April Adventures

April brought a lot of activity and changes - the girls had their spring break fall over Easter which was amazing and we spent time playing with friends, exploring and kayaking, and enjoying the beach amidst rumors of lockdown. About mid-month Qatar went into its 'second wave' and instated another strict lockdown and the girls' school went online full-time again. 😢

Thankfully they kept the desert open and we've been fortunate to have some adventures exploring a new area we hadn't been called Aamriya as well as seeing foxes at the sinkhole we explored last summer! We also headed out to see the 'super moon' at the Eye Rock and got come great photos there. 🌕

1. Enjoying the final weekend of the drive-in before it closed for the season. It has been a fabulous covid-friendly activity for our family and we hope they run it again!
2. Cece awkwardly laying on the sofa and the table 🙄
3. ☕️ + 🍸 = espresso martini. Yum!
4. 5.  6. Kayaking on the northern tip of Qatar with friends! 

     7. Homemade tomato soup - delish!

     8. The "gold frame". Qatar has a contact tracing app that's required to enter everywhere. Once you are   fully vaccinated, it changes to have a gold frame around it. 

     9. Awkward Zoey laying in Madison's school drawer while she has an online lesson. 

1. The girls did a drawing tutorial and I am amazed at how their foxes turned out! 🦊
2. Cauliflower soup FTW
3. Madi was chosen to be class reader and did wonderful!
4. Enjoying the dirt lot in front of our compound 
5. 6. Our family hit the bike trail early one morning before school

     7. Another awkward Zoey laying on Olivia's lap during her reading time. 

     8. Olivia headed to her 'food challenge' to try peanut butter. It didn't quite turn out as well as we'd hoped (she didn't have an anaphylactic reaction, but she did get sick). We are thinking it was just due to how much pb she had since it was a new food and not much else in her stomach, but we will follow up with the doctors for the next steps. 

    9. The final coffee in the mall before all restaurants closed for dine-in and the month of Ramadan starting.

1. Another early morning bike ride, but just Madi and me. 
2. She loves to bike and is looking forward to training for her race next year (it got postponed this year). 
3. My first ever risotto!
4. Beach fun!!
5. They enjoyed the morning of having the beach to themselves on the last day they were open during their spring break. 
6. Beach clean up - these girls are disheartened by the amount of pollution everywhere and always make sure to ask for a bag and gloves to clean up when we go out. ❤️
7. Enjoying a quiet moment of breakfast and a book before the chaos of online learning. 
8. Since all pools and beaches closed we pulled out our backyard pool and got it setup for the girls!
9. Preparing for Ramadan - it's a month of holy fasting in Islam and during that time the one shop with alcohol is closed and restaurants (if they were open) do not serve alcohol. We made sure to stock up, haha!

We had a lot of fun in April and are thankful for the opportunity to get out and explore, however, it has been a bit challenging going back to online learning and the kids are missing their friends. We are focusing on the positives, but are looking forward to things hopefully opening up again soon after Ramadan finishes towards the end of May. 🤞🏼

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Super Moon at the Eye Rock

 Jason has a vision of taking pictures of the full moon through the popular Eye Rock we have visited multiple times. The end of April brought not only a full moon, but a 'super moon' - when the moon is slightly larger than a regular full moon. 

We packed up the truck with dinner and snacks and headed out to the Eye Rock for some climbing fun and picture taking. The girls have been here at least three or four times, but climbing never gets old to them thankfully! They scurried up to the top and Jason got his photography setup ready. 

He captured some amazing pictures and we had a fun and relaxing evening together before heading back into town!

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Exploring Around Aamriya

Our list of places to explore around Qatar is getting shorter, but thankfully we have one friends we've exchanged hidden gems with around the country. One of those gems was a ridge over in Al Aamriya area, the middle of the country. It required 4x4 and was a bit tricky to navigate to, but worth the adventure!

The girls had a blast collecting stones (the topography is very different here than anywhere else we've been in the country - why so many river rocks on the ridge?!)

They also loved jumping off the edges into the sand below and climbing the different ridges. We woke up early to explore since it's getting hotter during the day. 

Afterwards we drove around to explore some other parts in the same area and caught a sighting of some foxes and this Qatari lizard called the dhubs. He was huge! Probably 20-22 inches in length and bright yellow (their color changes with the surrounding temperature between gray and yellow). 

We also found a sand dune we will go explore again when it's not as hot (the sand was burning by this time 🥵). We've also heard this is a great are to view the Milky Way so we will definitely be making the trek out here again for that!

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Unexpected Occupants 🦊

Remember that sinkhole / cave we found awhile back that was super narrow, dark, and had bats at the end? We love it. So a couple weeks ago when we wanted to go back we were greeted with some unexpected occupants who have moved into the sinkhole... foxes!

Two of the foxes were quite "friendly" coming close to us leading us to believe that neighboring farms have been feeding them scraps of meat. We watched the 2-3 who were out playing for awhile and also saw one fox pop out that looked a bit ill. 

We waited until sunset to see if any bats would fly out and while we wait we saw at least eight foxes scamper out and go off hunting out in the area. Such a surprise when we had only seen a couple and didn't realize there were so many!

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