Sheikh Faisal Museum

The Sheikh Faisal Museum in just outside of Doha and is a collection of artifacts that have been assembled by Sheikh Faisal over the past 20 years.  He continues to add to his collection every year.  He has opened up this museum to visitors for free so we decided to check it out with Tracy and Hailey.  It looks like a huge fort from the outside.  

Picture of the entrance

We began our tour in the hall of fossils.  Most of the fossils were from the Moroccan Desert.  One of the coolest ones was a dinosaur head fossil that is 100 million years old.

This was a full skeleton of a porpoise!  All the kids thought it was pretty neat.

There was an entire room full of manuscripts and old books (mostly in Arabic).  Some of them were Korans that were an inch big!!

Chase's favorite room was one of the largest collections of old weapons ever assembled.  It was full of daggers, swords, old guns, bow and arrows, etc.

One section was designed to be like an old home and had this mannequin with the old customary dress.  The metallic looking thing on her face is still worn by some of the older women here in Qatar.

Avery liked the baby doll in this old baby crib

Some the first high heeled shoes in the Ottoman Empire

More high heeled shoes

Over 100 old cars occupy the museum!  They range from some of the first Ford cars all the way up to a fully functioning Formula 1 car.  Even an airplane hangs from the ceiling.

The museum also has several other antique modes of transportation.  

The kids put themselves into the old jail cells and acted like captives.  Hee Hee!

They had fun with a tiny door within a huge door.

Chase the king in his throne

A Day with Hailey and Natalie

A friend of mine offered to watch Chase and Avery one day while Hailey and Tracy were here so that Tracy and I could take Hailey and Natalie out for a fun day.  First, we took them to the Souq Waqif to our favorite coffee shop.  It is this quaint little place that is like an old house on the inside with comfy couches in each room. Tracy thinks they have the best cappuccino she has ever tasted!  I personally love the cafe caramella! Yum!!

Next we headed into all the little alleyways that make up the souq.  The girls didn't plan to be so matchy, but it turned out cute in the pictures anyway.

Once I actually bought one of these dolls for Avery and it proceeded to break into all the individual body parts before we even got it home.  Definitely not worth even the 10 or so riyals it costs.

Cheap Barbies

We were a little nervous to take the girls into the pet section of the souq.  It is literally full of all sorts of pets, many of which are sitting out just asking to be touched.  Unfortunately, it is obvious that many of the animals aren't very well cared for and we were a little nervous about the girls picking up some strange disease.  In the end, they couldn't resist touching them, so we pulled out the hand sanitizer and all was well.

Natalie and the dyed chicks

Baby bunnies

As you know, we couldn't come to the souq without the trip to the camel lot.

Hailey 

Natalie

Sweet mom/daughter time

Mom and Natalie

Next we headed to the falcon store and asked if the girls could hold one of the falcons.  The owner was happy to oblige (for 10 riyals each of course)

After the souq, we took the girls over to the Museum of Islamic Art Park.  Natalie has been asking to come do these trampolines since we moved here!  She and Hailey had a great time jumping and doing all sorts of front and back flips!

Natalie getting all harnessed up

A little warmup jumping

Let the flips begin!

We couldn't be that close to the museum and not go in......

Museum of Islamic Art

My favorite part of the museum is the jewelry room.  We all had fun pretending to wear this ornate diamond and emerald collar.

This was a photo op waiting to happen here at the entrance to the museum.  I am not sure that it was meant to look like a mustache, but it sure is a funny pic!!