Susannah's First Birthday

Today Susannah turned one!!! It is hard to believe a year has gone past since we welcomed her into the world. We had a party for her, like Johnathan's in the compound club house. With about 20 kids in attendance from about 4 months to 7 years there was chaos but everybody had a great time. Susannah knew she was the special girl today and had a ball.

Long Weekend in Qatar

Last weekend was the end of Ramadan which is celebrated with Eid ul-Fitr, an occasion with important religious significance, celebrating the achievement of enhanced piety. It is a day of forgiveness, moral victory, peace of congregation, fellowship, brotherhood and unity.

It is also a long weekend. David had three days off work and we decided to stay in Qatar for the weekend, as it is getting cooler there is now opportunity to get out and about.

At the start of the weekend, David and Johnathan went on a trip across the desert to the Inland Sea which is in southern Qatar and forms part of the border with Saudi Arabia. The girls stayed at home as we were not sure if it might be a bit rough for Susannah with the 4WD-ing over the dunes. In hindsight, it would have been ok. Johnathan was not actually impressed by the 4WD-ing but his dad had a lot of fun. A few hours were spent at the beach (which we called Johnathan's beach), the water was crystal clear and the temperature perfect. There was virtually no-one else about so it was also very peaceful. The return journey home took a bit longer than anticipated as a couple of people needed help to get there cars unstuck so we took in a desert sunset and also got to see all the locals come out to play in the desert after their Eid celebrations. Crazy 4WD-ing, quad biking, and motorcross riding with no apparent regard for their own safety or that of others. We are told that people are regularly carted out of the desert in an ambulance!

Then at the end of the long weekend we went on a camping trip, this time with the whole family. We went to Zekreet, a small peninsula on the west coast of Qatar (only 1.5 hours drive from Doha). It was a very quiet spot with no-one else around apart from the seven other families we were camping with! There were lots of kids and lots of fun around the camp fire. Johnathan and Susannah had a ball and slept really well. Their mum and dad did not sleep so well but still enjoyed the trip - we are all looking forward to more camping trips in the future.

Holiday in Kiev and Istanbul

During September, we travelled to Kiev for Andrew and Tanya's wedding. After a slow start (tip for parents - avoid 1:30am flight departures where possible) we had a great time. Kiev is an interesting city - the years of Soviet influence are much in evidence but there is a sense of change about the place and western influence is well underway. Of particular interest, perhaps more for David, was the tendancy of Ukrainian girls to wear incredibly short mini-skirts and very high stilletos!

The wedding was fantastic, the bride beautiful and the groom scrubbed up ok as well!!

Much fun was had by all. We got to meet many of Andrew's Australian friends as well as his parents and their friends, quite a large Adelaide crowd meeting in Kiev! We also met Tanya's family and many of her friends from Ukraine, all very friendly with a great sense of humour. It was also an opportunity to catch up with many friends we hadn't seen in a while, in particular Andrew and Cathy Clennett who we hadn't seen for two years.

Sight seeing in Kiev could be a bit challenging at times, the city is not very well suited to pushing around the Phil and Ted's double pram and the tourist industry is not a particularly well oiled machine yet. We mostly took it easy, we found a park near the hotel with a good playground and other amusements for the kids.

We attempted to go on a cruise on the Dnipro river but it could never seem to get enough passengers to satisfy the captain to depart (not helped by the fact that people gave up and left - as we did - while new people got on). But we did get the captain to get this great photo.

After saying goodbye to old friends and new, we departed for a few days in Istanbul. We didn't realise how big the city was but it is a fantastic place. We stayed in a small hotel near the Sultanahmet mosque and felt quite at home with the Sydney, Down Under, and Southern Cross Hostels right around the corner! There are a lot of aussies travelling through Istanbul, not surprising considering the historical connections between the countries. We found that there are many carpet shops in Istanbul and every trick in the book was used to get you into the shop to look at their range of carpets!

The hotel breakfast room had a great view of the Sea of Marmara as well as the Sultanahmet mosque and Haghia Sophia so it was a pleasant start to the day.

We had a very enjoyable stay, taking in the sights and took a cruise up the Bosphorus.

We also discovered some of the playgrounds in Istanbul to keep the kids amused.

After four nights, we were ready to get home after a fantastic holiday.

Johnathan starts kindy, Susannah just keeps growing fast, and David gets a new toy...

Just an update on our latest news:

Johnathan has started at kindy! Being the quite formal private british school system, he has to wear a uniform and of course, we could not resist to include the obligatory "very cute first time in the uniform" photos. He is loving the new kindy and has embarked on a quite challenging curriculum of singing songs, dancing, colouring in (must stay inside the lines) and arabic lessons. We were a bit surprised by the last one but think it's great he can keep his language skills going, after very quickly losing his Danish.

Susannah, as you can see, is growing up fast. She is now crawling and trying to walk and is a real wriggle pot - she will not sit still for a second. And she is adorable (well we think so!). Johnathan remains the very proud big brother and is now careful to put his small toys away "so that Susannah doesn't choke on them".

And a couple of weeks ago, David acquired a new toy. Fulfilling a childhood dream, he purchased a 1998 BMW 750iL, a purple 5.5L V12 car. Taking advantage of the very cheap second hand luxury car market and the ridiculously cheap petrol (at about 30 cents/litre), it seemed like a logical choice. After several weeks of negotiation with a Pakistani builder, the deal was done. Three days later a colleague of his ploughed into it in the work car park but thats all fixed now! Some friends have unkindly dubbed it the pimp-mobile, others call it Barney but David is enjoying it nonetheless.

Summer is finally on the way out, the weather is cooling a bit (getting down to mid 30's now) and life is returning to "normal" here as families return from the summer exodus.

Next week, we are off to the Ukraine for Andrew and Tanya's wedding and a few days in Istanbul on the way back - stay tuned for the next post.