One of the things I’ve complained about Bahrain is the lack of beaches here. How do you have an island without a beach? We went to the closest thing today — an area of the island that has been created out of “reclaimed land.” Meaning, it used to be underwater until they built it up with sand and fill to make Bahrain bigger. Since it’s manmade, there’s a small manmade stretch of beach where the kids and the dog can run. The sky is dark and we’re all bundled up in the photos because it was in the 60s and rainy/sprinkling — really, really fun.
The kids brought their soccer ball and played soccer — the dog played for both sides.
The water wasn’t very cold. Not like the Pacific Ocean where it’s so cold the bones in your feet start to ache and your toes go numb.
These two thought it was plenty cold, but Josh pointed out it was warmer than the water in our swimming pool (which we don’t use in the winter because it’s too cold, so that’s not saying much).
Our dog is an amazing runner. He’s faster than I can possibly describe. There was a big pelican looking bird down at the water’s edge and he took off chasing it down the coast like he was never coming back. The amazing part was he kept pace with it for a good 30 seconds until the bird realized he needed to fly up and away in order to escape since he couldn’t outpace him by flying along the ground.
Micah doesn’t come when we call him when he’s off leash (too busy tracking all the wonderful smells, digging up rotting fish, and he really hasn’t gotten the hang of obedience training, even when he’s not distracted), but we let him run because there wasn’t really anywhere for him to go and because Josh felt like if he did run away, then it was meant to be.
I’m not worried about losing him — he doesn’t leave me alone long enough to get lost.
happy dog, happy kids, happy post-Christmas family