We don’t Spring Forward or Fall Back. It would be nice because then it might not get light at 4:30 am (thank God for blackout shades and learning to sleep through the Call to Prayer), but no, we stay on Saudi time all year long. Now I have to do new calculations to find out what time it is in various parts of the US. I think we were 11 hours ahead of CA and now we’re 10? Or maybe it’s the other way around. And the East Coast is 7 for part of the year, but I’m not sure if that’s right now or if that’s how it is with standard time. Good thing I’m a writer and not a talker. I’ll just send messages when I feel like it and the recipients can read at their leisure. This way there’s no need to worry that I’m waking someone up in the middle of the night with a phone call.
The kids went back to school today. Our last big break before summer. Boo. But for one of us, spring break is only 1/2 finished. We found out over the weekend that the base sponsored teen leadership organization had been approved to take 6 kids to a Military Teen Ambassador conference in Orlando and Calvin was one of the kids invited to attend. The only catch was that they departed the following evening. (they had been working on getting it approved for months, but it didn’t come through until the last minute.) Calvin’s initial reaction was that he shouldn’t go because he was concerned about missing that much school, but Josh and I told him that was crazy — he was going. Did I mention that it’s all expenses paid? Airfare, hotel, and food?
So he spent the day at school arranging for his absence, came home, packed his bag and was off to the airport by 7pm. He flies into DC and then on to Florida and will be back in a week. I don’t really care what he learns at the conference, but the experience of more international travel on his own and seeing a different part of the US is something that’s worth doing. He might decide he loves Florida and want to go to college there (currently he’s only considering California).
All in all, it’s been an excellent spring break. Thursday night we went to Caleb’s play performance. Three times a year a children’s theater company comes to Bahrain and puts on a production with the kids. Kids (aged 5 to 18) audition on Sunday morning and are assigned parts, rehearsals begin Sunday afternoon or Monday (depending on your part) and on Thursday night they perform an entire musical show. The quality of their productions is impressive and the fact that they can get even the littlest kids on stage for their choreographed numbers is pretty amazing.
Waiting for the show to start
Each show is loosely based on a popular children’s story. This year was Robinson Crusoe and Caleb played an octopus that helped to provide entertainment on the island’s resort (remember, I said loosely based).
I’ve tried to convince the boys to do the play before, but they never wanted to. It surprised me when Caleb, out of the blue, wanted to participate this time.
The grand finale
taking a bow
One other unique thing we did over spring break was to go to a BMX show. Every so often, bands or other special performers come to our base and put on a show for the military that are stationed here — a taste of home. This week they had a group called Bikes over Baghdad — 12 or so BMX riders that have all won medals in the X-games, etc.
The heat is on — it came early this year. It really never left . . .
There were a few hundred people in attendance to watch them do flips, spins, and jumps.
They asked the crowd, “is anyone here brave?” and Carter’s hand shot right up. They pulled him out of the crowd as a volunteer to be jumped by one of the guys on his bike. Then they decided that one person was too easy so they pulled 15 or 16 other kids to join him.
He’s going to jump them without a ramp
He cleared them with room to spare!
More tricks — the kids were all cheering
Amazing. And the ab strength you’d need to perform this trick is unreal.
he’s flying!
It’s been a great break — can’t wait for summer vacation!
