Fall Fest

Finally after a lot of hours of preparation from the teacher, the other classroom mom, and I our Fall Fest was a huge success today. The children had a whole day of Halloween fun. Beginning at 8am, the children paraded around the school visiting various classrooms in their costumes and collecting lots of treats. Tyler went as Finn from Adventure Time because the robot costume was much too big for him to go on the bus and I had a load of things to bring to the school already. He was very content being Finn though and he looked adorable in his costume.

Once the parade of costumes was over, fun in the classroom began. We started the kids off with a craft actually meant for our upcoming Thanksgiving Fest. We thought it would be cute for them to make turkey t-shirts out of their foot and hand prints, and this way they can all be wearing the same thing.
Next on the agenda was story time. The kids listened to a story about apples and how to make apple cider. They also got to sample different kinds of apples from around the world.
After story time, they had their faces painted. At the table that I was doing, most of kids wanted the American flag painted on their faces for some particular reason. I had a few kids that had their faces painted by the teacher but then washed it off and came over to my table for some painting. LOL
Before breaking for lunch, the children squeezed in a spelling test and a math game, boys against the girls. The winner was to get an ice cream party on Sunday (school day here). It turned out they both tied! Then we had a break for lunch and after lunch we continued on with several more crafts: a pumpkin lantern, a close pin bat, and decorative treat bags. Once the crafts were completed, the kids watched a play performed by another teacher. After the play, the children enjoyed Halloween treats brought in by the parents and some special "sewer punch" made by the teacher. They watched a movie while they ate their goodies. Overall, it was another fantastic class party.

Villa Photos: Bathrooms Part 1

Continuing on with our little tour, I am now showing you two of our bathrooms. Lucky you! LOL We have a total of 6.5 bathrooms in our villa. I know, right?! That's 2 bathrooms for the each of us, plus a little extra left over. LOL So, the first bathroom photographed is the one downstairs just off of the kitchen and across from the dining room. It has an entrance way with an extra sink. We choose to wash our hands there because the water pressure from the other sink is a little much and always splatters us. The following bathroom (blue checkered) is the one for Tyler's bathroom. Notice the portable heater. Who are they kidding? They keep saying we are going to get "winter" and I see stores selling winter jackets and sweaters now, but it still in the 80's here and some days back in the 90's.

Chicken Machboos

The national dish of Bahrain is Chicken Machboos or Bahraini Spiced Chicken and Rice. Thus far, it is my all time favorite meal here. After picking up groceries, we typically head for the food court just downstairs from the grocery store. LuLu, our grocery store, is a 4-storey building with grocery department being on the 3rd floor, home center on the top, parking on the bottom floor, and food court along with a few other stores on the second floor. I always order the Chicken Machoos every time we eat there and so, I thought it was a must that I learn how to create this yummilious meal myself. The ingredients contain a lot of spices (not spicy hot), chicken, rice, and even dried limes which is a common ingredient found here in the Middle East. While making this yesterday, the kitchen had an incredible aroma of smells from all the different spices. The meal was a hit, even with my pickiest eater, Tyler. I will definitely be making this again soon!

Bridge Climbing

A couple of weeks ago, Steve posted a photo of himself on Face Book. Here is the photo:

This is where he actually was:

If you closer, you can see where I circled and wrote a note that says "This is where Steve was! Yikes". Yep, so he was at the pier getting some photos of a few ships with the Captain of our base and before they left, they decide to climb the bridge all the to the very top (where I circled in the photo), climbing a series of ladders with no safety harness. Though Steve claims he was okay because he was wearing a hard hat. My nerves~
Anyway...they are building a bridge from the pier to the base, so they can directly bus the sailors without having to go out in town to get to the base.

Nightmare on Spine Street

Last night, we went to a very haunting event on base. It was their annual "Nightmare on Spine Street". Spine Street is the nickname for the main walkway on base and this was their trick or treat night for the kids. Originally we weren't going to go because Dad had another event to cover for work at the same time and we weren't quite finished with Tyler's costume. However, we worked it out that Dad dropped off us off before having to go to work. We saw several of Tyler's classmates there and everyone just loved his costume. When we first arrived, the kids just swarmed around him checking out all the cool gadgets on his robot costume. We all did a little something to make the costume, however I give Dad credit with most of the work and what an awesome job he did.
After we finished trick or treating at the different booths that volunteers set up and decorated. We watched an outdoor movie and Tyler ate a few of his candies. Soon after, they started the costume contest. Tyler wanted to participate, so he went on stage with the other 7-12 year olds. All the costumes were fabulous, but so many people came up to us and thought for sure Tyler's was the best. Tyler's costume, along with one other costume in his category, were the only ones that were handmade. The boy who was dressed up as a "hazmat guy" actually won. There were a lot of people shocked. LOL We had a lot of people come up to us afterwards, including one of the judges, that said Tyler should have won. That's ok though, we weren't disappointed, we still had a lot of fun. Pretty much after the contest was over, the event came to a close and we waited for Dad to come pick us up. We are so excited to finish Tyler's costume for the big Spooktacular event that the school is hosting on Halloween night. It should be a blast! Here are some other photos from last night. Notice that Fiona, the Ice King, and Finn and Jake were there too! I should have dressed up as Fiona. LOL

Lazlo Made It to Bahrain!!!

This morning the agent picked Steve up at the front gate of the base. When you get your car shipped here, you can hire a local to help ease your way through the whole process of inspection, getting insurance, and going through their version of DMV to get plates and registration. Steve picked up the car at the MVPC (Military Vehicle Processing Centre), then they both went to the gas station to fill up since the car was only allowed to be shipped with a quarter tank of gas. After filling up, they went to the inspection place and that is where the fun began. Here is the rest of the story told by Steve, himself: Well, the story takes a turn for the worse. The car comes out of the inspection minus his stripes. I was told to remove them because "It looks like a police car". They wouldn't sign the inspection papers until the stripes were removed. I pulled out of line and ripped them off like I was removing a huge Band-Aid. It was still painful. Meanwhile, they sign off the inspection with out ever inspecting a single function of the car. Lazlo, our MINI, is home now. Even though he got stripped of his stripes, he still looks sharp. We are so glad to finally have him back with us to take us places.

Villa Photos: Second Living Room

From the dining room, or the entrance to our villa, you climb a few steps into the second living room. This room was originally where we hung out before our furniture arrived. The sofa and loveseats, along with the coffee table, side table and rug belong to the landlord. Everything else in the room is ours. From the living room, you can see our main living room. The intercom to "buzz people in" is on the wall in the hallway to the left. To the right is the front door.

Villa Photos: Dining Room

If you walk outside the kitchen, straight ahead is the dining room. When we first moved in, we were using the dining room for all of our meals because our own furniture hadn't arrived yet. Now that our own table is here, we mostly use it, however once in awhile we'll have dinner using the much bigger table. Tyler also does his homework there and it is currently, nicely displaying our Halloween haunted house ceramics. To the right of the dining room is our other living room. There are a few stairs leading up to the living room from the dining room. To the left of the dining room is Tyler's play room which I've previously posted photos of.

Villa Photos: Our Kitchen~

Our kitchen is a pretty good size. It has a rotisserie gas stove which I'm getting slowly used to using. The tricky thing about it is there is no set temperatures, just numbers and flame settings so you really have to keep an eye on what you are making or it may burn (our neighbors must be getting used to our smoke detector going off...just kidding).  All of our appliances that we brought over from the U.S. has to be plugged into a transformer because they use 220v here. The outside door goes to the second kitchen and maid's quarters (straight ahead), or to the car park (to the left). We have no dishwasher, so all the dishes have to be washed by hand.

Middle Eastern Cuisine

So, I've finally tried cooking some traditional Middle Eastern foods. I started off making a Moroccan lamb dish since Eid was this week and the celebration focused on eating lamb. It consisted of a medley of tasty spices including saffron, ginger, and turmeric. Olives and lemon are the final ingredients before being placed on a bed of rice.

Then tonight, I attempted to make my new favorite salad that seems to be a staple here in Bahrain. we were actually surprised to learn that it originates from Lebanon. The salad has lots of greens including parsley and mint, promenade dressing, and sumac, which is a very popular Arabian spice. It's topped off with baked pita bread.

Water Cooler Water & The Right Side

Today we got our water delivery setup for our water cooler. Living in the dessert, we drink a lot of water here. So now we can have water cooler conversations right in our kitchen. LOL

With that being said, Steve also decided to switch the door handle on the fridge to the right side so it would be easier to access. His dad showed him how to do this when we were visiting in Rhode Island this past summer. We're enjoying opening the fridge on the right side much better.

We went to the mall and left with our ceramics!!! Yay!!! Even though we found a few spots we could have done better, it still turned out much better than we thought it would. LOL

No Ceramics

We went to pickup our ceramics last night at the mall and sadly came back empty handed. There seemed to be some sort of miscommunication and our stuff won't be ready until Friday. Boohoo! Anyway, while we were at the mall there was lots going on for the end of Eid celebrations. They had set up giant games for the kids to do. Tyler went and tried the huge Tic Tac Toe game. It seemed like everyone was out last night going to the parks with their families or just sitting down wherever they could find some grass to sit on and take in the beautiful evening. There were even cars lined up to get into all of the parks and there were buildings decorated with lights just like at Christmastime. Here are some photos so you can get a taste of what it is like here during the festivities. The last photo is a villa just down the street from us.

Tyler riding his bike

Tyler wanted me to take some video of him this morning riding his bike, so here you go...

Eid Al-Adha

Tyler is home from school all week long due to the Muslim holiday, Eid Al-Adha. The religious holiday is the festival of sacrifice. There are special Eid prayers, sacrifices of sheep or goat where they give away one-third of the meat to friends or neighbors and one-third to the poor. Some Muslim pilgrims go to the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
Meanwhile, at home we are doing chores, coloring the house Dad made for Tyler in his playroom, making burnt cinnamon cookies (we have a gas rotisserie oven and it has no set temperatures like the ones back home, so baking right now is more or less experimental...LOL), and playing in the pool. Yesterday when Dad came home from work we went to the park for some exercise. While Tyler rode his bike, Dad jogged and I walked.

Park Photos

No school or work today, so we dusted off our good cameras and headed for the park for some photos. Up to this point, I've mostly been using my little pink camera, but today we were in the mood to take some serious photos. LOL Look below and enjoy~ These photos are from the park we found a couple of weeks ago in the town of Arad, not too far from where we live. We walked while Tyler biked the whole way around the lake. Three kilometers in total.