Ferrari

What is it about boys and cars?  Living here in Doha we have seen more super expensive cars than I have seen in my life all combined!  It is normal to be driving to school and see 50 Land Cruisers, 15 Porsches, 15 Range Rovers, a couple of Rolls Royce, and some type of Masarati, Ferrari, etc. And that is just in a 15 min drive to school!  Almost NO minivans to be seen!  I think I have only seen 3 in the entire time I have been here!

Anyway, Chase loves looking at all these cars and when we saw this one outside McDonalds, he just had to pose beside it to remind himself that is the car he wants someday. 

Bobby is planning to rent a Ferrari here for a day sometime this summer for his 40th birthday. Fun!!

Chase with his dream car

Happy Birthday Chase!

Chase had a fantastic birthday!  Believe it or not, his best friend at school, Charlie, has the exact same birthday - June 2!  They decided to have a party together and invited the whole class to the pool in our compound. It was a blast!  My awesome and talented friend Esther made a fabulous cake!  Not only did it look perfect, it tasted amazing!

Wow!

Charlie and Chase

Chase going down the "epic" slide

Charlie and Guy

Chase and Stephanos

Tillie's dad went to England for work and came home with this cute Ariel swimsuit for Tillie.  When it was too small, he had another one sent for her and they gave the small one to Avery.  The girls have LOVED being matching!

Avery and Tillie

Pencil Jump

Happy 9th Chase!

Star Jump

The party table

Chase and Charlie 

Make a wish!

The cake connoisseur Esther with Chase and Charlie

Stephanos and Chase

Chase with his Chelsea ball and hat.  Thanks George!!

Chase finally got his HotDog Skylander

Trying to find books he will like to read.....

Kids and Falcons

One of the things we have been promising Chase that we will do before we leave is to go hold the falcons in the Souq. Natalie was able to do this when Hailey came to visit so Chase has been asking ever since. We finally made it down there last weekend. The kids all thought it was really cool!

Charlie

Tillie

Bobby

Julie

Jack

Tillie and Avery

The falcons are right next to the Arabian horses so we checked them out, also. 

Happy Birthday Kelley!

Julie made me this yummy birthday cake

I had a great time celebrating my birthday this year.  I started the day with the pancake breakfast in the previous post and then took Avery to a birthday party for one of her friends.  

Avery and George's birthday card for me

My friend, Julie, came over to babysit the kids so Bobby and I could go on a date!  She also made me this great cake!  

Make a wish!

Bobby and I went to the St. Regis hotel to eat at a new restaurant there called Hakkasan.  It is Chinese/Cantonese food and it was delicious!!!  The atmosphere, food, and service were all perfect!  

Pandora bracelet from Esther, Zoe, and Christina

Bobby got me a Ferrari!!  Just Kidding!!

I had a fantastic birthday!  Thanks to all my friends here for making it so special!!

British vs American Pancakes

The first time I realized the British make pancakes completely different from us was when we had Annie, a friend of Natalie's from England over for a sleepover and the same night Chase slept over with George (Ken and Esther's son also from England).  I made pancakes just like we normally do and Annie says, "do you have any lemon and sugar?"  HUH???  Why did she need lemon and sugar, I thought?  At the same moment, our front doorbell rang and it was Ken asking if we had any maple syrup he could borrow for Chase to put on the pancakes at their house.  It turns out that pancakes in the UK are what we would call crepes, very thin large circles that they drip lemon juice over, sprinkle sugar, and then wrap them up.  They didn't know we did pancakes so differently either with our smaller, fluffy circles covered with butter and maple syrup.  We have talked about this all year and finally got together on Friday morning and I made American pancakes while Esther made British ones. They were both yummy and I truly couldn't pick one over the other because they are so different tasting.  

Bobby cooking eggs and Kelley/Esther cooking pancakes

Sophia eating a British pancake

British pancake with lemon juice and sugar inside

Ken (eyes closed) with his stack of American pancakes

Esther and Kelley