The kids had their first piano lesson again after a 7 month break. I did find a couple options that we coud have persued before now, but I wasn't willing to fork over $40 a lesson, per kid.... We had a new sister move in a month ago who teaches preschool and has 20 years of piano teaching experience. She is now our new primary pianist and we drove her home with us after church last Friday to have lunch and start lessons. I hope it will work out well. I love hearing the kids practice again. She also informed them all that they will be expected to play in sacrament or primary once a month. I love that motivation!
Other than piano, gymnastics is back on for the girls, scouts for Isaac. And speaking of scouts, the girls and I are joining him for a 3 day campout in Oman. We will be hiking to the top of Jebel Shams, the tallest peak in the region. The next day we will hike along the rim of "the Grand Canyon of the Middle East". I have seen pictures and it looks amazing. I am mainly worried about freezing though. We ate dinner outside at our favorite cafe last Thursday and the kids all had their sweatshirt hoods over their heads and I was shivering And drinking the fruity drinks made us colder. Matt checked the weather on his phone. Current temperature in Dubai: 70F. We were a little embarrassed, but still felt cold. It snowed last week where we will be camping.... If we survive, I'll send pictures next week.
We started something fun last week. We signed up for 4 weeks of Archery lessons. We joined 3 other homeschool families and drove out to Sharjah (another emirate about an hour north) where they have shooting, archery, and paintball! We stuck with the archery, although Jessica's shirt got splattered with a paintball a couple of the girls found and decided to bang with a rock... The drive was a pain, but the weather was beautiful and it was so nice to sit outside and talk with the other moms while the kids took turns shooting and playing around in the grass. This is the time of year where living in Dubai is at its best.
Isaac has learned about some freeware programing sites and has really been enjoying dabbling. Check out Scratch, Game Salad and Code Academy. He thinks Scratch is a little too basic, but is loving Game Salad right now.
Jessica had her friend party for her birthday, finally. Her only requests were to play DOOMED (a game they made up with the parachute), have a chocolate cake with green icing, and serve BBQ chicken sandwiches with fruit and veggies. So I did the cooking and inviting and basically let the girls run wild in the backyard. It was the easiest party to plan ever and was a huge success, if you measure by happy, hungry kids.
Friday night (after piano), we were hosting a group of people at our house for the Priesthood Preview. We combined with the 1st ward because we each have one boy turning 12 this year. We rearranged furniture and managed to find seating for 21 by including the rolling computer chair, piano bench and ottoman. It was a sea of suits, excepting me and one mom. The girls hung out upstairs (mostly on the stairs being shy, but listening in) until refreshment time. Isaac and the other ward's deacons quorum president gave talks, as well as the YM President and 2nd Ward Bishop and a 1st Ward counselor. Two other deacons gave the prayers and it was all very nice. Listening to the other young man speak made me forcibly think of Kyle who has just begun his mission in France. This boy's family is from France. Two of his older brothers got back during the holidays from serving missions there (both different French missions, but both Mandarin speaking!) I sat listening to him speak about magnifying the priesthood in English with a French accent thinking Kyle might be doing the very same thing with the languages swapped around. Pretty cool. The Counselor who spoke is from Lebanon. I talked with him afterwards and he has a neat story. Makenna took it upon herself to serve and clear away dishes. I was given many compliments on how thoughtful she was.
Early the next morning we saw most of the same crowd at the park for basketball. The girls brought their rollerblades and skated 3 mile laps with me while I ran before stopping at the playground. I would check on them when I passed by. after 6, they joined me to get back to the boys again and go home (to get ready for the friend party--this is not chronological).
I didn't know Kyle was on a mission in France! That's awesome!
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