You know... stuff

 Here are some photos for you. Miss A likes eating a lot. She regularly out-eats Big E. And yet she's still only 16.5 pounds and 26 inches tall, which puts her below the 5th percentile for her age (both by birth and by her due date).

Here we are relaxing on a Friday (sabbath) afternoon. I originally wrote Sunday because it's just natural to call the sabbath Sunday. But we're still trying to adjust to the way the week works here. Thursday is sort of a U.S. Friday (because it's the end of the work week), and sort of a U.S. Saturday (because it's the day we get ready for Suuuuuunday--er, Friday). Friday is our U.S. Sunday, but it leads directly into Saturday, which is the same as a U.S. Saturday, except the next day is work (U.S. Monday), not church (U.S. Sunday). And then when anyone says Sunday, I have to remember that means U.S. Monday. Anyway, relaxing:

 Big E likes having such easily accessible mirrors here, and I regularly hear him having shouting matches with his reflection.

 Miss A likes to watch TV.

Here's a view from one of the balconies at work. 

This is some of the nice architecture inside Education City's Student Center.

This is Big E's favorite thing to do when we go shopping at Lulu Express. He pretends to microwave a snack for himself and for mom or dad.

Boy, that Christmas commercial season just keeps getting earlier and earlier. I wonder if they'd spiral slice the turkey for me and if they allow artificial ham flavoring into the country...

On the right is the roll-over simulator and on the left is the "seat-belt convincer", both of which I wanted to try while at our driving instruction, but didn't get the chance.

Miss A likes to interact with us either by making a kissing noise or snuffling at us with a squished up face. Here is the latter.

Rachel, as always, has managed to make a lovely play area for our kids, and fortunately for us, there was a perfect little alcove for them under the stairs. They spend lots of time down there, not least because the mats are so much more comfortable than the marble floors.

Big E is going on four or five days now without any accidents, and diapers only at night. He's even putting on his own underwear! Well... working on it.

These couches make good forts.

I got my Residence Permit (which, paradoxically, allows me to leave the country), my medical insurance card, and my permanent driver's license this week. Navigating has been pretty easy since Google Maps added turn-by-turn GPS support for Doha just a few weeks ago.

Rachel is getting out of the house a lot. This week she had three nights of outings in a row, either for church or for time with friends. I'm glad for that, since it really helps this feel like a home.

We are blessed and happy and safe.

Every cloud has its silver lining

Content advisory: this post talks about poop. You've been warned.

Big E has been having big problems with his bowel movements for the last three days. Loose stools ahoy! He needs his diaper changed at least once an hour, and the mess inside does a good job of irritating his skin, so he's got diaper rash, too.

Each bowel movement is preceded by rather painful intestinal efforts, which sends him moaning and groaning. However, it also makes it very obvious when he's about to poop, obvious both to us and to him. This, in conjunction with his declaration the other day that we should go to the Lulu Express to buy him some big boy underwear, means that potty training is finally going somewhere.

Today he successfully went about two hours wearing underwear--no diaper!--without having any accidents, and he used the toilet four times for various waste disposal needs. So although his being ill meant he and I didn't go to church today and he's been really whiny, perhaps the days of changing his diaper are coming to an end.

P.S. For your artistic appreciation, here is a still life I call "Anticipation."

Photos and videos from consumerism week, and friends

You know how Walmart often has smaller stores just outside the checkout lines, like banks or optometrists or hair salons? Well, the stores have those here, except they include things like jewelry stores. This is at the Lulu Hypermarket where Big E and I had checked out already and were waiting for Rachel to come to the checkout line. Note that Big E is actually looking at the Christmas lights, and not what's in the window.

 This is one of the roads leading downtown. The city is set up like a wheel with the harbor as its hub and spoke-like main roads connected with concentric ring roads. Instead of intersections with lights, most intersections are roundabouts, which become important landmarks for directions and usually have nicknames among the expats.

This is at City Centre Mall. If you refer to my last post, you can see the map, which gives you a sense of scale based on the size of this ice rink. This is at the center of the mall, and on most floors, there are wings branching out right and left from here several football fields long.

There's a great glass elevator going up and down next to the ice rink. Some floors have these escalators without steps over on the wings. They're like this at Landmark mall, too, and there are special grooves in them that hold your shopping cart in place so you can take it from floor to floor. Big E was in heaven.

On Wednesday night, our friends two doors down took our kids so Rachel and I could have a night out at The Mango Tree, a Thai restaurant at The Pearl, Doha's artificial island. Our friend from school drove us, and we really appreciated it. Again, everyone has been extremely helpful!

The Pearl used to be one of the few places serving alcohol in its restaurants. As is common in the US, that was a central part of most restaurants' business model. So when their liquor licenses were revoked a year or so ago, several of the big name ones tanked, and the ones that were left were forced to change their pricing and offerings in order to attract a larger crowd. Judging by our night there, the larger crowd doesn't come in August. We were one of three couples in the restaurant, and by the time we left around 8, we were the only couple in sight on the entire pier. No yachts around any of the docks. Only a few lights in the high-priced apartments overlooking the bay. Perhaps the crowds come back when the weather cools off.

 Here's a hallway connecting some of the larger stores at the Pearl.

 Big E and Miss A came with us to my school director's house for an open house he hosted for the staff and our families. There were tons of kids there. Big E settled right in with several on the couch to watch Tangled.

Miss A finally released her death grip on my neck and crawled around with a few of the other pre-toddlers. In our groups of friends both at work and at church, there are lots of kids their ages, which we're very happy about.

And remember to keep tabs on Rachel's blog!

Celebrating Consumerism Week in Doha

Aside from orientation at work, our employers have also arranged for veteran teachers and staff to take us out each evening to the main malls and large stores around town if we sign up to go. So we've gone out a few nights so far and come home completely overwhelmed and poorer each time. We're glad we went, though, because we got to know our neighbors and coworkers better on each trip, and it's been a nice excuse to get out and interact. Here are a few of the places we've been.

Landmark Mall: Pretty big, but comparable to some US malls I've seen. Pictures here, a video promotion at the bottom of the page here, and some YouTube videos of it here.

Lulu Hypermarket: I linked to it in my last post. A grocery/department store about the size of four Super Walmarts, two on each floor.

City Center Mall: basically take the largest mall you've ever been to, and stack it on top of itself five times. If you're interested in seeing photos of it, click here, for videos click here, and if you'd like to see the floor plan, click here (links to a rather large PDF). For scale, the ice skating rink inside is just a little smaller than a regulation hockey rink.

Driving through downtown's skyscrapers to get to City Center Mall. Here's a 3D panorama you can explore.

Aside from learning at these malls just how much money people must have to burn here in Qatar, we've also had it reinforced that we don't stand out here. We observed many people not following the dress code we were advised to follow (not that we intend to flout it or anything). And we saw thousands of other people from the US/Europe. Aside from people commenting about how cute Miss A and Big E are, no one (that we noticed) so much as looked in our direction unless we were actively trying to get a sales clerk's attention. It actually feels nice to be so completely ignored.

These trips have kept us out from about 4 to 6 PM each night, so we all come home starving. But the kids have handled it well. Still, we've decided to take a day off tomorrow so we don't burn out from all the visual stimulation. Maybe our shipment will finally arrive, too.

Traveling to Doha and first Friday

It's photoblogging time again!
We left Salt Lake around 1:50, having arrived at the airport plenty early and eaten our lunches there. The flight to Houston was uneventful, and the kids behaved about as well as they do at home. We were placed at the very back of the small jet where the engines were really noisy, but there was an extra seat for Miss A, who was ticketed as a lap child. We also met our first co-teachers going to Doha. They were very friendly and tolerant of our kids' occasional fussiness. Unfortunately, Big E woke up with a cold that morning and plenty of sinus pressure, which made the pressure changes on the plane particularly painful for him--and consequently, for us. But he made it.
In Houston, we checked in first, then had some burgers, grilled cheese, and corndogs for dinner.

Then we rushed back to board because we'd forgotten to set our clocks an hour ahead. We made it just in time for the end of pre-boarding.

They seated us at the very front of economy class against the bulkhead.

This irked Rachel at first until we realized the flight attendant had a bassinet she intended to attach to the bulkhead for Miss A to sleep in. It was like having an extra seat for her again, and we had plenty of room on the floor for her to play, and for Big E to sleep for a little while.

The on-board entertainment system gave us about 130 movies and TV shows to choose from, included in the price of the ticket, so after all the careful preparation we made to bring books and get movies for our kids on the iPad and computer, they didn't end up being used at all! Same with all the snack food we brought: they fed us so much on the plane I thought I would burst! I didn't end up eating any of the food we brought. Not complaining, though--the airline stuff was better than what we had prepared. Big E watched about 6 hours of Dora the Explorer, and I watched parts of about 8 movies, plus several episodes of TV shows. The kids slept quite a bit, though Rachel and I didn't, because we wanted to be tired when we arrived in the evening in Doha. Here we are about to land just after 7 PM (they don't do daylight savings time here because seriously, they have more than enough daylight!).

We were some of the first ones to get to immigration, so we didn't wait in line long. Then all our luggage arrived fine, though some pieces took significantly longer than others.

The baggage carts were free to use, so I loaded up two, and then realized that we also had a stroller with our kids in it and only two of us to push. But the carts handled pretty well, so we made it out of the airport with them fine.

One of the school staff helped push them once we met them after customs. Thanks, Sadaf! Most of the school administration met us and the other arriving staff and families (about 50 people in all) just after customs and helped us put all our stuff into busses and cars.

We got to our new house around 9:00 PM.

My principal and his wife took us out for a delicious dinner of hummus, baba ghanoush, muhammarah, and  assorted kebabs. Thanks, Francises! We got home from that around 11:30. Between between Tuesday evening and Thursday night when I finally got to bed around half past midnight, I had a total of about 6 hours of sleep. I was definitely tired enough to sleep the whole first night. Unfortunately, the kids weren't, so I'd only slept about 4 hours Friday morning when they woke up at 4:30. Then in the afternoon the kids were ready to kill us for waking them up from what they wanted to be their long sleep, but instead was just about an hour ending at 4:15 PM. Non-stop screaming for about an hour from Miss A, though Big E woke up enough to calm down after about half an hour. They both napped during and after church.

Thanks to the Francises and Pruitts for picking us up and bringing us home! We meet in a converted villa with a full congregation of people who I think we're going to get along great with. We even had a potluck right after our meetings. Before church, we went and had our pictures taken for our Qatar Foundation IDs at a school administrator's house. He let us call our families from his phone and lent us a step-down transformer until ours arrives in our shipment. Thanks, Howard!

I've said thanks a lot in this post, and I mean it. Everybody has been extremely friendly, helpful, and welcoming. We feel very good about being here among such nice people.

Now a bit about the brand new, fully furnished house (see it and other things I'll mention on this map I've made). They call it a villa, and you might think of it as a rather large condo. Compared to our house in Carthage, it's downright palatial. It's convenient to a Lulu Express supermarket (there's a Lulu Hypermarket elsewhere, which makes me just picture everyone in the store bouncing off the walls), to our recreation center, and directly across a field from the nearest mosque. We can hear the call to prayer if we pay attention, but it isn't loud enough to wake us, thankfully.
Here's the front with a car port to the right.

Next to the carport they're building a small play structure. The first story I ever made up for Big E was about him and Little Bear going to a playground and discovering that it didn't have any equipment. Then a semi-truck shows up, a man climbs out of the front, opens up the back and pulls out all the playground equipment, and E and Little Bear play on it all day until their moms make them come home. So both he and I were ecstatic today when that exact scene played out right next to our garage!

About five families with kids from Miss A's age up to adolescents moved into this compound last night with us, so our kids will have plenty of company, and so will Rachel.
This is our downstairs living room from the front door looking in.

Here's the dining room and parlor, which has another separate door kitty-corner to the front door on our porch. It's intended to be the place where guests are entertained so they never actually see the living area.

It has its own pair of sinks and a half-bath, too.

 Here's the kitchen.

 Looking back into the downstairs front room from the kitchen you can see our washer and dryer.

 Just around the corner from there is a downstairs guest bedroom with its own full bath.

 Next we go upstairs.

 Here's the upstairs living room.

 The master bedroom in complete disarray.

 The full master bathroom off our bedroom.

 Big E's room

 His full bathroom.

 Miss A's room.

So there you have it! As you can see, we have PLENTY of room for visitors, so now you have no excuse not to come.

This morning we went to have our blood types determined. Don't ask me why Qatar needs to know that about us. We just smile and go along for the ride. After that we went to our first megamall, called Landmark. We bought Vodafone cell plans and got sim cards for our phones, then exchanged our cash for Qatari riyals and went on a shopping spree at Carrefour (it's a megamall because it has a store the size of Costco in it as well as several city blocks of other stores).

We came home and tried going out to lunch, but the kids both passed out on the benches at the restaurant, so we just put everything in to-go boxes and walked home in the 106 degree, 63% humidity noonday sun.

Rachel went out to go grocery shopping next, at the Lulu Express just around the corner, while I worked with our compound's maintenance guys to get all the kinks worked out of our place. We're the first ones to live in it, so a lot of stuff still wasn't installed properly yet. But they've been very quick to respond to requests, and everything is taken care of now.
We anticipate our boxes arriving on Monday, and we look forward to that being like Christmas!
We've been chauffeured around in busses and our administrators' cars since arriving, and it will be a while before we're actually allowed to drive here, but traffic moves fast and the roundabouts are imposing. Many people from dozens of countries live here, and the driving reflects their different backgrounds. Most of the cars are white--guess it's just a popular color that doesn't show the dust as much. Many men wear thobes, and many women wear niqabs (a lot like burkas), but a good portion of both wear western style clothing. We didn't notice anyone staring at us, because there are just so many other foreigners here that we don't stand out a bit.
The whole city is under construction, so Big E is thrilled to point out all the cranes everywhere. And Miss A is just crawling and cruising and smiling and winning people's hearts. Honestly, the only hard thing about being here so far is dealing with the jetlag. We're quite content so far.
That's enough for now. Send us your questions and we'll try to answer! We miss you. We plan to be on Skype most evenings our time, which will usually be morning for you if you're in the US, and Rachel will likely be on most mornings, which will be late evening for you. Catch us then if you want to Skype or do a Google+ Hangout.