Conversations with Ethan

E- Dad can you wake me up tomorrow? I'd like to eat breakfast with you.
C- Why do you want to get up so early?
E- I like to get up early and eat all the things in the cupboard I'm not supposed to.

He has often been caught downing marshmallows and chocolate chips before breakfast.

Vintage Star Wars

MANY YEARS have passed since the days these toys were loved, played with, and strewn around Chris' bedroom. We weren't sure they had survived all the years spent in garage/attic heat.

After a bit of clean up these action figures helped ME get through the first few days of Spring Break and allowed me some peace to pack for our trip to.....

THAILAND.
(Travel Log To Follow)


Z & E set up the entire set and made a video saying Thank You Great Grandma N for purchasing these and Grandma J for saving them all these years!

Now they get to be loved, played with, and strewn around my house!

Spring Breakin'

So we're taking a little week away vacay to......

3 Guesses

Hot & Humid
Spicy
Orchids

Father & Son Desert Campout

It was late afternoon last Wed. when my crew headed out to meet up with the Daharan Fathers & Sons. By the time everyone arrived it was already getting dark. After a wrong turn some back tracking the caravan arrived at their destination, which was determined by the fact that most of the cars got stuck.

Dinner was cooked in the pitch black, tents were set up in the dark as well. The boys were so excited to find out they got to stay up until 11pm.

With morning light camp was better established and you can see a large sand dune rising up behind it.

Also you can see that all the cars are spread out where they remained stuck until it was time to dig them out to go.

The morning also brought lessons in entomology playing with an unusual looking preying-mantis.

It had beige stripes to help it blend in with it's surrounding.

They also had a lesson in arachnology looking at camel spiders.

The sand dune was adjacent to a body of fresh water. Some said it is the only natural fresh water lake in the region others said it is just a reservoir from the waste station near by.

The drop off is not as steep as it first appears.

Chris said it was amazing to see so much green in the middle of the desert.

One of the dads made sand boards which were fun but Z and E weren't quite big enough to use them properly.

Unfortunately after spending a good deal of the morning digging out that wasn't the end of it.They had to drive out through some mud flats that appeared solid but just beneath the surface was mud, very soft mud.

It really was unusual to see so much natural greenery. The only other places we've seen green is on camp.

You can't travel far without seeing a camel caravan but this time

they got so see the water truck delivering water to the camel trough.

The last stop was a old fort. At first glance it looks like an unfinished building.

Inside it is a bit more interesting.

But not too interesting as they were there less than 30 minutes.

Some one knew that the fort was used in the 1500's

As usual there is no signage letting visitors know any details about the place.

The boys arrived home very late in the evening hungry but extremely happy. They loved camping with dad and friends in the desert.

Insightful

I was always a little unsure of the art teacher or guide at the museum when they talk about art pieces saying things such as:
Oh, this color choice was used because of the rage he/she (the artist) felt at the time...
You can see by such and such that he/she was trying to say such and such...

How do they know??? Most of the artists didn't become famous until after they died so while still alive no one was asking them why they painted what they did or used a certain color.

But now I think there may be some truth to it.

The other morning at breakfast Ethan asked me what idiot meant. I explained it to him then he IMMEDIATELY yells, "Zach, You're such an IDIOT!"
Then we had to have yet another talk about choosing kind words, yada yada so on and so forth.

All the Kindergartners take a counseling class where they discuss good habits, how to treat one another, and other safety issues. The same day as the idiot episode Zach had an assignment to draw a picture of a time someone hurt your feelings with their words. They had discussed how words can hurt others or encourage them. They were reminded that teasing others can hurt their feelings and is not an acceptable way to speak to others. (I think this is awesome! Do all schools do this?)

I will explain what Zach said about it.

Ethan is telling me I'm an idiot. I am crying because it makes me sad. There is a broken heart at the top with tape to show we shouldn't hurt people's feeling. There is a devil crossed out above idiot saying Ethan shouldn't be mean like the devil. But here is the insightful part...in K class they are assigned a color for their behavior: green = no problems, yellow = one infraction, blue = time out, red = note to parents. Zach drew Ethan in yellow b/c he wasn't being nice and himself green because he hadn't done anything wrong.

So maybe there is something to this color choice thing. I thought that was really cool that he took his picture to that level of detail.

Costume Of The Week....

.....or, last couple of weeks to be exact. It is often worn with accessories such as pirate hats, shields, and light sabers.

Both this Superman Scooter and the Superman cape have been getting a bit of mileage lately.
(Thanks Grandma J for the scooter & Great Grandma N for the cape.)

The scooter is Ethan's choice of transportation lately for playtime, t-ball, story time across camp, etc. The cape has been to church, the pool, preschool, and most recently camping (more to come on that).

Ethan is kind of known on camp as the Costume Man. Kids who use to laugh at him have now started wearing costumes to functions as well. He has kind of started a trend among the UDH preschoolers. Last week we had a Chicken and Peter Pan meet him at the Youth Center.

Presenting.....

THE FASTEST RIDER IN UDHAILIYAH!

At least for this week.

When we moved here there were just a handful of cyclists. Since the fall the group has grown to around 25 cyclists. We have a sincere and dedicated group of riders. There are daily afternoon rides when all the men get off work. The mom's ride a couple of mornings a week and whenever they can fit it in. There are also group weekend rides/races.

Yeah Dad!

UDH also hosts, semiannually, a race called 3 Peaks which has become the largest cycling event in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom.

(Photo taken by Ethan)

To keep things interesting in camp the cycling club now has weekly races with all sorts of different formats. Not everyone in the group competes, but among those that do there is quite a friendly rivalry and it keeps things interesting.

Since returning from repat at the New Year Chris rededicated himself to getting on his bike. At the end of last year due to work and other commitments he just didn't get much saddle time. He hopes to ride in France this summer so any training he gets will help. We just wish there were a few more hills.

Track & Field Events

The Middle School Track Team put on their annual elementary school track meet.
At first Zach was holding true to his previous statement of not participating in after school activities. Later he decided that a few of the events were worthy of his participation.

This was one of our first hot days. It kind shocked us all because just two days before it had been very pleasant.

I love action shots like this.

On to the long jump.

E did about what you would expect for someone his age and size. One of Zach's classmates from Africa, who is big for his age, was landing further than where the girl with the pink head scarf is standing.

Graham was old enough to participate but he did NOT want to. So he worked really hard on this Popsicle. I thought he was just overly tired from our 4 hour bus trip to Daharan that day. We followed up with his eye Dr. and a couple of things were determined. One he is about 75% better (still tearing a bit) and the Dr. is happy with that. He also had his first cold at the time of our visit and it did not plug up his eyes so no drops......YEAH. So we will make a 6 month follow up with intentions of canceling if he has no problems between now and then. Later I realize he was a bit grumpy not because of the travel but because of a fever that turned into a bilateral ear infection.

This year they added individual or team races depending on the number of children in the group.

J, in the blue shirt, is the amazing long jumper. E who is behind Zach has a bit of a crush on him. She has said that she wants to marry him and Zach replied that was impossible because: one, we are not the same religion and two, we most likely won't know each other when we're older and there was a third point but I can't remember what he said. It was all very rational thinking.

And they're off......

neck & neck right until the......

last second. Luckily there were still smiles at the end from both players.

On to the not so high jump!

I think Z's class has been working with this in PE because his coach was yelling out different styles of jumping as his classmates jumped.

Cute little booty shot.

Ethan ran in the 4-5 age group.

Most of the kids were much bigger and faster but he didn't give up.

Still smiling....though tired because he ran the event twice back to back in about a ten minute time frame.

We ended the afternoon with Zach's race.

The boys were happy that dad got there just in time to watch the running events.

They're Back!

..........Migraines.......

I haven't been fully functional the last few days.

During pregnancy and nursing I am blessed not to have these. But last month I had some trouble and this month holy freaking cow between nausea, light sensitivity, and feeling like my head would explode I haven't been able to do much.

There is little relief until I get just the right combination of meds and then it is only temporary.

Of course this had to happen when there was a half day of school. Thanks boys for being sooooo good while mom was down for the count.

One more day and I should be back to normal.

Our Own Sand Rose Adventure

About one hour north of us is a turnoff which takes you by a garbage dump. Once you pass through this foul area you hit open desert. Here we paused to let a little air out of the tires and put the car in 4 wheel drive. At first the sand was REALLY soft but we also went through rocky places and semi firm. Within about a 15 minute bumpy drive we arrived where the desert roses bloom.

Minutes after parking we had an unexpected guest. He got super close!

He was right there among us. He walked around our camp for a few minutes then headed off. At one point he started calling to all his friends and they started heading our way. The kids were getting a little frightened that the whole herd would come but they veered off before coming too close.

It was a WINDY day! The sand was blowing hard but the skies still seemed somewhat clear. The sand stung our legs as it whipped by. It gave us all a good buffing.

Each car load picked a spot and started digging. The entire area was littered with sand roses that either previous diggers had tossed aside or had risen to the surface on their own. I did gather some of those but mostly I wanted some of our very own found treasure.

As usual Graham was a trooper. The wind was really bad at his level but he didn't complain and just got busy with his own digging.

We all took turns and it didn't take long before we started finding the roses. They were really caked with sand so we didn't know if it was a dud or a beautiful bloom until we rinsed it off. We just put everything we dug up in a pile and at the end were pleasantly surprised, after a quick rinse, with what we found because at first they really didn't look like much.

As lunch time approach the wind became stronger. It started to get difficult to do anything much more then spit out dust and sand. We all decided to pack it in and take our treasures home. We filled our holes back in as we didn't want anyone's prize camels falling in. I would have taken more pictures but at one point I set Chris' new camera down on a chair and the wind blew it over dumping the camera into the sand. It hasn't worked properly since.

Upon arriving home the sand roses weren't the only thing that needed a good rinsing. We had sand in every crack and crevice. After showering there was a small beach in the tub. That windy morning turned into the worst shamal (sand storm) we've had this spring. The entire family has been suffering respiratory ailments since that morning adventure.

Now that I have a decent collection we don't have to go back for a while. At least not until next fall when it cools back down. We have had wonderful weather until last Sat. All of the sudden it went from upper 80's to 100. Ugh! The evenings are still very pleasant...thankfully.