Friday, January 27, 2012

Singing sand dunes, tennis, and bikes

We have settled a bit into our routine- I guess we all seek a bit of normalcy in our lives and naturally just sort of seek it out. The kids have various activities after school as we try to have them do more than we offered at home-piano, football, touch rugby, karate to name a few. We have our normal day- up in the morning getting the kids fed and into their school uniforms, out the door by 6:30, a day of school, home and playing in the compound, talking with great neighbors, dinner, bath, bedtime story- it all feels well... like normal. and then little things come by that remind us we are in a crazy place that is so so different from our little casa in the woods. Here were the last 3:

Bikes- our bikes arrived at the beginning of the month and I don't think Lisa and I realized just how much we needed them- If you aren't into biking then this just sounds weird but having bikes and being able to get out and cruise is amazing- we feel like little kids on huffys (and of course Lisa has to get ready for the Abu Dhabi triathalon in march- 200k!!!). Anywhoo- bikes are great.

Tennis- This town brings in sporting events like crazy- especially for a city that doesn't really have the most get out and be active population. So there we were sitting in the bleachers watching Nadal and Federer. In the bleachers as well were members of Paris St Germain and FC Bayern Leverkusen- top football teams from France and Germany who just happened to be in town for some warm training. In a few weeks the Tour of Qatar begins (cycling), the ladies tennis tournament, Pro golf, It is just really getting difficult to keep going to all of these top level sporting events- but someone has to- because the bleachers are usually empty! Just expats go- no Qataris- maybe they just watch on TV.



And the road is flaaaaaaaat
the sign says tour of qatar but I don't think the pros went this way

everything is bigger in doha

luca and wilder on the singing sand dunes



Singing Sand Dunes- we loaded up the CRV and with a few neighbors went out to the singing sand dunes.  You actually can make them creak and groan as you run down- really cool. Luca said it was more like farting and has taken to calling them the farting dunes. We don't really have forests out here so we swung by a construction site, lots of those, and grabbed a few wooden pallets. Nothing felt more normal than roasting marshmallows around a campfire in the desert next to the farting dunes.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

What Wilder Thinks

 christmas here is so different 
there is no snow duh there is no 
lights on trees!
:)
                                              but the espire tower has lights dancing all over the 
                                         tower.
                                       
santa will ride on camels and the children will dream of sweetened  dates
                                         all the christmas shopping you will be doing is in the souq waqif.


             This is the first christmas away from home. The best thing was a letter from santa. 
             The worst thing was that there was no snow. I miss you guys back home.


             When we went to Jordan we rode camels and i rode an arabian horse when we went to Petra.




                        the locals called Petra- al betra