February 2014 – Page 3 – robinchartier

Birthday Bedouins

This weekend we headed to the airport for a birthday surprise

The best part is that we were the surprise.

Our friend in Oman was having a birthday and we got to be the gift (part of it anyway).

Several families headed out to the desert for the weekend. Just like old times.

wild camels

This is what we love about Oman — wide opens spaces and beautiful sandy dunes

back to one of our favorite places: 1000 Nights desert camp

Where we sleep better than the bedouins did.

Our kids in a line, climbing the steep dunes

taking a break 1/2 way up

Made it!

Slide down and climb back up. A few trips up and down will give you buns and quads of steel.

Dinner and laughing and games with good friends

and food, of course!

It was over too quickly.

We’ve gotten extra rain this year and the desert is greener than we’ve ever seen it.

Happy 4 wheel driver

And the kids love bouncing around

Look at me, all calm and relaxed. No need to panic that we’re going to lose control and roll down the hill

(unlike that first trip out here)

The sand is gorgeously zebra striped in shades of orange and red — the entire desert is in pattern

at the edge of the desert.

heading back to Muscat

and back to Bahrain that night

full of desert sand and mosquito bites.

(she gets an weird reaction to the Omani mosquitos — I had completely forgotten until we got to the airport and she started swelling up. She’s fine now, but they ate her up!)

I think my favorite thing that we did while Mom was here was a trip to the wild animal park. The best part about this place is it’s nothing like a zoo in America because you can get up close to the animals. I learned a trick from the Bahraini families last time we were here: bring bread to feed the animals. Seriously. That’s a thing here. The animals hear the plastic bag rustling and come running up to the fence.

We wandered around the park feeding all the animals.

And at the bird sanctuary they have steps that lead out to the center island in the habitat — I can’t imagine they are intended for the general public . . .

but no one was around to care

The ostrich was a wild pecking thing with a really strong neck and beak. He was hanging way over the fence, super curious about us and bobbing his head to try and get a taste. He didn’t care whether he was getting bread or skin. One of the employees came over and encouraged us to hold up the palms of our hands so the bird could bite it. Nope, we’re not in America.

Also, we learned all about ostrich reproduction. I guess it was springtime in their pen because the male was doing a wild dance of sweeping figure-8 motions with his huge wings and bobbing his neck and then plopped right on top of one of the females and did you know ostriches are completely naked on their undersides? The males have bright red skin which makes it even more disturbing to see the meaty birds getting it on. We were horrified and paralyzed . . . and I’ll spare you from the rest of the nasty details. It was an animal porno. :shudder: Last time we got turtle action. This time, the birds. Sex education, one species at a time.

We spent the most time with the camels. They are big and beautiful and awkwardly gentle.

More food please!

The baby camel kept nibbling on Calvin like he was a teething toy.

Getting up close and personal . . .

Camel slobber

Camille finally got up the nerve to feed the camel. Being eye level made it less intimidating.

The camels are eating green succulents that the park employees cut down and brought over for the kids to feed to them. It was like our own personal petting zoo.

Great times on our island.

Fly Away Home

Right now Mom is 40,000 miles above us, headed back to the US. We had so much fun these past two weeks and are sad to see her go. It was good timing for a family visit because while we (just me, really) are gutted, depressed, blue, and sad about going back to the United States instead of continuing our exotic adventures at another overseas location, the trade off is that we don’t get to see our families as much as we would like. The bright side of a pedestrian stateside assignment (I’m being intentionally snotty here) is that we’ll be thousands of miles closer to the people we love and that covers up a whole bunch of disappointment.

I can’t say where we’re going, because we don’t have any idea — just that there weren’t any overseas jobs on the list except for Okinawa, Japan and he’s not being considered for that job at this time so yay, America! At this point it looks like the most likely assignment will be Tampa, Florida. The whole process is such a roller-coaster of uncertainty — full of high hopes and shattered dreams that it’s a wonder we haven’t lost our minds after doing this 10 times. The craziest part is technically this is the last time we have to wait on the Marine Corps to decide our fate. After 3 years in Florida (trying to get used to the idea) Josh will be at 20 years and can retire to whatever job he wants. Or can get. I’m sure it won’t be any less stressful, but at least we’ll have a say in the destination.

A few photos from mom’s visit. Very few, unfortunately. Too busy being there to remember to take pictures of life happening.