Qatar Adventures with the O's: 2013

Packing up

It is starting to feel real that we are heading home tomorrow now! The movers came this morning to pack up all our toys, linens, and lots of our clothes to ship home. I didn't realize how much we brought over in the truck until we started getting it all out to send it back home - without the truck to put it in. :)

Typical Doha View

We drive down this little side road several times every day to get home from school to our compound. As I was driving yesterday, I snapped this picture because I feel like it captures what Doha is like. Mosques are literally on every corner and seeing this woman in her "national dress" walking toward the mosque was a perfect opportunity to take a good photo. (notice the sandstorm still in the air behind the mosque)

ACS Sports Presentation

Chase was invited to speak today at the end of the year ACS Sports Presentation. He talked about what sports mean to him and how much fun he had competing for ACS this year. They played a slideshow honored the athletes who competed in the inter-school competitions this year including indoor and outdoor athletics, swimming, & football (soccer). What a talented kid we have that he was invited to compete in all four of these events for ACS (and has 4 shiny, new medals to bring home)!

Sand Storm

I know I have posted once before about sandstorms but we have never had one quite as intense as this one. The wind was blowing 29 miles per hour. That doesn't sound that bad compared to hurricanes but when you live in the desert, that is a ton of sand blowing around!! This picture barely captures what it looks like. Literally there could be high-rise buildings in the background that you can't even see because there is so much sand in the air. It is so fine and blowing so hard that sand actually blew in under all our doors in the villa! We had a pile of sand inside the doors and when I wiped down the kitchen table, within 5 minutes there was a layer of sand on it again - with all the windows and doors shut! The pool in our compound had a layer of sand covering most of the bottom. If you stepped outside, sand would blast you in the face and get in your eyes. Life still carries on for the most part during these storms and all the workers who have to work outside wear masks to keep the sand out of their lungs. The intense part of the storm lasted 1 1/2 days but it is still super windy and the visiblity is still very low even 5 days later. Absolutely no playing outside for the kids and I sure feel really bad for anyone with asthma.

Sand blowing across the road and sand in the air

One Final Hoorah!

Last weekend was our last weekend here in Doha, Qatar. We are so blessed to have made some amazing friends while on this journey! I would have never made it through living so far from home, family, and friends if it weren't for these guys. It is a bittersweet moment because while we are so excited to come home to Florida, we are really going to miss our "family" here. For our last get together we had planned an exciting afternoon at a local club where you can waterski, wakeboard, swim and ride jetskis. Unfortunately a huge sand storm blew in for the weekend - worse than we have had here all year. The club was closed because of the weather but we lucked out and had enough clearing of dust/sand for a few hours on Saturday afternoon to go swim at our compound pool instead.

Christina, Kelley, Esther, and Zoe

Who said water slides are just for kids????

George and Ken

Avery and Tillie

Paul and Charlie

Greg and Sophia

Kelley and Avery

Paul and Tillie

Zoe (who didn't want to get her hair wet on the slide) Ha Ha!!

The Girls - Lauren, Natalie, Tillie, Millie, & Avery

The moms - Julie, Zoe, Esther, and Kelley

The dads - Bobby, Greg, Paul, Matt, and Ken

The whole crew except Jack and Bobby who was taking the picture
Guy, Matt, Ken, Paul, Esther, George, Tillie, Julie, Charlie, Zoe, Chase, Kelley, Avery, Natalie, Millie, Lauren, Sophia, Christina, and Greg

Our Doha Friends
The Oyenartes, The McKernons, The Jones, The Kitsons, The Williams
Bobby, Kelley, Natalie, Chase, and Avery
Paul, Julie, Jack, Charlie, and Tillie
Ken, Esther, Millie, and George
Matt, Zoe, Lauren, and Guy
Greg, Christina, and Sophia

Student Led Conferences

ACS-Doha does something so cool at the end of each school year! It is called Student Led Conferences. Each child gets an hour appointment with their parents to show off everything they have learned all year. The kids work really hard to prepare a portfolio that includes items/work from every subject including specials and foreign languages. After showing their portfolio in the classroom they can take you through the school to all the specials classes and show off! Our kids each went back to back so that Bobby and I could spend an hour with each of them while the other two waited in the "sibling waiting play area". Bobby and I are so proud of everything all three of them have accomplished this year. I would love to have the schools back home do something like this at the end of the year! We took videos of each kids doing something special - Chase speaking Arabic and doing gymnastics, Natalie speaking Spanish, and Avery singing the "A" phonics song. Unfortunately, our wi-fi is so slow that we still can't get video to upload to this blog. Here are the photos we took from the day.

Handsome men!!

Chase with his teacher Ms. Kim

Chase showing us his portfolio

Chase doing a flip

Chase loved playing the electric drums in music class

We were so involved listening to all of Natalie's stuff in the classroom that we ran short on time. Sorry for less pictures here, but we were just so engrossed at all our super talented girl had to say. She has become a fantastic writer!