Here are a few pictures of our villa. This is the front of our villa and a picture of our huge backyard - ha ha!
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Views from our Villa
What a difference it makes to look out the front window instead of the back window!! Out the back, you see nothing but sand and a few vehicles driving.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Our Day at the Zoo
The girls and I went to the Doha Zoo while Mr. D was working one day. We had a great time. It's big enough to walk around for about 2 hours which was perfect for us. And it cost all of $1.37 for us to get in. What a deal!!
The main attractions for the girls were the giraffes, elephants, and zebras. These were all animals that they recognized so they had a lot to "say" to them. In the pictures, just imagine a lot of gibberish going on in the direction towards the animals. We often joke that the girls have learned the native language over here as we can't figure out hardly anything they are saying. We think it sounds much closer to Arabic than English.
One other animal that really caught their attention was an ostrich. They had never seen anything like it of course, and the ostrich was very interested in them too -- a little "too interested" for Mom's sake so I quickly got them away from the fence!!
The only downside to the whole day was that the zoo didn't have a souvenir shop. What is a day at the zoo if you can't come home with a stuffed zebra or giraffe??? I'm sure Mr. D was happy to hear there was no shop though... All in all, it was a successful outing and a wonderful time!!
The main attractions for the girls were the giraffes, elephants, and zebras. These were all animals that they recognized so they had a lot to "say" to them. In the pictures, just imagine a lot of gibberish going on in the direction towards the animals. We often joke that the girls have learned the native language over here as we can't figure out hardly anything they are saying. We think it sounds much closer to Arabic than English.
One other animal that really caught their attention was an ostrich. They had never seen anything like it of course, and the ostrich was very interested in them too -- a little "too interested" for Mom's sake so I quickly got them away from the fence!!
The only downside to the whole day was that the zoo didn't have a souvenir shop. What is a day at the zoo if you can't come home with a stuffed zebra or giraffe??? I'm sure Mr. D was happy to hear there was no shop though... All in all, it was a successful outing and a wonderful time!!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Happy Valentine's Day!
Happy Valentine's Day to all. The girls received lots of Valentines from the other kids in the compound, and they enjoyed handing out theirs as well. They got new Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals from Mom and Dad and those were a big hit. Mr. D had a rough V-day this year though. He has been busy trying to find us a vehicle. He went to check one out and on the way home, he got into a fender bender in one of the round-abouts. Everyone was okay, but the cop wanted them all to go to the police station. Can you imagine being in a wreck and not being able to communicate with anyone? The protocol here is as soon as it happens, call someone at the university so they can get someone out there that can translate. Mr. D finally got home around 9:30 p.m. He didn't even get to see his girls on Valentine's Day. So we are having a do-over today. Hopefully, it will be less eventful. Here are some new pics of the girls. N likes to play armadillo under the couch pillows and then pop out at you. H was way to busy with her toy to be posing for pictures. Ms. Alice, do you recognize the toy? They love it by the way. Lots of love to all!
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Piglet Banned in the Middle East
This is an email that has been circulating around Doha. Thought you would find it funny! Absolutely no pork items for us....
In Qatar there is only one decent bookshop (that happens to be a Saudi chain) that has a few shelves of English books. Shopping there is hit or miss - you don't go there to look for a title. You go there in the hope of stumbling upon something interesting. The kids selection is not bad though. The other night we saw Disney's "My Very First Encyclopedia with Winnie the Pooh and friends". We grabbed it and thought it was exactly what we needed for our daughter - not only does she love Winnie the Pooh but she's also started taking a keen interest in nature.
We flipped it open and noticed that some of the pages had been vandalised with a black marker. We figured it must have been bought and returned after some kids had got there hands on it. Further inspection made us realise that this was actually systematic. Someone had deliberately "censored" out each and every picture of Piglet from hundreds of pages in the book with a black marker (my guess is that the book got caught by Saudi Censors enroute to Doha).
We flipped it open and noticed that some of the pages had been vandalised with a black marker. We figured it must have been bought and returned after some kids had got there hands on it. Further inspection made us realise that this was actually systematic. Someone had deliberately "censored" out each and every picture of Piglet from hundreds of pages in the book with a black marker (my guess is that the book got caught by Saudi Censors enroute to Doha).
Friday, February 2, 2007
New Trikes
Here is a picture of N and H with their new trikes. They are enjoying them very much even though they can't operate them completely on their own. The trikes came accompanied with a bell and basket for carrying around important toy items. Too cute! N is on the left, and H is on the right. Maybe one day they will both cooperate when I am trying to take a picture!!
Our Day at the Mall
Okay, so where does the time go?? I will try and be better and maybe aim to post every Friday. Today we went to the mall to kill some time. It was raining here so we had to go look for indoor playtime. All of the malls here have big play areas -- not just arcade games. The mall closest to us even has a roller coaster and log flume water ride inside its play area. Too big for our little ones of course, but something to look forward to.
Today we ventured across town to go to Landmark Mall. We ate at the food court -- I had McDonald's, Mr. D had Subway (yes, he is the healthy one). And the girls had french fries of course. After we ate, we traveled the whole mall looking for a Hair Saloon for Mr. D. No that is not a misspelling. That is actually what they call them here. We believe they mean "Salon" but they all say "Saloon" instead. After we made a few trips around the mall, we finally asked a saleslady who looked like she might understand English--which she did--and she directed us to where it was at. But it was closed for another hour since Friday is the Holy Day here. So off to the play area we went.
The line for tokens was extremely long so we just walked around to see what type of things they had. There was no log ride or roller coaster, but they did have a big ball pit and a huge climb/tunnel thing which was very tall. It was safe, but I could see one of our girls getting to the top and not coming down until a parent retrieved them, so we passed on that. We finally settled on the carousel. Mr. D got tokens and to the carousel we went. I wasn't sure how the girls would like it, but they absolutely loved it. Of course we had no camera on hand. But I'm sure it won't be our last time there. Little N loved it so much that she went away kicking and screaming. She caused quite the ruckus, but it was short lived.
We then went to the grocery store--which is also located in the mall. (That takes some getting used to.) This particular grocery store is well known for having a lot of the American brands. So we got our Healthy Choice Turkey lunch meat, Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs, Pop Tarts, Pepperidge Farm cookies, Kellogg's cereal, and Caffeine Free Dr. Pepper and back to the "Saloon" we went. But only to find about 20 guys waiting in line -- so the haircut will have to wait for another day.
On the way home, we encountered several areas of roadway that were covered with water. Mr. D managed to get us safely through it, even with my intense protesting. (Hey, they always say not to cross areas where you don't know how deep it is... And that is just one of many things that we don't know about, like who do we call if we need a tow truck, how quick is their emergency response time, what if their roads are prone to sink holes, and so on and so on... I can't help it, that's just how my mind thinks.) What we do know is that this city can't handle much rainfall so thank goodness it's the desert. Anyway, we made it safely home to the compound-- so kudos to Mr. D, Super Dad and Driver, for getting us home safely.
Well, that's all for today. I'll do my best to post again next week.
Today we ventured across town to go to Landmark Mall. We ate at the food court -- I had McDonald's, Mr. D had Subway (yes, he is the healthy one). And the girls had french fries of course. After we ate, we traveled the whole mall looking for a Hair Saloon for Mr. D. No that is not a misspelling. That is actually what they call them here. We believe they mean "Salon" but they all say "Saloon" instead. After we made a few trips around the mall, we finally asked a saleslady who looked like she might understand English--which she did--and she directed us to where it was at. But it was closed for another hour since Friday is the Holy Day here. So off to the play area we went.
The line for tokens was extremely long so we just walked around to see what type of things they had. There was no log ride or roller coaster, but they did have a big ball pit and a huge climb/tunnel thing which was very tall. It was safe, but I could see one of our girls getting to the top and not coming down until a parent retrieved them, so we passed on that. We finally settled on the carousel. Mr. D got tokens and to the carousel we went. I wasn't sure how the girls would like it, but they absolutely loved it. Of course we had no camera on hand. But I'm sure it won't be our last time there. Little N loved it so much that she went away kicking and screaming. She caused quite the ruckus, but it was short lived.
We then went to the grocery store--which is also located in the mall. (That takes some getting used to.) This particular grocery store is well known for having a lot of the American brands. So we got our Healthy Choice Turkey lunch meat, Oscar Mayer Hot Dogs, Pop Tarts, Pepperidge Farm cookies, Kellogg's cereal, and Caffeine Free Dr. Pepper and back to the "Saloon" we went. But only to find about 20 guys waiting in line -- so the haircut will have to wait for another day.
On the way home, we encountered several areas of roadway that were covered with water. Mr. D managed to get us safely through it, even with my intense protesting. (Hey, they always say not to cross areas where you don't know how deep it is... And that is just one of many things that we don't know about, like who do we call if we need a tow truck, how quick is their emergency response time, what if their roads are prone to sink holes, and so on and so on... I can't help it, that's just how my mind thinks.) What we do know is that this city can't handle much rainfall so thank goodness it's the desert. Anyway, we made it safely home to the compound-- so kudos to Mr. D, Super Dad and Driver, for getting us home safely.
Well, that's all for today. I'll do my best to post again next week.
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