Gymnastics Challenge Cup

We went to a world gymnastics meet in the Aspire Dome this weekend. It was the finals for Men's floor, pommel horse, and rings and the Women's vault and uneven bars.

Mummy and Me Tea

Avery's class had a special mommy and me tea to celebrate the end of the second term and Mother's Day. That's right - Mother's Day. Did you know that in England, Mother's Day is the fourth Sunday of Lent (which means it fell on March 10th this year)  and in the Middle East,  Mother's Day is March 21st?  We didn't!

On Saturday, March 9th, I received a text from a friend here saying she had been having Mother's Day Brunch.  Bobby and I looked at each other and said, "huh?!"  Bobby said, "Did I forget Mother's Day?"  We were so surprised as we assumed everyone celebrated it the same day just like Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day.  We then find out that not only is it different in the UK, it is a whole separate day in the Middle East!  Too funny.  Some people (Avery's teacher) are celebrating all three just for fun.  At our house, we ignored the first two and will see if anyone remembers me on the American Mother's Day in May.  Hint. Hint.

Avery's Peacock Placemat

Mommy and Avery

My #1 Mom crown

The class put on a show for us and sang a song about the months of the year.

One of the moms in the class is a pastry chef.  She made this adorable cake for the party.  All the kids (and moms) loved it!

ACS Swim Gala

This week both Natalie and Chase were invited to compete at the swim gala at the school. They could pick which events they wanted to swim in. Chase, is his true style, chose all of them while Natalie chose to compete in the breast stroke.

They both did excellent and we are so proud of them. Some of the top swimmers will get to train for the next 6 weeks o compete amongst the other schools in town. We haven't found out if Chase or Natalie made it to that team or not.

On thing about a swim meet in a muslim country is that while Bobby was allowed to come and cheer on Chase, no males were allowed to attend the girls part of the meet. It was a shame for all the fathers who had boys and girls competing but the school had to comply with local customs.

The last pic is of our other big swimmer showing off her true personality as well. Hee Hee!

Our Celebrity Children's Author

Natalie was one of 4 students in 5th grade chosen to write the next book in the Edward the Emu and Edwina the Emu series. Today, she is giving presentations to the school all day and is reading her book aloud to them. Each of the 4 students wrote their own version of a sequel and 4 other students were their illustrators.

I was amazed at the quality of all 4 of the books that these 4 kids wrote. They had great plots and even rhyming verse throughout. Natalie's book will be published into a hardback by the end of the year. We can't wait to be the first to get an autographed copy!

Author Natalie and her Illustrator

Star Student of the Week

Avery was chosen as star student in her PlayBall class this week. We are so proud of her.

This kid is TOUGH to get a good picture of.  She loves to make crazy faces.

Celebrating in style

Stalked at the Souq

Yesterday, a friend of mine and I went to Souq Waqif to run a few errands.  We were wandering in and out of shops for about 30 minutes when Esther said she needed to stop into an ATM booth to get some more cash.  She casually said, "come in here with me, its got A/C."  When I stepped into the glassed off booth, she pointed out an Indian man who was standing next to the booth on his cell phone scratching his privates.  She said that she has noticed him when we came out of each of the last 3-4 shops and she thinks he is following us.  Sure enough, when we came out of the glass booth, he wasn't waiting to go in, he started walking along behind us.  I noticed that although the phone was up to his ear, he wasn't ever talking into it.

We went up an alleyway to drop off a necklace that I had bought Natalie that broke the first time she wore it to be repaired.  They said it would take about 30 minutes.  As we walked back out of the alley, sure enough, there was the Indian guy again.  We walked down to the coffee shop that we like to go to and sat right out front so we could keep an eye on this guy.  He stood there at the corner of the eating area pretending to be on his phone again and just stared at us.  Esther looked at him and mouthed "go away" and waved him off but he just kept staring.  How RUDE!  Anyway, eventually he walked off but I noticed that he was standing down the block from the restaurant watching.  As soon as we paid and left the restaurant, he took up his following again.  There is a police station there and we walked up to the side of it where several local policemen were standing around.  We noticed the man went around the other side of the police station.  We thought maybe that was enough to scare him off so we went on to check and see if Natalie's necklace was finished.  It wasn't, but while we were in the shop, the man working the shop across the alley came over to us and said "there is man following you and waiting for you at the bottom of the alley.  You need to tell the police."  That was enough to tell us we weren't crazy if even another shop owner noticed the man.

We walked up to the guys standing outside the police station and tried to tell them that we were being followed.  Of course, they didn't speak any english.  They walked us over to the tourist and info center. A man there was able to understand us and walked us back into the police station to translate for us.  We were escorted upstairs into the head guy's office.  He explained that he would have 2 of his officers follow us discreetly so we could point out the man to them.  This was getting really interesting!  Now we were going to walk through the souq with a secret police escort!  Exciting!

Of course, when we exited the police station and began wandering through the souq again, the man had disappeared and we never saw him again.  We described him to the police as an Indian man with a striped shirt and khaki pants/trousers, but noticed that there were tons of indian men wearing striped shirts.  We picked up the necklace and ran more errand then thanked the policemen and went to the car.

I have never felt unsafe in the souq or anywhere else in Qatar until this incident but I will definitely not go to the souq alone now.  

ACS Family Fun Day

This weekend, the kids' school had a family fun day. It was very well done with tons of bounce houses, slides, food, face painting, henna tattoos, live music and more. The kids had lots of fun with their friends. Unfortunately, Natalie was off having such fun and I didn't capture her in any pictures after the front door.

Scary Diabetes Day

Chase had a very scary day yesterday.  I received a call from the school nurse at 11:00 am saying that Chase was in the clinic and having a low blood sugar episode.  She said he was really disoriented and confused, crying, and wanting his mom.  I rushed over to the school and found him very distressed and crying in the nurses office.  The nurse said Chase was brought to the clinic by a substitute teacher from PE.

Now let me back up and tell the beginning of the story that I didn't fully understand until speaking with Chase and his teacher over the next few hours.  It turns out, Chase wasn't in PE at the time that he started to feel bad.  He was in World Language (Arabic).  He went to his teacher and told her that he felt really bad and needed to go see the nurse.  She thought he looked okay and so sent him alone to the nurse's office.  Chase was so disoriented from the low blood sugar that he became lost, confused, and was wandering the school.  He ended up out on the playground crying and continuing to wander about.  He says he couldn't see anything and had no idea where he was at the time.  He was really scared.  He began to wander back into the school when a boy from Natalie's class (the 5th graders were at recess on the playground at the time) noticed Chase crying and going back into the school.  He pointed it out to Natalie.  Natalie ran after Chase and asked him what was wrong.  He said "I can't see anything and I don't know where I am."  Natalie took him back outside to the first teacher she found on the playground.  The teacher started asking Chase questions and Chase was speaking nonsense back to him.  Luckily, the teacher knew something was wrong and took him straight to the nurse.  (This is why the nurse assumed he had come straight from the class with that PE teacher.)  

By this time he was really distraught.  His blood sugar was 44.  He was given glucose tablets and then I was called.  The nurses handled everything perfectly thank goodness.  By the time I arrived at the school, his blood sugar was up to 76 but Chase was still severely disoriented and confused and still crying.  He still didn't know where he was or why he was there.  While I was getting him checked out and picking up Avery, I had to continually physically steer him over to Avery's class and then out of the school.  He was so confused and I was scared.  

When we got home, he promptly said his stomach hurt and fell asleep.  I continued to monitor his blood sugar every 30 min. and it remained within normal range.  When he woke up 2 hours later, he ate a little popcorn and then threw up.  Afterwards he has felt fine.  He ate a ton last night without any stomach issues so I don't think he had a virus or anything.  He is back at school today.  

I have spoken with the nurses, Chase's main teacher, and the head of the school to let them know what really happened.  They have spoken with all the other teachers Chase encounters during the day and the kids in Chase's class to let them know to NEVER send him to the nurse alone (even if he seems like he is okay).  The teacher from world language does feel bad about what happened and found Natalie after school to let her know that she didn't realize how bad off Chase was.  She said she would call me, but I haven't heard from her yet.  

It is surprising to me that he continued to be confused and disoriented for a couple of hours after his blood sugar was back to normal.  I am reaching out to Aunt Jill to find out why.  Chase has only been this disoriented from low blood sugar one other time, but it is frightening to see and makes me worry about him even more having to deal with this his entire life.  God sent a little miracle our way by having that boy on the playground see Chase and point him out to Natalie before he went wandering back around the school to have his sugar drop even further and cause him to have a seizure or go unconscious.  We are so grateful.  

Driving in Doha

This was posted on a news blog here in Doha and it is so true and so funny.  I included a few pics at the end of some things I have witnessed.  Mostly I am unable to get the phone out fast enough to snap a photo so you will just have to trust me that these are all things seen here daily in traffic.  I highlighted the ones that I think are the most funny, but all of these are true.  

1. Never indicate - it gives away your next move. A real Qatari never uses indicators.

2. Under no circumstance should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you, this space will be filled by at least 1 taxi, a bus and sizable lorry, putting you in an even more dangerous situation.

3. The faster you drive through a red light, the less chance you have of getting hit. Large trucks must sound horns as they pass through red lights at the speed of an express train.

4. Never, ever come to a complete stop at a stop sign. No one expects it and it will only result in you being rear-ended.

5. Braking should be as hard and late as possible to ensure that your ABS kicks in, giving you a nice, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates. For those of you without ABS, it’s a chance to stretch your legs.

6. Never pass on the left when you can pass on the right. It’s a good way to check if the people entering the highway are awake.

7. Speed limits are arbitrary, given only as a guideline. They are especially NOT applicable in Qatar during rush hour. That’s why it’s called ‘rush hour….’

8. Just because you’re in the correct lane and have no room to speed up or move over doesn’t mean that the Qatari driver flashing his high beams behind you doesn’t think he can go faster in your spot.

9. Always slow down and rubberneck when you see an accident or even someone changing a tyre. Never stop to help.

10. Learn to swerve abruptly.Qatar is the home of the high-speed Land Cruiser driver thanks to the government, placing holes in key locations to test drivers’ reflexes and keep them on their toes.

11. It is traditional to honk your horn at cars that don’t move the instant the light turns green. This prevents Herons from building nests on top of the traffic light and birds from making deposits on your car.

12. Remember that the goal of every Qatari driver is to get there first, by whatever means necessary.

13. On average, at least three cars can still go through an intersection after the light has turned red. It’s people not adhering to this basic principle that cause the big traffic jams during rush hour.

14. If you cut someone off at a road junction as you turn right regardless of oncoming traffic, it will be O.K if you flash your Hazard lights just before impact takes place.

15. It’s desirable to leave the vehicle delivery note hanging from the rear view mirror for as many years as possible. While this may obstruct a significant portion of your windscreen it will provide a toy for any of your children standing on the console between the front seats.

16. It’s compulsory to drive as fast as possible whilst reading / sending text messages. This allows other drivers to see how skilled you are at multi-tasking

17. Upon purchasing or renting a new car it is mandatory to leave the plastic wrapping on the seats for as long as humanly possible. This not only protects the leather/fabric but it helps to leave both driver and passengers with a healthy level of moisture (aka perspiration) on their backs and lower extremities.

18. The ashtray is not an option. Disposing of lit cigarettes from a moving vehicle is a smart way to keep the ash tray clean inorder to store change and other small, useless items.

19. Child safety seats are “haram.” Small children should be allowed to roam freely about the vehicle, larger kids should stand on center console and stick head out sunroof.

20. In the event of any form of precipitation or other natural hazard (i.e. sand storm, blinding fog, camel in the road) all of the above rules are still applicable - provided you use your hazard lights.

The most common car in Doha by far is the white Toyota Landcruiser with the funky flame striping down the sides.

I have see just about every fancy, expensive luxury car driving down the roads in Doha including, but not limited to, Masarati, Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Ferrari, all types of Porsche, Mercedes, Range Rovers.  It is a sports car paradise.  Then there are crazies like these two guys below driving something the size of a toy car in the crazy traffic of Doha with helmets attached to the sides (not on their heads)......