Heissatopia

"Your sweat is so shiny and beautiful!": Umbrella Park, the Corniche, and Monumental Play Area

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 20:40:49 +0000

It's 35°C (95°F) right now (10:00 PM), with a feels-like temperature of 46°C (114°F)—not too shabby!—so logically we took the kids to the park before bedtime.

Andrew suggested we take the metro to the Corniche (a station named for its proximity to...the Corniche) and visit Umbrella Park, so named for its tunnels lined with umbrellas.

Some of the umbrellas have seen better days (but from what I've read they are regularly replaced, so I'm sure it will be getting some attention after the weather cools off a bit), but the overall effect was still quite impressive.

Various exits from the archway led to one thing and another—a large sculpture by Franz West, for example, a playground, some outdoor exercise equipment, and so forth. We went to the sculpture first and then continued on through the underground tunnel to the corniche.

The dhow (boat) tour guides were certainly keen to get us to go for a ride. We persisted in insisting we stay on dry land for the evening, though, but promised we'd be back for a ride another time (and I'm sure we will be).

Here's everyone touching the water, though:

It is surprisingly warm, like hot-tub warm. Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that in the Gulf, "Surface-water temperatures range from 75 to 90 °F (24 to 32 °C) in the Strait of Hormuz to 60 to 90 °F (16 to 32 °C) in the extreme northwest. These high temperatures and a low influx of fresh water result in evaporation in excess of freshwater inflow; high salinities result, ranging from 37 to 38 parts per thousand in the entrance to 38 to 41 parts per thousand in the extreme northwest."

It's incredible to think that this skyline just...popped up...in the last 25 years or so (source, source, source).

This sculpture was interesting—we think perhaps it was installed for the World Cup but couldn't find a sign:

Since we had left our apartment with the intension of finding a playground, however, we soon made our way back to the other side of the road.

The kids noticed that this play structure looked like a building we had seen from the corniche:

We are a little wary about taking pictures of buildings because there are several (mostly government buildings) that we're forbidden from photographing...but we're worried about taking a picture by accident of something we're not supposed to. The skyline is rather innocuous (and ubiquitous) as far as photography goes...but other buildings...I just don't know yet.

But I looked up the building and I do think it was the Qatar Post building:

Picture from Wikipedia, circa 2010 (so the skyline is quite different now)

Actually...I just found a TikTok video that verifies that we thought correctly. That structure is supposed to be Qatar Post and all the other play structures are supposed to be famous buildings as well. It's called the Monumental Play Area or Al Masrah Park or Umbrella Park or...I honestly don't know why it has so many names. But, yes, all the play structures are famous buildings.

The swing set is supposed to be the Sheraton (famous for being the first big, western hotel to open in Doha):

Here's a picture from Wikipedia:

This tunnel thing (that I didn't get a great picture of, but you can see it in the background of the first playground picture) is supposed to be the Qatar National Theatre:

Here's a picture of the theatre from TimeOut:

And then this climbing wall is a tribute to Qatar University:

Here's a picture of Qatar University from ILoveQatar:

All of that probably would have been good to know before we went, but I suppose it will be good to know for next time as well. It's kind of like our PTC playground at the town green, which has a play-sized version of the Peachtree Corners bridge!

~~By the time we had finished playing,~~ we were all thoroughly sweaty.

(In all honesty we were thoroughly sweaty before we even arrived at the playground, let alone by the time we had finished playing).

The kids kept complimenting each other (and us) with, "Your sweat is so shiny and beautiful!"

This is a favourite line from one of our favourite video games: Ring Fit.

It's something the "ring" guide will tell you as you're working out to...encourage (?)...you to keep going. But it's just a little awkward every time.

Anyway, enjoy these awkward, sweaty selfies (swealfies?) I took while we were walking back to the metro:

And here's a look at Phoebe's hair for the day. She wanted Rapunzel hair. Technically they are yesterday's braids, but Zoë added the clips early this morning and then...this simply became today's hairdo.

When we were in the elevator heading off on our adventure, we shared our ride down with another woman. Phoebe was flustered about her hair after seeing something amiss in the elevator mirror.

"Can you fix this clip?" she asked me.

"Which one?" I asked, checking over her braids. "They all seem fine."

"It's just not right," she fussed.

"It's fine," I said.

"But why do I have so many clips in?!"

"Because you asked me to put them in!" Zoë said defensively.

"But why did I do that?!" Phoebe asked.

"Because you said you wanted to be like Rapunzel," I reminded her.

The woman in the elevator started giggling and pulled the loose end of her shayla up to cover her laughter.

"Sorry, sorry," she said. "I just... She is so cute!"

"Oh, thank...." I began to say when I was cut off by Phoebe who very matter-of-factly said, "I know!"

She gave herself a sweet smile in the mirror and—I swear—very nearly curtsied.

At this we all started laughing. We had a good twenty more floors to descend before any of us would be getting off the elevator, so we shared a laugh for a good long while, and then the woman said, "She knows she's cute!"

"She does," we agreed.

It's a little bit of a problem sometimes.

When we left the elevator, Phoebe gushed proudly, "No one has ever told me that in an elevator before!"

There's a first time for everything, I suppose.

*****

Strangely, our family didn't get a lot of "cute" compliments on the way home from the park (and looking as sweat-logged and bedraggled as we were...it really isn't any wonder).

Vienna 🤝 Doha

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:59:58 +0000

When Josie and I visited Patrick in Vienna, he took us to the Vienna Central Cemetery to see graves both famous and interesting. One of his favourite graves to take people to see is that of Franz West, a sculptor from Vienna.

Here is his grave with this interesting worm-thing poking out of the ground:

And here is the sculpture we stumbled upon this evening in the park:

Here's a second picture with my children being still-ish:

The sign nearby notes that Gekröse (as this sculpture is called) is one of West's largest sculptures, and it translates roughly to "intestines" or "giblets," which is 100% what it resembles. West's skill is to "concurrently attract and repulse the viewer" and I've gotta say—he's effective!

We had intended to go to the park but the pink of the sculpture called to us so we went to check it out first. It is, indeed monumental, imposing, playful, whimsical, cheerful, and twisted.

That's now two sculptural connections to Vienna that we've found in Doha!

If a tree falls on your house but no one is around to hear it...does it still make a sound?

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:36:23 +0000

Well, it finally happened! Our house got hit by a tree.

Fortunately it wasn't a very big tree, but we will need to have that gutter replaced.

Luckily, our real estate agent called someone for us.

Emotionally Tuesday and a visit to campus

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 21:52:09 +0000

Yesterday was Sunday, which is the first day of our workweek here (so it felt like a Monday).

Zoë in the hotel elevator

After we were more or less finished with our schoolwork, we took the metro to the Qatar National Library (all by ourselves). The library hosts a knitting group that Miriam is interested in attending so we needed to get her introduced to the metro so she can get there in the future.

Our hotel has a "bridge" to the metro. It isn't quite connected to the metro station, but it takes you pretty close. You only have to walk across the street, which is a manageable distance in this heat. We have found that there are quite a few underground "shortcuts" or air conditioned "bridges" to help people get from building to building without having to brave the heat.

Here we are on the metro:

Benjamin (who was at a friend's house so was absent from this adventure) and Zoë told Alexander and Phoebe about "surfing" on the metro. Apparently they did it in DC when they visited with Grandpa and Darla. Essentially you just try to ride the train without holding onto anything.

Phoebe and Alexander take this game very seriously.

Here's Alexander showing off his metro pass holder—there's a little ball maze on the back:

You have to scan your card to get in and out of the metro (and have a card on your person if you're stopped by anyone checking for tickets), so the kids each have to hold their own card on their person, but I worry about them having that responsibility because...they're little kids. So these card holders seemed like a good way to go. We've seen a lot of people with them (which is where I got the idea to get some for our family; Phoebe doesn't need one yet because she's only four).

Walking to the library was hot and windy again. Miriam noted that the heat was so intense it was hurting her eyes and...she's not wrong. The kids once again joked about getting air-fried. We were very grateful when we made it into the shade (where it was still hot, but not as hot).

Here are the kids looking down at the cracked-mud beneath the library:

We started our visit going through the exhibition area, which I didn't take any pictures of because I didn't know if we could (I will ask next time, I guess). The exhibition area is an "excavated space" down below the main library—it made us feel a bit like we were in an archeological dig.

There were some really cool things on display—Patrick would enjoy this current exhibit, I'm sure! Phoebe spent the whole time asking when we could go to the kids' section. We eventually made our way there.

Here are Alexander and Phoebe playing with the letter speakers on the way to the children's library:

It tells you the name of the letter, its sound, and a word that begins with that letter. N (noon) was for nahla (نحلة) and I had that word stuck in my head the whole day trying to remember what it meant—it was a real bee in my bonnet (if you'll pardon a foreshadowing pun). I could have easily looked it up, but I didn't want to because...I knew that I knew it, ya know? So I just kept repeating it to myself, waiting for the meaning to jump into my brain.

It didn't.

All I could think of was "honey," but that didn't feel quite right.

So when we got home I looked at our honey jar.

It says "عسل" (easal), not "نحلة" (nahla).

Frustrated about why only honey came to mind when I heard "نحلة" I caved and looked it up: it means "bee."

Honey was conceptually close, I guess. Proves my brain is filing words away somehow...even if I don't quite know what brain-file to look in.

*****

What I wanted to do at the library was find a quiet place to finish reading a chapter of my textbook for the course I'm taking this semester (on ethnography), and to write down some observations about the goings-on in the library (ethnographically).

What I ended up doing was reading a stack of picturebooks to Phoebe and Alexander.

To be fair, they're a little starved for new literature. I packed quite a few picturebooks with us, but nothing new. We can't check out books until after we get our magical ID cards, so until them reading inside the library is our only chance for new story books.

We read many in English and attempted a few in Arabic.

But, honestly, Phoebe reads better in English than I do in Arabic (which really says something about my lack of fluency, I think). Phoebe lacked the patience for me to read in Arabic (which feels a little unfair considering how many hours I spent helping her learn to read in English this past year...but whatever) and asked that I simply translate it into English for her so we could read it faster.

I was like, "The problem with that is that I would still have to read it in Arabic in order to translate it and I read no faster in my head than I do out loud, so..."

"Just tell me a story about the pictures then," she suggested.

So we did that.

But really I felt like I did pretty good reading the story, too. I mean, I definitely didn't do great, but I did know a lot of the words—like, their friend was sick (I think with pink eye) and they went to the store to find something beautiful for their friend to make them happy and after several misadventures settled on some sunglasses.

Zoë and Miriam wandered around the library by themselves (they're old enough that they're allowed to do that—there are signs warning that little kids found wandering the building will be taken to the main security desk until they're collected).

The funniest thing that happened was that a Syrian boy walked up to me and said, "Excuse me, are you Canadian?"

No one ever asks me this. Ever.

Are you German? Are you Russian? Are you American?

I have had all of those.

But are you Canadian?!

Very rarely am I ever asked that.

"You're not going to believe this," I said. "But...yes. I am from Canada."

"Really?!" the boy asked. "I love Canada!"

He whipped out a book about Canada from behind his back.

"I have a big Canada flag at home! I have a lot of other flags—they're all little. But I have a big flag for Canada! I want to go there!"

We talked for a little bit before he ran off with his book about Canada.

*****

We left for the library a little later than I was aiming for, so when I texted to tell Andrew that we were finally leaving for the metro, he texted back to say that he'd just plan on coming home with us. We could come tour Georgetown's campus after we were finished at the library and then we'd all just take the metro together.

Georgetown's building is right next to the library, and thus also quite close to the metro, which has worked out well for us!

We rarely visited Andrew's campus at GSU. I only saw his office one time (from the outside because he forgot his key...which is funny to recall because he also forgot his keys today (but security just let him in without asking too many questions while at GSU it was a whole circus to get his office unlocked so whenever he forgot his keys he'd just...come back home to get them)). They never had any events that we were invited to as a family.

Andrew in his new office, which will fill up with books and things once our shipment gets here

GUQ is different in that regard. We certainly won't be hanging out on campus every day, but they actually have quite a few events that families are invited to and everyone seemed quite happy to have us on campus yesterday. It just happened to be a new student orientation day (that sounds too circumstantial—because of course it was NSO this close to the start of the semester) and as part of that they had an ice cream stand and immediately called the children over to get some. The children were delighted.

(They were doubly delighted when they were invited to get another bowl of ice cream on our way back out!)

Phoebe is obsessed with "Campus Puppy," which is just the bulldog mascot for UGA.

No one else calls it "Campus Puppy." That's just a Phoebe thing.

Lucky for Phoebe the mascot for Georgetown is...a bulldog! So the "Campus Puppy" spottings continue!

(Andrew said that today there was a person walking around in a bulldog mascot costume...which Phoebe really would have loved...but she missed out...)

The campus is small (there is one building dedicated to Georgetown), but it is beautiful!

The kids tried out every chair they saw (there were lots of fun places to sit):

The kids wanted to know if the drinking fountains were potable (most places just do bottled water, including in our hotel—I've heard the water is purified, but then it usually sits on your roof in a tank and becomes...less potable than when it first arrived...so...bottled water it is).

Andrew said, "I dunno. Try it!"

So the kids did. They announce it was cold and tasted fine, so we assume it's okay to drink.

No one has gotten sick yet.

It was fun to see where Andrew would be working. We peeked into an empty classroom, we wandered around the library, we saw the faculty lounge. It looks cool!

Here's Phoebe enjoying her second cup of ice cream:

I swear she's had ice cream or a popsicle every day since getting here, just about!

Today she had a popsicle after dinner (that we bought), but earlier today when we got to the pool she saw the popsicle stand out but declined to go get one. She said that it was too hot for popcorn (the other snack she could choose from the stand) and too hot to eat a popsicle outside (because it would start melting down her hands and she wouldn't like that)...so we just got in the pool to swim instead!

Like, this girl has been offered so many frozen treats since we arrived here that she seems to nearly be satiated. She can happily go without because she knows she will probably be offered one later.

(I mean, clearly yesterday she took up the offer for not one but two bowls of ice cream on campus, but she declined a popsicle today...so...)

The metro ride home was standard. Phoebe wanted another picture with this wind-up toy thing on the metro bridge back to our hotel:

And here she is in front of the "Hala bialsayf" (Hala Summer) sign:

After dinner, FHE, and bedtime for the little kids, I went on a walk around our mall and the Gate Mall across the street with Miriam and Benjamin (we figure if we take all the stairs it counts as exercise).

Today is Monday, which emotionally feels like Tuesday, and it was an emotional Tuesday. The children, bless their hearts, colluded to wake up extra early so they could start their school work before I got up.

This would ordinarily be a wonderful thing, and they truly did it to try to make me happy and to get a jump start on our day so we could do something fun (like go to the pool, which we did), but they got up shortly after 5:00 in the morning!

That was too early for many of them to get up and we had quite a few squabbles and things break out by mid-morning (to say nothing of the early afternoon). So we talked about acceptable hours to wake up and decide to stay away, acceptable hours to wake up and decide to be awake, and acceptable hours to wake up and have it be okay to wake up other people who would otherwise still be asleep.

(To be fair, they didn't wake me (or Andrew or Miriam or Benjamin) up...they just woke each other up...and then got to work...pestering each other, essentially.)

Hopefully tomorrow we can all have a little more sleep under our belts (and have a little more patience with/for each other).

"Don't you want to have fun?"

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 21:23:53 +0000

Today we went to spend some time with some friends in a neighbourhood near campus. They very proactively gave us a tour of their home so we could see how nice it is (hoping that we'll perhaps come live near them). It was so lovely for the kids to get to play and enjoy each other while the grown ups commiserated over the hot weather.

Rachel's friend Hailey is serving a mission in Manitoba right now and she mentioned that the weather is one thing that everyone is always willing to talk about. Our friend Tim mentioned a similar thing about when their family used to live in up in the northeastern US. He mentioned how when everyone was outside enjoying the summer weather it was with a note of...caution...mixed with gluttony—as if they had to hurry and enjoy every moment while it lasted because winter was always looming over their heads.

Like, sure—we look happy now...but just you wait until winter gets here.

He described it like some monster lurking in the hills that everyone knows will descend and wreak havoc on their happy little community.

And it is rather like that.

Here it's the opposite and everyone we meet is apologizing for the fact that we had to move here in August. Blah. It's the worst...but we promise it's not always like this. It will soon get better. The beastly sun that is a stalking the land will be banished.

November, I hear, is quite lovely.

Anyway...

We went to the pool before bed this evening. It was 100°F (37°C), but the pool temperature was lovely.

Benjamin tried out for a swim team run through the American school on Thursday and was put on the silver team. But we simply aren't ready for the level of commitment the team requires at this present moment. We're still just trying to get used to being here and we need to be looking for a permanent place to live (and then we'll have to move...again) and I just couldn't see doing that while also managing getting him to so many practices per week.

The good news is there are plenty of pools here, and we bought a book of swim workouts for him before we left because we weren't really sure what sort of opportunities he'd have here for swimming. So we'll take advantage of the many pools and try to be dedicated and then...sign up for summer swim league in Utah next summer?

That's our plan for now.

It's a plan that doesn't kick my anxiety into high gear. And it will at least give us time to figure out what other options there are for extracurriculars out here.

"You're a stroke and turn judge," Benjamin pointed out at the pool. "Judge me."

So he swam for me while I judged him and told him things like the fact that he needs to bring his heels to your bottom during recovering in breast stroke rather than basically doing a...plié...in the water. I see a lot of swimmers do this with their legs during breaststroke and it's not really a disqualifying offense...but it does make the kick less effective than it could otherwise be.

(See the explanation by Stephanie Rice at around 2:20)

We'll work on things on our own. It'll be fine!

Phoebe, as we mentioned, recently decided she could swim backstroke, which is really cool.

This evening she discovered the joy of head-butting. She swam from me to Andrew and instead of running into him with her arms extended she did a final pull down to her hips and bonked into him with her head instead.

She found this very satisfying.

"Wow!" she said, coming up out of the water. "That was really fun! Did you like that, Dad? I really liked that!"

She backed up a bit and then swam towards him again.

"Oof!" he said, over and over again as she swam into him, ramming him with her head.

"This is great!" she said.

She spent the entire evening swimming up to people (only in our family, thank goodness) and running into them with her head.

At one point she was swimming up to me and I instinctively put my hands out to stop her from ramming her head into my stomach. She stood up very offended, grabbed my hands, moved them apart, and said sternly (while spluttering in more-than-chin-deep water), "Don't you want to have fun?"

I mean...yes? But not like this?

But apparently this is what we do for fun in the pool now.

We're going to have to come up with some other games pretty quick because I'm not sure how much "fun" the rest of us can handle while Phoebe gets her fill!

Packing casualties

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:59:04 +0000

Out of a grand total of 27 suitcases (once Miriam got here), we had...

one bottle of children's liquid medicine leak somehow (not sure how because the bottle isn't actually broken)
one bottle of hair detangling spray leak (fortunately both the spray and the medicine were double-bagged so all the mess was contained. I haven't even tried to rescue the detangling spray yet but/because we found detangling spray at the store. I will get around to investigating this leak someday soon, I'm sure).
one suitcase open and inspected by TSA (Miriam's suitcase with all the Magnatiles inside)
18 suitcases get stuck waiting to load the plane in the pouring rain in Atlanta, but miraculously nothing that shouldn't have gotten wet inside got wet. We had one cardboard tube (with much-wanted posters inside) that got wet all the way through (like one end of the tube was completely soggy). I opened it up to check things out inside and the posters were all snuggled down at the other end of the tube, so they didn't even get a little bit wet! Incredible! Sure, we had to unpack everything as quickly as we could and lay out ten million articles of clothing to dry before they molded inside our suitcases...but nothing got ruined, which is pretty neat. All our carry-ons and Miriam's luggage were spared from The Great Luggage Sogging of 2026.

Not too bad!

I remember when we moved to Cairo we had a bottle of vanilla break and leak onto a stack of cloth diapers. It stained them terribly (but, I mean...they're diapers) but made them smell so good! (And also we were down a bottle of vanilla—but we consider that a tolerable loss as well).

Pretty good luck, I'd say!

One week

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:38:11 +0000

We have now been in Qatar for a week—and what a wild week it's been!

On the one hand it's quite the relief to be here—to have all the waiting and preparation work over and done with. It's shiny and new and exciting and everything feels full of potential. We look out the windows at the twinkling skyscrapers surrounding us and think, "Wow! We did it! We're here!"

But on the other hand, we (or at least I) find ourselves asking, "What. Have. We. Done?!" We used to know what life was like—it was a patterned, predictable, stable. And now...let's just say that I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed.

So I thought perhaps was a good day to share pictures of our old home (as we contemplate what we need in a new home, which has so far been a rather major stressor for me). I still can't believe we managed to empty this house.

Here's Benjamin in his room upstairs. Several children also have claim in this bedroom. I think Benjamin, Alexander, Zoë, and Phoebe all were in this room at some point, in various configurations:

Here's me in the main bedroom, which was ginormous and doubled as an office/nursery depending on the occasion:

Here's Phoebe and Alexander in the room they last shared together:

Again, many children were in here in various configurations.

Here's Andrew working in the office on the main level:

And here's Zoë in the basement room she shared with Miriam (who used to share it with Rachel, back when Zoë was still an upstairs kid):

The little kids slept down here the last few weeks we were in this house (Phoebe really wanted to sleep under the desk...so we just let her):

And here's what we called the "main room" of the basement:

It had couches and bookshelves and desks and computers and a TV. I'm wondering if I should have done pictures of rooms prior to emptying out the house but...at least this way things are guaranteed to be somewhat tidy!

Here are the kids in the "LEGO room":

Pointing out our new home on the map:

Sitting in the reading loft:

The storage room (great for hide-and-seek):

Here's the TV room/den:

Here's the dining room, which our realtor thinks is super tacky:

The brightness of the green surprised us, too, but we were too tired to consider repainting. I did enjoy being surrounded by green though, I think. And—I've pointed this out before and will point this out again—Martha Washington chose a very bring green for her dining room and rather than acting like it was the blight of his house, Washington apparently "described the color green as 'grateful to the eye.'"

And the Mount Vernon website further describes the green walls as "striking." Intense? Perhaps. But definitely striking.

Here are the kids by our trees (which our realtor also thinks are lame):

Honestly, it's fine. She can paint over them. The trees were always for us, anyway.

She says that the smell of fresh paint is enticing to buyers and wanted us to paint the whole thing. But the quote we got was...too much. So she feels we should paint this green room and get rid of the whimsy.

Which is fine.

Although I think it might be better to paint over some of the areas of the house that haven't been painted since the 80s...or early 2000s...depending on which wall you're talking about.

Keep kids off this pony wall was a challenge:

Keeping the kids off this railing was a challenge:

Here's the music/family room fireplace:

And the windows on the other side of the room (the door that you see opens into Andrew' office space):

Here's the kitchen:

And a final little meal in our empty little tacky/whimsical/striking dining room:

Here's our yard nicely tidied up:

Grandma's bench and gargoyle that we left behind because we forgot to stick it on any of our shipments:

Our flight wasn't until 10:00 pm, but we had everything packed up and our house empty much earlier than that. The kids desperately needed something to do, so I told them to go use up some sidewalk chalk we had left by leaving love notes to the neighbourhood.

But to do so without getting super chalk-dusty because sometimes when they draw with chalk they come inside covered in chalk dust, looking like waifs...when I wanted them looking at least a tad respectable at the airport. They really did a good job using chalk with decorum.

Here's a view of our house, our little cottage, our Jolly Sinkhole:

We took this picture of the kids in front of the house with "QATAR OR BUST" in front...

And then Phoebe was like, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoever made the Qatar flag did it wrong. It needs to be maroon and white not maroon and black!"

Alexander had made the flag and figured that leaving the "white" part blank would be white enough, but since the pavement was black...this didn't sit well with Phoebe. So she coloured in the blank part white and felt much better after that.

Today was really a fine day.

We went to church for the first time and met some wonderful people. We went to the bishop's house for dinner with a few other families. The kids had fun meeting new kids.

We have another "playdate" planned for tomorrow.

We're doing fine here.

But I've also reached the first (of what will be probably many—this is me we're talking about) hyperventilation moments, where I spiral out and question whether we've done the right thing at all or whether we should have stayed put.

Not that it matters, truly.

Life doesn't have an undo button so the only way forward is through. So it's onwards and upwards and making the best from the point that we're at. There is no other option.

I know it will be fine (probably more than fine). But it also feels difficult and uncertain and overwhelming and so far away from so many people we love.

So it's wonderful...and it's hard.

And I guess that's okay.

Enjoy this picture of my children saying goodbye to one of their best friends at the sacred green box, which I'm sure was as devastating for them to experience as it was for my momma heart to witness:

Wunderground...wunder...what?

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:26:55 +0000

I showed Andrew my earlier screen shot from Wunderground:

And he was like, "Where was that?!" so I told him and in that time that had elapsed between me taking a screenshot and him taking a screenshot (about an hour later) the temperature had risen considerably:

But a feels-like temperature of 165°F?!!

"That's the temperature you cook chicken to!!" Miriam exclaimed.

Google is much more conservative in their feels-like estimates—only 129°F (53°C).

Only.

Celestial Patterns and Perspectives and things

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 08:01:28 +0000

The children are taking an astronomy course at the moment and the first lesson focused on the difference between astronomy (a science) and astrology (a pseudoscience) and how the two terms are often confused.

We also started reading a book called The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye. I read a poetry book of hers over the summer. She's Palestinian-American, but this particular book is about a boy from Oman who moves to the states for three years. So far the kids have noticed a lot of similarities in the preparation phase of the move (which we recently finished experiencing).

Phoebe was surprised that Turkish Airlines was mentioned in the book because we just flew on Turkish Airlines! And then she wanted to know if Oman was close to Qatar because the book described it as being hot and close to the sea—and we are hot and close to the sea. So even though we looked at the map yesterday and pointed out where Oman was and where we were...we talked about it again.

Considering she's still not 100% sure where her bedroom is in our apartment we probably can't expect her to remember where Oman is in relation to Qatar.

Anyway, we talked a bit about culture shock because Aref's mom said that the first day would be scary but then things would start to feel like home. The kids did agree that the first day was the scariest—both the leaving and the arriving—but they disagreed that things already feel like "home" because things still feel pretty new.

So I mentioned how culture shock lasts from months to even years as you adjust to all the many things that need to be adjusted to. One thing that I like to do in a new place is to notice and recognize the signs of the seasons changing, like knowing that oak worms and Joro spiders start popping out in August in Atlanta.

Here we keep hearing about the al-Nathra period, which we recently entered. This is typically the hottest period of the summer, when the al-Kulaibain star rises in the sky, but it also marks the end of the hot-hot season, because once the Suhail star rises...the hot weather typically begins (ever so slowly) to moderate (see here).

All that talk about different stars set off astrology bells in the children's minds. They said it sounded like superstition more than science.

So we discussed how this is different from astrology because while astrology also observes the sky, it applies rather arbitrary characteristics to things (eg. anyone born under x-sign sign will be...grumpy...or smart...or really outgoing...or very shy) that can't really be proven and, in fact, can quite easily be disproven (because there are so many people born under the same sign and they are all different).

But observing celestial bodies and using them to mark time is...a time-honoured...tradition for countless civilizations around the world. This is how we defined what a day means, what a month means, what a year means, etc. (with variations in definition across cultures and time, but ultimately coming to a consensus that, yes, these celestial bodies do appear in repeatable patterns that can help us mark the passage of the human construct of time).

Additionally, while it sounds superstitious to our ears, we do the very same thing in our culture!

Ever hear of the "Dog Days of Summer"?

It's certainly talked about in the southern US when it's terribly hot and humid (though, honestly? not as terribly hot and humid as it is here!) but the origin of the phrase "can be traced back thousands of years to the days of the Roman Empire. It refers to the dates from July 03 through August 11, which is 20 days prior and 20 days after the star Sirius rises and falls in conjunction with the sun. Sirius was knows as the “Dog Star”, because it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (Large Dog)."

The kids (and many other people) thought this was just, like...a time when it was even too hot for a dog to be outside. It conjures images of a dog lazing about on a front porch with its tongue lolling out of its mouth as it pants...wishing the whole time for cooler weather.

But its origins stem from observing a correlation between certain celestial bodies appearing in the nighttime sky and what kind of weather patterns are happening in a given location.

Observing correlations between celestial bodies and temporal conditions on the Earth is not superstitious...it's the regular, ordinary way we (as humans) construct time.

At any rate, we are happy to know that soon things will begin to cool down (even though this weekend is supposed to be very hot, indeed. What is up with this feels-like temperature today?!

Just now (the kids are listening to their science video right now) the kids learned that sunrises and sunsets (phrases we still use today) are...poor descriptions...of what's actually happening. Because we know that the sun isn't rising/setting at all. Rather, our planet is rotating causing us (on this side of the planet) to either see or not see the sun. And yet we continue use the "untrue" phrases sunrise and sunset.

No superstition, just an agreed-upon (often cross-) cultural way of discussing the passing of time, a common understanding of how our environment is changing across the span of a day.

Lastly, we talked about how time is so relative. In our book, Aref feels like this 3-year relocation is such a long time, but his parents clearly don't feel like it's terribly long. I asked the kids to consider time proportionally—as a ratio, for example, or percentage. What percentage of Phoebe's life is 3 years?

Easy! 75%—and 75% of her lifetime is a lot for her to consider!

Three years sounds long to Phoebe.

When I think about three years, however, it sounds much shorter. It's only about 7% of my lifetime.

Three years sounds quite short.

"Imagine three years for Grandpa Frank!" the kids exclaimed (the oldest man they ever knew, although he passed away about a year ago). 3 years is only about 3% of his life!

(And now their science video is talking about noticing patterns in the sky...and marking time...so...our earlier discussions were right on point)

Miriam and the libraaaaaaar...ian

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 21:33:24 +0000

After we finished with our school work, we took the metro to the Qatar National Library. I really like the metro (I just wish it went more places). It's very clean, riding in the family car was perfectly chill (though Andrew really felt like a duck out of water because he was the only man in the car; without us he would have to ride in the "standard" cars, which he reports are also just fine).

Here we are ready to hop on once the doors open:

Every station seemed to be enclosed, so there wasn't a huge concern about falling onto the open tracks. I suppose the stations would get awfully hot if they were open tunnels...

One trip costs 2 QAR (55¢ in USD) and you are only charged for a maximum of three trips per day (if you take more trips you still tap your card to get in and out, but won't be charged). So it can be a rather cost-effective way to travel...if there is a stop near where you would like to go. But, as I said, the metro system is rather limited geographically so we will still be doing a lot of taxiing for the next little while.

It's only a short walk from the metro station to the library, but it was a hot walk. You can see how flushed Phoebe is from being outside for only a short time (also, we found another cat):

It was around 110°F (43°C), with a feels-like temperature of 116°F (46°C) and there was a rather steady wind, making us feel like we were walking through a convection oven.

I need to start carrying around a bottle of hand sanitizer because while these kitties sure are friendly...but I imagine not always the cleanest.

We had such a wonderful visit with Andrew's colleague Nandini and her family! Their oldest son took Benjamin to a game store yesterday (where they played Carcassone) and then came home with us after the library and just hung out for a bit. It's been fun for Benjamin to dive right in to social life here!

Andrew left early to take the metro to the airport to pick up Miriam, but here are the rest of us exiting the library (picture by Nandini):

Between me, Benjamin, and Nandini's son G., (who has lived in Qatar a while longer than we have, so was tasked with showing us the ropes), we managed to make it back to our hotel without Andrew (my trusty navigator these past 20 years...because my sense of direction is fairly nonexistent). The boys hung out while I prepped dinner.

Then just as Benjamin was taking G. down to the lobby to meet G's dad to go home, Andrew and Miriam walked in the front door!

We were so happy to see her after not seeing her for so long—it's been almost a month!

She flew out to Utah by herself on July 17, attended the Provo Pipe Organ Encounter (from July 20–25), then took a week off (and auditioned for BYU's organ performance program), then attended the BYU Organ Workshop (from August 3–7), and hung out for a few days before flying by herself from the Salt Lake City airport to Seattle and then from Seattle all the way to Doha!

That takes a lot of independence and bravery!

We did book a "meet & greet" service for her, so she was met at the airplane door with a sign and then escorted through all the border and customs area. That way she didn't have to figure out where to go and how to get through customs (because that can be confusing). Perhaps next time she flies alone we'll let her figure stuff out, but this time we thought that as an unaccompanied minor (kind of, I guess that particular distinction ends at age 15...and Miriam is 16) we could help her out a little bit.

Everyone who interacted with her in any sort of official capacity was shocked that she was flying halfway around the world by herself, but she handled the whole trip just fine!

My mom (and my sister Josie, as well as Rachel) also deserve/s a special mention for hosting Miriam so wonderfully while she was out in Utah. They shuttled her around to where she needed to be, they fed her, they gave her a place to sleep...and I hope had a good time visiting with her a little bit! I know Josie took the girls to a couple of shows (both live shows and movies) and I know that a lot of ice cream and concerts happened.

We couldn't have made the summer work without their help, and it will surely be a memorable summer for Miriam!

Pool days

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:32:45 +0000

We went for our first swim at the pool on Sunday. Here's the first picture I took...before I realized that I needed to wipe off the camera lens after going outside (in addition to wiping off my glasses):

And here is another picture post-wipe:

The pool was surprisingly chilly. They definitely pump cold water into the pool on a regular basis (we know this because all the jets shoot out cold water). Here are the kids sitting under cold water spouts in the wading pool:

When we were doing our Arabic word search in the mall yesterday we went into Max, which was a store I liked to peruse when we lived in Jordan. I guess I could have gone when we were in Cairo but I had two little kids and just...never really did. But apparently there's a Max store in the Maadi Grand Mall. The one time I remember going clothes shopping (with the Schillings) we went all the way to a mall in Citystars, which is just...so far...from Maadi. And I don't like clothes shopping that much.

Anyway, I like Max. So we went in and looked around and Phoebe was dancing around the little girls' section, exclaiming, "This dress would fit me! And this dress would fit me! And this dress would fit me! Everything would fit me! And they're all so cute!"

I kept telling her, "Not today," which is secretly what I say when the answer is flat out "no" but I don't want to have to deal with the meltdown that a flat out "no" might cause.

"Tomorrow then?"

"We'll see."

"Oh, but look at this swim suit!" Zoë said.

"Actually..." I said.

A new swim suit for Phoebe has been on my list! I've been stuffing her into 2T swim suits all summer and after multiple seasons of use she was in need of an upgrade. Unfortunately, the cute one that Zoë spotted wasn't available in Phoebe's size, but we did find another cute one that we did get for Phoebe.

It was much easier to fit over her head!

We arrived at the pool in the early afternoon and the lifeguard immediately offered the kids (free) popsicles and popcorn. Phoebe got a mango popsicle and Zoë and Alexander got lemon-mint (Benjamin didn't want anything).

Lemon-mint is a very common flavour here and I love it.

I first had lemonade with mint in Egypt (at a Relief Society brunch at the Tueller's embassy residence)...and I loved it. But here it isn't just lemonade with mint, it's lemon-mint. Really quite minty. Still very tangy. And it's really good.

Anyway, once our popsicles were either in our bellies or melted all over the deck, depending on how capable we were at eating popsicles, we hopped in the pool and enjoyed some swimming.

Phoebe randomly decided that she knows how to do backstroke now. I took a little video of it, but there's music playing in the background and YouTube tends to get upset with me when there's music in the background of my videos...so I took screen shots!

Here she is pushing off the wall:

And here she is kicking her legs and pulling with her arms:

She made it nearly the whole width of the pool (the pool is quite large—I don't know how wide it is, but it's 35 meters long and...not particularly narrow)!

"Well, I can do backstroke now!" she announced when she had finished.

Absolutely wild that she nearly drowned trying to swim backstroke at the end of the swim team season. I guess all the work she did trying to learn it was just percolating in her mind the last few weeks and something just clicked.

"How did you figure out how to do the backstroke?" Andrew asked her just before dinner.

"I just...dreamed about it," she said. "And then I did it. After dinner can I draw it?"

"Dream it. Do it. Draw it," I said. "Very motivational."

To be fair, drawing was also on her mind because I had the kids do a drawing lesson after we got back from the pool and before dinner. Phoebe chose to eat a cucumber instead (these tiny cucumbers are one of my favourite snacks) so she was hankering for some drawing time.

Does everyone see those strange wavy lines on my walls? Or is it just me?

The wallpaper has a bunch of tiny stripes on it and...I don't think it photographs well.

Anyway, back to the pool!

Here are the kids having running races in the wading pool. Running on the deck is dangerous, but running through knee-deep water made the kids move in slow-motion...so it was pretty safe.

In the background you can see the rather iconic Tornado Tower:

Here's Alexander drip-drying in a chair on deck:

Here's a bird's nest that we spotted above the wading pool. I believe it's a laughing dove.

You can kind of see its...comrade...sitting in these branches.

We also saw a myna bird (several, actually) walking around with their beaks hanging open to help them cool off:

A nighttime walk

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 08:36:40 +0000

On Saturday (our first day in Qatar) we went to the food court (at the mall! in our basement!) to find some dinner. We also found a yellow submarine playground, which Phoebe rather enjoyed.

On Sunday we made spaghetti for dinner in our very own hotel room/apartment and then in a fit of...insanity (?)...took the kids out for an evening stroll to enjoy the, uh, cooler (?) evening air by the corniche.

Things are very hot during the day. My glasses immediately fog up whenever I step outside—day or night.

(this picture is from Saturday morning)

But things really do cool down at night...a bit.

On this particular evening, around 9:00 PM it was around 98°F (36°C) with a feels-like temperature of 100°F (37°C) and we walked down to the corniche, as I mentioned. It was a sweaty, sweaty walk.

The traffic here really isn't bad at all, and they even have controlled crosswalks at some intersections where you can truly believe you have the right of way as a pedestrian (very different from our experience in Cairo). The crosswalk signs show a man in a thobe:

Something that is different for our children is that when the crosswalk is not controlled, it is the responsibility of the pedestrian to (1) make sure the way is clear and (2) get out of the way as quickly as possible because cars are unlikely to slow down...much. You really have to commit to crossing—no dilly-dallying allowed!

Zoë once hesitated on a crosswalk because she had followed Andrew across (he had said to go, so she was right to follow), but then I decided that Phoebe-the-slowpoke and I wouldn't make it before the next car and Zoë found herself torn between waiting for me and following her father.

But that is not a luxury one has on the crosswalk!

"Zo, go!" I barked.

She hurriedly finished crossing and all was well (but she was a little bit sulky after that).

Here are a few of the kids standing in front of the hand statue:

There is a matching statue in Rwanda. According to the afore-linked-to article (and this article, both crediting the sculptor Ahmed Albahrani), the hand "represents transparency and the vision of the Emir of Qatar towards fighting corruption and each part of the steel masterpiece was engineered in a way to represent every country of the world."

The driver who took us fro the airport to our hotel told us that posture of the hand is modeled off of the emir's own wave (I don't know for certain whether that is true).

Apparently, though, there is also a hand statue in Vienna at the UN (according to this and this), though I can't seem to find an actual photo of the sculpture in Vienna. But wouldn't it be cool to have Patrick find it and take a picture with it?

(I thinks so.)

Getting to the corniche was a little tricky. We know there is a walking path along the corniche somewhere, but we didn't find said path. Still, we found a little area in a park that opened up to the water. The kids were delighted to see that the lawn was full of friendly stray cats (we probably saw about 10 cats, all of whom were happy to get a good little scritch).

We are loving our view of the city. The sky is perpetually hazy—it's humid, it's sandy, it's full of emissions—and there's so much light pollution that I'm not sure we'd be able to see the stars even if the sky was clear. But Phoebe was dazzled by the skyline. On our way to the hotel from the airport she said, "Wow! The stars in Doha are so many different colours!"

She wasn't looking at stars through the car window, but a twinkling display on some building or other. There are many twinkling displays to see. And it's very fun to look out our window at the buildings—we are so high up that we look right out at the aviation obstruction lighting on our surrounding buildings, constantly flashing red.

On our walk we also found this big...blue...thing:

It's an inflatable statue. And it is furry. And I had no idea why it's there, sitting on the outside of the mall by our hotel. But the kids found it delightful...

...especially Phoebe! Here she is trying to give it a hug while exclaiming, "It's too big to hug! It's too big to hug!"

Yesterday we returned to the mall (for our Arabic word search) and found the same character on a smaller scale.

Come to find out, they are part of Qatar's Hala Summer tourism campaign (see here and here and here), hala meaning 'welcome' or 'hello' (a common abbreviation of ahlan wa sahlan in the Gulf).

There's also this pink and yellow character:

Back to our late night stroll, Phoebe was also ecstatic to point out all the dates in the trees (they're bagged to protect them from bugs and birds and things like that):

We returned to our hotel room around 10:00 pm absolutely drenched with sweat, so we didn't get to bed until quite late since everyone needed to shower off.

Here are a couple more pictures of Alexander and Phoebe playing on the yellow submarine playground in the mall while we were doing our Arabic word search yesterday:

Hopefully we'll be able to locate some other public air-conditioned spaces for the kids to play before the they grow tired of the submarine.

A special treat

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:47:33 +0000

I think this makes the third post in a row that includes ice cream.

Phoebe had ice cream on the plane.

We had ice cream at IKEA yesterday (which Phoebe threw up).

And now I'm going to write about ice cream again. Moving is wonderful. But also stressful. And it turns out that a little bit of ice cream really can help soothe raw emotions (particularly with preschoolers involved, but I am pretty sure that drowning sorrows in ice cream is a rather common trope).

*****

Today was our first somewhat official day of school.

True, we just got here and are still getting over jet lag.

True, we're in temporary housing so will have to move again in a couple of months.

True, I feel like just being here is a pretty big learning experience.

But it's been a long and rather hectic summer and we really needed to build some structure into our days.

So I woke the kids up bright and early. We did science together, and then we did math, and then our school day dissolved into "actually let's get the living room livable" for a little while so we unpacked and organized quite a few things. And then we had lunch and went to the mall to play "The Alphabet Game" (we allow letters to fall anywhere in the word—how about you?)...but in Arabic.

We went to a little playground where Phoebe could run around while the rest of us searched for words and wrote them down in our notebooks.

That definitely counts as school, right?

*****

We had frozen pizzas for dinner (that we figured out how to work the oven to heat up—go our team!), along with a salad (that hasn't killed us yet...unlike the lettuce in the states thanks to that cyclospora outbreak...and which we figure is pretty safe because we bought it at Carrefour).

And then we were talking about what else we were going to do. Like, what was going to be our Qatar Adventure of the day (as if walking around the mall looking for just the right Arabic words didn't count as an adventure).

“Because it’s the first day of school," Andrew said, sounding far more patriarchal than he meant to. "Perhaps—as a treat—we can go downstairs.”

Here he paused for what seemed like an extraordinary amount of time.

I started giggling.

"What?" he asked. "What did I say?"

"Perhaps—as a treat—we can...go downstairs?" I repeated. "It sounds like you keep us chained in the attic. Oh, you had such a good school day! You can go downstairs...but just this once!"

"TO GET SOME ICE CREAM!" he finished, laughing at himself because he agreed that he paused for far too long and that what he said did, in fact, say like something from, like, I dunno...Jane Eyre or Silence of the Lambs.

(I'm not actually familiar with Silence of the Lambs, but I am aware of the tropes. I have read Jane Eyre and although it's been awhile I know there's a wife locked up in the attic).

*****

We went downstairs to get some ice cream.

To be fair to Andrew, the kids have enjoyed joking about our "basement" which abuts the City Center mall (with a tunnel connecting them on the second floor, giving us 100% air-conditioned access to an entirely other world). It's really pretty cool.

"We have Carrefour in our basement!"

"We have a food court in our basement!"

"We have multiple food courts in our basement!"

"We have a playground in our basement!"

Phoebe really has her heart set on visiting Fun City, which is also in our basement (it's like an amusement park of sorts, but...I'm not sure how likely we are to say yes to that at this moment in history).

Anyway, I thought we were going to get just regular ice cream from the store, but then Andrew spotted a gelato place and suggested we splurge.

It was, after all, our one day out of the attic.

Kidding, kidding.

(The gelato was delicious.)

ATL to IST to DOH

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:23:33 +0000

We sent several pictures of ourselves at the airport to our families, but for some reason couldn't manage to satisfy Oaklyn and Ireland. I sent a picture of the boys and they wanted to know where Zoë was. I sent a picture of me with all the kids and they wanted to know where Andrew was. I sent a picture of Andrew and they wanted to know if he was traveling alone or whether we were still with him. So we tried to get everyone in this selfie:

They were particularly upset about Zoë (anew) because they had recently had a babysitter watch them while Rosie and Austin went out for their anniversary and the last time (which was also the first time) they had this babysitter is when Zoë had been staying with them. They wanted to know why she couldn't come help babysit them again and Rosie reminded them that Zoë was moving far away to another country, which was...the truth...but also possibly the wrongest thing to tell them in that moment because it resulted in a bit of a crying, screaming meltdown from Ireland as she mourned (anew) Zoë's departure.

Just in time for the babysitter. Spectacular.

Anyway, we managed to get everyone in a photo for Oaklyn and Ireland to prove we were all accounted for.

Except for Miriam, who is coming later. And Rachel, who isn't coming at all.

At least we will see Miriam in a few days!

*****

Our flight left around 10:00 PM, which Phoebe felt was rather late. By the time we were boarding, she was very excited to get into her fancy little pod so she could go to sleep on the plane. Unfortunately for everyone, they insisted on feeding us dinner before getting our beds ready.

Phoebe was cheerful throughout this flight, and also rather talkative. She wasn't afraid to tell the flight attendants what was what.

And what Phoebe thought was that it was ludicrous to offer her dinner so long after her bedtime. When they came by to take her order she said, "What? I can't have dinner now! It's dark outside! It's past my bedtime!"

"You are a growing child!" the flight attendant gasped with affected concern. "You need to eat something!"

"Well then...ice cream!" Phoebe announced pointing to the offered ice cream from the dessert menu (super fun that she can read well enough to navigate the menu). Realizing she should probably also choose something "healthy," Phoebe quickly added, "And an orange!"

This time she pointed to a picture of an orange from their information section boasting about their local Turkish ingredients. They don't actually have oranges just sitting around on the plane for fancy-schmancy first-class babies to request apparently.

"How about a fruit cup?" the attendant suggested and then said to me, "Is it fine? If your baby just eats dessert? Is it fine?"

"Yes. She already had dinner," I explained. "She'll be fine with just dessert before bed."

And she was!

Here are the rest of their kids in their little pods:

They were all sprinkled throughout the business class cabin. I sat right beside Phoebe, Andrew sat behind Phoebe and Alexander was across the aisle, then Zoë and Benjamin were in window seats on either side of the plane at the very back of our section. I only checked on them a couple of times (to make sure they were settling in well and then to tell them to stop watching movies already and get some shut-eye) but the flight attendants would give me updates when they came by.

It was the best sleep I've ever had on a plane.

Even Phoebe slept soundly once she managed to fall asleep. Morning seemed to come almost too soon! But here's Phoebe with her lovely breakfast and a few of her puppies looking on:

It's once again fruit-heavy, but she also has some bread, some vegetables, a chia pudding, and chicken breast. And then a second course of pancakes. So it was substantial!

She enjoyed the colouring app on the plane screens:

Our layover in Türkiye was so long (4 hours) that we didn't have an assigned gate when we arrived (but unfortunately was not so long that we were able to leave the airport to explore), so we ended up wandering around while we tried to decide where we should go. We didn't know what end of the airport we'd need to be at for our next flight so really weren't sure what to do. And then I saw a playground icon on a sign.

"Let's go there!" I suggested.

It was as good of a destination as anything, so we started following the playground signs, noting restrooms, drinking fountains, and food facilities as we went.

The playground was a very popular destination, as it turns out! There were lots of little children from all over the place gathered there!

Like many other airport playgrounds I've seen (but by no means all airport playgrounds I've seen), this playground was airport themed. They had an air traffic control tower, an airplane, and a little cloud-themed structure.

It took a little convincing to make Alexander believe the playground wasn't just for little kids (all the signs stated the intended ages were between 4 and 12 and he fits quite snuggly within that range), but I think he had fun once he joined us!

Once we had (a) gotten all (or most) of our wiggles out and (b) been assigned a gate we headed to our gate to play on our new favourite virtual playground: Stardew Valley.

Zoë and Alexander had a little spat because Zoë "started" a collective dance before Alexander arrived and then he couldn't join in because he was late...and he was livid. I know nothing about this game, but the whole thing sounded very "ten virgins." I interrupted their actual in-person squabbling and reminded them of airplane etiquette and asked them whether they thought everyone around them wanted to hear their raised voices (and whether this would even matter in 5 years...or 5 minutes). They agreed to tone things down a bit and temper their voices so they could keep playing.

But that did not end their fight!

"Hey!" Andrew tattled and reprimanded a few minutes later. "They're writing mean notes to each other! Guys—stop writing mean notes to each other!"

At that point they agreed to be civil in verbal, written, and every other silent or non-silent communication strategy (including facial expressions) under threat of having their computers packed up early should either parent even catch a whiff of aggression.

Here's Andrew setting Phoebe up for a few minutes of Minecraft time (he's really rocking those pink headphones):

And here's a view of the ceiling, which we thought was interesting:

"Is this the same airport we stopped at when we flew back to the states from Egypt?" I asked Andrew. "Because I do not remember it being this nice!"

We literally had to park ourselves on the floor of some random hallway because there were no available seats to be found. Certainly there was no playground. All the signage had been greatly improved...

"I suppose it has been nearly 20 years since then," I pointed out after we discussed all the changes we'd noticed. Surely the airport had made improvements in that time, so it made sense that it was so different.

In fact, it's a completely different airport and is only 7 years old. We would have flown through Atatürk Airport in 2010.

Whatever the case, all three times I've been in the Istanbul Airport this year I have been impressed by the facility (because my earlier experiences in Istanbul left me...wanting...a little bit).

One small improvement they could make is to renegotiate their policy on the electric buggies they have zipping around. I've seen these as plenty of airports and I understand and appreciate their existence and the need for them and everything. But...in other airports buggies are a little more courteous than they were in Istanbul. Like, if a buggy is behind you in other places they might honk their horn a couple of times to nudge you out of the way but they will definitely slow down and not run you over.

The same cannot be said of the buggies in Istanbul.

They will plow you down (and glare at you while doing so).

So just remember that they have the right of way, not you. Keep your head on a swivel, as it were.

(I warned our party about this beforehand since I'd already experienced those speedy buggies a couple of times in May).

On this trip, I had one close call with Phoebe, making a heroic (and awkward) effort to heft her, the suitcase she was pushing, and my own suitcase out of the way of a far-too-rapidly incoming buggy while also trying to warn my family ahead of me (all also burdened with suitcases) to jump out of they way.

And, boy, was that buggy driver angry.

And then Andrew took her to the restrooms just by gate D4...technically I took her first but the ladies' line was super long so I brought her back to the gate and had Andrew take her to the men's room instead...and there's like this...underground tunnel thing...that is clearly just for the buggies but you have to walk in front of it to get to the restrooms...if that makes sense?

Anyway, they were just coming out of the restroom hallway when Phoebe ripped her hand out of Andrew's and took off running to the rest of us. She tripped into the path of a(n) (once again way-too-rapidly) oncoming buggy, which slowed down moderately while while she was picking herself off the floor (thank goodness). But then...I don't know what the driver was thinking because she's clearly very small? But they sped up again as soon as she had stood up and she wasn't even walking anywhere yet...she was just disoriented because she'd tripped. So Andrew had to yank her out of the way and...it was honestly a little scary to watch.

But other than that the airport was really very nice!

Here are the kids ready to board (and excited because we'd just figured out that we all got to be in business class together instead of having some of us in economy):

Here's Phoebe looking out at our plane before boarding:

And here's Zoë with some planes behind her (from Türkiye and Lebanon):

Zoë and I were seated in row 1 and the boys were just behind us in row 2. Here they are settling (kind of) into their seats:

I didn't realize it when I snapped this picture (because I was just taking it to document what the seats looked like), but they boys were actually in the middle of a fight (emotions were a little (and increasingly) fragile for some of us over the course of this journey). Alexander had wanted the window seat so he could take pictures of clouds and he thought Benjamin had agreed to this. Benjamin agreed that he agreed to switch seats with Alexander in the middle of the flight so that they could equitably share the window...but he thought that he had agreed to having the window seat for the first half of the flight, allowing Alexander to view Doha as we landed. But that wasn't what Alexander wanted.

I told Benjamin that the way he described the deal he wanted Alexander to take sounded so good (he had me convinced about the merits of the deal) that that was the end of the deal he should take, simply giving Alexander what he wanted.

So that's what they ended up doing and things were mostly fine...except that our takeoff was delayed for nearly an hour due to "technical problems" so by the time we took off it was getting dark and Alexander missed getting to take pictures of the clouds. Bummer.

Phoebe was upset that we were just sitting on the plane, but I told her that they were welcome to take as long as they wanted to resolve any technical issue they encountered because I would much rather fly in a sound aircraft than a shoddy one.

But it did delay our dinner...which made her feel a little grumpier than she otherwise might have felt. And I couldn't even get the snacks I packed because since I was in row 1 we didn't have any under seat storage, which meant everything was in the overhead bins. And the seatbelt light was on the whole time. And the flight attendants were...not as...eager to please...as the flight attendants had been on our first flight of the day.

In fact, they were pretty miserable to have around, honestly.

We didn't dare disobey them. And even when we tried to obey them they were a little bit overzealous in their duties, I think.

Like, you know when the school bell rings and students start to gather up their things so they can get to wherever they need to be next (whether class or bus or home or whatever) and then the teacher growls out, "The bell doesn't dismiss you. I do!"

Or something like that.

Surely that's a fairly universal experience (I say...when half my children haven't ever attended school).

Anyway, we didn't dare disobey the seatbelt sign while we were waiting for repairs to be made. And then we took off and the flight was just fine...though the food was scary.

Prawn salad did not go over well with our traveling circus.

Phoebe mostly just ate bread (though in all fairness, I think she tried the prawn, which is more than I can say for anyone else).

They neglected to bring Zoë anything (in business class!) so she couldn't even pick around the prawns (but then again Zoë didn't mention to the flight attendant that she had been missed though you'd think that in business class they'd notice if not during the salad course then at least during the main course...which was a bit better than the salad course, though still very...regional (as the menu extolled)).

Anywho...when we landed in Doha and Phoebe realized that she was going to miss her old home and started crying...wait!

I forgot to tell you that Phoebe thought it would be "cool" to stay up for the whole flight. Her words.

"Wouldn't it be cool if I stayed awake the whole flight?!"

"I actually kind of think it would be cool if you napped for a little while," I said. "Because I'm a little tired."

"Don't worry!' she said. "I'll keep you up!"

And...she did. And it was...fine. She mostly watched movies ('Shrek Forever After' and 'Sing') while I read my book (The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion). She'd poke me whenever I'd accidentally (or purposefully) doze off. It was...so neat.

Every day we've been here she's reminded me that she stayed awake that whole time and asks me to validate how "cool" that was.

So, so cool.

It's not every day you get to stay up all night.

I actually told her this because she was so convinced it was so cool that she thought maybe she could just do it every night. She loves crafting hypotheticals (and then when her older siblings tell her something like that could never happen she responds, "But if it could..." or "But imagine if it could...") and she often does so in...meme-talk? Or like...a script?

"Imagine I stay up all night every night!" she'll say. Then she'll say something like...

Nighttime: Comes.

Me: Stays awake.

But she says the whole thing, like, "Nighttime: comes. Me: Stays awake. Wouldn't that be awesome?"

"I don't think it would really be that great to stay awake every night..."

"But if I did," she said. "That would be cool, right?"

"I don't know that I'd call it cool..."

"But it would be a little bit cool. Oh! What if I did a pattern like, one night: sleep, next night: stay up, next night: sleep, next night: stay up? Maybe something like that!"

"I'm pretty sure you'd get too tired doing that."

"I'm not tired now!"

"Agree to disagree."

Two tremendous meltdowns would convince me that she was, in fact, tired, even if she remained unaware of her tiredness herself. The second was the meltdown she had when we arrived in Doha and had to put everything we were carrying through the x-ray machine again...including her baby doll (Anastasia). There were big tears over that whole situation.

The first was the sudden and terrific crash out about missing her old home (completely valid but surprisingly volatile).

I wanted to pick her up and comfort her right away because, as I said, her rush of emotions was completely valid given the circumstances (old home to new home, a full day of traveling, making the unwise decision to stay awake the entire flight, etc), but I was afraid of the flight attendants so I just tried to comfort her in her seat—they were staring right at us!

We were in row 1, remember. And their jump seats were right there in front of us.

So, like, you'd think they could have acted with, um, compassion...maybe?

Such an attribute was completely absent among this flight crew.

When they made the announcement about remaining in seats until the airplane had come to a complete stop and the seatbelt light had turned off they were...extra stern. Like threatening international court and banning people from airlines should anyone defy them.

Maybe they had also had a long day of work? And I get it because people always unbuckle early.

But seriously, these ladies had been so surly the whole flight that not a soul got up before the seat belt sign turned off. I didn't hear the click-click-clatter that one usually hears after the plane lands as it's taxiing the gate. It was silent.

We were a well-behaved class!

And then we came to a complete stop. Everyone felt the lurch as momentum halted. Everyone heard the engine powering down (szhooom). Everyone watched the seatbelt sign with bated breath.

We were so well-behaved!

The seatbelt sign turned off.

click-click-clatter

I unbuckled my seatbelt, unlatched Phoebe's seatbelt for her (she was absolutely sobbing), and pulled her into my arms. Zoë appeared beside us, anxious not to get off the plane but to be by her mother after sitting next to a perfect stranger the entire flight (as the flight attendants well knew) and not getting any dinner (as they may have innocently overlooked). And the aisle filled with other passengers all within seconds.

We were a well-behaved class...but we people get antsy about disembarking planes, okay?

They're not the most fun way to travel (especially for those crammed in at the back).

"RETURN TO YOUR SEATS!" the surliest flight attendant barked. "NOW! EVERYONE BACK TO YOUR SEATS! SEATBELTS BACK ON! YOU WILL GET UP WHEN I SAY TO GET UP AND NOT BEFORE!"

I was like, "What is even happening??!?"

So I quickly sat down in my seat (with Phoebe in my lap) and pulled Zoë down into Phoebe's seat where she shakily put on the seat belt.

It was...surreal.

But we eventually got off the plane and made it through the airport and security and all the way to our hotel.

And so far it's pretty incredible to be here!

Phoebe's ice cream adventures in IKEA and disorientation in the GCC

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 21:32:17 +0000

I really will write about our flight(s) one of these days, but in all honesty they were pretty standard (albeit business class) flights and we are busy discovering the world around us. Today we took a field trip to IKEA so that we could get some kid-friendly dishes for our apartment...and to get out on the town and have a meal since we haven't quite figured out how to cook at home yet—we're still getting everything set up.

Years ago (approximately 20 now!) my friend Bridget gave me the advice to pack simple just-add-water things in a suitcase like instant oatmeal or ramen just so that I would know there would be something to eat upon arrival. And we did bring a few things (and have a Carrefour in our basement, as the kids like to joke), but while we're getting settled this was a nice treat.

After having lunch we wandered around to look at things and try out couches and beds and pick up a few essentials. Then as we were approaching the check out counter Andrew saw a sign announcing ice cream cones for 1 QAR. That's like 0.27 USD! Phoebe has been dropping hints that she would appreciate an ice cream cone for days now.

Walking around the mall yesterday she pointed at some kids rapturously licking ice cream cones and said, "Look—some parents did get their kids ice cream!" as if to tell us, "See? It can be done!"

We've been telling her no a little too much for her liking.

She is not the only child who feels this way.

But at 1 QAR a cone we decided the answer could be yes today.

We ordered five ice cream cones (I didn't have one because I didn't want to take out my braces again) and the kids sat and ate them at the tables by the exit.

Phoebe was elated did well with her ice cream until the very end when she choked on the bottom of her cone. She started making horrible noises and I said, "Phoebe—what are you doing?"

"Choking," she choked out.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said as she recovered. "No."

"Yeah...no?" I asked.

She was raised in the southern United States so I don't know how fluent she actually is in yeah...no.

"I'm gonna throw up."

"You're going to throw up?!" I asked.

"Yeah," she said, gagging.

"Well, wait, wait, wait!" I said, scooping her up under her armpits (I didn't want to put any pressure on her tummy).

I started towards the restrooms at a brisk walk. The restrooms are near the entrance...on the completely opposite side of the store, mind you, which is a ginormous warehouse...so...it was far.

About midway she gagged a bit and her hands flew up to her mouth.

"Hang on!" I told her and started running full speed toward the restrooms, barged through the door, karate-chopped a door open, and stuck her little face over a pristine-clean toilet (the IKEA here has hammam attendants and those restrooms were spotless) and let her rip.

She lost her ice cream cone and her lunch.

"Phew," she said. "I think I need to just settle down and play Minecraft now."

Unfortunately, we still had to get home and I wasn't really sure whether the vomit was due to her choking (pretty sure that was the case) or whether she had picked up a stomach bug or food poisoning or whatever. With a taxi ride still in front of us, I made her suffer the ignominy of holding a throw up receptacle the whole way home (lucky for us we had just purchased some containers, so I just took the packaging off one and handed it to her). She was not impressed but I was like, "You cannot throw up in a taxi."

I mean, it is humanly possible, but I didn't want to deal with the aftermath of that so I told her that her choice in the matter was to either hold the container near her face or I would hold the container near her face for her, but that container was going to be near her face.

Draconian, I know.

Oppression, thy name is mother.

Anyway, she held the container but didn't need it after all. She did get to play some Minecraft to help her settle this afternoon while I took a nap because...

*****

At around 3:00 this morning Phoebe came into our room. I was surprised to see her because she honestly is a little lost soul in our new (temporary) apartment. She has no idea where anything is.

But here she was in our bedroom!

It took me quite a while to settle her back to sleep and then by the time she had fallen asleep I was too wide awake to fall back asleep myself! So I got up and began organizing our stuff.

Ugh.

When we packed to come out here our stuff was somewhat jumbled together. I used clothes as padding between fragile items, things were placed where they fit...not because it was logical. Heavy things of same items were distributed between suitcases. And so on...

So I just started opening suitcases and categorizing.

This belongs to Miriam (or Benjamin or Alex or Phoebe or us) so it goes over here. This is an electronic-adjacent thing so it goes over here. We aren't going to use this thing until we get a new house, so it goes in this pile. And so on...

When Phoebe woke up I told her we were going to go to the pool and I asked her to find her swimsuit (which was in her bedroom this time).

She wandered away for a few minutes and then wandered back without her swimsuit.

"Phoebe," I said. 'What's going on? Where's your swimsuit?"

"Oh, I don't know where my room is!" she sang out, carefree.

"You don't know where your room is?" I repeated. "Then how did you get to my room in the middle of the night?"

Simple.

"I woke up Alexei and made him walk me down the hallway."

Makes sense.

Anyway, we got home from IKEA around 3:00 and I had been up for about 12 solid hours at that point, with very few other hours of sleep to really claim in the preceding days. Phoebe thought it would be "so cool" to stay awake the entire flight from Turkey to Doha...and it was. so. cool...just neat-o...so glad I could participate in her venture.

Anyway, I was glad for some rest this afternoon...

Now to get some rest this evening so we can start on some schoolwork tomorrow.

These kids need some structure in their lives (see draconian, oppression, etc. above).

A truncated account of our journey across the planet

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 20:42:16 +0000

We left for the airport shortly after 3:00 on Thursday afternoon, with all of our stuff loaded into our neighbour's suburban and all of our people loaded into our minivan. Our neighbour's son purchased our minivan, so it made good sense (and was so helpful) to have them drive us to the airport and take possession of our vehicle there.

6 people. 18 checked bags. 6 carry-on bags. 6 backpacks.

We were a little early for check-in, but it made better sense to stand around the airport and wait than to be waiting in traffic. If we had waited any later to leave our house that would have been the alternative, rush hour being what it is. Being able to watch planes take off and land and everything in between, as well as having access to restrooms and drinking fountains was much better than being stuck in the car.

We did have to take turns standing by the luggage, but we had enough people to switch off on this task that it didn't feel too onerous for anyone.

We were first in line to check in, which served us well only in that we didn't have to move our bags up as the line progressed...because we were already at the front. Unfortunately, while I meticulously packed and weighed and repacked and reweighed all of our checked bags I was less careful about our carry-on luggage and they have a strict weight limit on those apparently. So I spent a good long while readjusting everything throughout our carry-on so that each suitcase weighed no more than 11 kg. This was accomplished by having everyone don the sweaters we'd packed, stuffing a few things in underweight checked bags, and redistributing heavy and light items more equitably in our suitcases.

In the end I got all 6 checked bags to weigh 11 kg precisely (according to their scales) and they allowed us to check in.

By that time they'd checked in everyone who had been standing in line behind us, which was good because it took about an hour to check all of our bags! I suppose that's only ~2 minutes per suitcase, but still...it was a rather frantic process for everyone, I think.

But the staff were so nice about it! And so patient!

I had neglected to sign the boys' passports, so they patiently passed me a pen and had me sign them at the counter (I had signed the girls' passports before our Canada trip and then just...forgot to sign the boys').

They were furious that our travel agency had put our family across two separate reservations (not furious at us, but furious for us).

"Why did they do that?!" the lady asked me.

"I'm not really sure," I said. "I think it might be because on our second leg my daughter and I are seated in economy..."

"Why did they do that?!" she nearly shrieked. "This must be a mistake."

"We just figured they ran out of room in business so put a couple of us in economy..."

"That makes no sense at all!" she said. "Your ticket says business but you are seated in economy? Why?!"

She spent some time checking our passports and tapping away while still frantically printing out luggage tags and weighing bags. She finally handed us our tickets (we went for paper just because...we have so many kids without devices and they often want each person holding their ticket so eTickets wouldn't work so well...even though you just keep flipping through...it is just so many tickets) and we were on our way.

Only when we were getting ready to board in Turkey did we realize that she had magically re-seated us and now our whole family was together in business. It was quite the nice surprise to find that out (shortly before boarding).

*****

A few hours later...

We touched down in Doha at around 1:30 AM on Saturday morning, having literally flown over Friday in its entirety.

When we left our house I told Phoebe to say, "Goodbye, house!" and she did, quite happily.

When our plane took off I told Phoebe to say, "Goodbye, Georgia!" and she did, quite happily.

When our plane landed in Qatar I told Phoebe to say, "Hello, new home!" and she did, quite happily.

And then she turned to me with big, wet puppy-dog eyes. Her lower lip started quivering and she blurted out, "I just...I just...suddenly feel like I'm going to miss our old home!"

And with that she started sobbing.

After a good little snuggle (once the seatbelt sign was turned off) she was good to go again, excited for the next part of our adventure.

Getting through border patrol was...fairly straight-forward.

Collecting our luggage was an absolute breeze. Our suitcases all came off the conveyor belt together. Andrew, Benjamin, and I pulled them off and wheeled them over to where I had left Zoë with Alexander and Phoebe. Then Zoë left Alexander in charge (?!) and ran off to grab some luggage carts for us (which was good thinking, even if I was alarmed to find her not with the kids when I was coming over with more luggage...and the carts weren't that far away...and everyone was fine).

We loaded up five carts with luggage and had everyone push a big ol' cart, except for Phoebe, who pushed one single carry-on bag.

I didn't get a good picture of her doing this in Doha (because I had to get behind my own cart), but here she is bustling through the airport in Istanbul:

She loved being in charge of a suitcase. Often, though, one of the bigger people in our party would end up pulling along two carry-ons through the airport because it was tough for Alexander and Phoebe to navigate all the escalators and things with a suitcase (and simply needed to be less burdened if we wanted to get anywhere quickly). But they were great helpers when they were helping!

Getting through customs was an adventure, but eventually ~~the sheer chaos of our traveling circus~~ our charm won them over and they decided we weren't the security threat they thought we might be (long story short: one of our bags or a couple of our bags were "tagged" with issues, so someone in our party "beeped" when we went through customs and we were pulled aside for extra searching (but not all of us) and they wanted to know which one of our suitcases had computer cords in it so they could check them and Phoebe was twirling her suitcase in circles and Alexander and I were ushered out because we were clear and maybe Phoebe was supposed to come with us or maybe she wasn't but she stayed with Andrew and I had the passports but Andrew needed his and Zoë and Benjamin weren't sure if they were supposed to be in the extra check area or whether it was just Andrew and one of our luggage tags fell off but we didn't know which bag so we had to check all of them and...anyway...after involving approximately eight customs officers and calling in the boss-guy they decided it would be best for everyone involved if we just went on our way...and that is probably true).

We had three vehicles pick us up at the airport—two cars for people and one big van for our luggage.

The ride to the hotel was as smooth as could be. Our bags were taken upstairs (to the fortieth floor!) for us.

We had the kids in bed by 3:30 and were in bed ourselves before 5:00 (sad to note the sun was already rising on the day). We woke up at 9:00 and got the kids ready to head to brunch at some new friends, who wanted to help us through our jet lag—a home cooked meal, several little playmates, one big dog, a room full of kittens, and good conversation really did help us through the morning.

After returning to the hotel, Andrew and I went and got Qatar numbers for our phones and picked up some lunch-y foods for a midafternoon meal. Then we worked on unpacking a few things.

I eventually took a nap, but it was a restrained nap.

Somehow no one else took a nap!

When I woke up everyone was talking with Grandpa and Darla.

And then we got ready to head out for dinner around 7:00.

The mall is connected to our hotel, so we just went to the food court there. Phoebe scarfed down her food and then ran off to play at the little yellow submarine playground nearby:

And then we went to Carrefour (also in the mall) to pick up some breakfast-y stuff for tomorrow.

Malls are life here. It's too hot to be outside so families hang out in malls.

We picked out a big Jordan Melon (which I guess is simply a cantaloupe, or close to a cantaloupe) and Andrew went to have it weighed (which you must do prior to going to the checkout counter or you will be chided by the cashier) and while we were waiting for him to get through the line, Phoebe asked if she could have some apples.

They felt rather expensive when I looked at the price, but then I divided the price by three and it felt a bit better, though still rather expensive, but then I remembered that it was per kilo rather than per pound so I divided the price in half and...it's about the same as we pay in the states for apples, so I told her we could go ahead and get some (I definitely said no to strawberries because no amount of mathing was going to make that price feel anything other than astronomical).

I had hoped we could bag some up before Andrew got through the line at the weighing counter but we were too slow. So instead we sent Zoë up to have the apples weighed. She was in line behind a woman with a lot of produce to weigh, but the man behind the counter interrupted his weighing of that lady's produce, grabbed Zoë's bag to weigh and printed out a sticker for her, and then started up with the former lady's produce again. It was very kind of him to let Zoë slip through like that.

Here she is, having braved the produce weighing counter:

We had wanted to use the pool before bedtime, so quickly changed into our swim suits and hit the deck shortly before 9:00 (somehow the kids were all still awake and thriving) but, alas, the pool closed at 8:00 (I had it in my head that it was 10:00...but that's the spa, not the pool). We will try again in the morning.

Instead we got into our jammies and called Rachel and Miriam.

Phoebe went to bed after a short visit (and fell asleep so fast!) while the rest of us went out into the living room to visit longer.

We still can hardly believe we're here but I'm sure it will feel realer after we get a good night's rest!

(posted at 11:40 pm; our computers are having as hard a time as we are believing that we are here and not in Georgia and my computer is thus currently insisting that it is only 4:40 pm)

Doha Departure Day

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:04:51 +0000

The day began with doughnuts.

And then we made the kids clean the bathrooms and throw out everything we hadn't yet thrown out and gather up 100% of everything else that was left in the house.

We also moved our bed into the garage for 11:00 pick up and put out a few things for the Buy Nothing Group (folding table, chairs, pots and pans).

Altogether we have 24 suitcases: 18 checked bags. 6 carry-ons. Plus a backpack for everyone.

The checked bags total 960 lb (approximately 53 lb each). I'm tired just thinking about getting them to the check out counter (my sister Kelli suggested we try curbside check-in, which...probably would have been wonderful...but isn't typically available for international carriers, so too bad for us).

If our pioneer ancestors could load up a handcart (with several hundred pounds, sometimes up to 500 lb) or a covered wagon (typically carrying ~2500 lb) and make their way across the plains, surely we can make it through the airport with a mere ~1000 lb in high-tech wheeled suitcases.

We're ready for this!

(I guess.)

Wish us luck!

Doha Eve: The Chattahoochee

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 03:01:48 +0000

When we first moved here, I was quite excited about living so close to the river and we really did enjoy going to Jones Bridge Park and splashing around and walking the trails. But then COVID happened and the park was shut down and then tore up "Paradise" (a big bush the kids used as a fort) and then they closed the whole creek area for "conservation" (and turned a natural creek into what frankly appears to be a manmade disaster) and then they closed the bridge that makes the park be so close to us (quadrupling the time it takes to get there). But we decided we should go today and it was beautiful...but we were a little annoyed to see that the sewer project from last summer (which also closed a large area of the park again) meant that they also shut down half the trail. So the entire hiking trail is now about 200 feet long.

Perhaps one day the park will be better again, but it has been a bit of a disappointment every time we've gone these last few years.

That said, the river really was beautiful:

The kids all noted how cold the river is (and they are not wrong).

Sitting by the river made me wish that we had been able to visit more often (but, again, with all the closures for construction and whatnot it wasn't really possible).

This lone female mallard swam up to where Phoebe was wading and gave her a disgruntled little "QUACK!"

Never has a child ever exited a river with such intensity. She screamed and ran up the stairs to Andrew and me, exclaiming, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!"

Here she is nervously (and a little sheepishly) laughing while recounting the scenario:

The only child to slip and fall in the river was Phoebe (everyone else managed to stay mostly dry, which is a small miracle). After she plunged in, I asked her how the water was.

"Goo..." she started to say and then ended with, "...old."

We figure she was merging the words "good" and "cold."

"Why did I do that?" she lamented.

"You slipped," I said.

"That was dumb," she said. "Now I'm wet and cold."

Well...yeah. You are. But it wasn't really dumb. It was just an accident.

We tried to see if we could recreate this picture of the children by the "annoying noises prohibited" sign (circa 2020), but that sign has disappeared with all the updates to the park.

We settled for taking a few pictures with the playground behind us (observant eyes will notice that 2026 Alexander is wearing the same shorts as 2020 Benjamin and 2026 Phoebe is wearing the same pants as 2020 Zoë...this was completely by happenstance, but I kind of love that it happened):

The gathering, grumbling storm clouds once again informed us it was time to head home...

But not before we held one last oak worm:

Bye, Chatt!

Alhamdulillah

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:10:28 +0000

We depart for the airport in approximately 29 hours.

There was a...delay...in getting Andrew's work visa so up until this very moment, our instructions were to simply move our entire family and all our earthly belongings to the other side of the planet and...ask for a tourist visa upon arrival.

Which...felt...a little bit like walking into an abyss.

Like, "Hello there! We'd like one them thar tourist visas..."

I just...need...a little bit more...stability...than that...

But I'm a woman of faith, so...whatever...we were ready to just go.

Andrew went out to run a few last minute errands this morning and when he came home he presented me a printout of a shiny new work permit—just arrived today.

So...phew!

Pictures from the waterslide party

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:57:29 +0000

I realized I never posted any other pictures from our neighbourhood party on July 18. It was such a wonderful day! Our neighbour Lynne rented a blow up waterslide (and at the behest of her daughters made sure to get a double one so the kids could race).

The kids got on that thing as soon as humanly possible and continued playing as long as they could. We did call them away a few times to have some lunch. They had made all sorts of things—BBQ chicken, chips and salsa, fruit trays, and a platter of cupcakes that spelled out "WE WILL MISS YOU HEISSES!"

I wouldn't say the kids were reluctant to eat, but they were certainly reluctant to leave the waterslide.

The party started pretty small, with just our immediate little cul-de-sac family—four of my kids (Miriam was already in Utah, unfortunately), two of Lynne's, and one each from Shell and Janelle—but soon it blossomed into quite the affair as more neighbours trickled in. It was a good and long and hot day—and will probably be a core memory for these kids for a long time. Even the grown ups eventually joined in!

I guess I'm rather beyond words at the moment, feeling rather distraught about leaving this wonderful corner of paradise we've carved out for ourselves. But...adventure calls!

A note to my future self: If at any point you want a picture of all the kids together, we did take one! I just didn't put it here because I was trying to keep little faces off teh interwebs. So just look in your files under July 18.

The night before school starts

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 02:43:36 +0000

We enforce curfew for the first time all summer,

say no to kick-the-can, and drag the children

inside for baths at 8:30. They don't want to

say goodbye.

It's the night

before the night

before we move halfway

around the world. The children organize

a hugging ceremony. They huddle up,

strategize ways not to

say goodbye.

Five more minutes, we say—

then proceed to talk for ten

while mosquitos feast and the

children's feet collect more magic

cul-de-sac dust.

Even I don't know how to

say goodbye

so I end up ugly crying with my mom

friends under the streetlight

while we imagine how to raise our children

without each other.

*****

Anyway, here's a picture of the hugging ceremony huddle:

The kids requested that 'Nobody Knows' be played while they went through their ceremony (in about the same place they held their make-believe wedding ceremony a few years earlier (there are pictures of this somewhere!). They recently watched Pete's Dragon at a sleepover together (that song is in the movie). Somehow the kids didn't cry during their hugging ceremony.

But I sure did!

(And Shell did, too).

We took a lot of pictures of the kids (but now I regret not getting a picture of me with my mom friends—maybe there's still time for that).

Shell put up her hammock to recreate this picture from years ago. She said six years ago, but I think it was probably only four or five years ago (because I see our retaining wall, which was built when Phoebe was a newborn). Look how little those kids are!

And look at them now!

And here they are with the two little sisters who weren't quite around when the first picture was taken, but who are five and four now:

Later Lynne came out with Luna. We tried to get a few better pictures of Benjamin with Luna, which was a bit easier since it was a little lighter outside than when we saw her yesterday. But still she couldn't contain herself and just wanted to lick his face:

Phoebe had a hard time saying goodbye to Luna as well:

41 hours until we peel out of this cul-de-sac for good.

I know we'll keep in touch with our wonderful neighbours.

And I hope/know I'll make new mom friends and build a new little safety net for my kids, where the kids all stream from house to house seemingly unaware of borders because they know they all belong in every house, that every yard is their yard, every pet is their pet, every celebration is their celebration.

Saying goodbye to this little cul-de-sac is perhaps the hardest thing of this whole process.

(I have cried fifty times while writing this post.)

Doha Adam

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 21:30:58 +0000

It's the day before the day before we leave.

The kids had a water fight at John's house this morning and then we went to the pool for the very last time—so we have time to wash, dry and pack everything we got wet today.

We were hoping to run into friends at the pool, but we had it mostly to ourselves (there were some older swim team girls there, but they weren't very interested in us, understandably so).

I'm feeling rather overwhelmed at the moment, so it was nice to get to go to the pool...but I did have to explain to Phoebe that I simply wasn't feeling up to playing "The Family Game" with her (a game that has quite a lot of imaginative labour on my part). Instead she decided to play with her mermaids but—horror of horrors!—found that one was missing.

Baby Dora has long been a staple in our bag of pool toys (we picked her up at a Trading Tables event when we lived in Durham) and even though we weren't playing "The Family Game," Phoebe wanted to make sure that Dora (who she often calls Anastasia) was at least settled in her bed (which is a pull buoy). Unfortunately that was missing from our pool bag as well.

We cleaned up a little hastily yesterday, it seems.

So we checked the lost and found and she quickly located the pull buoy and got Dora/Anastasia settled.

Then she decided she wanted to look for her missing mermaid. They had come in a three pack: a teal-tailed mermaid with purple hair, a pink-tailed mermaid with teal hair, and a purple-tailed mermaid with pink hair.

She was missing the last one: the purple-tailed, pink-haired mermaid.

And—wouldn't you know it?!—she found the mermaid in the lost and found box.

Unfortunately...

"That's...not our mermaid," I told Phoebe.

"Yes, it is!" she insisted. "Purple tail, pink hair."

"Okay, yes...but...that's not our purpled-tailed, pink-haired mermaid."

"Yes, it is."

"No...it's not..."

"Yes, it is."

"I really don't think it is."

"It looks exactly the same!"

"It looks very similar...yes...but it's not our mermaid."

You see, she had found a purple-tailed, pink-haired mermaid with a lovely dark complexion while our original set was a trio of pasty-white mermaids.

I told her she could play with it (for now) and asked the kids to look around for a mermaid with a purple tail and pink hair. It had been less than 24 hours since we left the pool so surely the mermaid will still be around (reader, it was not). Getting the kids to actually help look for it was quite the task because they all pointed out that Phoebe was holding a mermaid that matched the description of the missing mermaid in question.

"Except that that's not our mermaid!" I insisted. "Can you please just trust me...or at least placate me...and help look around for another mermaid that looks just like this one but, you know, is white?"

I didn't even know these mermaids came in different skin tones!

I'm not mad about it (I think it's great, actually), but I wanted to find our original mermaid out of principle. Alas, she is forever gone, I fear. But Phoebe had fun playing with all the mermaids at the pool, anyway.

Anyway...here we are with a big thunderstorm gathering behind us.

We left when we heard the first boom of thunder...and then it simply...never actually stormed. But that was fine because we had been at the pool for a few hours and it was probably time for us go go home to get a few things accomplished. We are quickly running out of time here!

Rehoming the pets

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:33:26 +0000

I must have forgotten to write about Waffles.

We rehomed her back in April, thinking it would be better for her stability and mental health to avoid the stress of packing up a home. That way she would have one big adjustment to make rather than a million little adjustments to make as we took away favourite hiding place after favourite hiding place...and so forth.

The woman who gave us Waffles helped us find a new family for her and from what I hear she's quite happy there (with fewer little people about (she really didn't like children all that much, as it turns out)).

Here are a few pictures of the kids saying goodbye to her before she made her journey to her new home:

Clearly the kids loved her, in spite of her lack of interest in them. She was not typically a cat to cuddle, though Phoebe was never dissuaded from trying (and had the scratch marks to prove it).

Miriam was in Utah when we gave our kitty away and...I honestly don't know where Zoë was while the rest of the children were fawning over here, but here's Zoë giving her a little goodbye pat:

So, yes! Waffles is gone and we mostly feel adjusted to life without her.

Gary is gone as well! He was rehomed right around the same time, going to a friend from swim team. I think that has worked out as well. Here's Benjamin saying goodbye:

And here's photographic evidence that those glass jars had been sitting on my dining room floor from April to August before we finally (1) made a xylophone and (2) took them to the glass recycling (and that was after sitting in the basement for years). So is it any wonder we had "DO THINGS" signs up around our house? Sometimes I feel like my children don't do anything unless I'm standing there (metaphorically) holding a whip.

Lifelong teasing

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:49:10 +0000

Yesterday I was doing Phoebe's hair and asking her silly questions to help her keep still.

"Who is the cutest Phoebe in the world?" I asked.

"Me!" she said proudly with a giggle.

"Who is the sweetest Phoebe in the world?"

"Me!"

"Who is the smartest Phoebe in the world?"

"Me!"

"Who is the goofiest Phoebe in the world?"

"You!"

"What—me?!" I objected. "But my name's not even Phoebe!"

"It is," Phoebe insisted.

"It is not!" I said.

"It is," Phoebe explained, "It's just that no one has ever called you that because everyone has been teasing you for your whole entire life."

This is just the kind of joke she'd consider hilarious (she's been confusing Rachel and Miriam since she was about 6 months old...surely in part because she neglects to verify their identity entirely before saying their names, but also because she thinks it's funny—some days she'll switch them up entirely, other days she'll call them Rachel #1 and Rachel #2 or Miriam #1 and Miriam #6000). She's all about a good long-term prank.

A few good lasts: Church, swim friends, PTC bridge

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 04:01:18 +0000

Sunday was our last Sunday in our ward (and our last Sunday at church for a while since our ward in Doha will meet on Fridays). Nothing too far out of the normal happened, except our primary children were each gifted a rather large bag of leftover Easter candy (which they were thrilled about).

Zoë and Benjamin went over to the Fitz's house after church (along with the rest of the ward youth) for a last hurrah with their church friends.

This morning I went to my last orthodontia appointment (here). I have the rest of my aligners in my possession so can literally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Then we went to the pool to play with Zoë's friend Eva (and her siblings) for the last time. Here's Zoë sandwiched between Eva and Norah:

Eva and Norah are triplets (with Lucas). Zoë's not not friends with Norah or Lucas (she's definitely friends with them), but she and Eva were like best friends (and as you can see they are twinning today).

For Family Night we discussed airplane etiquette (this list is a good start if you curious about the types of things we talked about). Our children largely don't recall ever being on a plane so we thought it was good to give them some idea of how they should behave, especially since we won't be able to sit by all of them all of the time (just given where our assigned seats are).

And then we went to the Town Green (sometimes confused with The Forum) to play at the playground there one last time. Phoebe has tried to get up in the PTC playground bridge for as long as she can remember and has chickened out every time. She nearly chickened out today as well, having made it up three of the four levels to get to the bridge...but she eventually did make it to the top. You can kind of see her peeking through the bridge here (in a pink striped sweater):

Here she is (with Alex) hopping around on these stepping-stone balls (that truly are quite fun to hop around on):

This roller slide is always a hit:

Look at all those kids queued up so nicely!

We did take our little neighbour Evelyn with us since she came to see if the kids could play just as we were getting ready to go. I didn't want the kids to lose any time playing with her...but we also wanted to make sure we got to the things on our bucket list...so she got permission to come with us:

She and Zoë have been thick as thieves the past few years. We are really going to miss her!

And, of course, after playing on the playground version of the PTC bridge we had take one more walk over the real PTC bridge as well! It was good we had E along with us so that she could take this picture of our family!

And here are a few of the kids being goofy:

Here's a view of the bridge all on its own:

It was such a controversy when it first was being built (it opened in 2020), but it is one of my children's favourite landmarks. People were really up in arms about the colour for some reason, but I think it looks just fine!

Here are the kids running off into the sunset:

I've never stopped to read the sign about the bridge fully, but I did today and my favourite line was the description of the original inspiration for today's bridge being "dismantled for profit by a group of charlatans" in the 1940s.

Those pilfering rapscallions! Utter scallywags, they were!

A few thoughts here:

One—I truly believe I have encountered more hyperbolic, overly emotive signs in the south than anywhere else in the world. Charlatans...really? Such a juicy word.

Two—I just now learned that scallywag (or scalawag) was a term used derogatorily to refer to white Southerners who were in favour of reconstruction after the Civil War (which meany signs in the south refer to as The War of Northern Aggression...). I had no idea before just now when I decided to look up its very meaning (quite interesting).

A third thing that I thought I'd mention is that the original bridge, of course, went over the river. This bridge obviously goes over the road (we have other bridges that go over the river now). I appreciate being able to cross both things.

When we got home the little kids all gathered to play kick-the-can in the cul-de-sac while Benjamin and I went on a walk. We ran into Luna who was very happy to get to stay hello to Benjamin (her boy). I could hardly get her to stay still for a picture (she was bent on jumping all over Benjamin):

It's possible he'll get to see Luna a time or two before we leave for good, but...I think these two are going to really miss each other!