The last several months...

 Beach in a new resort town called Siffa.  Very beautiful with great seafood from these waters!  That's my new crazy friend Hanadi.  Love this name!

Ali at his 13th birthday party with his Momma.

Ali's 13th birthday party with friends at the local bowling alley.

More photos of his party.  Check out the beady white eyes!!   F R E A K Y!!!

Ali wears other clothes, I promise.  He organized our home to be used for a going away party.  This is just some of the kids.  There were kids here I had never met.  The Asian girl standing next to him on his right is the gal that has left.

The kids checking out Lizzie our Tortoise of 10 years.

The cake Ali made and I decorated.

Cutting the cake.  I have NEVER seen a cake disappear as fast as this one did.

Amal being tested on her skill level by several of the musicians and the director on the right.  This was all leading up to her second performance.

Ah, there she is. YES!  She passed!

On the way to her second performance.  I still have to post the first one.  She is asleep as she is very tired and nervous.  We had professional makeup done.  She asked me for more 'grown up' as in 'smoky' eyes this time.  The first time the artist wanted to do the whole smoky thing and I said, 'SHE'S ONLY FIFTEEEEEN!!!'

So beautiful my baby girl.

Uh huh...

This is her with her new glasses!  This is also her teacher, the BEST OUD player in Oman!!  He will be performing this month at the Royal Opera House with the Macedonian Philharmonic!  We can't wait!  The Association was taking down names cuz you get a discount with 20 or more people and she put me down and I said, 'but I'm not a member' and she smiled and said, 'yes, you are, wink wink'.  I guess my winning smile and sunny disposition paid off!

Now they were playing together.

There is so much more but I need to get to bed as the Winter break finishes today.  School starts tomorrow and I can't wait to tell and show you all what I got myself into now!! Hmm... I just noticed this is a movie. Oh well!

Thanks for stopping by!

Rain In Muscat

Sometime back in either November or December we had some rain.  Not like, 'drip, drip' rain but pouring for hours rain!  I took some pics on the way to a 'certain place'.  Enjoy....

Oh, first of all, heehee, this is just a pic outside my studio window one fine day.  You can see in the distance that they are building a palace, yep, a PALACE very close to me!  Uber cool.

Traffic jammed up due to rain.  The orange and white car on the left is a local taxi cab.  There is no place for the water to go and we have 'wadi's' here or to my best understanding 'valley's' and they get flooded easily.

In the distance here you can see our new Royal Opera House.  I took the kids to see Swan Lake and it was amazing!

Not sure what I was shooting here.  I think Ali took this.

Yes, we have stop signs just like home in America!  See the water how muddy it is?

Uh oh, an accident,...ALREADY!!

Yep, the dudes are assessing the damage and seeing if they need to call the PoPo.

Water gushing down this hill...

Water escaping the grounds of a property through these holes in the walls.  Some houses are surrounded by tall walls to differentiate property lines?  Privacy?  All my neighbors know exactly what's going on in my home because the maids all gossip, yeah!!

Can you see the flow of the water?

Later that night my friend Karen and I went to see a movie.  Can't remember what we saw.  Bummer!

I asked some dude to take a pictures and the dipwad made it blurry.

Then I took this one myself.  I really like Karen's umbrella!

Thanks for stopping by.

Newest member of our family...

Welcome little Jo.  I will try my hardest not to call you a Rat as Ali gets upset with me!  You have come into our lives not only to stink up Ali's room but to give him a new little pet to love.  We hope your little black beady eye gets better real soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALI!

December, 2011