Three children and life can keep you busy and unable to find the time and motivation to blog but when your father asks you specifically to update your blog, you don't have any choice but to do just that. So in an attempt to make my dad happy, I give you the last two months in a nutshell...
I am no longer homeschooling our boys. It comes with mixed emotions for me but we feel it's the best thing for our boys right now, especially Artem. He was terribly lonely since there isn't a good homeschool group here in Dubai and there aren't any children on our street that he can play with minus the two Iraqi children next door that are quite a bit older than him and speak very little English. Here in Dubai, expat children can only attend private schools and we have a choice between American schools (there are only a few and are on the expensive side) and British curriculum schools which are much less expensive and have a lot more to chose from. In the end I decided to enroll the boys in a private American International IB school and I think it will be a good fit for them. Artem can make some friends (he already tells us all about his new friend from France) and Andrik can get away from his big brother's rule for 5 hours a day and be his own boss instead of being bossed around by a domineering older brother. Both of the boys have very nice American teachers, small class sizes, and full-time teaching assistants in their classroom. Artem goes to Art, P.E., Music, and Computers twice a week and is required to attend daily Arabic lessons but since it's an American school they learn American spelling, American money, and celebrate traditional holidays like Halloween and Valentine's day.
I asked the boys questions the day before school started and took pictures of them with their answers. Notice Andrik's answer when I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up.
While the boys are at school, Atalie spends her time taking my clean kitchen towels down and wiping the floors with them. I know this is karma paying me back for when I was Atalie's age and took my clean cloth diapers out of the stacker and immersed them all in the toilet.
Before the boys headed back to school, we spent a month in the states visiting friends and family in Florida and Arizona. Last year when we went home, we came back to Dubai with a little souvenir, and this year we celebrated that special girl's first birthday.
Atalie's cake was a true work of art. If you live in the Orlando area and need a cake made that is as delicious as it is beautiful, contact Anthony at Michael Anthony Cakes.
Our little ladybug at one year old.
And when we weren't filling our tummies with cake and ice cream, we headed to the happiest place on Earth...Disney World! It was one of those days when nothing seemed to go right; I brought my very heavy Nikon camera with me not realizing the battery was dead, I forgot to charge my cell phone so I couldn't use my fancy Disney parks app, we took the train to Epcot instead of WDW causing us to be late for our lunch reservations, it rained on us, etc. But it didn't seem to dampen our spirits that day. We truly had one of the most fun days that we've had in a long time and I can't count how many times I cried watching the sheer joy on our boys' faces when they saw their beloved characters.
Wet, sweaty, tired, but oh-so-happy cousins at Disney World.
And because we don't have enough heat here in Dubai, we flew to Phoenix, Arizona to spend a week with my family and friends and enjoy the wonderful excessive heat warnings they were having in Phoenix. But we still found plenty to do indoors and it was the first time my parents were able to meet Andrik and Atalie in person.
To say my dad loves trains is like describing the Grand Canyon as a good size hole in the ground. The man really, really LOVES trains and as a result I love trains, and now my boys love trains. You get the picture. Anyway, my father has a spot in their laundry room where he can play trains and he showed the boys how to run them.
My father even got out my train from when I was Atalie's age. I used to spend hours riding this train. I have a picture of me on it, but it's in our storage unit in the states and unfortunately I can't access it. But I was about this age when I started riding this train and it's so sweet to see my daughter on it all these years (ahem) later.
We took the boy's bowling for the first time while we were in Arizona and they had a blast! Bowling is not like it used to be and is high tech nowadays. When we entered the boys' names and ages into the computer, it knew when it was their turn and automatically put the bumpers up and down for their turn. Considering how badly I bowled, I wished I could have used those bumpers.
Artem making silly faces, showing us he's number one in bowling...
But the real winner was Andrik! He beat both me, my father and his brother.
He's such a humble winner.
We returned to Florida for a few more days before heading back to Dubai and the boys got to do something they've been waiting to do for a long time...shoot the air riffle with Pops. For several months before our trip to the states the boys have been obsessed with guns. They don't have guns for toys, we don't watch shows that involve guns, but all they want to do is play guns and talk about shooting stuff. We've explained the reasons Pops has his guns for hunting, told them all about the dangers of guns, how they aren't toys, etc but all they want to do is blow something up. So we decided that it's time for them to learn about gun safety and learn to do it right. My father in law hunts for all their meat and processes it himself. Each night at dinner when we were eating venison we would tell the boys what they were eating and reminded them again about the purpose of a gun which made the boys exclaim they they were going to shoot a squirrel...until they found out that they have to eat what they kill and that would involve them skinning the squirrel and "cleaning it's guts out". After our explanation, the boys were happy to just shoot cardboard targets.
After a very thorough gun safety lesson, they finally got to use the air riffle. Poor Andrik couldn't even get his little arms around the thing, but despite his small size he turned out to be pretty good.
Artem was the one that really surprised us! Despite the fact that this boy runs a mile a minute, doesn't slow down to take a breath when he's talking, and is like a very hyper Energizer Bunny, he was very calm and deliberate with his aim and ended up shooting over 80% of his targets.
It was a really good trip to the states and like Andrik, we gave it an energetic thumbs up!
