Johnathan Graduates...

It is with great pride we can announce that Johnathan graduated from pre-school last month and will continue on to reception after the summer (in September). The british school system starts with younger kids than in Australia.

Johnathan's teacher was kind enough to give us a copy of the many photos that were taken of the kids throughout the year so we thought we would share a few of them.

The class clown!

International Day - am I an Aussie or a Qatari?

Mum and some of the kids on International Day.

With some of the girls in the class.

A watermelon snack during circle time.

And a few photos from Earth Day where all the kids were asked to dress in green.

A Weekend in Scotland

David had a quick visit to Scotland, fitting it in with work in London. The first night was spent at Bonaly Avenue with Stuart and Margaret and the next day I was treated to a BBQ at the Byers' beautiful new house at Blairhall. It was a sunny day (for the most part), the lunch was great, and all of the scottish cousins and their kids were there - it was great to catch up with them all again.

After that it was a drive north to Boat of Garten to catch up with John and Mary at Dallas for a relaxing evening and a stay over for the night. A particular treat was Mary's "bacon butties" for breakfast, a rare treat for a resident of the middle east! After a short catch up with Auntie Wills, there was lunch with John at Andersons in the village then it was time to take the drive back down south to catch the plane to London (after negotiating the Highland show traffic near Edinburgh airport and waiting for a 3-1/2 delayed BA flight!)

Thanks to all the rellies in Scotland for your hospitality during my very short visit. It was great to catch up and look forward to seeing you all again soon...

Johnathan's Fourth Birthday!

Johnathan has turned four (on the 22nd), we had a big party to celebrate. There was somewhere between 20 and 30 kids in attendance, impossible to count really due to the general mayhem and chaos. The kids had a fantastic time playing pin the nose on the clown, pass the parcel, and musical statues - as well as entertainment in the form of a bouncy castle, a ball pit and tents and tunnels to explore.

As mentioned in a previous blog entry, Johnathan has been spending months scouring the birthday cake book to choose his special cake, he finally chose the "4" cake complete with roads and railway line on the top. The main challenge was making grey icing for the road out of yellow, green, blue, and red food colouring. Attempt one resulted in an interesting green colour that was used for the rest of the cake. Attempt two was successful however, you can judge the results yourself from the picture but we were quite proud of it!

Johnathan got loads of presents and he was very, very happy. He especially likes his new bike (his first one) which he has quickly mastered (with training wheels). It is hard to believe our boy is growing up so quickly - time flies when you are having fun!

Australia Victorious in Qatar!!

We just got back from the Qatar vs Australia world cup qualifier soccer match - the Aussies were victorious with a score of 3-1. There must have been about 2000 Aussie fans and about 10,000 Qatari's, a sea of white in their pristine dishdasha's. Australia played very well and deserved the win! Johnathan had a great time with his friend Mark, Susannah stayed at home - a bit late for her to be out!

The weather has been very bad here over the last week, strong winds have whipped up a dust cloud so it is not very pleasant to be outdoors. The kids have been keeping themselves entertained indoors as you can see...