Author: Robin Chartier

Josh is on the phone discussing the ORDERS he just got in an email . . . nothing like a midnight phone call back to the states to keep me from sleeping. I’ll post the news as soon as I get the OK from him . . . big things are coming!

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Two words: Bah. Rain. The Chartier tour of the Middle East continues. Unbelievable.

Josh is over the moon, I’m still in the stunned phase since I didn’t think he would get his top choice, especially since the job he wanted wasn’t even on his list of choices. I was convinced we’d be headed to 29 Palms come summer.

The answers to your questions are yes, end of June, and I don’t know.

Will you come back to the US before you move? Yes, gotta get my cat!
When do you move? End of June.
What will Josh be doing? No clue. 



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!