Author: Robin Chartier

I was looking through my blog list and saw that there are a few posts that I neglected to finish before the holidays. One fun event right before Christmas break was a party in Carter’s class. The parents were invited to attend and bring a dish from their home country. Camille and I attended and brought a berry crisp, but the highlight of the party were these huge candy apples.

Camille sat at the table with Carter and several of his friends and ate fistfuls of Korean noodles. Carter made sure there was room for his sister at his table.

I love Carter’s teacher. She requires a lot from Carter, but is always warm and encouraging. It’s a perfect fit for him. 

After eating we played a dice game in groups and then watched a few animated shorts together. The best part was that Carter liked having us in his class and was sorry to see us leave. One of the best things about this year is being able to do things with the boys at school. It’s well worth sacrificing flexibility in our traveling schedule for them to be at TAISM this year.

One of my goals for our year overseas was to blog daily so when we were back in “normal life,” the memories wouldn’t all fade away into a blur in the back of my mind. Just last night Josh and I were trying to remember what awesome, exciting, exotic New Year celebration we attended in Cairo one year ago and when we couldn’t remember a thing I said, “Oh! I can check my blog!” It turns out that I was holed up reading Twilight — what an Egyptian New Year fail.

But looking back refreshed my memory that we were only a few weeks into our life in a new country, with a baby who didn’t sleep and no babysitter, so our lack of partying like it was 1999 makes a little more sense in that context. It still doesn’t justify Twilight though.

342 entries out of 365 days is a pretty darn good percentage of my goal reached. Since we’re going to be overseas for another six months (enshalla), I’m going to continue to try and blog every day as long as we’re in Oman. After that, who knows? I’m at my best when we have funny and unusual things happen to us (exhibit A: every day in Egypt) and I feel like my blog is much less interesting now that we live in Oman, but I’m plugging away.

And for my future self who is bound to check this post 1 year from now: Last night we had friends over, snacked and ate and drank (wine, sparkling water, and Charlemagne sparkling grape juice) and talked and talked and laughed until midnight while all our kids played together. It might not have been up to 1999 standards, but once I got old enough to stay up till midnight on a regular basis, I lost the drive to make New Year’s Eve the night! we will never! forget!

Happy 2012. Only 181 blog posts to go!

I woke up Christmas Eve morning to waves crashing on the shore and little voices singing “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” outside my tent. Calvin pointed out that last year we were at the Pyramids, this year we went snorkeling in the Arabian Sea/Gulf, and who knows where we’ll be for Christmas next year?

One of the problems with a trip like this is that the pictures can’t capture how beautiful and quiet and peaceful everything was. In Oman it’s legal to camp anywhere — you can even pull off the side of the road and throw up a tent if you like, but we went to a friend’s favorite spot on the beach. Plugged in the GPS coordinates, and we were off.

Fins beach is less than 2 hours from home — things get rural very quickly once you leave the city limits. Goats galore.

driving along the coast

approaching Fins. The water really is that color. 

Following our coordinates — roof rack packed with tents and firewood

Hello donkeys! 

Our home for the next 24 hours. Josh and I decided we could live here permanently (as long as we had internet). 

The kids explored the tide pools and found crabs and shells. 

Time to set up camp. 

A huge lobster tail picked clean by birds. 

She wasn’t sure about the cold water on her toes (it wasn’t that cold — I went swimming the next day so you know it was plenty warm).

I couldn’t believe this seaweed was florescent green

Calvin caught this huge crab and then set him free.

home sweet home

The water was warm enough to get out the boogie boards as the tide started coming in

An Omani family came down to walk on the beach at sunset. 

Our Christmas 2011 photo

lighting the tiki torches as the sun sets

At night we sat around the campfire, ate hamburgers, drank coffee and hot cider and tried making Smores. Did you know that “normal” marshmallow are made with pork gelatin? Me neither until we moved to the Middle East. They do make marshmallows with beef gelatin, but they are not good. We had heard they weren’t good, but saw them in the store and decided to risk it. Let me reiterate: Not good. They are extra sweet and chewy and don’t get soft and melty like they are supposed to. Ick. The idea that marshmallows are made with gelatin and gelatin is made from bones is ick too, but let’s not think about that part. We have good marshmallows coming from the states for our next camping trip. 

Anyway, it was a fun night. Defective Smores and all. Not too cold and going to sleep with waves crashing only a few feet away was lovely.

I woke up to Josh making scrambled eggs for breakfast.

I realized I didn’t take a single picture of myself except for this one that I took with my “high-tech mirror” to see if my hair was sticking out all over the place after I woke up. I think it has been well established that I am not a morning person.

After breakfast we swam for a bit, packed up camp, and headed home. Merry Christmas!

The new year is usually a time for resolutions and I’ve always prided myself in not being one of those people — at least when it comes to working out/dieting/etc. I’ve made resolutions to read a wider variety of books (when I started this blog I used it to keep track of my book challenge), read the Bible daily . . . hmm, do the only resolutions I make involve reading? I can’t think of any others. Like I said, I’m not a New Year’s resolution kind of person.

Anyway, this year Josh and I have gotten soft. A summer stuck indoors, followed by a fall full of school activities, and a full time house cleaner/cook means we’ve gotten sluggish and unmotivated. I’ve always been able to get by on my good genes and my anxiety fueled metabolism to keep me thin (there’s nothing like an out of control fight or flight response to burn a quick 20 lbs), but one of the side effects of feeling good mentally is that I actually have an appetite and no longer throw up every day. Although I’m the same weight as when I got married, everything is a lot more mushy than it was 15 years ago. I don’t want to be one of those people who has to work out to look good (I’d rather have it come naturally, ha!), but I guess I’ve passed that point in my life. Bah humbug.

So time for a New Year’s resolution, right? Not quite. Unlike normal people, Josh and I started our challenge before Christmas. Yep, we sucked the fun right out of that holiday. We decided we both need to be more mindful about what we eat and how much, so why not start before Christmas? I still ate awesome cheesecake and some chocolate and even ice cream, but instead of eating a full serving (or 2!) of each, I shared, ate a few bites of the best looking food, and didn’t stuff myself silly.

But according to Josh Michaels (Biggest Loser reference), to really get fit I have to work out. Blah. One of the carry-overs from my mental days is that I don’t like to work out hard because I have a secret irrational phobia that I’m going to work out so hard that my heart, legs, or lungs are going to give out and I’m going to pass out or die or something traumatic like that. Plus, I don’t want to be one of those people at the gym. You know, the ones that sweat. Ugh.

But a goal has been set and when we reach it, (hopefully by Josh’s birthday at the end of January), we are going to go get a couples massage at one of the resorts in town. So I can fake it for at least a month with that kind of carrot dangling in front of me.

The challenge today was to go to the gym. Well, that was my challenge. I have no idea what Josh is doing off at camp with Calvin. Probably managing to do crunches in between Bible Study sessions. He’s dedicated like that. I, on the other hand, am juggling 3 kids in a hotel room and taking them places like McDonald’s and Chili’s. It turns out that the Quesadilla Explosion Salad is really more of an explosion of cheese and less of a salad. Oops.

One of the things that inspired my trip to the hotel gym is my youngest sister (who is currently recovering from back surgery). She said one of the hardest parts of having surgery is that she is really going to miss working out for 3 months. She told me she loves to work out so hard that her legs start shaking and she can hardly stand up. In my world, that is crazy talk. I figured if she can work out that hard and not die, then I have a pretty good chance of being OK if I push myself since we share similar genes and all. Somehow I managed to miss the “loves working out” gene and the “keep a clean house” gene. Life is totally unfair.

So I got the baby to nap in the hotel room (which is an olympic sport in itself) and I threatened the other two with penalty of death and no McDonald’s ever again if they woke her up and I headed downstairs to the gym for a quick workout. And who was already there? Exercise Queen. She hangs out in every gym. The chick who is always mid-workout when you arrive and still going strong when you leave. She was in a full-out sprint on the treadmill, “thwap, thwap, twap,” light on her feet, and hardly sweating. To top it off she was wearing spandex shorts, but was in such good shape they hung off of her legs instead of hugging all the (non-existent) fat in.

I promised myself 20 minutes on the elliptical at full intensity and at the end of 25 minutes (5 extra for a cool down) I had traveled 4k and burned 250 calories — which balanced out about 5 bites of my “salad” from lunch. As I moved to the floor to do crunches and pushups, Runner Girl showed no signs of slowing down. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone doing awkward looking pushups on the other side of the gym, but that turned out to be my reflection in the mirror. :sigh:

As I was about to start my last set, a small face appeared around the corner and sheepishly said, “Hi Mom.” The little messenger had come to tell me that my baby was awake and yelling. So I abandoned my workout and headed back to my room. I was sweaty (ick), but on the bright side, I didn’t die. As I left, Exercise Queen had finally finished her marathon on the treadmill and had moved on to lifting free weights, of course.

We made it to Dubai — I’m not taking that fact for granted after our radiator hose busted right as we pulled up to the front door of the hotel. After some unsuccessful calls to AAA Dubai (no answer) and an additional few calls to the (wrong) numbers listed in the phone book, we decided that Josh would take a taxi over to the church this morning and the rest of us will stay at the hotel for the next few days while Josh and Calvin do Desert Challenge (a church youth camp that Calvin is attending and Josh is helping as staff).

It would seem that being stuck at a hotel for 3 days with 3 kids might be a trial, but not this hotel. Josh picked it because it was relatively near the church compound and because it advertised that it was part of a “green community” and from looking at Google Earth, he thought it looked nice because it’s situated on a man made lake and it looked like there were several trees and some grassy areas for the kids to play.

It turns out that not only are there huge stretches of grass, but there’s a giant park with acres and acres of grass, play structures, fountains, bridges, walking paths, etc. There’s also a waterfront restaurant row with tons of cafes, boutiques, and even Caleb’s favorite, the Yellow M.

Connected to the hotel is an upscale shopping center with clothing stores, Costa Coffee, a Whole Foodsish grocery store, book store, toy stores, and more. Not to mention all the restaurants, fitness center and pools here at the hotel.

The green part of the community isn’t just that there is a lot of green space, it’s green because people can walk or ride their bikes and take care of their daily activities and never have to get in a car. Perfect for those of us with busted radiators.

*** the one downside is that internet access is $25/day in the rooms and I’m not paying that. I can get free wi-fi in the lobby, but that means I have to rely on Caleb and Carter to “babysit” Camille while I try to check email or update my blog. So my grand plans to get my camping photos posted may have to be put off until we get back to civilization.