Goodbye, Pavlasfamily.com

It's done...I shut down the pavlasfamily.com website. I think the blogspot website is much better. Hopefully, you do as well! One thing about it, it is much easier to keep up to date. I didn't know if I would be able to do it, but so far, so good.

I love it!

I wish my car had a spare tire thing on the back! If it did, I would definately want this for the cover. "Shwei, Shwei" basically means "chill out" in Arabic. When people are getting upset or loud, you will see people saying, "shwei, shwei" and rubbing their fingers and thumb together. I love the fact that this is a spare tire cover, since most of the drivers around here really do need to shwei, shwei!

The Golden Rule - Qatar style

We have all heard of the 3 wise monkeys - see no evil, speak no evil, and hear no evil. They are also known as the Japanese Golden Rule. We were in the souqs the other day and saw these monkeys - and noticed there is a fourth one in Qatar - do no evil (notice where his hands are)! I just couldn't pass it up!

Finally - some cooler weather!

Well, we finally got some cooler weather! The high today was only 76F! On Saturday the high was still in the mid-90s, so a 20 degree drop is great to me! I was actually a little chilly today - I guess that means I have "climatized". Anyway, Adam and I went for a walk (with him on his trike) and ended up at Samantha's. Her kids were out back on the trampoline - also enjoying the cooler weather. Adam joined them and Sam and I hung out and enjoyed the cool breeze!

Playing at the park

Nini leaves for Liberty tonight, so this afternoon we stayed around the house and took Adam to the park in our compound. He has entered the "I can do it myself" stage, and no longer asks for help when climbing around on the playground. The weather was perfect - around 25 C (77 F) with a cool breeze. I heard we were getting cooler weather soon - maybe this is the start of our "winter"!

Adam's Birthday Party

Friday was Adam's 3rd birthday party. We held it at one of the clubhouses in our compound. We borrowed a small bouncy house from my friend Samantha - which the kids all loved. We played a few games - pass the parcel, pin the mask on Spidey, and the pinata, of course. We invited about 11 kids, and 9 were able to make it. They all had a good time and we managed to get through it all without too many tears! We had another Spiderman cake made at Megamart, which turned out pretty good - but not as good as our cake that we made last weekend! It was a great party - but I for one am glad it's over! To see the rest of the pictures, click here.

Trip to the Souqs

We took Nini down to the Souq Waqif (Old Souq) and the Jewelry Souqs on Thursday. The Old Souq has changed so much since the last time we were down there (before summer). They have paved all the dirt areas and added little cafes and sitting areas. She really like the jewelry souqs and even found herself some little trinkets to take home!

Crazy stuff

I read posts on QatarLiving.com on a daily basis. There is usually very useful stuff on there. Today was no different. I found these two posts very interesting and stopped to realized how different things really are over here.

The first post, about the new traffic laws had these two statements that stood out to me:

Expatriates caught drunk while driving are to be deported. This is the only traffic violation in which an expatriate caught is to be deported. - I wish they would do this at home!

The fine for a motorist driving an automatic car and caught resting his legs on the dash board or the side seat is QR10,000 and a jail term of a month to three years. - Is this really a problem????

The second post, was about physical addresses. Now, everyone in the USA has a physical address, even if their mail comes to a P.O. Box. Well, here, there aren't even street names, much less house numbers. We live in a compound, and have a house number for that compound, but to try and tell people where the compound is - now that is another story.

"All residents should keep a note with their full address stuck near the telephone in case they need to call 999. People still don’t know their addresses and this is a factor that holds us back in reaching our callers faster," said Penny Price of Hamad's Emergency Medical Services. "We need the caller to tell us the street name, street number, house number, and zone so that we could detect the location in our computer system instantly and respond," she explained.

-I guess I could call up our favorite Indian restaurant and place an order, then call the ambulance and have them follow the Indian delivery guy here - because he sure knows where we live!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Adam!

Today is Adam's 3rd birthday. We had a small celebration at the house with cake and a few presents. We had the Spiderman cake that we made the night before. Adam loved it! He sang "Happy Birthday" to himself all through dinner. We told him all day that today was his birthday, and that he was now 3 years old. I think by dinner time he got it. We gave him a floor piano that you walk on to play. Adam loves it, but Buster is scared of it (of course!). His actual Birthday Party with his friends is this Friday, so he will get to celebrate twice!

Spiderman cake

Tomorrow is Adam's 3rd birthday! As part of the celebration, Shane and I decided to try and make a Spiderman cake ourselves. I baked the cake today during his nap and set it on the counter to cool. Well, I forgot to close the kitchen door and my two dogs did what they do best - they ate it! When we got back from the party I had to make another cake. It all turned out great - Nini and Shane did the light blue, I did the black outlining and the dark blue stars, and Shane did the red stars. We are pretty proud of our work, and will be sad to cut into it tomorrow!

Birthday Party #2

Today was Catrina's birthday. She is the big sister to Adam's best buddy, Robert. Her party was at Fun City, just like party he went to last week. This time, he wouldn't even go into the party room until they served the food! It was very loud and there was a lot of people in there. He is just not into loud places with a lot of people running around - I wonder where he gets that from? He played with the arcade games instead. There were a few he could do - like the ones with the drums and the bat (pictures above).

Ice Cream Party

Today was the Ice Cream Party for all the EM kids aged 0-5. They served ice cream, of course, and had a bouncy house. Believe it or not, Adam was more interested in the bouncy house than in ice cream! That's a first! His partner in crime, Robert, was there and they played together the entire time. The weather here is still hot, so all the kids (and us adults) were sweating up a storm. Overall it was a good time and a good way to meet new families arriving in Doha.

Birthday Party #1

This must be the season for birthdays. Adam has 3 parties in one week, including his next Friday! The first one was for Humza, the little boy of a friend of mine. It was held at a play zone in one of the malls. Adam goes there quite a bit, but this is the first time he has been to a party there. They let the kids play for about an hour, and then they gather everyone into a Party Room. There was very loud music blaring and lights flashing. He wan't all that keen on going in there. He kept telling me to "turn it down". Once they served the Happy Meals and cake, he was fine!

Lazy day

Today was kind of a lazy day. We all woke up a little stuffy - which I think was due to the hazy skies today. Adam and I hung around the house and played all day, and then had Robert and Catrina (and a very pregnant Samantha) come over to play in the afternoon. It seems that anytime we all get together, Robert and Adam are dressed in similar colors. Today was no different. With the blonde hair, blue eyes, and similar colors on their shirts, they look like brothers. They definately act like it!

Clear skies

With the weather getting better here by the day, I thought I might be able to see some things from the air that you wouldn't normally see. Most places when you take off, you are through the clouds before you get far enough away to see anything. I was able to get some pretty good shots of the Doha corniche (bay) and the West Bay area. I can even tell where my compound is! When we passed over Dubai, I got some okay shots of the Palm Tree Islands and the World.

Oman

Well....we're back! We just got back from our vacation to Muscat, Oman, and it was wonderful! We stayed at the Shangri-La, which is a resort that is tucked away in the mountains about 45 minutes outside of Muscat. To get to it, you drive through the mountains until you see the water and there it is! A perfect little oasis. We were there 4 days, but it felt like we were there longer, since all we did was lay by the pool! The resort is very kid-friendly - even for 3 year olds. All the restaurants cater to them and the pools were all made for kids - one for babies, one for pre-schoolers, and one for older kids. They also had a lazy river that ran around the resort. Adam loved the medium sized pool - we couldn't get him away from it! He also loved floating around the lazy river, but not as much as he enjoyed the pool. There is a beautiful beach there as well, but Adam wasn't interested. He doesn't like the sand, and the waves rushing at him scared him a bit. Our room had a balcony that faced the pools and the beach. It was really something else. I never thought we would ever go to OMAN for a vacation, but then again, I never thought we would live in the middle east! To view the rest of our photos, click here.

Happy Halloween!

Adam was Spiderman for Halloween. I got the mask on him at home, but he wouldn't wear it out. My friend, Gill, and her 2 children, Ella (the giraffe) and Alex (Eeyore), joined us. We met up with Beth and Micah (the ladybug), Claire, Lula and Darcy (the fairy princesses), and Susan and Brian (the puppy). We all went around the neighborhood and let the kids trick-or-treat. Adam rode his tricycle around the whole time, with Daddy pushing and Ella helping out. After about an hour, we decided to go home and give out candy for a little while. Samantha and Rob brought Catrina (witch) and Robert (Scotsman) over to trick-or-treat and show off their costumes. Overall it was a great night. Adam didn't get to eat any of the candy since it was so late, but his Daddy sure enjoyed it! To check out the rest of the photos from last night, click on the 'photo albums' link on the right side of this page.