was perfect, the water was a little cold. Jaydon spent the whole morning finding shells.

Tylor spent the whole morning filling up his bucket with sand and dumping it out again.

Once they had gotten sand into every crack and crevasse in their body we headed home for a bath and nice long nap.

Happy Valentines

For Valentines Carolyn made a couple batches of sugar cookie dough and invited us over to make cookies. Jaydon cut about 2 cookies worth before he decided that playing with Jacobs toys was much more fun then making cookies. It wasn't until we were home and I had made some frosting for the cookies that they got into it a bit more.

Both Jaydon and Tylor were sure to make sure every spec of the cookie was properly coated with frosting

...and don't forget the sprinkles too!

Mosque tour...kind of

The cultural center in Doha offers mosque tours. Now anyone who's been in a mosque knows that there's not much to see. The muslims take the opposite approach as say, the catholics do, when it come to decorating their places of worship. Last year Doha opened there own Grand Mosque which I've heard is quite impressive to see. So I've been trying to sign up for a tour of it for a awhile. I thought I had signed up for one only to get an e-mail the day before saying our tour had been moved to a different mosque. We already had the kids lined up for the afternoon so decided to do the tour anyways even if it wasn't the Grand Mosque. Well it ended up being the definition of a 'Doha' experience. We left with plenty of time to get to the meeting place where we were to take a bus to the mosque. Well that day they had speedboat races along the corniche so all the roads around where we were supposed to meet were closed. It took us almost an hour to get there - but we weren't late because everyone else was stuck in the same mess. They dressed us up in the abayas (black dress) and hijab (scarf around the head) and loaded us on the bus.

By now the traffic was 10 times as bad, we spent 30 minutes on the bus and had made it through 1 light only to have the tour director decide to give up and take us back to where we started and just do the tour in the local mosque. He did his best to make light of the whole situation. This was certainly a 'inshallah' moment. Inshallah means god willing and is an answer people will give rather then agreeing to your request. The say inshallah - so it will happen if god wants it to. Well he obviously didn't want us to see any of the pretty mosques that day.

We toured the little local mosque, saw the 2 highlights of the prayer times clock and the copies of Quran and decided we had had enough fun for one Doha afternoon.

You can be sure I wont be getting Steve to agree to another cultural experience anytime soon...

More Birthday fun

After a birthday filled weekend Jaydon also got his special day at nursery with all of his school buddies.

I baked another batch of cupcakes, actually 2 to make sure there was enough for everyone.

They had a little party for jaydon.

With singing (I love that Jaydon is singing too).

And candles.

And blowing them out of course. And surprisingly not a single cupcake made it back home again. I usually have to take all the birthday leftover to work the next day to be consumed but not this time. Guess I better remember that recipe for the future.
Maybe Tylor had something do to with it...

Jenna's Birthday

And just incase Jaydon might go into sugar withdrawals, fortunately there was another party the next day for our neighbor Jenna.



She's turning a big 2. The big highlight of her party was the piñata.



Once again Jaydon was disappointed because it was full of chocolate but Tylor loved it.



Fortunately he filled up on fruit before the piñata.



After the kids had the sugar high going the party turned into a dance party.



With all the kiddos (and a few parents) doing the gangnam style. I still catch Jaydon singing it (his version anyway) all the time. For some reason is it a very catchy tune that has a way of sticking with you.

Birthday bike in the rain

For Jaydon's big 4th birthday he got a new bike.



We spent the morning showing him how to ride and it even started to rain.



Well not rain so much as just lightly sprinkle, enough to get the cars dirty but that's about it.



He also got a set of angry bird sun glasses which Tylor just loved.



He insisted on wearing both pairs and was pretty cute doing it.