February 2012 – Page 4 – robinchartier

one more way she’s like her brother

Girly loves soup. Just like Carter.

And she wants to eat it out of a big bowl, with a big spoon, just like us.

No baby dishes for her anymore.

(Thankfully we’ve only lost one bowl so far and that was due to a climbing on the table accident. She’s not a “throw your dish on the floor when you’re done eating” kind of kid. Too bad she is the kind of kid who throws my phone when she’s mad.)

Discover Oman

All packed up and ready to hike!

Calvin left this morning for Discover Oman — during the month of February the different classes at TAISM take trips around the city/region/country (depending on the grade level). All the middle schoolers are traveling this week on 6 or so different trips. Calvin was assigned to the Coastal trip. They’ll be camping, hiking, snorkeling and studying the beaches of Oman. He’ll be home in 4 days, hopefully with lots of pictures, stories, and without a major sunburn.

The following week, the elementary school students will travel around Muscat on day trips. Each grade visits different locations each day. Josh and I and other parent volunteers get to go and chaperone. Josh is going on a bird watching trip with Caleb’s class and a cave hike with Carter’s class. I’m going on a trip to some wetlands with Carter and doing an Omani culture day with Caleb. It’s going to be a great time of learning for all of us.

muscians, smusicians . . .

A few weeks ago we took all 3 boys to the Opera House to see Czar Sultan — an opera based on a fairy tale that was advertised to be “kid friendly.”

I was excited that they were finally going to see the amazing interior of the Opera House.

Josh got new cufflinks — the Omani crest. He’s also wearing the suit and shirt he had custom made here. He picked out the fabrics, the tailor took all his measurements, he went back for one fitting and less than 2 weeks later he was dressed to impress.

The most memorable part of the night was at the beginning, when Carter leaned over and whispered accusingly, “When you said there were going to be musicians, I didn’t know it was just going to be people playing instruments.” I tried to stifle my laughter as I wondered what sort of education he was getting if he didn’t know that musicians played instruments.

At a break in the action, Josh leaned over and asked, “Carter, when mom said ‘musicians,’ what did you think we were going to see?” He replied, “Musicians? Mom said we were going to see magicians!” Ah, that explains his disappointment.

After a slow first half (with lots of muttered grumblings from Carter — especially when I pointed out that the stage crew had just made the piano disappear), the second half was really wonderful. The opera was in Russian, but each seat had an individual touchscreen where subtitles would appear in either English or Arabic. Carter got into the story and stopped complaining. It wasn’t as exciting as magicians, but we all enjoyed the show.

Let it blow

Halfway through the night, the quiet rolling of the waves was marred by a rattling, whipping sound. The winds had picked up and the rain flap on our tent was trying to fly like a kite. Josh went out and took it off, but by that time the entire tent was vibrating with every gust. The kids slept fine and I slept fine once I could get the noise out of my head long enough to fall asleep, but we woke up to an entirely different beach.

Shocking, I was actually awake to see the sun rise.

sleepyheads

good morning sunshine!

The winds had blown down all the canopies and run off with one of my food bags, a beach ball, and probably a few other miscellaneous items we haven’t discovered are missing yet. Since it was still blowing hard (enough for the sand to sting your legs, we packed up quickly to head home.

The abbreviated pack out worked out well because we had a long drive home. It was a fast ending to a great trip!

a day at the beach

Sleeping on the beach was the best night of camping sleep I’ve had yet. It was warm in the tent, the ground was soft, and the waves were soothing as they crashed on the shore all night. Something I didn’t get a photo of was the phosphorescence in the waves at night. As they would start to break you could see a bright green glow along the edges of the wave — as if they’d been painted with the stuff inside glo-sticks.

We all stood along the shore and watched like it was a fireworks show, oohing and ahhing as we spotted particularly bright ones or a series of glowing waves all in a row.

The next day was full of digging in the sand, playing in the waves, and bodysurfing/boogie boarding. The pictures speak for themselves.

The waves were fantastic and the water was warm. Josh was really wishing he had his surfboard, but he had a good day of boogie boarding instead. And yes, I went swimming too. I bribed a kid to watch Camille while I swam with Josh. After catching a few waves I was hooked and went to get the board. I love that we could swim in February without wetsuits.

getting brave . . .

oops! A little too daring — a few waves knocked her down, but I was right there to scoop her back up. She was fine, just soaked. Time to put on a real swimsuit.

Daddy coming in for a rest

Our little sugar cookie.

No, sand does not taste good.

Since we’re halfway around the world, I guess they’re digging a hole to America?

Climbing the dunes

Our happy home on the sand

After she had had enough of the sand, we took her in the ocean, stripped her, and rinsed all the sand off of her. She was happy to be “clean” and dry.