Ramadan Kareem

Today marks the beginning of the Muslim holy month known as Ramadan. It is where the Muslim community fasts from dawn until dusk. Only children and pregnant women are exempt. As for non Muslims, we allowed to eat and drink, but only within our own homes. Also in respect to the Muslim religion and our host nation, the base orders us to dress conservatively while out in town. We are not allowed to leave the base without long sleeves and pants.
After dusk, the Muslims often get together to break their fast together in a celebration known as iftar. They set up tents outside for the sole purpose of this occasion.

Last year, we arrived exactly one day after Ramadan so we totally missed out. According to our friends here, during Ramadan the roads are free of traffic and it's basically like a ghost town until iftar time. All restaurants and shopping are closed during the day. The only thing that remains open are the big grocery store chains. Most non-Muslims take this opportunity to escape the country which we will be doing in a couple of weeks. LOL

Gecko Friend

Yesterday we discovered a couple a cute little geckos in the pool while it was filling up. Tyler picked it up and showed me. Then this afternoon when we were in the pool, we saw one on the side of it. Tyler tried to pick it up again and it fell right in. We looked and looked for it in the water, but it was nowhere to be found. We thought perhaps it drowned. Then Tyler noticed it laying on top of his water gun that was floating in the water. We were so relieved, however it got in the water yet again and we noticed it was actually swimming. Cool! We were unaware that they knew how to. Anyway, hopefully we'll see this little gecko guy again throughout the summer, along with his friends.

Cat Art

I absolutely love this cat Tyler made in school. I didn't know until after he brought it home, but it was featured in the school Art Night show. It's now proudly hanging on our fridge.

Saudi Causeway

This is the last weekend before Ramadan starts which means our last weekend that things will be open during the day and we can eat and drink in public before a whole month when it finishes. We made it a mandatory weekend that we get out of the villa and do something. There's not really much that we haven't done already, however one thing we haven't done was drive to the middle of the Saudi Arabia Causeway. We can't enter Saudi because we we're not allowed so this is the close we'll ever get. There really wasn't much to see actually, the bridge and a McDonald's. LOL We did get a photo because that'll be our only and finally trip there. LOL

Largest Swimming Lesson in the World

The base held the Largest Swimming Lesson in the World yesterday afternoon. Dad was covering the event for the base paper and so he came back home to pick up Tyler and I to attend as well. The base was joined by other military bases around the world and they were trying to beat a world record. Unfortunately, we were the only ones that showed up, along with the kids at the CDC and the Youth Center. I think it being on a Thursday afternoon (our Friday) and also the first day of summer vacation probably was not great timing. The kids had a blast though. Here's some of the photos that Steve took.

Summer vacation has begun!! Today Tyler went to for a half day of school. He not only completed the 2nd grade, but passed with all A's!! So proud of him!! He sure worked hard for it. His teacher was pretty tough on them this year having them do mostly 5th grade material. So with that being said, let the summer festivities begin!!!

Snail Mail Pals

When we took the train during our Sri Lanka trip we met a nice local family. There was a boy close to Tyler's age and so they exchanged mailing addresses. As the months passed, we kind of forgot about writing but the other day Tyler received a letter from the boy! We were so delighted to hear from him! Tyler can add this to his list of summer projects.

Father's Day Part 1 & Part 2

Since Father's Day falls on a work/school day, we got to celebrate Dad's special day between two days. His first special day started out with letting him sleep in and then pancake and fruit breakfast. We also presented him with the homemade cards we made him and his gift-Ranma 1/2, which is one of his all time favorite anime.

Tyler's class held a Donuts for Dad morning where the fathers were invited to have donuts and coffee with their kids. The kids read their stories and poems to their fathers and to the rest of the class. Afterwards, they played a word game. Dad and Tyler won!! They were given a box of a dozen donuts!! We would have continued celebrating Father's Day with dinner, however our geocaching event was taking place at a restaurant. Therefore, we waited until today to give him his favorite dinner consisting of pork chops, sweet potato and corn. We concluded Dad's special day with the most delicious carrot cake that I made especial for him!! :) Overall, I think he had a pretty great day. We love him with all our heart!!! I thank God everyday for his love. He is the BEST FATHER in the whole wide world!!!

Also, Happy Father's Day to my dad up in heaven. We miss you everyday. I hold your memories in my heart.

Canada Burger Cache Event

A few weeks ago, Steve and I stumbled upon a Canadian burger franchise here in Bahrain called Big Smoke Burger. They had awesome food and even poutine! Later on it got us thinking about whether there are many other Canadians here in Bahrain. Steve found a Face Book group called Canadians in Bahrain and I joined. I met some great new friends through the site and I mentioned to them about the Canadian burger restaurant. They were not aware of it before, but since I told them about it made a regular hangout. Steve and I thought it would be a great place to host a geocache event. And so, we invited our Canadian friends as well.
We met for the first time yesterday at the event. There was a pretty good turnout by fellow cachers and Canadian friends. The Canadians learned about caching and now they are highly interested in joining our group.

Of course, we had dinner there, but to our huge disappointment the restaurant ran out of poutine!! Luckily the great conversation and fantastic burgers made up for it. Anyway, we are so excited to have met a great bunch of new friends from back home.

Pretty Collar for a Pretty Girl

This girl loves her new collar. Dad put it on her and we thought she would try and remove it right away, but instead she had the attitude of "You guys are the best family! I love my new collar!". And then walked around with the bell jingling. She came right over to me, as if she could wait for her to show me. We are glad that she is wearing a collar now, especially after her little adventure the other night. Though the doors are heavily guarded now so chances of that happening again are pretty slim.

Love My Tea and My 2nd Grade Class

A couple of days ago, the teachers and staff of Tyler's school treated the volunteers to a beautiful Hawaiian luau. They also presented us with certificates of appreciation and Tyler's teacher, Mrs. Taylor, gave us a bag full of tea items. 

Look who no longer needs his booster seat in the car!!

Little Miss Wanderer

Last night as we were sitting down for dinner, something seemed to be missing. Then it dawned on me what it was. Tiara! She never misses a meal with us. The last time we had seen her was outside. Our yard is surrounded by cement walls, so she could go exploring without walking away...or so we thought! Steve had been washing the car earlier that day and had the garage door open just a tad bit to let the water drain outside. Well, apparently, it was enough for our girl to escape! To be sure though, we thoroughly checked inside the villa, the cabinets, under beds, the maid's quarters, and the second kitchen. She was absolutely nowhere to be found. We went outside our gate and started looking around and calling her name. It was pitch black out so it was next to impossible to see anything. Across the road we saw a cat walk down towards the other subdivision. We called out for her and then we all hopped in the car to see if it was her. To our let down, it wasn't. It was a white an orange cat. We drove around for awhile calling her name while I shook treats and Tyler squeaked her favorite mouse toy. Tyler started to cry. He couldn't understand why she was not returning. He said "It's 8 o'clock! It's past both mine and her bedtime." She should be coming home soon! He was really devastated. I told him to pray to God for her safe return home and to keep positive. It was so difficult not to cry too, but we had to stay strong for him. After sometime, we  completely exhausted our search. It was getting late. We decided to head home in case she decided to return, but unfortunately she hadn't. I put Tyler to bed and we added her into our nightly prayers. He wasn't sure if he would be able to get to sleep without his night time buddy, but he did. Steve and I were out in the living room and we were discussing something when Steve asked me if I had heard something. We both became silent to listen and then went outside. We called for her again and we were just about to go back inside when she came slowly (not certain if this was her house and we were her "people") underneath the garage door that we had left open. I couldn't believe my eyes. I immediately started to cry and thanked God that she came back to us. Then Steve picked her up and brought her straight up to Tyler room. We woke him up and he opened his eyes just for a split second when we told him she returned. He looked at her and then closed his eyes again. I told Steve that he probably thinks he was dreaming. LOL Sure enough first thing in the morning he comes in our room and tells us that we need to go look for her again. LOL He soon saw her and started to laugh. "She came back! She came back! Tiara, I missed you so much!". I'm so thankful for the happy ending to our story. We live on a very busy street and it's like a maze. It could have been much worse. We're going out today to buy a collar, but from now on she is forbidden to step a paw outside!

Google It

While I was going through Tyler's work he brought home that he did at school last week, I came across this:

I thought it was pretty hilarious that he wrote down "google". My how the times have changed since when I was going to school.

Operation Thin Mint

Our base received 24 pallets of Girl Scout cookies as part of Operation Thin Mint. As a result, they were passing out CASES (not boxes) of the cookies.