Heissatopia

Slow down! You're moving too fast...

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 21:24:53 +0000

Happy Last Day of September to all who celebrate!

In our family we apparently celebrate by...moving...because today was the day we moved out of the hotel (more or less) and into our apartment and today was the day that Rachel moved into the MTC (missionary training center).

What did you do to celebrate? (If you didn't move, it doesn't count.)

Andrew, Miriam, and I stayed up far too late packing up virtually everything in our hotel room and getting it ready to cart downstairs. Here's a shot Miriam took of our things in the hotel room:

In the morning we alerted the front desk that we were ready to start moving things downstairs. They said they would send up 2 trolleys for us. We reminded them that, uh, we had 27 suitcases between the 7 of us...plus some other acquired goods (like such as a piano and some folding chairs and a dollhouse)...and they were like, "Sure, so...two trolleys."

It took many more than two trolleys. And the porters were—probably fairly—ticked off about it.

But here's the thing: they don't let you just take the trolleys to use on your own. And they don't really just let you wheel your luggage around the hotel (like barbarians). So they insist on moving your luggage for you. They're just mad about it.

And...I get it.

I wasn't exactly thrilled by the whole process myself. The past several months have been, in a word, exhausting. I'm ready for things to settle down a bit.

We have prepared a tip for the porters.

Our ward (church congregation) was a wonderful help! Our Relief Society president arranged for five vehicles to help cart our stuff (4 sisters and 1 brother). We probably could have done it in 3 or 4, but five worked well, especially because we squeezed in all our kiddos at the end for a ride to our apartment. They named our group chat on WhatsApp "Heiss Heist," which was perfect (and rather descriptive of what the day felt like). They all win the award for "Ultimate Human/Genius" in my book!

It took us one hot and sweaty hour to load up all our stuff, drive over to the apartment, unload everything, and get it up the elevator and into the apartment (using only the single trolley in the building and by just stuffing suitcases into the elevator).

It was a mess and it felt overwhelming and I honestly wasn't sure if this amount of stuff was going to be absorbed into the apartment (let alone the shipment we have coming—oy, vey!) but after we got started organizing things it started to feel a lot better. We still have a long way to go (we have no bookshelves and about a million boxes of books arriving by mid-October) but things are starting to fall into place(s).

Good thing I'm, uh, leaving for Austria on Monday??

I'm excited to see Patrick and Hadis but the thought of packing and getting on a plane right now just about makes me cry. But it'll be good. Sometimes doing hard things isn't as hard as thinking about doing hard things, and when you show up to do the thing it isn't really that hard at all—it's just fine. Fun even.

In our family not only do we celebrate September 30 by moving, we celebrate it (and everything) with ✩°｡⋆⸜ 𝓪𝓷𝔁𝓲𝓮𝓽𝔂 ⸝⋆｡°✩

Sounds fun, right?

We're the kind of family that asks each other, "How's your tummy?" whenever there's a big thing coming up because chances are our tummy is not alright.

Rachel was up texting me this morning (night for her) and I told her she'd better get some sleep...and then proceeded to work and work and work for hours on end...and then texted her this evening (morning for her) to ask her how her tummy was feeling (it's a sign of affection).

Her tummy was fine.

But it was less fine later in the evening (for me...day for her).

When we called her (around 9:00 PM our time, noon her time), just before she left for the MTC, she told me that at least two people had inquired about her tummy today.

"Who?" I guessed, "Me...and my mom?"

"Yes!" Rachel said.

We sang "Happy MTC Day to you!" for her, which isn't a real song...it's just one we made up to the tune of "Happy Birthday" because we needed something to do to break the ice when she answered. And then we had to sing it again because we—unjustly—sang it while Phoebe was in the middle of changing into her pyjamas (because that's when Rachel had the audacity to answer our call). She came running down the hall (wearing nothing but underwear, trailing her pyjamas behind her) crying about how we'd left her out.

So we sang "Happy MTC Day to you!" to her again, with Phoebe included this time (still not quite in her jammies).

"Because if you weren't serenaded by a half-naked vocalist on the day you enter the MTC, does it even count?" I asked.

We had a lovely little chat with Rachel, offering her advice like: don't fall, make friends, do things, seek out opportunities, work hard on language classes, eat your vegetables, learn lots, don't ever forget to pray...and so forth.

Then Phoebe called out, "I have one more device for you!" and offered this awkward little nugget: "I really hope there are babies at the MTC so you can move your body in an appropriate way."

We were all a little baffled by this remark and asked Phoebe to expand upon that idea, which she did. After a few minutes we realized that Phoebe had been recalling part of a conversation we had about appropriate stimming—something everybody does. Perhaps you tap your foot, twirl your hair, twist your rings, run your tongue along your teeth...whatever it is, chances are you do something to regulate your body, release little bits of energy, cope with chaos. It's perfectly normal; however, some of our children have been engaging in rather noisy, large, distracting stims recently.

We had this discussion during scripture study the other night (when I just couldn't take it anymore) because Alexander was kicking the leather ottoman in the living room of our hotel with his bare feet, making it squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak...

Gently kicking your feet might be an okay thing to do.

The squeaking noise was getting awfully annoying, though.

Gently kicking your feet might be an okay thing to do...but you don't want kick your legs with such vigor that you shake the whole pew at church...or whatever.

Gently kicking your feet is fine...but how can you do it in a way that doesn't detract from anyone else's experience?

We're all capable of reining in our need to self regulate without causing annoyance or distress for others, right? And by "we all" I mean "in this house" and by "capable" I mean "of working on."

Anyway, during this conversation I had mentioned that I missed having little babies to hold because babies are the best stim—you get to rock them and pat them and in doing so you treat your own little nervous system to that rhythm, but I just can't quite get away with that anymore now that my babies are grown.

So that was the advice that Phoebe was trying to pass along to Rachel.

All too soon it was time for Rachel to leave (and for us to get ready for beddy), so I told her to "Have fun storming the castle!"

She's been joking that the MTC is kind of a like a zoo. My mom lives close to the MTC, so sometimes she and Rachel would go for walks past the MTC so Rachel could look at the animals on the inside before going to live in the zoo herself.

But we realized it is also somewhat like a castle, which made me think about...castles.

There's a metro stop on the green line called The White Palace or القصر الأبيض (Al-Qaṣr al-Abyaḍ) and while I was riding the train last week I looked up القصر because it sounded like "castle" to me and I wondered whether it was truly a cognate.

One person (Naveed Islam) wrote specifically about the root قصر to show how many quasi-related meanings can come from a single root word (similar to the way English...and I'd wager most other languages...works):

Arabic works the same way: words from the same root will have related meanings! But sometimes, this relationship can seem very loose. On the surface, many roots appear to produce totally different meanings:
قصر: (noun) a palace; a building home to someone powerful (qasr)
قصير: (adjective) short, opposite of long (qasir)
The two words are from the same linguistic root. They look and sound almost the same. The only difference is an extra letter in the second word to make to make it an adjective. How is shortness related to a palace?
An explanation is that a palace is where its owner’s safety is confined to, where he or she is bound to stay. The palace marks the boundary and thus the shortness of their safety and freedom, outside of which that safety runs out.
On a spiritual level, these two words also link a palace (a symbol of worldly power) to shortness (and ending). Truly worldly strength lasts a short time before it becomes worthless. Like this, the root قصر (qasr) contains meanings of both shortness and a palace.

When I told Andrew about this he equated it to the word "keep" in English (meaning a(n extra) fortified section of a larger castle). Qasr is also the root word for "confine" and even "to keep under control" (according to Hans Wehr). So all of this makes sense, and Rachel seemed to like the idea of entering a castle—of a place where she'd be kept safe (physically and spiritually). And may it be so!

But, the Online Etymological Dictionary (and we all know how much I respect the OED) attests that castle and قصر are, in fact, related through some (seemingly circuitous) borrowing, ultimately from Latin:

Latin castrum in its plural castra was used for "military encampment, military post" and thus it came into Old English as ceaster and formed the -caster and -chester in place names. Spanish alcazar "castle" is from Arabic al-qasr, from Latin castrum.

So perhaps the etymology is a little less poetic than the first explanation I read (what a disappointment) and thus the fact that it shares a root with "short" is more coincidental than anything. This website notes that words that share a root are often (but not always) related.

Anyway, here's Rachel ready to storm the castle (of the MTC):

Because my mom lives so close to the MTC she got permission to walk Rachel there instead of driving there (her original instructions stated that no walk-ins would be allowed and that all missionaries must arrive in a car, but my mom's got wasta and pulled a few strings to make it so, as it were).

It looks like a lovely day for a walk!

And as Rachel's roommate/friend Hailey noted about Rachel: "“If you are ever worried about Rachel’s well-being, just take her on a walk, she’ll be okay. She’s like a dog! You just have to feed her a bit and then walk around and let her go to bed.”

So this walk was probably good for Rachel—her last day on the outside for seven full weeks!

Here's her last selfie with Auntie Josie and Naanii (they each pulled a suitcase for her, pulling off another great Heiss Heist on the other side of the world):

And at 10:09 PM we got radio silence.

For years we've been telling Rachel, "Get thee to a nunnery!" whenever she's done anything...amiss. And now she's actually done the most equivalent thing she could muster as a Mormon*—she's entered the MTC as a sister missionary.

Tonight when she goes to bed, we will be leaving our hotel for the last time in our morning!

We're sleeping here one more night because we don't have curtains in our new place yet and the sun rises at like 4:00 in the morning, which...we don't really want...so here's a picture of Andrew playing the game of Hearts with Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander before bed:

It was a great way to end what was once again a day of big changes for Heisses across the globe!

I can't believe it's October (perhaps in part because it's still quite hot). أرنب أرنب أرنب The world can stop spinning quite so fast whenever it wants to...I won't complain.**

* Member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But...for the purposes of alliteration...it needed the /m/.
** I would probably find a way to complain.

Shifting and walking scientists

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 22:01:41 +0000

Shifting, as they call it here, is no joke! Moving across the city is certainly easier than trying to plan an international move...but there are still a lot of moving parts.

And I'm one of them!

I have maxed out my metro card three days running (each card is charged for a maximum of three rides per day—anything after that is free...and I have certainly been taking advantage of that this week).

Yesterday Miriam and I carried big IKEA bags full of sheets and duvet inserts from the hotel to the apartment...while also dragging Phoebe along. It was...exhausting.

And then today I packed up a big IKEA bag full of towels to take to the apartment (because we sure wished we'd have thought of bringing towels to the apartment yesterday). The towels were actually far lighter and much fluffier than the sheets and duvet inserts (which were packed rather tightly), so it felt much better to be carrying that through the metro.

But then I also had on my backpack so I could do some work at the apartment (I have a proposal due tomorrow and a review due soon and homework due...all over the place). And the kids each had a backpack on. Only Phoebe didn't have a backpack—she carried her stuffed puppy Titus.

And still I wound up carrying her half the time.

We hung out at the apartment for a while—setting up water, putting sheets on beds, doing homework, and so forth—and then came back to the hotel for dinner before heading off to mutual.

It was a busy mutual night, with Miriam heading one place (to do henna), Benjamin heading to another place for a movie night (Andrew is the YM leader so he met Benjamin there after he got off work), and Alexander and Zoë meeting at another place for their first primary activity day.

Technically Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander were all going to the same compound and Benjamin could have just dropped them off, but I didn't feel comfortable with that their first time (just in case anything went wrong). And Miriam even went to the same metro stop (but then got a ride from a leader to the second location) so could have at least helped them get that far. But I went with them just to make sure everything went smoothly.

But also...it's been an exhausting few days, physically more than anything.

*****

Benjamin has been trying to be more...aware...of my burdens recently. Andrew recently gave him a little talking to about how he's approaching manhood and needs to think of others a little bit more, and he's been trying to man up.

For example, when Miriam and I arrived at the apartment laden with heavy IKEA bags, Benjamin was standing there waiting for us (because it's a teensy bit possible that I had no idea how to get to our apartment last night). He had arrived earlier and Andrew had sent him down to meet us and show us where the apartment was, a job he was very excited about!

"It's this door here!" he said. "Come on!"

And he just bounded away.

Meanwhile, Miriam and I are lugging these ginormous bags (which we'd been carrying for a good half hour already). So I had to call him back and remind him that he—in his refreshed and youthful state—should be offering to take the burden from either an exhausted or more elderly person.

"Well, I don't know whose bag to take..." he answered.

"I don't care which!" I said. "But it's silly to be so far ahead of us waiting impatiently while we lug these bags around when you could slow down, walk with us, maybe carry something."

He ended up taking Miriam's bag, which was fine.

Anyway, he had his big backpack on and was carrying a small bag full of other things and he saw I had the big IKEA bag of towels and he was like, "I...don't know that I can carry that, too!"

So I told him that just because he's expected to step in and help out doesn't mean that he has to carry everything or that I don't have to carry anything ever. It's just that...

"Oh!" he said. "I get it! It's just, like, if you have something heavy and I have nothing then I can offer to help!"

Something like that, yes.

*****

Anyway, we got into the elevator to head to mutual. I still had my backpack on because I wanted to work on my proposal during the activity and I'm sure I looked exhausted (perhaps because that's my default look these days).

Phoebe was clinging to me (and she very often insists on being carried in the metro) so Benjamin told her, "Now, Phoebe. You're going to walk in the metro station..."

"How do you know?" she sassed.

"Because you have two functional legs..." he retorted.

"You're not a walking scientist!" she shot out.

It was...hilarious.

Also...the metro was so incredibly crowded that I ended up carrying Phoebe...again.

The downside to that is that carrying her through the metro is quite the workout.

The upside is that it's quite the workout—everyday is arm day and my biceps are poppin'!

Moving In, Membership Station, and Personal Storytime

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 22:02:24 +0000

We got the keys to our apartment yesterday and to celebrate we went and got gelato. Both Benjamin and Alexander chose the black vanilla flavour (coloured with activated charcoal). It was rather horrifying to watch them eat it, but they said it tasted just fine (and, in fact, I think most of us sampled a little bit from their dishes).

Apparently it only takes a little charcoal to colour the ice cream black, so it shouldn't be dangerous to their bodies (it can block the absorption of some nutrients and medications in large doses). Their lips were very black when they were finished.

It reminded me of the time (toddler) Auntie Josie and her friend Charissa got into the fireplace and played in all the leftover charcoal. Those girls were just covered in soot. I'm pretty sure we were constantly telling them not to eat charcoal. And now here are my boys...eating charcoal.

Tonight, after a very long day of doing so many exhausting moving-in, our neighbourhood celebrated us...with a dazzling display of fireworks!

I actually have no idea why there were fireworks today, but they were a fun surprise! Phoebe was so excited to see fireworks "for my very first time!"

"You've seen firework before," I told her.

"For my very first time in Qatar!" she clarified, and that qualifier makes it true.

I'll bet it would have been even better from the roof of our apartment! Alas, we had already come down to the street to catch an uber to take to the metro to come back to our hotel. We're not quite moved in so we're still sleeping at the hotel and, honestly, I'm a little bit sad about moving so far away from the metro line.

And by "so far" I mean...like a three-minute drive.

There is a free taxi service on the island that will take us anywhere we want to go...on the island...for free. But it won't take us to the metro, unfortunately.

So we've been taking ubers to fill that transportation gap (Andrew called it "The Final Mile Problem").

My sadness fueled some curiosity and I found...the Metro Express! I have seen these little vans around but haven't really investigated them (since we have been living above a metro station). They will pick you up from anywhere within a designated zone and drop you off at the metro station or they will pick you up at the metro station and drop you off wherever within a designated zone.

And our new apartment happens to be in that zone!

Riding the Metro Express costs 2 QAR, per person, per way...unless you then tap into the metro station (or have just tapped out of the metro station). If your tap-ins and tap-outs prove that you're using it to solve the final mile problem then you ride for free (which I think is awesome, and makes me feel so much better about this move).

They have smart ways of calculating these things. The last few days have been very busy metro days for me, so I was a little flummoxed when I tapped in for my fourth ride of the day and saw my card total drop—because there is a 3-fare cap per day (any ride over three rides should be free). But when I tapped back out, my fare went back up...so the ride really was free. The same thing happened on my "journeys after three journeys" today.

I'm sure some incredible background magic happens to track our tap ins and outs to calculate our Metro Express fares.

We're excited to try it!

(There is also a bus that runs around the island that I think has the same fare deal as the Metro Express...but it only comes around every 15 minutes or something...and still leaves many, including us, with a smaller, but no less real, final mile problem.)

Anyway, today. Today was long and full and frustrating and productive.

Andrew went to the apartment early this morning to receive all the various deliveries and services we arranged for today. Internet was installed, windows were measured for curtains, furniture was delivered (from three separate places), etc. It was a frantic day for him.

I stayed at the hotel, worked with the kids on their lessons, did some laundry, and communicated with Andrew about delivery details. There was so much to coordinate. I completely missed sending the kids to their friends' house for art and history! I had even asked if it would be alright this week if they came without me because we were just...swamped...and then I forgot to even send them!

Well, technically I remembered that I needed to send them, I just was an hour late in doing so (but I've fixed my calendar events to reflect the correct arrival hour, so hopefully I won't make that mistake again...but, honestly? I wouldn't rule it out entirely).

And then I had to head out with Phoebe to take some money to a person we bought some furniture from. His family went back to India because they have an autistic child (among other children) and his wife needed more support from her family. So he was downsizing to move from a family-sized apartment to a studio apartment. We bought a bed and a rug from him.

I took Benjamin with me when we went to look at things yesterday, and then I brought Phoebe with me when we went to pay him today. Just before we left, I asked Phoebe to use the potty and she did...and accidentally got some pee on her pants. So she had to change her pants and underwear.

But in the meantime, our "shifters" (movers) had arrived early to pick up the bed from this apartment. So they texted Andrew to say they were there, Andrew texted me to say they were there, and I texted the guy to say that they were there (because only Andrew was in communication with the "shifters" while only I was in communication with "the guy"). So we were texting things back and forth and I wasn't really paying much attention to Phoebe when we headed out the door.

"Is it okay if I wear my tunic in the metro?" she asked.

"Of course," I said, still texting.

It wasn't until we got to the very bottom of the elevator and walked out into the lobby that I realized she had asked that question because...she had neglected to put pants on at all!! She had put on fresh underwear and then just...forgot about the pants part.

So we had to head back up to the 40th floor so she could put on some pants.

Her tunic seems long in this picture, but if she bends over it definitely shows off her bum, so pants are quite necessary with it, in my opinion. Fresh pants in possession (and properly put on) we were off again, only a few minutes later than before.

"The guy" texted to say that he went down to meet "the shifters" and they were now in his apartment disassembling the bed frame. I texted Andrew to say we were all good. I texted "the guy" to tell him that I was on my way with the money. And Andrew texted me to say that he already knew that because "the shifters" had texted him to let him know.

I don't even want to know how many text messages I sent today.

It was...many.

At least this time I knew precisely how to get to the apartment from the metro. Yesterday Benjamin and I took a good twenty minutes to arrive at the apartment, taking the circuitous route Google recommended (Google is often not very good at directions here). In reality it is a three-minute walk.

It just looks...a little sketchy. Like walking across sandy/gravel lots...

Past some...janky trailers...and stuff like that.

But we arrived much less sweaty!

We paid for the furniture, looked at it to make sure it was still what we wanted, and then tried to set off. But first "the guy" had to give Phoebe some cookies—a whole package of cookies. And some water. And some Mirinda. And then we left.

We had just pressed the elevator button when "the guy" opened his door and said, "Wait, wait! Come back! For her...she can come select something for free if she wants a toy!"

"Toys?" Phoebe asked.

"Yes, toys! Come, take!"

So we went back in and he pulled out a bin of toys and showed Phoebe the merits of several. "Take it, take it, take it!" he insisted. "I have too many toys!"

"This is so great!" I said. "All of our toys have been packed away since June!"

"No toys since June!?" he said. "Take it, please. Take this one! And..."

He ran off and brought out a cardboard trunk and started filling it with toys.

"And this colouring book! And these Qatar flags—good for national days! And..."

(This picture was taken after storytime when we sat to have a little snack before getting on the metro—but you can see the size of the trunk I was lugging around!)

In reality, he has much less than we do, I'm sure. He is a service worker. We are...white collar.

However, I have also been in his position of wanting to empty out a living space quickly, and I understood his actions as wanting to clear things out (and I just gave away 90% of what we owned so we really are starting from scratch over here). So we accepted his gifts (which were so very fun to haul through the metro, let me tell you).

Phoebe and I made it to the library for Arabic storytime, but just barely. We sat and read books while we waited for it to start. But...it never did.

Here's Phoebe drawing a fairy (she found a "how to draw fairies and mermaids" book that she thought was so very cool) while we waited:

Eventually—at around 4:35—I went up to the librarian to ask about storytime.

"Yes," she told me. "Storytime ended at 4:30."

"But...I got here before 4:00," I said. "Storytime...didn't happen. How could storytime have ended if it never began?"

"Oh, I walked around the library at 4:00 but didn't see any children who looked like they speak Arabic, so I didn't call for storytime," she explained.

"Oh," I said. "Well, we came for Arabic storytime..."

She explained that it would be in Arabic. I told her that was the reason for coming—to listen to Arabic. I read to Phoebe in Arabic at home but it is laborious. It's good for both of us to hear Arabic being spoken.

This sweet librarian said, "Then I will select a story to read to your daughter!"

And she did! She found a board book that she thought would be at Phoebe's level and read it to her and...that was storytime for the day.

I very much appreciate the generosity of the librarian in doing a personal storytime for Phoebe, truly I do. But after such an exhausting day it was a little bit of a letdown because the book was so simple that even I could have read it to Phoebe...so we may as well have just gone home after paying for the furniture instead of heading all the way to Education City.

At least we figured out how to change lines easier! When we were coming home from Education City yesterday (we went to a homeschool picnic event) a very kind girl—from Bangladesh, but born and raised here, attending uni at Qatar University—struck up a conversation with me and asked where we were going. When I said we were changing to the red line at al Bidda she said, "Oh, come with me to Msheireb! You can just walk right across the platform onto the red line. It's backtracking on the map, but you don't have to rush up and down the escalators to switch trains, and there's higher chance of getting a seat since everyone gets off at Msheireb...."

Sold! We followed this girl to Msheireb and the train switch was just that easy!

Today Phoebe asked me if I remembered the "life hack" the girl had taught me at "membership station."

I did! And we used that little "life hack" twice—on the way to the library and the way back to the hotel to pick up Miriam (and some stuff) and head to the new apartment where Andrew was waiting with the kids...who had gotten dropped off (along with Miriam's organ pedals, which we had shipped to our friends' address since we didn't have a permanent address when we ordered them and didn't know when they would arrive) by their friends' dad.

We had celebratory shawarma for dinner (we still need a few chairs—we wanted to get a bench...one of the main reasons we chose that table...but they were out of stock...thanks to the Straight of Hormuz) while we waited for a few other deliveries (we gave up on the last delivery and got a notification that it was just delivered—at midnight)!

And we set up a few things (though we also paid to have our IKEA delivery people assemble everything they brought so that made set up rather easy for us):

And then we caught an uber to take us to the metro so that we could go home...phew.

I was telling Andrew about how Phoebe kept reading Msheireb as "membership" and she said, "I don't want to change trains at all! I'm so tired from today!"

(She had also taken many metro rides today and changed stations several times).

"Good news," I said. "We don't have to switch trains at all! It's just four metro stops down the red line."

"Okay, good!" she said. "My legs are so tired!"

Mine, too, baby girl! Mine, too!

How bazaar, how bazaar...

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 21:12:46 +0000

We went back for round two of volunteering at the service workers' bazaar this morning. This time our task was to arrange items in the category-sorted bins (last weekend's task) onto tables for people to shop from. Clothes were sorted out by size and gender, our family did a lot of toy and book sorting (which was somewhat difficult for some of our children, who are, by this point in time, feeling a little thirsty for toys themselves—we haven't had "stuff" for months now), and there were also kitchen supplies, linens, office supplies, and so forth.

It was a lot of work to get everything set out but, again, many hands make light work and we were finished before the bazaar began. We only signed up for an hour, but we ended up staying a while longer so we could help "man" the stations while people were shopping for things (rearranging items to keep the tables organized and help people find items).

The service workers were lined up like it was a Black Friday event, waiting for the countdown to when they would be allowed through—and there was an official countdown!—and then they rushed upon the tables with quite a lot of excitement.

It was wonderful to witness, honestly, though I was a little concerned that a little tussle over a suitcase was going to turn ugly (though they seemed to work things out). I was so happy watching the stuffed animals get snatched up, knowing they'll make some children very happy.

It was interesting to be there not to shop.

Trading tables used to be my lifeline—I organized an event every few months when we lived in Durham (that's where we picked up Baby Dora years and years ago...she's with us here in Doha!), and went to BYU's trading table events when we lived in Utah. These events were literally where I did the bulk of our Christmas shopping and clothes shopping and...every kind of shopping...while we were in our penny-pinching years (which seemed to last for quite a few years—shout out to grad school).

Our stake in Georgia organized an annual event like this for the community, and while I wasn't in such desperate need of free shopping when we lived in Georgia, I did like searching for a few new-to-me items while volunteering (to be fair, I also lived for the Buy Nothing Group in Georgia). A good deal is hard to pass up!

Today, however, was a strictly "no shopping" day. I did enjoy getting to watch others shop, though, because I know that there is such a disparity of pay between service workers and professors on campus and I know how much it means to have the freedom to just shop, to look over items and choose what to take. I felt like trading tables gave me quite a bit of "control" in my life and I was so happy to see that same kind of ease creep into people's faces as they shopped. They could be frivolous, they could be indulgent, they could say "why not".

I watched a man rifle through a pile of stuffed animals and pull out a big panda bear and a little panda bear and place them in his bag. His child is going to love those.

Perhaps he gave them to his child immediately upon coming home. Perhaps he hid them away in his closet for a special gift-giving holiday or an upcoming birthday celebration. Who knows? It doesn't even matter because I know what that moment feels like—when you find the perfect gift for your child (who you feel like you can't give very much to) and it's 100% free so you can finally say yes instead of no.

I'm sure we'll be back to volunteer at future bazaars!

Exploding with happiness and medieval dolphins

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 23:00:00 +0000

We went to a birthday party this evening for a little friend of Phoebe's. There was an inflatable water slide that dumped the kids straight into the pool. Zoë knocked herself in the forehead with her knee during a failed cannonball. Phoebe swallowed a bunch of pool water and threw up all over the deck. Alexander broke his watch.

But...

They had an amazing time!

Phoebe was overjoyed to get a birthday bag. She sang about it all the way to the uber (such a savvy kid—we all stared at the elevator, not quite sure what to do, and she just walked right up, punched the G and said, "G for ground! Going down!" so that solved that—to be fair, we had G, M, C, L, A, and B as options, in addition to the numbers. But G was the right call).

"I'm so happy, happy, happy!" she sang as she got into the uber, which made the driver chuckle. "I am exploding with happiness!"

Then she started to sing, "If you had a birthday, shout hooray! We want to sing to you today: Happy birthday to you!"

We tried to tell her that she was missing a line in there, but it was no use. She sang the song like that the entire ride home. Every so often the driver would glance at her in his rearview mirror and smile.

When we got home we recorded her singing that song for her little friend (because her friend's dad had mentioned wanting to gather friends to sing...but I'm not sure that ever happened).

She was, truly, exploding with happiness. But she was also quite worn out.

I had signed the kids up for a illumination tutorial, which was at 8:00 PM. But by 8:00 PM it's been dark for two hours already and her little biological clock is telling her that logically she should be tired. She kept yawning while we were waiting for our lesson to start and...Andrew suggested she might not be able to stay up through the whole class.

"For a little bit of it..." she said. "And then I'll go to bed."

"But I want to go work out," Andrew said. "So if you want me to be in your room while you fall asleep, we need to do that now."

"But I want to do this," Phoebe said.

"How about...you can stay up to do this class with us," I suggested. "But then when you feel too tired and want to go to bed we'll do just a quick bedtime. I'll come tuck you in and sing to you and give you a kiss...but I won't sit with you because I need to be out here with the kids."

"Sure," Phoebe said, swallowing big. "Let's...do that one."

She sat back in her chair, her eyes welling up with tears, her little lip quivering (clearly no longer exploding with happiness).

"It doesn't really seem like you really want that choice," I pointed out.

"I don't," she moaned. "How about...they are recording this class?"

She wiped her eyes and took some deep breaths.

"Yes, the class will be recorded," I assured her. "Benjamin plans to watch it later, too."

(He went to hang out at a friend's house and watch Jurassic Park 3; Miriam went to the library for a philharmonic concert)

"Okay, okay," she sniffed. "Okay. So I will go to bed now and do the class tomorrow."

She wept while she gathered up her doll and blanket.

"This is what you want to do?" Andrew verified.

"Yes!" she wailed.

"This was a hard choice to make," I said.

She tends to feel big emotions—she can be exploding with happiness one moment and then experience gut-wrenching grief the next. There's definitely some in-between moments...but if there's an emotion to be felt, Phoebe will feel it intensely.

I went to help tuck her in and then Andrew sat with her until she fell asleep. And Alexander and Zoë and I went through the tutorial—make a D with a (medieval-style) dolphin in it.

Tomorrow we'll do it again—maybe we'll even explode with happiness while doing so.

Call to prayer quiet

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 22:16:59 +0000

I went to the library by myself this evening for a book talk—entirely by myself. I got to read on the metro (since I wasn't keeping an eye on children), which meant I was only half paying attention to where I was, and was surprised to find my body leaning into the rhythm of the trip. I hardly had to think about where to go—when and how to switch trains—my feet just took me there on autopilot.

I had a lovely chat with a woman from Iran/UK who came in just after me.

And then got to listen to the book talk without having any little people interrupt me for any reason. It felt rather unusual. Our only interruption was the call to prayer, which sounds over the speaker system in the library.

The author was in the middle of answering a question when the call to prayer began. He finished his sentence, then turned off his microphone and held it in his lap. And then interviewer did the same. The audience sat in silence, just listening to the call to prayer.

Outside of the event hall we could hear the thrum of activity in the rest of the library, the buzzing of voices in the cafe area, the footfalls of people walking past the doorway. But inside the event all, it was the picture of tranquility.

I once wrote a poem about how much I love the call to prayer—specifically in Cairo, the land of a thousand minarets—and how, since it wasn't specifically scheduled, the call would come to me helter-skelter, with different muezzins seeming to echo one another. And how I learned to even appreciate the dawn call to prayer, which would crackle through my window (we lived quite near to a mosque with a terrible sound system) and I would be up with baby Miriam and would hear the call to prayer and it felt so comforting to me...to know that I wasn't alone being up at that hour, that all around me in the city people were coming together to pray, and how I learned to take that moment to remember to pray myself...

And it felt very sacred and beautiful to write all this down.

And then my teacher was like, "This smacks of Orientalism" and discouraged me from publishing it (and rather encouraged me to leave off, not even revise, because it was an unredeemable poem).

And...uh...that was crushing...because I typically rather value(d) her advice. And it isn't like I was making up crazy stuff in order to produce and perpetuate stereotypes. The call to prayer is...kind of a thing...

So, uh, I revised the poem anyway. And it did get published. And I think it's probably fine.

I find myself still so taken with the moments the call to prayer makes for me. And here was another beautiful moment where I was surrounded by a roomful of people who were, like me, suspended in time.

I don't know for certain how anyone else used that time, but I know, for me, it was a time to consider God's greatness. It was also a beautiful time to pray.

As happenstance—or divine intervention—would have it, my friend Natalie sent out a text message to the Relief Society group chat, asking us to pray for her niece, who was about to undergo spinal surgery (for about the 35th time in her young life). This text message came through to my phone just before the call to prayer and I glanced at it before the call to prayer sounded. And, I dunno...we're so quick to throw up little "praying hands" emojis, so quick to say "I'll pray for ya!" but...I don't know how often we really get around to sincerely praying about those things.

But I took those quiet moments to pray and it was lovely.

And then the call to prayer ended, the interviewer picked up her microphone, switched it on, and said, “Thank you everyone. Now…we were talking about crafting and world building...” and carried on with the interview.

Benjamin's poem drafts

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:07:55 +0000

At the beginning of August (the 9th or so) Benjamin wrote these poem drafts:

Mirage. An illusion caused by heat.
The humid air condenses on the windows
forming an illusion of rain,
but there is no stead pitter patter of rain on the roof
the steady hum of air through the vents provides a
masquerade of wind in the trees out my window
it's an illusion of home
and it is my home.

Draft two:

The humid air coalesces on the windows
forming an illusion of rain
but there is no familiar pitter-patter of it on the roof.
The steady hum of air conditioners replace the wind
but it's a mirage.
There is no rustle of it in the leaves of the trees.
The sounds are different here
everything is different here
and that's okay.

He's still workshopping these, but today he sat down to write another poem (without any prompting at all—bless!):

there is so much green here
but it's not he looming trees or weeds poking up near the mailbox
it's grass on life support with palm trees interspersed
it's hotter and more humid
but no rain
the dripping air condenses on the windows
it's almost like this place, Qatar,
is trying to comfort me, creating an analog of normalcy
I don't want to say it, but it's working
this place will become my home

Phoebe at the Fun Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 07:59:47 +0000

Phoebe has been dreaming of riding on a ferris wheel (and in general to visit an amusement park) for quite some time and today that dream came true!

There are amusement parks everywhere here, it seems, and we always walk past them without letting the kids play (which is super mean). But when we were at Villagio Mall not too long ago, my friend and I kind of moseyed on past the poster with admission prices and found that they have a deal during the day where kids can pay 50 QAR and ride unlimited rides for four hours. Given the typical prices for individual rides (typically between 12–35 QAR depending on the ride), this seemed like a very good deal.

"Maybe we should do it sometime..." my friend said.

"I think we should!" I agreed.

"How's Tuesday?" she asked.

So Tuesday it was! Phoebe was so excited when I told her we were going. She immediately started planning her outfit—she really wanted to find her shirt that says, "Funnest Little Sister!" or "Best Little Sister!" or something like that (I can't remember what it says, but it's pink with white lettering) because she just thought that would make the best Fun Fair outfit. But that shirt is either (a) on the boat or (b) at goodwill so she couldn't wear it. Instead she chose a shirt with hearts on it because she just loves everyone so much for taking her to the Fun Fair.

I knew she had her heart set on riding a ferris wheel, so I suggested that ride first. We ended up on the dinosaur ride instead, which was also fun (and ended up being proclaimed her favourite) and then went on the ferris wheel.

Benjamin had been allowed to be her "adult companion" on the dinosaur train, but the attendant made me ride the ferris wheel with her (which was fine with me).

With those two rides out of the way we had exhausted our list of rides that both Phoebe and the big kids (Alexander, Zoë, and Benjamin, plus my friend's three kids) could all go on. So I left my friend to wander around with the big kids and took Phoebe around to ride as many little kid rides as she could.

Here she is on the caterpillar ride:

The park was pretty much empty, so the kids could literally just go ride anything they wanted to without really having to wait in line at all. And sometimes instead of getting her out of a ride the attendant would ask her if she wanted to go again before sending her off on another round (since there was no one in line anyway).

Here she is on the carousel:

She was so excited about this white stallion...and then we discovered after the ride started that it's a stationary horse. She was a little sad that her horse wasn't moving up and down like others she saw, but I told her that it was just fine because we could always ride it again later and choose a different horse.

Here she is on the bear drop:

This dragon ride was another favourite of hers (it was one where she kept telling the attendant to take her for another spin). And, as it turns out, it was also a great place to watch the big kids ride the roller coaster (you can see them in this picture):

There was a steering wheel inside each dragon, along with buttons that either made noises or made the dragon light up and Phoebe found all this power most pleasing:

Here she is riding a similar ride, but this time in a boat instead of a dragon:

She had fun bouncing on the trampolines (technically the guy at the desk told the big kids they wouldn't be allowed in the trampoline area, but the attendee let them all in—so that was another "ride" experience Phoebe got to share with the big kids):

Here we are back at the carousel—this time on a horse that moves up and down as the carousel spins:

It was while she was up on this high horse that I noticed she had developed a hole in the seat of her pants! She kept wearing them the rest of our day out (what option did we have? none!) and then didn't change out of them until we went swimming in the evening. When she got changed into her swimsuit I took the pants to investigate the damage and saw that they were size 2T.

2T?! How did those even end up coming with us to Qatar!?

I thought I had done a good, thorough job going through the children's clothes while we were packing (but I guess I missed a few things).

Phoebe was excited to try the "convoy" ride, which was a train of vehicles that the children could drive. She was excited to drive a truck like Auntie K (who is actually driving a big ol' fancy tour bus right now):

She went on the lazy river ride, experienced a 7D movie (which I'm still trying to understand), and did a few other things, I'm sure. She wanted to end her day by riding the dinosaur train one more time. Since the big kids were off doing their own thing (they rode the flume and got soaked), I had to ride the dinosaur train with Phoebe. It's got nothing on the Jurassic Park ride at Universal Studios...but the animatronic dinosaurs were quite thrilling for Phoebe. She found them to be plenty realistic and they made her quite nervous.

She declared it her favourite ride and couldn't stop talking to Daddy about it at bedtime

Here's a "script" she wrote about her time at the Fun Fair when we came came home:

It says, "My favourite ride was the dino ride. It was scary. I don't know about 7D cinema. We weren't sure if there was a way to drive it."

Most of her script makes sense to me except for the last line. I don't see how it could say that at all, but even she couldn't quite remember what she was trying to write (and guessed that's what she was trying to say).

My favourite part of her script is where she wrote "sure" as "shoa."

She shoa did have a fun time at the Fun Fair!

Excerpts—it's what's for dinner!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:30:57 +0000

We had a bit of a reverse school day today, spending the morning at the Gondolia Fun Fair with some friends and then the afternoon at home doing our lessons. It felt like an extravagance to take the kids to an amusement park, but as I was riding around on the carousel with Phoebe, I remembered many other times I'd taken my children on similar (contrived) adventures in the past.

It's just not something we've done in the past...while. I'm not sure quite how long, but it's been years. Living in Georgia, specifically, such outings felt unobtainable (too costly, etc.). So this felt like a luxury (and is surely a luxury), but it's not entirely out of the ordinary...it simply feels like it because we haven't done anything like it in a long while.

The kids had fun—perhaps I'll borrow their ideas for a post later since I was largely a chaperone and not a participant—and then knuckled down to do math and science and writing this afternoon (even staying on task during their science lesson while I ran Miriam to the orthodontist).

It did mean, however, that our school day abutted dinnertime.

I was still in the middle of slogging through a methodology book I had to read for my ethnography class (which I finally finished—alhamdulillah) when the kids asked me what the plan was to fill their bellies before our evening activities (the older kids have mutual, the younger kids want to go to the pool).

"What's for dinner?" they whined.

"Excerpts," I told them absentmindedly.

"Experts?" they asked.

"What?" I said, looking up from my book (where I was reading about how to select and edit passages from long-form fieldnotes into appropriately-lengthed excerpts in a polished ethnography). "Oh—leftovers!"

I suppose leftovers could be considered excerpts of weekly dinners.

It's been a busy day, trying to squeeze in everything we have to do, but I think we've mostly gotten through it!

Drinking bubble solution (and neon green pee)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 21:53:42 +0000

We finally got the purple water at the store!

We were hesitant to buy it because it gives off serious "bubble solution" vibes, but it's just water!

Phoebe started calling it the bubbly water, which was confusing because the kids have also taken a liking to sparkling water, which is also (actually) bubbly. When we pointed this out to her she started saying, "Pass the bubble solution!"

So that's fun (and funny)!

*****

The watermelon that we've been getting is grown in Oman. It's the oblong, seed-filled original and it's so flavourful. The kids aren't impressed with how many seeds there are, but I told them that's the tradeoff for such a good-tasting watermelon.

Seedless watermelon seems to have entirely taken over the United States. Apparently only 16% of watermelon sold in the US has seeds (whereas in 2003 it was around 43%). And seeded watermelon tastes so much better (in my heart, okay...because apparently they taste the same...but I just don't know about that).

100% of the watermelon we've seen here is fully seeded. That doesn't mean they don't have seedless watermelon. It just means...we don't know where to find it (and it's probably expensive).

I taught the kids "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor" and that helped get them excited about the seeds. That and the idea of spitting them out like a machine gun.

Zoë asked how they get the seeds out of the fruit (watermelon, oranges, grapes, you name it—we encounter seeds here a lot more often than we ever did in the states), so we explained that it was mainly through genetic engineering (crossbreeding to create small, infertile seeds). She had been under the impression that they were somehow deseeded in their growing process—cracked open, seeds harvested—and couldn't quite figure out how the fruit became whole again after such an invasive procedure. But, no...the deseeding happens in the genetic code before the fruit even grows.

*****

We made a pistachio cake for Andrew's birthday, straight from a boxed cakemix.

Our kitchen is small, we are not set up for from-scratch baking yet, and life has been chaotic. But we did manage to make him a cake and we were proud of it, even if it wasn't quite as tasty as we imagined it was going to be. It was just a little denser than we thought—perhaps because I hand-mixed it so it wasn't fluffy enough...

It just was, like, a bog-standard cake mix cake.

Since we had been shopping at IKEA on his birthday, we stopped at the little cafe for a sharwarma dinner and as a treat he got everyone a glass of mint lemonade as well, which is very green.

And then we had the green pistachio cake.

And then we were getting ready for bed and...I mean...our nightly "waters" were...alarming.

At least to me.

I broached the topic as delicately as I could.

"Uh...so...I just wanted to raise a concern about my...pee..." I said awkwardly.

"Was it a weird colour?" Andrew asked, way more invested in the conversation than I thought he would be.

"Yeah," I said. "It's like...bright...neon...green."

"MINE TOO!"

We puzzled about it for a minute and he figured it was the lemonade. But that hardly made sense because we've had mint lemonade before and it didn't turn our pee green. Plus, human bodies break down chlorophyll quite easily, so it's unlikely to turn anything green...

"It must be the cake," I hypothesized.

"The cake isn't even that green!" he argued.

In the morning we talked to children, who had all been quietly worrying about their pee colour, both about why they shouldn't be too concerned about their verdant output and also that they can voice such concerns to their parents rather than quietly worrying. And by mid-morning we were just about back to normal.

We went to the library to try to attend English storytime (but were five minutes late and barred from entering because it was past the start time and they don't allow late patrons in...never mind the fact that Arabic storytime is a free for all...we were five minutes late to that today and they hadn't even begun yet...I do not understand why this is) and then just hung out doing schoolwork for a bit before returning home for lunch and afternoon work.

We had leftover sandwiches (from the service project) and leftover cake (from Daddy's birthday) and pretty soon...our pee was back to neon green.

Which is funny because the cake isn't remotely neon green itself—it's pistachio green.

But, here we are...with neon green pee...

We're just about back to normal again, but I don't think we'll be plopping that particular cake mix into our shopping cart any time soon!

Rachel's mission farewell

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:10:25 +0000

Rachel didn't know this (per se), but she was in charge of the FHE lesson on Sunday night (which is when we do FHE now, I guess) because that's when she was scheduled to give her farewell talk!

Phoebe was so excited to see Rachel on the stand. She waved and waved and waved and waved and then said, "Why won't Rachel wave back to me?"

"Because she can't see us," I explained. "We can see her but she can't see us."

"Oh, fine!" Phoebe huffed, throwing herself backwards against the couch to pout.

She's not a long-pouter, though, so she soon recovered and was her cheerful little self again.

Here's a video of Rachel's talk, which...I'm honestly not sure what the rules are about distributing. But since our family is scattered across the globe (and since I didn't take this video), I figure we're in the clear to share here:

It was a good talk, and Rachel was well supported! She had friends from many different stages of life come to support her.

Naturally, she had many family members come: my parents, Auntie Josie, Aunt Linda, Auntie Judy and Uncle Wally...

Our friends the Lewises (from Cairo) surprised us by showing up as well. I knew Rachel had sent an invitation to Sam, who is at UVU post-mission (we went to his homecoming in Georgia just before we moved), but I didn't know Kevan and Sara were going to be in town! Mags came along as well.

Brother Colton from our ward in Georgia was there as well! Apparently he's dating someone in my mom's ward and was just as surprised to see Rachel up on the stand as she was to see him when he came up to say hello after the meeting was over.

She had roommates and classmates and friends and coworkers and...everyone from my mom's ward.

And then, of course, we were watching from Doha, Grandpa and Darla were watching from Abu Dhabi, Uncle Patrick watched from Vienna, Rosie watched from Tennessee, Auntie K watched from Atlanta (where she's currently driving a tour bus)...

Like I said, very well supported!

She's very happy to have the talk behind her and is even happier to be ever closer to entering the actual MTC (mission training center) so she can start her countdown until she leaves for Vietnam!

(Which is like this whole other country)

I don't know about you...but I'm feeling 42! (or, it's Andrew's Birthday!)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 22:16:40 +0000

This morning we headed to GUQ for part one of a service project (part two is next weekend). It was the kind of service project that felt almost like cheating because there were so many people there that (from our perspective) we hardly had to do anything (I'm sure the organizers feel differently). We showed up, sorted a few things, and then before we'd even gotten into a rhythm victory was declared!

The very embodiment of "many hands make light work."

After a light lunch (and some time spent playing in the student lounge), we headed home (technically some of the kids went to our friends' house to play, with plans to meet up later at IKEA). We did some laundry and some homework. I took a little nap. So did Miriam (that poor girl work up at 4:45 am to attend a lecture...and ended up only catching the tail end of it because it actually started at four in the morning, not five. It was recorded so she was able to watch the rest of it this evening, but she was rather frustrated about her miscalculation). And...then we headed out to Festival City (where IKEA is).

We picked out duvet covers and sifted through whatever was still available to cobble together some furnishings (there is quite a lot out of stock—we would love to see shipping passages open). I was excited to find an Arabic majlis sofa online (not from IKEA, which is going to be delivered next Monday). I love its versatility—it can be a couch or a bed!

I really wanted to get a play couch for the kids (like a Nugget or whatever) to put in our shipment, but wasn't able to get one in time. The kids love building cushion forts—I figure that these majlis sofas will do just the trick!

Anyway, we wandered all through IKEA with our friends, looking at all kinds of things (most of which was out of stock) and selecting many other things to purchase, and then had a little dinner in the cafe (not the restaurant) before heading home for the sad little cake I baked.

Rachel was pretty eager to get to talk to us on her first P-Day (preparation day: when missionaries get some time off of missionary duties to do laundry, grocery shop, catch up on correspondence, and relax a little). Phone calls home will typically be limited to P-Days, but Rachel's been calling a little more frequently since she's doing home MTC, has no companion, and is feeling a little lonely.

Miriam has been doing companion study time with Rachel (on the phone). And my mom is trying to see if any ladies in her ward would be willing to take Rachel out for a walk in the middle of the day (like she's a crate-bound puppy—Rachel has been walking laps in the backyard during her class breaks). It will get better for her, I'm sure.

And look! I don't know if you can see, but her name tags made it to her and she's now officially Chị Heiss! I mean, I suppose she was officially Chị Heiss when she was set apart earlier this week...but now she looks it!

Interestingly (to me), chị means older sister while the elders have Anh Cả on their name tags (which means eldest brother). I haven't ever really considered how these titles would be translated into languages that use honorifics...or specifics...relative to age. So this is how they do it in Vietnamese.

Anyway, it was Andrew's birthday today! He got new sheets...among other things. We're just counting the IKEA haul as his birthday gift. My birthday gift was getting rid of all our stuff (whether in our shipment or other means). Andrew's birthday gift is re-acquiring stuff (whether through our shipment, which should arrive soon, or other means). It's like we've come full circle.

Here's Andrew with his pistachio cake (with rainbow chip frosting):

Zoë and Benjamin are holding up our trusty birthday banner that has been with us for a long time (at least in Durham, Spanish Fork, Peachtree Corners, and now Doha)! I wasn't really sure where or how to hang it in our hotel room, so...this will have to do.

We made a few attempts at a group picture:

And then Phoebe led us all in a high-pitched rendition of Happy Birthday!

"Let's sing!" she declared.

"Okay, ready?" I asked.

And Phoebe was ready. She picked a note in a piccolo-worthy range and started singing with such gusto that the rest of us had little choice but to join in. "Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday TO you! Happy BIRTHday..."

We squeaked out that first syllable of birthday with not a little a bit of laughter...

Here's a fun tip: the starting note of 'Happy Birthday' is the lowest note you sing the entire song, so it's wise to start out—if anything—a little lower than you think so that by the time you come to that BIRTHday part you don't sound like you've been huffing helium.

And then because we forgot to grab birthday candles at the store, Andrew good-humoredly blew all over the cake anyway (so it would feel like he blew out the candles).

It's doesn't actually sound that high now that I've rewatched it...but it certainly felt high while we were singing it. Anyway...

Andrew cut and served the cake. Phoebe got the first slice and she just...picked it up and started eating it with her hands...

...which Rachel clearly felt was...a choice.

But Phoebe was pretty committed to the bit.

In her defense, we've been eating quite a lot of Indian food lately, often using paratha in place utensils. Phoebe is prone to eating with her hands anyway but I don't think that sometimes encouraging her to eat with her hands and sometimes getting after her for not using a fork is doing her any favours for knowing how to eat her food...

So, a pretty lowkey birthday for Andrew, but that's how we roll around here!

Zoë's first primary talk in Doha

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 21:03:57 +0000

Zoë was asked to give a talk this past Friday. She wrote a first draft all on her own but grew frustrated when she felt that she hadn't covered anything very well (though she had covered many things and still felt like she had more things to cover). Honestly, the topic "God promised to send Jesus Christ to be my Savior" is rather expansive and open-ended, so we read through her talk and I helped her identify some threads she could pull at. She spent quite a lot of time rewriting her talk and then spent even more time rehearsing her talk to an audience of stuffed animals (and then delivered the talk to us during our evening scripture study) before finally feeling like she was ready.

Here she is standing in front of the primary room delivering her talk:

And here is what she prepared:

Jesus Christ came to earth to be my Saviour because he loves me. He went to Gethsemane to atone for my sins. He carried the burdens of the world on his shoulders so that I would not have to bear as much and I am grateful that he is willing to do that for me.
Matthew 11:29 says: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
This means that if we trust in Jesus, and learn from Him, He will help bear our burdens—not necessarily physical burdens, like having to make your bed or do the dishes or take out the trash, but spiritual burdens, or mental burdens like guilt and sorrow and anger.
When we feel discouraged, we can turn to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for help. We can pray to them to help us calm down, and to handle life’s challenges.
Jesus helped create the world that we live in and cares deeply about it.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asked his listeners to “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” And In Matthew 10, Jesus mentions that he cares about sparrows but that each of us “are of more value than many sparrows.” This made me think of the song, “His eye is on the sparrow,” which tells us that we should be happy because Jesus is our constant friend and is watching over us, as he does the sparrows.
If he cares so much about the lilies of the field, and the grains of sand in the desert, and all the little sparrows, and creatures that roam about the world, surely he loves and cares about us and is watching over us, too. He cares about every little detail in every little thing, because he created those things—and this includes us!
I’m grateful that Christ is willing to help lift my burdens and bring rest unto my soul, but I think that taking his yoke upon us also means that we have work to do. To take Jesus’ yoke upon us, we need to be willing to do what he does, meaning we need to mourn with those that mourn, comfort those that stand in need of comfort and bear one another’s burdens that they may be light. These are our baptismal covenants, that we promise to keep when we are baptized.
When Mary and Martha came to Jesus, crying for their brother, Lazarus, who died just 4 days before, Jesus wept with them. He mourned with the two sisters, because they needed to be mourned with. Even though he knew that he would go and raise Lazarus from the dead, he took the time to comfort Mary and Martha, because he cared about them.
Now, we do not need to raise anybody from the dead, and probably wouldn’t be able to if we tried, but we do need to keep our baptismal covenants to mourn with those that mourn. That is how we take his yoke upon us.
I bear my testimony that as we take upon the yoke of Christ—and as we keep our baptismal covenants by mourning with those who mourn—our burdens will feel lighter and we will find joy.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Books from Memory Lane

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:30:58 +0000

One of my favourite childhood book creators is Pat Hutchins.

We have a well-worn copy of And the Doorbell Rang at our house and every time I read it, I find it delightful. Just last night Phoebe and I read it again and she wanted to know whether the cat had been there all along and belonged to the family, or whether it had sneaked its way inside along with some of the many visitors the family welcomed that day. So we went back and found the cat on each page—and the cat kind of has its own little story within the story, which was fun to discover together. Pat Hutchins hides so many details—and alternative storylines—in her pictures.

We also have Where, Oh Where is Rosie's Chick (though I believe that one is in our shipment, may it arrive in one piece), which is great for teaching children to look for information in the pictures that is not shared in the text.

"You know, Pat Hutchins wrote a book that I really like called Which Witch is Which? But I've never been able to find a copy to share with my children and now that my children are all grown up, it doesn't seem worth it to find a copy at all. But I just love that book!" I said to Phoebe as we closed And the Doorbell Rang.

Phoebe snuggled in closer to me and looked up into my eyes.

"I am not all grown up," she pointed out.

And she's right! There's still time to find and share my favourite books with my kids!

Though it seems as if it's a little bit out of print, judging by these prices:

To be fair, it is possible to order a used copy for a much better. I just haven't ever done it.

But! You can check it out to read on Internet Archive! Actually, a lot of Pat Hutchins' titles are available there (though it's hit or miss on whether or not you can actually check them out to read). We read Which Witch is Which, which all the children enjoyed listening in on.

And then we checked out The Very Worst Monster (I remember this book fondly as well, now that I think about it). Inside there was a checkout slip and whose name was at the top of the slip? Nancy's!

The kids thought that was funny and wondered whether it was me on the slip, but I don't think it was because I didn't attend Jefferson Park Elementary. But we had a good conversation about how libraries used to keep track of circulation! (Which Witch is Which only had an envelope in the back, which Alexander was curious about, so it was lovely to see a check out slip with the very next book we checked out).

And, yes, The Very Worst Monster was also delightful!

Then we read Sticky Titch, which...wasn't my favourite (it's apparently based on a television show created by Pat Hutchins), but still had all of Pat Hutchins' usual charm.

Actually, Pat Hutchins' diverse illustration style(s) remind me a bit of Shauna Mooney Kawasaki (I really need to finish writing up that project...but I got busy with the whole "moving my family to Doha" project...and haven't). She has a very distinctive drawing style (actually...multiple styles that are very much recognizable as "her") but also works with other mediums, making miniature figures, fabric arts, clay...

The kids want to read a few other books from Pat Hutchins' collection...but we have to get ready to go to church...so we'll have to do that later.

What time is it? Some time!

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:32:19 +0000

I think we're reaching one of those pivotal points in history where a ball has started rolling and...it's going to just keep gaining momentum having a kind of snowball-like influence on surrounding places until it becomes a somewhat standard thing.

I know there's a word for this. Andrew suggested "cascade" and I suppose "domino effect" would work as well. But I told him I was looking for less of a vocabulary word and more of a bit of jargon and he finally gave me "policy diffusion." I think that may have been what I was after!

Alberta just announced their new time system—Alberta Time! They have done away with clock-switches and are going to permanently stay at their current time, aligned with Mountain Daylight Time, the same time zone Utah is in right now.

The Northwest Territories did so in April.

There's chatter about ending the practice in other places (such as throughout the United States—but that legislation is yet to become official), but I imagine we'll see other places adopting this practice soon.

Of course, I could be wrong because good ol' Saskatchewan has been...sticking to their tickings...since 1966, and Arizona has been the odd-duck out in the United States since ending their observation of Daylight Savings Time in 1968. They have been on Mountain Standard Time ever since.

(And I missed Hawaii in this list—they opted out of the Uniform Time Act 1967, the same year the act came into effect and they observed DST for a few weeks in 1933 before noping out of that, and again were "placed on" Hawaiian War Time in the 1940s for a couple of years—even then they only moved their clocks by half an hour. I'm still trying to figure out how changing clocks changes energy consumption...it seems largely like a remnant from wartime rationing than anything that sounds relevant for the way our power/consumption works today.)

Farmers don't like it (plants and animals don't care about it). Only 34% of the world observes it...

I'm team "changing the time twice a year is insanity!" and am happy to be in Qatar where they've never participated in such games.

But I do feel sorry for my poor mother, trying to remember what time to call everyone! She's got children on three separate continents, in four separate countries, and—amazingly enough—in two separate states and two separate provinces.* I'm almost laughing about the absurdity of it!

Currently my sister Kelli lives in Arizona (though she's doing a stint in Atlanta right now, of all places), so she is permanently on Mountain Standard Time and is an hour behind Utah (the same time as California).

When Utah switches their clocks, they will be on the same time as Arizona.

But my brother David lives in Alberta and is on Mountain Daylight Time (the same time as Utah right now). So when Utah switches their clocks to be the same time as Arizona, they will be an hour ahead of Alberta (which will remain on Alberta Time).

And my sister Abra in BC is one hour behind Utah and Alberta right now, but when DST comes along she will be two hours behind Utah but remain one hour behind Alberta.

Do I have this right?

It's kind of breaking my brain...I'm not going to lie.

And I'm not sure it's entirely sustainable, so surely more places will see the light and go on permanent time. If not, we'll all have to be very careful about communicating time for things.

(Just now there was some confusion about when a youth fireside was tomorrow evening—7 PM or 8 PM—because Qatar is (almost inexplicably) an hour behind the rest of the Gulf...so it's 7 PM for us but 8 PM for Abu Dhabi...where Grandpa and Darla are).

*Not mentioned explicitly in this post is my brother Patrick (in Austria) and sister Josie (in Utah).

Alive and Well: A Banner Day in the Heiss Household

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:33:40 +0000

When our house went under contract, the closing date was set to September 26 (the day before we're set to get the keys to our new apartment), but then the buyers asked if they could move that up to September 15, so we very quickly made arrangements for that.

This was mostly fine because selling our house was rather passive for us. We had given our neighbours power of attorney, so they went to sign the documents in our place. We just had to help arrange things and be present for an "alive and well" call with the lawyer (who we'd met previously).

Because of the time difference, this happened right during the dinner rush before mutual. Andrew was just getting out of class, I was in the middle of making dinner, and we were trying to figure out how everyone was going to get to mutual (Andrew was recently called as a teacher's quorum leader so now he goes to mutual as well). Still, we found a few minutes to sit down and hop on a call with the lawyer, verify all our information as correct (for money transfers and taxes and so forth), and then we went on our merry way.

Alive and well, having made it through most of September 15.

Rachel, meanwhile, had been having a rough morning and still had much of September 15 ahead of her.

She had gone to get a few vaccines the day before and woke up feeling very sore and rather overwhelmed.

Andrew and the kids came home from mutual, we put the little kids to bed, and then Benjamin and Miriam settled in to watch Inception (for Miriam's propaganda class) while Andrew and I sat down to hype up Rachel. We talked with her for a while, did our best to make her laugh, and motivated her to do a few of the "adulting" things she still needed to do before her mission started.

And then we had to get ready for bed because her 7-hour countdown to being set apart for a missionary was also our 7-hour countdown of how long we could possibly sleep before getting up to be present for her setting part (9 PM for her, 6 AM for us).

We did not get 7 hours of sleep...but we did eventually go to bed.

And we mostly got up to watch Rachel be set apart.

We decided to not wake Phoebe up, in part because...she's just a force to be reckoned with and once she's up, she's up. It seemed silly to wake her up for this when we could just...leave her sleeping. So we...didn't wake her up.

Rachel's setting apart was lovely. She's had an interesting experience getting out on her mission, having started her mission paperwork under her BYU bishop, submitting her papers and getting her call with our Georgia bishop, then having her records moved to my parents' ward where she'll officially be "leaving" from. So already that's three bishops involved in sending her out!

(And then she'll return "home" to Doha...)

So the bishop and stake president don't know her (or us) very well, but they had good advice for her, both practical and spiritual.

Her mission is also not a traditional mission for a youth missionary since Vietnam isn't open to proselytizing—she won't be out knocking on doors or seeking out people to teach. Instead, as we understand it, she'll be doing member support and teaching when people ask to be taught and teaching some English classes and service projects and things. It'll be interesting.

The stake president (I think it was) noted that part of her work in bringing people to Christ is to help bring her fellow missionaries closer to Christ. I thought that was beautiful as well—these are all just young kids, who are all working on their testimonies and growth as well. They need to be good to each other.

The bishop rather vulnerably shared that he had a junior companion once who...rather annoyed him...because he just seemed to not quite be on top of things. He was flighty. He'd forget stuff. He'd dilly-dally. And the bishop wanted to be well-organized, punctual, responsible. He didn't feel like he was mean to this younger missionary, per se, but he did push him rather hard.

One day they were out tracting (knocking on doors to find someone to talk to) and were about a mile away from their car when his companion remembered that he'd set a dinner appointment with the bishop...and that they were supposed to be there in 10 minutes.

"Well, Elder," the young bishop had told his companion. "We are going to be there on time."

And he made this elder run back to their car so they could make it to the dinner on time.

"And this elder wasn't in great physical shape..." the bishop added. "I really had to push him to run that whole mile."

I don't know whether they actually made it to the dinner on time. They had to run through cold, dark streets of a Canadian winter (whatever that means—Canada is...vast) and...I dunno...running for a mile wearing snow gear on slippery streets when you're not in great shape? That doesn't sound like a 10-minute task...and then they would have had to drive still and...

That's not the point.

The point is that he had wanted to teach that young elder to be responsible, to be where he said he was going to be, and so forth. And he felt justified in...punishing...this younger elder to teach him that lesson.

And he just pushed this elder in a lot of different ways—really challenging him—thinking that he was doing him a favour.

Later, however, he learned that this missionary had developed an ulcer from being under so much stress and very nearly had to be sent home after transferring away from him. He doesn't know that he caused the ulcer, but he certainly feels like he exacerbated it and really wished that he could have gone back and simply treated this companion with a little more patience and a little more love. Then perhaps that missionary could have had a better mission experience...because it isn't just about "the people" out in "the field"; it's also about each other.

Anyway, the over all message was to love, love, love. Share the love of God with everyone—let God love you and hold the love of God for everyone (your companions, your leaders, all the people around you) in your heart.

At the end of the call, Rachel was officially set apart as a missionary and was ready to go to bed and wake up in the morning to start her training. Andrew left for work, Miriam and Benjamin went back to bed, and I was just thinking about taking a little nap myself when Phoebe ran down the hall.

"Is it time for Rachel?!" she asked hopefully.

Zoë told her that she was too late and Phoebe started sobbing.

"Why didn't anybody wake me up?" she cried.

So we went ahead and called Rachel again...

...which made Phoebe feel much better.

Phoebe taught me that I could take a picture during our conversation by pushing a little button on the screen. This was incredible to learn because it's way easier than trying to take a screen shot (I always mess up pushing whatever combination of buttons). But then when I looked at the pictures after I found out that it only takes a picture of the person you're talking to...without the little picture of you inset, so I missed getting all of Phoebe's sweet smiles—ugh.

But look at Rachel with her name tag on!

Funny story...this name tag isn't even hers.

It's Darla's!

Darla gave Rachel her name tag before she left for Abu Dhabi because missionaries don't wear name tags in Abu Dhabi (they are not doing proselytizing work there, either) and this ended up being a very good thing because Rachel is supposed to wear a missionary tag now that she's set apart (especially if she leaves the house).

Unfortunately, Rachel doesn't have any name tags yet...because they got sent to our Peachtree Corners address!

I changed our address (many places) and put in a forwarding request with the post office for our family but...as it turns out...Rachel wasn't included in any of that because she is an adult and has to make all those changes for herself. She neglected to verify her address in the missionary portal even after they reminded everyone to (because she was 100% certain she'd used my parents' address...though evidently not) and we didn't realize she wasn't tagged as having moved in the USPS system...until her missionary package showed up at our old house.

Our realtor sent a picture of the package (from the BYU bookstore?) and asked if she should open it and I told her she should because if it was Rachel's missionary supplies she would need those very soon! So she opened it and it was, indeed, all of Rachel's missionary supplies. Her training curriculum, her name tags, her missionary credit card...everything. Our sweet realtor forwarded it on to my parents' address (it should arrive on Friday) and said not to worry about the cost at all—just her little way of supporting Rachel's missionary efforts. (One of Rachel's tasks yesterday was to go to the post office to verify her identity so they could officially change her address because the online system flagged her attempt as suspicious—but she was successful in the end (and has changed her banking information and so forth, right Rachel?!) so mail should start going to the right places).

Our realtor is not actually pictured here—but look! Our house has sold!

So that was our banner day, spanning two days (for us), between two continents, involving a major monetary transaction...and a brand new missionary!

Clever signs

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 19:37:21 +0000

A lot of the walking around we end up doing happens to be indoors (so much so that one day Benjamin looked up symptoms of vitamin D deficiency and whether or not you can get vitamin D through a window when he realized he hadn't been outside the entire day...not that a single day without the sun will give you a vitamin D deficiency...but many days without it might). A lot of this indoor walking happens in malls.

Mall life is alive and well here.

We like to be on the lookout for clever typography and/or names of things when we're out and about...and here are two we've spotted recently.

First up, "eyewa" or "أيوا":

This is clever because they sell eyewear, obviously, and "eyewa" almost sounds like "eyewear." But also, "أيوا" ('ayuwa) means "yeah" (informal "yes") in Arabic, so the store is really just called "yeah."

On the typography front, we appreciated this "FACES" logo, that incorporated the swirls of the Arabic script into the letters of FACES:

A lot of stores just transliterate the name (very often from English to Arabic), but this store does not, so the Arabic says "وجوه" (wujuh), which means "faces" in Arabic.

I just love how symmetrical it is and how the letters all interact with each other.

It's always a good day to accidentally teach your children the word "only" in Arabic

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 17:39:10 +0000

The day after we visited the falcon exhibition, the kids and I went through the worksheet we got on how to help preserve national heritage sites. I didn't pre-read the worksheet so the word "only" came as a bit of a surprise to me, although it makes sense...we say the something similar in English: "Take only pictures."

And it isn't as "only" is a very difficult word. In fact, it's a pretty basic vocabulary word, so it isn't as if we're gatekeeping "only." It's just that...I dunno...I imagined this maybe said something a little bit different like, "I take photos," or something.

Again, given the fact that we say "Take only pictures" in English, it's perfectly fair that it would say this in Arabic as well. I was simply unprepared to have the discussion that we had to have when we sounded out this sentence around our table...

The root of "only" is F-Q-T, which you can see above: فَقَطْ.

You pronounce it as, uh, faqat.

It was actually (gratefully?) my turn to sound things out when we came to this sentence and I started out very slowly, as one does, stumbling over every word: "'Al...ta... Alta...Altaqit suuuu...waaaaaa...ran... fa...fa... "

But then I recognized the last word, so I said, "Oh—faqat!"

"MOM!" Zoë shrieked, her mouth falling open.

My bad! I didn't even think before I said it because...it just means "only." But it did inspire a lovely conversation with my children regarding language use.

(And that's not even the only word that sounds like a curse word in English... Oh, and...for the record, in our household we typically eschew the use of "Christmas words" like stupid so for the kids to hear their mother drop an "only" (in Arabic) was quite...shocking...for the children).

*****

We met up with some friends at the library yesterday and T mentioned that Zoë had said something in the car the other day that he wanted to tell me about, but we ran out of time before we all had to leave, so he said he'd tell me later.

And I was biting my nails that she'd shared her newly acquired "spicy" Arabic knowledge with her friends.

But that isn't what it was at all! It was completely (more or less) innocuous (though we did have to have a conversation with her about how far she takes her teasing because it went a little far in the car).

*****

In other news, I read the book Karma's Rabbit from cover to cover. It was a painstaking process, but I made it through, and Phoebe made it through beside me, and we learned a few new words and happily recognized others.

On the very first page, Phoebe stopped the story to ask whether it took place in Qatar. I asked her why she thought it might take place in Qatar and she pointed to...

...the electrical socket!

I thought that was pretty clever for her to notice.

I don't know whether the story really takes place in Qatar. The author, Taghreed Najjar, is Palestinian-Jordanian. The illustrator, Hassan Manasrah, is Jordanian, so I'd wager that neither Najjar or Manasrah were imagining Qatar when they worked on this book, but it's still cute that Phoebe noticed the different electricity. Most of our plugs do have those little switches by them!

Falconry and things

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 08:34:49 +0000

I am typically a one-outing a day kind of a person, but today we had three outings that had us out and about the whole entire day.

We spent the morning chatting with Rachel while getting ready to head out. She was up late, having been out late with friends. She remarked that since she's been living with my parents over the summer she hasn't had many late nights (which kind of made her miss her roommates and all the fun they'd have together), instead going to bed by 10 PM most nights and then getting up and going to work...and, honestly, while I'm glad she had a fun time out with her friends, she's going to be adhering to a missionary schedule pretty soon so it's not terrible that she's already in the habit of going to bed by 10 PM and getting up early to get the day started.

It was wonderful to get to speak with Rachel for a bit, even if it was during our own morning rush. I can't believe she'll be starting her mission so soon (just a couple of days now)! But I'm definitely looking forward to only being 4 hours different from her instead of 9. Surely that will make arranging phone calls a little easier.

Anyway, our first outing this morning was to brunch at the apartment of some people in our ward. They live in the same area that we'll be moving to and they have three little girls all right around Phoebe's age (3, 4, 6). It was fun to get to know them, even if the kids got a little rambunctious—many little bodies running around squealing and laughing in a small apartment with marble floors can be a bit of a recipe for disaster. I was glad when our hosts asked if they should pull out some LEGO (that seemed to calm the kids down significantly).

From brunch, we made our way to Katara for another visit to the S'hail Falcon Exhibition, this time with some friends. Here are Andrew, Phoebe, and Zoë walking towards an art installation by Lorenzo Quinn called "Building Bridges":

It was only unveiled in February of this year, so it's still pretty new! Here's everyone (except for me) posing with a set of hands:

And here's a view looking towards the venue:

Inside, we found a pen of houbara that we hadn't seen when we came earlier. The kids got to take turns offering the houbaras mealworms, lucky ducks!

...or houbaras...

...or kids...

Someone was lucky, that's all I know!

Here is Phoebe starting on a worksheet about preserving national heritage sites:

All they had to colour with was highlighters, which happens to be one of Phoebe's favourite mediums to work with! She is always stealing highlighters and colouring with them—they're so bright and cheerful!

We'll have to work through the worksheet tomorrow (it's all in Arabic), but it has different things that you should and should not do to help maintain preservation sites. Taking photographs (yes), graffiti (no) walking on paths (yes), taking rocks (no), throwing away trash (yes), climbing on artifacts (no).

This booth was actually pretty confusing for us because they had these tables with artifacts that looked like they might be for touching but then the signs seemed to say no touching allowed.

When we were here earlier in the week, Andrew started to take Phoebe over to this station and then was like, "Oh, never mind. You can't touch anything." I don't think he was even close enough to read the signs—he just assumed from the hand and the big NO sign that touching wouldn't be allowed.

I mean, we're fine with no touching and understand that not everything can be touched...but when you have a table accessible to a four-year-old that the four-year-old isn't supposed to touch we're going to steer clear of the table because not touching becomes easier with decreased proximity.

However, today the people at the booth were like, "Come, come!" and let the children mess with everything.

Turns out the signs were just general advice for visiting historical preservation areas and not rules for that particular exhibit (Benjamin was like, "Why 'no guns'? Who here has a gun?!" And that's a fair question...except that we were kind of at a gun show...and a knife show...and a falcon show...but the sign really just asks you to not shoot at the signs and has little to do with the actual booth beyond educating you about expectations at historic preserves).

These artifacts, however, were meant for children to explore with all their senses, though the informational signs left a bit to be desired. It just said, "We can learn a lot about life in the stone age..." but doesn't actually tell us anything to learn about the stone age. But it was neat to see the artifacts anyway.

In addition to guns and knives and falcons (and cars and campers and things like that), there were a lot of artists at work. Getting portraits made with yourself and your falcon seems to be a common thing here, at least amongst falcon enthusiasts. So we could see artists at work on various portraits of falcons or people with falcons (using photos as a reference, I assume, because there weren't a bunch of people standings around posing for these pictures). Most were ultra realistic, such as the eagle with the yellow background (below), but we also enjoyed spotting this more cartoon-style painting with the reddish background (below):

For an example of a portrait, here is a life-sized portrait of a man with a hawk that adorns our bedroom wall (children for size reference) for your viewing pleasure:

Entering the vendor's tent (I don't know if that's what it was truly, but it seems to be the case), we saw a number of falcons for sale (rather than the super valuable falcons up for auction in the first tent). This falcon, below, kept trying to fly away and then falling when its foot strap yanked it back down to earth, the poor thing.

Other falcons would stretch their wings and flap, occasionally, but we only saw that one falcon repeatedly try to fly.

The falcons all wear these hoods to dull their senses and help keep them calm, but I don't think that always works.

Here are the little kids taking a turn holding a falcon again:

Here's Nomas, who was captured as a juvenile in Egypt in 1997. Falcons are typically taken from the wild after they've learned to fly, but are still within their first year of life—their plumage will tell a discerning falconer whether they are a mature bird or whether they are still a juvenile. This is preferred because many juvenile falcons die in the wild within their first year of life anyway (30 to 70%, depending on whose estimate), so "taking of juvenile hawks by falconers has no noticeable effect on raptor populations." Mature birds (haggards—I'm feeling that label) are harder to train and remove breeding birds from the population, so they are typically left in the wild.

So is it a harmless industry? I don't know. The wikipedia article sounds rather apologetic (there are regulations in place regarding the capture of falcons so not too many are removed from the wild! it saves many birds from otherwise near certain death!), but the demand for these birds is huge and the desperation to fulfill this demand (and other demands associated with the industry) can sometimes lead to...issues (such as British peregrine falcon nests being raided or falcon trapping in reserve lands or the smuggling of endangered Houbara birds or illegal trafficking of birds of prey or not having proper licensing or overhunting or...any number of things). Clearly there are still many concerns surrounding the industry.

But can I just say, this opening line from an article really shook me: "Some 74 falcons were taken from a member of the Qatari royal family this week..." (this was from 2011). 74 falcons owned by a single person! Not only is that just...a lot of birds...do you know how much these birds go for? Here's an auction form for Falcon #32 (taken by my friend Nandini). The top bid for this bird was 250,000 QAR (which is over 68,000 USD) at the time this picture was taken (I do not know what the top bid ended up being).

If we assume this royal spent, say $65,000 for each bird in their...mew (I don't know what a group of falcons is called, but I do know that they're kept in mews)...that racks up a grand total of $4,875,000!

Five million dollar's worth of falcons!!?!

I don't have five million dollar's worth of anything...

All this to say...the falconry industry in the Gulf is huge.

Anyway, here are the kids gathered around the sweetest, most patient little hunting dog:

And here's Phoebe admiring this squirming mound of puppies that Phoebe adored—"they're in a literal doggy pile!"

We watched some pretty wild footage of some hunting dogs taking down a gazelle of sorts, so as sweet as these puppies look...they can also absolutely take down a gazelle.

Let's see...here's a falcon showing off its wingspan:

And here's this falcon going sort of wild while being fed:

This man was literally stuffing bits of raw meat down this falcon's throat (which felt incredibly brave to me because I'm pretty sure that beak is sharp...but evidently would lack the force needed to, say, bite off a finger. Now, could it take a chunk out of your finger, absolutely, but it wouldn't likely be able to crunch through your bones—isn't that comforting?). Oh, also, did you know that falcons are more closely related to parrots than they are to hawks or eagles?

Anyway, while this man was stuffing chunks of chicken down this falcon's throat, the falcon kept seemingly throwing itself backwards and then was unable to right itself on its own. I'm not sure what was happening, but it sure looked like fun...

Phoebe decided to give it a try!

I can't remember why she was pouting here. I think she was telling us that she was feeling cold. The air conditioning in this venue was...arctic. I don't know whether that was for the people or for the birds, but it was intense. Phoebe probably would have been more comfortable in pants, but she wore shorts (she's a little kid so she can still get away with that—they did ask at registration whether anyone was wearing shorts, and no one was...except for Phoebe...but they said that "babies are okay" so we Phoebe still got to come inside).

Right before we left, we found this owl standing outside a veterinary booth (the first time we came we saw an active surgery at a veterinary booth)! Alexander wasn't with us at the moment (he was off looking at the $500,000 komodo dragon piece with his friends), but we texted them and asked them to come over because we knew Alexander would want to see it!

The veterinarian said that the kids could pet it, but that sure was making me nervous because the owl was occasionally snapping at kids. But...Alexander did get to stroke it a few times, which he was rather excited about.

Here's a rather blurry picture of something Phoebe wrote and wanted me to share (so she sent me the picture from a phone):

It says:

PHOEBE ATA HIS

FCRE ME
SO FOLIS

ME

FOT SOT NOT A P

OPE

ME MT TO iKEA

Or, roughly translated (and keeping in mind that she's currently confusing W and M, and apparently she was worried the dogs/puppies wouldn't be there...but they were!):

Phoebe Alta Heiss
Falconry we

saw falcons

We thought there was not a p

uppy

We went to IKEA

And that's true. From the falconry festival we split up a bit, sending Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander home with our friends, while Miriam, Phoebe, Andrew and I went to IKEA to take a look at a few things we've been thinking of getting for the apartment we need to furnish.

There are some good deals on used furniture online...but we don't quite yet have the means of getting that used furniture, unfortunately. IKEA will deliver...ya ken? But we can't go pick up furniture without a car (and Uber's not going to want to do that either).

So we went to look at a few things.

Unfortunately many things are out of stock right now. While life is more or less normal, supply chains are a little...sluggish...with The Straight being...the way that it is. But we'll...figure things out.

Falling down and standing up

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 22:03:22 +0000

Last weekend when the other kids were all off at various activities, Andrew, Phoebe and I went to the mall to look for a few specific things...but we also stopped by Max and Phoebe and I saw some cute dresses on the sales rack that we liked, so we got them—my dress was only 40 QAR and Phoebe's was 20 QAR. We were the fanciest gals on the block!

Miriam got a dress earlier in the week...which was not on sale...but which was still not terribly expensive (she didn't hop into our picture, though she did wear it to church and looked gorgeous). Poor Zoë couldn't find anything that she liked when we took her back to the store to look.

Qatar's demographics are very interesting. Only 15% of the population is below the age of 15 (Cochrane, 2022).

This felt small to me when I first read it, perhaps because 50% of our family is under the age of 15. Or perhaps because it was lumped in with other (actually somewhat) surprising statistics about Qatar's population: "The demographic context of Qatar is unique in that the majority (∼88%) of the population are expatriates, while a minority (∼12%) are citizens. Another unique feature of the population in Qatar is that it is predominantly male; of the 2.5 million residents, 1.85 million are male (72%) and only 15% of the population is below the age of 15 (Planning and Statistics Authority 2021)."

See how they lumped it in there with statistics that really do cause one to do a double-take?

While the citizen:expat and male:female ratios might actually be unusual, it doesn't seem like having only 15% of the population be below 15 is a real cause for wonder.

Wikipedia shows the following breakdown for Qatar's population by age:

0–14 years	14.23%
15–64 years	84.61%
65 and over	1.16%

As you can see, in Canada it's about the same (for the 0–14 category):

0–14 years	15.0% (2025 est.)^[5]
15–64 years	64.8% (2025 est.)^[6]
65 and over	20.3% (2025 est.)^[7]

As it is in Austria:

0–14 years: 14%

15–24 years: 10.82%

25–54 years: 42.1%

55–64 years: 13.63%

65 years and over: 19.44%

I don't know why some Wikipedia entries have more age categories than others—just because of reasons, probably.

Here's the breakdown for the United States:

Age Group	Percentage
0–14 years	18.2%
15–24 years	13.0%
25–54 years	39.0%
55–64 years	12.9%
65 years and over	16.8%

So perhaps having the population of those 14 and under hover around 15% isn't so unusual after all. I don't know why it sounded so small when I read it.

The age demographics of India are quite specific (their chart is too long to include here, but it looks like about 30% of the population is 14 and under).

In Iran it's 23%:

0–14 years	23.3%
15–64 years	69.8%
65 and over	7%

China 16%.

Australia 18%.

Kenya 39%!

South Korea 10%.

Finland 14%.

DRC 46%!!

Okay, okay, so because 15% sounded like a small percentage to me, I thought it might explain the lack of selection in the kids' section. But apparently they just don't have a great selection of things for a person Zoë's size right now, though she did pick up a few pairs of pants.

She's grown up in leggings, but those aren't really very fashionable here (or even culturally acceptable here). Wide-legged pants are more the norm. She found three pairs of pants that she liked and they were—blessedly—both long enough and narrow enough for her! It has been a real (and constant) challenge to find pants that are long and skinny enough for my kids in the States, but she walked out with three pairs that fit! She hardly knows what to do with herself (she's used to wearing flood pants).

I need to take Benjamin to find some new Sunday pants as well. I feel like I just got him new pants and yet they already look like they've shrunk in the wash. He is only about an inch shorter than I am now, which is wild...

Anyway, here's Zoë, Alex, and Phoebe all ready to head to church:

It was our ward conference today, so we got to meet the stake president—the first Filipino stake president in our area!—who had dinner with Grandpa and Darla not too long ago.

We're still getting used to the new block schedule, where we essentially have sacrament meeting the first hour, then a half hour of Sunday School, and then a half hour of RS/Priesthood. I think I like it better than how the two hour block was for the past few years (alternating Sunday School and Relief Society every week—because it creates issues if you happen to miss a week and it can end up being several weeks before you attend a class again or, if you come from a family where you spend every other weekend at either parent's house you might never attend a certain class, which just makes things weird). Granted, I've spent most of my time in primary (bliss!) so missed out on the adult classes all the time anyway...but...you know...the logistics were still weird.

The compressed timeline sounded tricky at first, but today the lessons were really just the teacher mentioning a few scriptures (that hopefully everyone had read already) and opening up the room for discussion and it's felt just fine to have these "shorter" lessons.

In the training video, Elder Bednar said "When I was a boy, young man, you would go to church on Sunday. You would come home and the discussion question would be, 'What did you learn at church today?' I think that world is gone to a degree. I think now we return home from church and what did you share at church today that you learned during the week? So we study daily, we study personally, we do that all during the week and then on Sunday we have the opportunity to counsel together about what we are learning" (1:11)

Andrew's family used to ask that question around the table during Sunday dinners, and we've also asked our children that question for the past 19 years (or so): "What did you learn at church today?"

We...still asked it today...honestly.

While we appreciate the nature of the question "what did you share at church today that you learned during the week?" it's an awkward one to have at the dinner table after church because even if you shared something you surely also learned something and because we feel that is perhaps a better question to have on the way to church or the night before church or at any point in the week before going to church so the kids can practice voicing what they might like to share.

It's an interesting change. And it feels like it will be a good change. I was skeptical, honestly, but a couple weeks in and it feels pretty good.

We've been better about keeping up with the Come Follow Me manual lately as well.

This summer, I tell ya, we leaned in hard to memorizing scriptures and forewent "actual/real" scripture study a lot. We were running on absolute fumes, trying to get everything ready for this move. I'm not sure our tanks are full yet (even as we're staring another little move in the face) but we've been better about having actual/real scripture study.

That's what our kids call it...

When we tell them it's time for scriptures and prayer they ask whether we'll be doing "real" (or "actual") scriptures or whether we'll be doing "memorized" scriptures (as if the scriptures we memorize aren't real/actual).

The good news is that we memorized a lot of scriptures over the summer!

The bad news is that we fell very behind in our "actual" scripture reading.

The good news is that no one actually keeps track of this so we can just shrug our shoulders and skip up to Ecclesiastes, or whatever, and no one is any the wiser.

As we discussed in Sunday School today (Proverbs 24:15), "a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief." We're allowed to simply pick ourselves up and start from wherever we want to—we're not obligated to play "catch up" or even "measure up." We just have to...get up and get/keep going.

It reminded me of two rather well-known sayings:

The Japanese proverb 七転び八起き "fall down seven times, get up eight"
Chumbawamba's 'Tubthumping': "I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never going to keep me down"

That last one is perhaps not especially touching (or appropriate for Sunday School), but I think it's a pretty good mantra to have, so thank you, Chumbawamba, for creating such a lovely earworm.

Late this night when we should have been getting to bed...

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:03:45 +0000

So, uh, the building across the street from us is on fire...which is (one of) my (many) worst nightmare(s).

I think about it every time I get in the elevator and see the sign that says, "In case of fire use stairs. Do not use elevator" because we...live on the 40th floor.

And I just can't help but think of what a nightmare it would be to navigating all those stairs in order to evacuate. I mean, we'd do it...but it would be with screaming, howling children...so not very fun.

I assume the screaming and howling because, well, today when we arrived at the metro station a train was already at our stop and getting ready to head off. We kind of hesitated about whether or not we could make it on, but ultimately decided we couldn't—not with our party of seven!—so we collectively decided to wait for the next trains (they literally come every six minutes so it's typically not a big deal to wait).

Oh, except that Benjamin missed the memo about waiting for the next train and hopped on board!

The doors closed, and off he went.

Phoebe immediately started wailing.

"We will never see Benny again!" she cried. "He's gone forever!"

"He's not gone forever," I assured her.

"Oh, look—he just texted," Andrew said and then read: "Sorry! What should I do? Get off at the next station or keep riding to Legtafiya?"

"Just stay on until Legtafiya. We'll meet you there," Andrew told him.

So that's what Benjamin did and we found him waiting for us when we arrived and all was well. But we told the little kids that if they ever got separated from us like that to just get off at the very next station (no matter where we were headed) and we would come find them there. Do not try to catch the train back to us. Do not try to get to the final destination. Just get off at the very next stop and wait.

We really need to teach them our phone numbers here...perhaps that'll be a fun activity for tomorrow!

Anyway, that's how I know that Phoebe would immediately lose her cool if we had to evacuate the building...and carrying a frantic Phoebe down forty flights of stairs really just doesn't sound awesome.

Anyway...

From our limited research, the building on fire seems to be an office building, not a residential building, so that's good because it means there won't have been as many people inside.

But there are dozens of emergency vehicles outside.

We really weren't entirely sure what was going on—there have been firetrucks and ambulances and police cars and everything all whirring about the block...we're hearing more sirens all the time—until I spotted embers spitting out the side of the building.

I took Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander downstairs to gawk at it from the sidewalk (along with many other hotel guests). Miriam graciously stayed upstairs to be with Phoebe. Andrew is at the gym.

It's possible the children will never fall asleep.

(News source; and the Ministry of the Interior has announced that it is contained as of 11:30 PM—they're still obviously working over there, but we can't see embers from our window anymore so I'm sure it has calmed down some)

Edited to add:

Blogger wouldn't let me put pictures up earlier (it simply wouldn't upload anything), so here is the view out our window:

Here is the view from the street:

Here is the announcement that the fire had been contained:

And here are some pictures we took the morning of September 10:

Katara International Hunting & Falcons Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 19:40:49 +0000

It was Alexander who saw the advertisement for the Katara Falcon Exhibition on the metro. He tried to tell me about it on the train but sometimes the train is just too loud to hear him speak (not because others are talking but simply because the metro is moving fast and that creates a lot of noise). So when we got out of the metro he gushed out all the information with syncopated, breathless excitement: "Falcon festival! September 8 through 12! At Katara! Free admission! Can we go?"

As it turned out, we needed to be out at Gewan to sign one more document for our apartment (and we got to take the kids through the apartment and measure for curtains and things as well). The falcon festival was right on the way home, so we stopped by to see what it was all about.

It took us a while to find the registration booth—we had to do a combination of online and in-person registration to get tickets for everyone. They're free, but anyone over the age of 12 has to be registered. And then we went into the exhibition center.

We were in a sea of white dishdashas and ghutras and felt rather underdressed and out of place, but that feeling soon wore off and we began to enjoy ourselves.

There seemed to be an auction—of some very expensive falcons—going on in the first room:

The next room had many gun and knife displays, as well as various off-road vehicles and tents and things. And then we saw the booth Alexander had his heart set on...

...the "hold a falcon" booth!

We each got to take a turn holding the falcon, which was much lighter than any of us expected.

Phoebe thought it was great:

And everyone else got to take a turn as well. Here's Zoë:

Benjamin:

Miriam:

And me:

Andrew took a turn while also holding Phoebe for the family picture the guys at the booth insisted on taking of us:

Nearby was this beautiful falcon, who is 28 years old, according to her sign:

Here are some other falcons that were on display:

Phoebe was particularly happy to stumble upon this hunting dog with her litter of seven puppies—only a week old, still wandering blindly around:

She was even happier when we found this other hunting dog that she was allowed to pet for a few minutes:

Dogs aren't very a very common pet around here, so Phoebe is always thrilled when she gets to see one!

There was all kinds of art on display (and for purchase)—sculptures and paintings and taxidermy. Oh, and this life-size komodo dragon made of crystals:

There were several cages of Asian houbaras, a type of bustard that can sometimes be spotted in Qatar in the winter. It's a favourite bird to hunt using falcons, which is unfortunate given its status as a vulnerable species.

Andrew had a meeting this evening, so we soon had to head home. Finding the exit was quite the trick—we were directed in so many circles and followed so many signs!—but we eventually found it and headed toward the metro. The Katara station spits metro riders out into a rather fancy mall. There is a security guard at the top of the escalators directing all the metro-riding rabble (including us) right out of the building (and he's probably right to do so because from the look of the displays we weren't likely to buy anything at that mall).

But I really liked the façade of this building. I used the cedilla so that Alexander could see what that looks like because we came across the word facade without the cedilla and since it breaks the rules of English pronunciation, Alexander pronounced it with a hard c, which is correct according to the rules of English, but incorrect according to the word, which is borrowed from French.

Quel dommage!

The cedilla tells us that the c will be soft, regardless of what vowel comes after.

Anyway, I really liked this façade on a building by the mall:

It was a fun evening!

And the excitement was just beginning...

A better day (in which no one gets impaled)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:58:40 +0000

This morning was much smoother (thanks in no small part to the slight temper tantrum I had at dinner after Andrew came home, in which I ranted about everything that had happened during the day).

The little kids got up and worked together to put away the clean dishes, practiced the piano, played a dominoes counting/adding game with Phoebe that I made yesterday but she refused to play, and started on their math work. Phoebe played nicely while I got a good bit of writing (for my coursework) accomplished with minimal interruption.

It was (compared to yesterday) so marvelous.

Here's a list that Phoebe made for a hypothetical sleepover that she'd like to go to some day:

It says:

swimsuit

goggles

pajamas (triggered autocorrect)

toothbrush

toothpaste

pillow

stuffies

blanket

clothes

GO!

She carefully sounded everything out and then double checked her work.

"Let's see P-L-O. Pillow. Yup! I definitely got all the right letters in!"

For our English and social studies, we read a number of poems and talked about where the authors were from (or writing about), looking some places up on the map, and talking about the beautiful language of the poems.

Lines and Squares by A.A. Milne

Enter Shadows by by Dalia Taha

Cities by Rick Barot (a little more risqué than my first glance realized)

Rain at Night by Andrew Frisardi

While Everything Else was Falling Apart by Ada Limón

Ìbàdàn by Damilola Omotoyinbo

The kids wrote their own poems about cities...I wish I could have joined in on the poetry but I do have an essay due, so I worked some more on that while they wrote and Phoebe played.

Empty by Zoë

Mom snaps photos of us in the empty rooms in our empty house. I don't want to say goodbye.

I want to stay.

I wait for Evelyn to come home from school so I can say goodbye. When she pulls up we walk to the green electrical box, our favourite sitting spot.

When she starts crying, the torrent of tears I was holding back bursts from my eyes.

We hug each other for the last time.

It's time to leave.

She runs after our car, but it's too fast.

I sob all the way to the airport.

Doha by Alex
At 3 am we’re driving to the Marriott, a three-day plane trip tires us out. All ready for some sleep we still have to drive. Look—the Museum of Islamic Art with spirally pillars going up. Look—the corniche lights with the Quran written on them, but wait there’s more. Palm leaf lights let out a steady glow—look! The Marriott is where we park. We go in and see torsoless statues in the lobby while signing in. We pop our ears as we go up the elevator. In the room we look out at the dark sky with the little tan and white houses with flat roofs. As we sleep it turns from night to day.

Those are some wonderful drafts, I think.

And here are some pictures of the kids doing some drawing and painting together:

They did a "yeti" drawing tutorial and then painted them to colourize. This was a compromise of activities since Alexander and Zoë wanted to draw (with a drawing tutorial up on a laptop) and Phoebe wanted to paint (but I don't allow water and laptops on the table at the same time). So instead of fighting about it they worked out this compromise.

Not a single child was impaled by anything today, no one yelled or cried...all in all it was a pretty good day!

Not every day can be great, but isn't it nice to know that not every day can be terrible, either?

The parable of dumping all the silverware into the bottom drawer

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 22:06:52 +0000

This morning was rough.

It didn't really stop at the morning because the whole day was a little bit rough, if we're being honest.

But the morning? It was rough.

I won't tell on everybody, but I will tell on the four year old.

I interrupted Phoebe's play to ask her to help me unload the dishwasher, which—granted—was rude of me. Like, why should she have to do chores? Pretty rude.

But she eventually decided that the dishwasher could be on the plane, so unloading it could be part of her game. But, like, if any turbulence happened she'd have to go back to her seat...which sounded fair enough.

Though...also...things did get turbulent.

First, though, here's a picture of her earlier in the morning setting the stage for today's pretend play:

She couldn't locate her boarding pass for a minute, which made her feel "frantic" (her words), but eventually found it and handed it to me along with her passport (which—breathe easy!—is actually a sticker booklet, not her actual passport).

I had unwittingly been enlisted as the ticket taker and passport checker. But her documents were in order so I let her board her plane.

She sets up a row of chairs by the window (because we're about as high as planes fly! We have to pop our ears in the elevator!) and then she makes people do things for her like bring her snacks and toiletry kits and what not. And she just does stuff that she can entertain herself with at her chair. She colours. She plays with her dolls. She puts the iPad over the back of a chair and plays games or watches a little show.

Today she listened to the Star Dew Valley soundtrack and started sobbing when she got to "Alex's Keepsake" because it's "just such a sad song!"

Raise your hand if you're raising a Highly Emotional Child...

"Phoebe, what's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing!" she wailed. "I'm just listening to my airplane music! It's soooo sad!"

She was just...listening to the music and looking out the window...and allowing her little heart to be broken into pieces by the melody.

There aren't even any lyrics, folks.

Anywho...I interrupted her airplane ride to ask her to put away some dishes and she wasn't very happy about it, but she did most of it just fine, even though she wanted me to put the silverware away after she put away "the plastics."

I told her that she was going to put the silverware away because I had asked her to do that and it wouldn't be very helpful to me if I did her assigned job for her.

"But it would be helpful for me!" she pointed out.

And, sure. But...she was going to put that silverware away, by golly!

After we got passed our negotiations, I worked alongside her and the dishwasher was emptying rapidly. She just had the silverware left to put away. I grabbed a ladle to put away because I didn't think she knew where that went...so I put it in the drawer...and then Alexander asked me to come help him with a math problem that he kept getting wrong.

So I went to help him with that and she...finished up putting away that silverware lickety-split.

Suspiciously lickety-split.

I walked over there and saw that she had simply dumped the entire basket of silverware into the bottom drawer. And I had the audacity to accuse her of such a thing.

"Well, you left the drawer open!" she accused.

"Well...I didn't mean to?" I said. "I got distracted because Alexander wanted help. You could have closed it?"

"I just thought you left it open because you wanted me to put the silverware in it."

"Why...would I want the silverware all dumped into the bottom drawer when there is a designated drawer for silverware with a sorting tray inside of it with a little spot for everything?"

"I don't know! But you shouldn't have left the drawer open!"

"I'm sorry I left the drawer open but...you're going to have to fix this."

"What?! I am trying to play airplane ride!"

"I know, but you did the job poorly so now it needs to be redone and you are going to be the one to do that."

"All by myself?!" she moaned. "But that will take so long!"

"You should have thought about that before you dumped all the silverware into the drawer."

"You should have thought of that before you left the drawer open."

"Yeah, we're not going to do this," I said. "You need to take the silverware out of the bottom drawer and sort it neatly into the silverware tray in the silverware drawer. You can put the silverware back into the basket from the dishwasher if you need a place to hold it."

"I don't need a place to hold it! I can do it just fine!"

"Great. I'm sure you'll do a fine job this time around. I'm going to go...[I can't even remember what–I think just to the bathroom]...and I'll check on you in a minute."

"Fine!"

"Great."

"FINE!"

So I left and she started angrily gathering up silverware, dropping pieces left and right, slamming doors, and drawers, and just...I dunno...things were clattering and banging and...then she started screaming.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah...I'm coming..." I called from the bathroom.

Because what else is new?

Like I said, it was a rough ~~morning~~ day.

I made all the kids cry with my unhinged cruelty and unreasonable expectations and general diabolicalness.

And they made each other cry multiple times as well.

One child (not Phoebe, but not telling who) cried because they were lying on the floor and another sibling stepped over them. OVER THEM. Like, they didn't get stepped on or tripped on or kicked or anything. They got stepped over while they were lying on the floor taking up the whole walkway. OVER.

No physical contact whatsoever.

And there were tears over this.

Tears and tears and tears...

Like I said, it was a day (that felt like a day and a half...or more).

So I moseyed back out to the kitchen thinking nothing in particular would be the matter and instead saw that the screams were (for once, today) somewhat justified, for Phoebe had dropped a fork on her foot and aforementioned fork had pierced her soundly through her second toe:

Cool. *Sigh.*

So I washed up her toe (it wasn't so bad once we'd washed it off and stopped the bleeding—and her tetanus shot is current so we should be good) and put a bandaid on it.

We don't have any "picture" bandaids, just plain ones. And those ones were so big I actually had to cut one in half to fit it on her little toe...but we got her all patched up.

And the she was like, "Now will you just put away the silverware like I wanted you to do in the first place?"

"Absolutely not," I told her. "You're going to finish that job. You wouldn't have dropped a fork on your foot if you had been calmly putting silverware away..."

"I would have never dropped a fork on my foot if you had just put the silverware away yourself!"

"No. You dropped the fork because you were mad and were slamming things all around. And that was silly. In this house we help. And you are going to finish that job."

(SO HELP ME)

She finished the job.

It's possible there's a fork in the drawer with a bloody tine *deep breaths* but all the silverware was put away (somewhat) properly and Phoebe returned to her game.

AND THE DAY JUST KEPT GOING

*****

Dumping all the silverware into the bottom drawer and hoping Mom just doesn't check...and then raging about how unfair aforementioned mother is when she does check and finds a job poorly done and asks you to redo it was certainly a theme of the day.

Perhaps this mystery mom is just hard to please.

Or perhaps this mystery mom deserves to have children who just sort the silverware into the tray the first time around (or write appropriate answers or actually do their assigned math work or whatever).

We may never know, but the least we can learn from this story is to not rage about and slam drawers and things while holding a handful of forks or your bare feet will reap the spiky consequences...

Tour de famille (and a stop in Banff and BC)

noreply@blogger.com (Nancy) — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:34:39 +0000

Rachel will be set apart as a missionary in about a week. She and Auntie Josie took a road trip up to Canada to see some family and some places before Rachel settles down to business.

Here they are at Elizabeth's house on the first night of their journey. She lives in Rexburg, so they didn't get too far their first day, but there's just something about driving 10 hours versus driving 13 hours that feels so much more doable, so I'm glad they stopped. Plus they got to visit with Elizabeth and her family!

Here they are with my cousin Eric and his family up in Grassy Lake:

They loved spending time on the farm!

Here they are with my cousin Heather's daughters Miley and Sadie:

They stayed with my mom's cousin Lavon in Okotoks (and Heather, Lavon's daughter, lives close by with her five daughters, so I was glad they got to pop by for a visit).

And here are some pictures of Rachel meeting her little cousins for the first time (I have some pretty big feelings about this):

M will be 5 next week and Rachel has never met her...so it almost goes without saying that Rachel hasn't met E or C, either. How wonderful that she was able to meet them before leaving on her mission! Good for these girls (Josie and Rachel) for making such an effort to do so!

I was surprised by how little C looks! When I've seen pictures of her she's usually been in a stroller or swing or something. She looks so tiny when she's being held by a grown up!

I think Auntie Josie is so cute peeking out behind baby C here:

They went out for lunch at McDonald's (so the kids could play and visiting could continue). Here they are before saying goodbye:

And here are Rachel and Josie with David in the middle:

The day before visiting with David, Josie and Rachel drove from Grassy Lake to Banff (I am told that Josie drove that entire stretch!) and stopped at Lake Louise.

Which is stunning!

And then because the Alberta-British Columbia border is so close, they drove over into BC to say hello. They were a little annoyed by the state of the sign, which was covered in stickers and graffiti, but nonetheless happy to have made it to three separate provinces in a single weekend!

They had a bit of a scare when their check engine light came on. Andrew told them to go to Canadian Tire just to see what was wrong (my mom, surprisingly, was on team persevere) and it was an issue with the air conditioner pulling too much coolant (which could wait to repair). But they also found out their brake lights were out, so they got those fixed (which is probably a good thing).

They spent the night somewhere in Montana and should finish their trip today.

Hard to believe Rachel's mission is just right around the corner!! Thanks to Auntie Josie and my mom for helping make this trip happen, and to all the family along the way that hosted these girls to make their trip affordable!