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Vacation here we come!

Vacation is almost here!  It always seems that as the day of departure approaches time seems to slow down. It starts at about the time you see the weather for your destination in the long-term forecast.  For us the asymptotic wait is almost over.  We’re checked in online for our departure and twenty four hours from writing this we’ll be entering European airspace!   It is the perfect time to be leaving too.   We’ve had an easy summer so far.  It didn’t get really hot until May and for the most part has been very dry which makes things tolerable.  Now though the humidity has moved in.  Still hot with air thick with moisture.

Here are a few pictures from the last week or so.  The next post will be from Danbury, Wisconsin!

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Kai turns 7

Kai turns 7 at the end of June but as his friends start to scatter for the summer we thought it best to get his party done while there were still people to invite.   Work started well over a week in advance as the first layers of the paper mache Deathstar were laid down.  I ended up using Nora’s bouncy ball as a template so the thing had a diameter of almost two feet.   With such a large structure I needed to make sure it would stand up to a full load of candy so I put on several layers.  When the paper mache goes on it seems so flimsy.  I put on two coats of paper at a time and then effectively kiln baked it by letting it dry in the sun in the back yard.  In the end it was loaded with candy and the two halves connected with double layers. ((advice to anyone contemplating making a do-it-yourself pinata.  It is really pretty easy all things considered but never, never put chocolate based candy in a pinata that is going to spend any appreciable time outside in extreme heat))  As I was hanging it that morning I marvelled at the rock hard structure and thought to myself “there is no way a 7 year old gets through this”.   I was almost right.  After each one had a swing–and we went without blindfolds for the safety of bystanders–the Deathstar was still intact though cracks were starting.  I finished it off and gave it a good shake to distribute the candy well.  Many of the kids salvaged pieces to take home in their goody bags as trophies.

The Jedi robes were a hit and the kids loved that they could keep them.  With the rope belts they looked like nothing so much as Fransiscan monks.  When one of the dads picked up his son at the end of the party he looked at the kids playing turned to me quizzically and said “So……..monks?”    He did have a point but I would have thought the lightsabers were a dead givaway.  Monks don’t use plasma swords.   Nora definitely didn’t look like a monk though – the robes were all the same size so she was completely lost in her robe and was a spitting image of a jawa.

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Pinewood Derby and First Grade Concert

Kai and Ben had a good time building his first Pinewood Derby car.  I need to dig up a picture of it, turns out I don’t have one to post.  It had a clone trooper motif and since the kids get to name their cars Kai called it TK421.  He wanted to go with “TK421 Why Aren’t You at Your Post?” but we couldn’t get it to fit on the car so we just went with TK421.  Some readers may get the reference.  He got some respectable times but once his wheels got out of alignment he dropped back to 5th place.   Nora also built a car, “The Flower” and took third place on her track.  The Cub Scout Troop does a good job of making family events where siblings can participate when possible.  She was home sick but Kai took care of her car during her races.

Some video of Kai’s grade 1 concert is below – stay tuned for a post with Nora’s dance recital.   Enjoy!

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A Bahrain trip with the kids

As a reward for a sustained improvement in table manners and general decorum Kai and Nora earned a trip over to Bahrain for a movie, dinner and a stay at the Gulf hotel which has a pool they love.   The movie was Rango and dinner was a Tepanyaki treat.  Kai and Nora were absolutely transfixed by the food being prepared at the table though Nora ate about a pound of edemame and little else.

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Finally, Easter Pics

It always seems to take a while before I manage to download photos from the camera, sort them on the computer, select a few and upload them to the site.  This year’s Easter is no exception.  With a Thursday/Friday weekend over hear celebrating Easter on Sunday is less than ideal so we took advantage of some of the Easter Bunny’s off-peak rates and took a visit on Friday morning.   Later we attended an excellent neighborhood Easter celebration complete with egg hunt and sack races.   Enjoy the pictures!

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Getting Ready for the Pinewood Derby

The Cub Scout pinewood derby is coming up soon so this last weekend we started work on Kai’s car.   It was a foregone conclusion that we would be using a Star Wars motif.   Though specific details of the paint job remain to be determined, the vehicle has already been dubbed “The Captain Rex”.

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A Trip to the Movies

Last weekend we headed over to Bahrain to catch a show and shop for a few things it is difficult to find here.  We hadn’t been in a while but we needed to activate our new visas at any rate and things seemed calm.  Nora clearly listens to dinner conversations as she made us promise to turn around and come home if we “see any war.”   In the event we didn’t see any war at all and you wouldn’t know there was recent unpleasantness if it weren’t for the armored battalion camped around the remnants of the pearl roundabout.

Waiting for the movie to start we hit a coffee shop across the mall where I snapped a few pictures with the iphone.

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