Author: Robin Chartier

Merry Christmas!

I wasn’t going to put this on my blog, and was intending to put this together as a Word document to email to my family, but it turns out I can’t remember how to do that efficiently any longer and it’s easier for me to add images and links in this format.

Four years ago, I saw this video on YouTube and it changed the way I thought about Christmas. My family (both immediate and extended) has humored me by doing Christmas a little differently ever since:

Since I’m not a great gift giver anyway, the focus on giving to those in need instead of each other really appealed to me. Each year we give the kids a sum of money and they pick out “gifts” for each other from a charitable giving catalogue like Samaritan’s Purse or Heifer International using the money we would have spent otherwise.

This year we didn’t buy any gifts. For anybody. BUT, because our extended family is willing to forgo presents in exchange for this type of present, we were able to give more than ever before. THANK YOU Mom, Dad, Carrie, Wendy, Kristy, Patrick, Jeremy, Darin, Eli, Jack, Faith, Mom, Dad, Ginger, Amy, Shane, Mia, Noah, Jacob, Mason, Calvin, Carter, Caleb, and Camille. And Merry Christmas. Because of you we were able to buy:

50 pairs of shoes through Soles 4 Souls (thanks for the idea Mia!)
2 gift baskets of food for sponsored families and 2 staff gifts through Amazima, an organization in Uganda that serves both the orphaned and the poor in Uganda.
financial help for iSanctuary, a non-profit organization that helps girls who have been rescued from human trafficking in India and Orange County, CA (we’re proud of what you do, Wendy!)
And from the Samaritan’s Purse catalogue, the boys chose these items:

Shoes and clothes for one child
An emergency relief package for a family (food, medical supplies, tarp, etc)
30 fruit tree seedling
farming tools, seeds, and instruction for
2 families to begin farming
1/3 of the cost of a well for fresh
water for a community
enough fish to stock 2 fish ponds
help for one child in crisis
1 mosquito net
a water filter for a family to provide permanent fresh water for their household
3 blankets
hot meals for a child for a week

milk for 3 children for a week

I hope you all like your “presents” this year and don’t feel ripped off as if we donated to The Human Fund in your name. We love you and wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Joy to the World,
Robin, Josh, Calvin, Carter, Caleb, and Camille

Oman in pictures, part 1

We are having a very laid-back Christmas this year. We aren’t exchanging gifts, but instead are giving money to some of our favorite organizations so they can give gifts to people in need. Since I’m not doing last minute Christmas shopping/wrapping/scrambling, I have time to upload some photos from our trip to Oman.   

There were something like 8 different decorated trees in the Oman airport. This was particularly ironic because just a few days before the Navy base cancelled the Nativity portion of the base Christmas celebration. The people opposed to it (an atheist organization in the states) said they were concerned about the safety of American citizens living in a Muslim country and that a Christian celebration might anger the Bahraini people. These people have obviously never been to the Middle East. If they bothered to look into it, they would see that Muslims agree the birthday of Jesus is something to be celebrated because they believe he was a great prophet. Muslims understand Christians. They don’t understand atheists. 

Waiting to board the flight
 

I don’t know where she gets these poses from, but it cracks me up. It’s not like we get America’s Next Top Model over here (unfortunately).

Off we go! (Carter wearing the faux-Beats that Josh picked up in Saudi)

Gross. Blowing spit bubbles. 

We made it to the hotel and had this fabulous gift basket waiting for us from one of our friends!

The Hyatt Muscat is a beautiful hotel. Way classier than we are.

I tell her to “smile!” and she strikes a pose instead.

We brought rain with us from Bahrain! (it was sprinkling as we walked down to the beach, you just can’t see it in the photos.)

Our favorite stretch of beach and walking path.

Which way to awesome?

Happy to be back in Oman — even if it’s colder than it ever was when we lived here.

Room with a view of the stormy seas

In 30 years she’ll be wishing she didn’t frown so much. (Like grandmother, like mother, like daughter)

not exactly lost in translation

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but Josh and I had to go buy gag gifts today for a White Elephant party, so we went to a local store that was sure to have a lot to choose from.
When I think of getting clean in the shower, “Funky Farm” is not what I want to smell like.
Eau de Cow?
 On a gift bag — OK, this one is an actual translation funny. The rest are just oddities.
Nice wooden box for sale. What could be inside?
Nothing. $129.99 worth of nothing.
It’s a little concerning to me that her name is “SINdy, the Fairy Princess.”
A shirt for that group of people who ARE willing to take it anymore
This is for real. Not “Extra Virgin Olive Oil” type of Virgin, but Josh translated the Arabic and it is a soap for virgins. I’m wondering who exactly is going to be satisfied with the results?
So you know it’s not a fluke — Touch Me! Please brand has a rose scented version
Right next to the virginity soap — also Touch Me! Please brand. Mixed messages?
White Elephant gift search successful! (split personality perfumes and soap)

Pushing 40

I had a birthday last week. In one year I’ll be 40. I don’t really care about the number as much as I care that my skin looks old. Have you seen Lenny Kravitz lately? That guy hasn’t aged a day in the last 20 years. Totally jealous.

So after checking out my frown lines, smile lines, gravity lines, genetically programmed lines, and permanent sleep creases (darn stomach sleeping) and lamented the fact that I didn’t wear sunscreen and a hat, carry a parasol, and stay indoors during daylight hours between the ages of 13 and 25, I ordered some “intensive wrinkle repairing” voodoo serum along with some other lotions, liquids, gels, and creams to hopefully get rid of the face I have and replace it with something closer to Camille’s butt.

I’m thinking it will be like Nicolas Cage in that movie Face Off and I wake up with John Travolta’s face. (Not that I actually want *his* face, but you get the idea.) I’ve heard that these AHAs, BHAs, retinols, and ground up unicorn horns can totally do that.

So be on the lookout for my new and improved face — as long as I don’t end up looking like Nicolas Cage I’ll consider it a success.

Well Loved

I can’t explain how it feels to be back in Oman. It’s very similar to after we were evacuated from Egypt and found ourselves welcomed, embraced, encircled by family and friends, and the entire experience was lovely and wonderful and steeped in bittersweetness.

It physically pains me to see my kids so happy here, surrounded by their school family, embraced by teachers and students alike (as opposed to the “no hugging” rule at their current school), being pulled from group to group, “come to PE with me!” Or “sit with us at lunch!” Seeing tears of happiness and sadness in Carter’s eyes as he says “I’ve missed my friends so much!”

Do they have these kinds of relationships at their current school? I don’t know because there isn’t an open door policy there. I don’t walk down the halls several times a week (or day!) forming new relationships with repeated greetings the way it happens here. There is no Costa Coffee in the cafeteria to keep us chatting in the lunchroom in between drop offs, pick-ups, and classroom activities.

Being here reminds me of what is lacking and I don’t know what course to take. Find more reasons to be at school? Try to make it a more welcoming place? Is that even possible when that runs counter to school policy/culture? Or do I go outside the system and go back to homeschooling next year, giving them some of the freedom and flexibility that they’ve been missing?

I’ve always said being happy isn’t where you are, it’s who you are. And that is smacking me in the face as I try and figure out our place/purpose in Bahrain. I’m sure that part of my dissatisfaction is rooted inside me, but I’m also realizing that my happiness is related to my kids’ happiness and as they get older I have less and less control over that.

I haven’t seen the boys this genuinely happy and relaxed since we left Oman. They practically floated down the hallways of the school, fitting in like missing pieces of a puzzle. While the world is talking about adding armed security and buzzers and visitor badges and locked doors at schools, my three showed up with only a smile on the arm of a friend — no prior notice, no notes or permission slips, no questions asked.

I don’t think it gets any better than this, but I’ve become determined to find or create the next best thing (and also come back and visit as often as possible).