Rugby in Bahrain on the Weekend

Okay everyone, so here I sit in Oman for two days at a NVS conference. The family is safe and sound in Saudi.
The first few days of this week were hectic as I prepared to go and that's why all these photos from the weekend didn't get loaded :( better late than never though
right ?!
We spent much of Friday in Bahrain for rugby. While I am writing this I am trying to think about what happened on Thursday and the week before that but its all quite frankly a blur.
So we arrived at the rugby club expecting Andrè to be running touch only .... our mistake. Last minute as he was about to get into the pool with the girls, he was asked to ref the U16 game. So Andrè being Andrè, off he ran :)

Here Aimee and Lucy are playing in the pool anyway.

Andrè looking rather 'commanding' on the field - he's the one in the lumo-yellow rugby jersey :O.

Didn't get any very successful shots of the main game while Andrè ran touch :(

And then it was into the swimming pool for everyone to cool down before we headed back home to Saudi, off to bed and school in the morning.

Belated Happy Birthday Mally

Well Blogger is not being the friendliest this side so its a belated birthday wish here Malcolm. Happy birthday for yesterday.
(seen here with my big sister Kim, for those of you that don't know hehehe)
Hope you had a fabulous day, wish we could have celebrated with you all.
Before we know it though we'll be seeing you at Christmas :) Yay !
love hugs and kisses always
God Bless
Tracy, Andrè, Aimee and Lucy
xoxoxoxo

Just a fun one to show the new 6 year old enjoying some cake this evening after supper.

Doesn't she just look soooo comfortable the little madam hehehehe

Team day today at school, hence the yellow ensamblè :)

Lucy is in the Golden Falcons team, Aimee is a Blue Camel and Tracy is a Red Stallion !
"We think Mom is pretty good actually allowing the us to wear the colors of a team other than The Stallions on team day, afterall everyone knows.... Red Stallions Rule !!!"

Have a great day - weekend tomorrow ... Yay !!!

Birthday party for Lucy

So we invited all 20 of Lucy's classmates to her birthday party on Thursday. Only HALF responded ! Not a problem less 5/6 year olds to deal with hehehe :)
But seriously made the party-prep a little tricky. Two of the boys live on compound and so their slightly older sisters asked to come along. This brought the expected total to 12 children, I can live with that !
Here we have the girls pre-party, while we put chairs etc. in the front garden.

We had arranged a bus to collect us after 30 minutes and take us across to The Mad House.
This is one of the facilities on our compound. What has happened is management have taken one of the sets of squash courts (so 2 sets of 3 remain in use) and filled it with a huge indoor play area. There's a tunnel from one court/playground through to the other too which adds even more fun.
It's great and the advantage is you can book it out for private use as we did for the party !
We headed over there for just over an hour and the kids ran riot - which of course they can do in there !

Back to the house for a quick game of pass-the-parcel which went so well we didn't have time for musical statues before sitting down for snacks/lunch - yes I had been up from veeerrrry early getting it all sorted (party started at 9am), energy for cooking/baking is just not very evident in my house !

The cake was a real flop ! Had baked two to form an "L" and decorate. BUT... when moving the one half, it just fell apart ggrrrr. So thankfully small number attending, we could make do with just the, that wasn't up to much itself (iced and name on in smarties by request only) and the cupcakes I'd baked as well.

Finally they all sat, quiet as mice with their mouths full of food - and we ask "Why didn't we start feeding them as they walked in the door ????"
Blow out the candles, sing happy birthday, party bags and off they went home.

Check out the photos below for a sneak peak at our fun morning.

Done for another year !
Happy Birthday Lucy
xxx

Catchup on us ....

Okay so before I do the birthday party report, just a quick catch up....
Busy week here as usual, Andrè and I both getting ready to travel. Me for two days to Oman for a NESA Virtual School conference and Andrè for 10 days I think to the US when I get back.
Ramadan is going well just hectic. Just about everything only opens after 8:30pm once all prayer-times are done for the day. I tried to get a doctor's appointment for Aimee but their first appointment was at 9pm - bit late when you have school the next day ! Great thing when you do have shopping is that they stay open til early hours of the morning ! Driving is chaotic - more than normal, if that is possible !
But otherwise all is good with us.
Student-Parent-Teacher conferences happened for us on Wednesday. Students are added in there as they are in on the conferences to hear what the teacher has to say and commit to certain goals for their school year which get re-evaluated for success at the end of the year again. Looooooonng day for me as I had parents non-stop conferencing (teaching the entire middle school - 100+ students to conference with in 6 hours .... shew) !!
Anyway on that note, Lucy is good even with our concern for certain areas of her speech, she is in the upper end of her class so thats great.
Aimee, well we know there are issues there. She hates reading and this of course is a huge drawback. Loves being read to but to get her to read is like pulling teeth ! Oh well she is a happy child on the whole regarding school so thats a good thing !

Andrè is busy with work AND getting his plans sorted for the Dubai Sevens already :)
After reffing a weekend or so back in Bahrain at the 10's tournament, he received an email this week inviting him to a referee's exchange to Manchester this month - Yay ! ... However sad news, its over Eid - thats a good thing, but... he was already scheduled to be going to the US then ! Just seems like he'll never get to go, this is the second time he has been selected and had to sit out because of work. Yes work, it pays the bills and so has to come first, but ....

So thats us, busy busy busy, and Lucy turns 6 tomorrow on top of it !