Noni & Duke are here!

Living overseas is awesome but we miss our family and friends dearly and this is the longest Stella has ever gone without seeing anyone from home. A few months ago my parents decided to come visit for mine and Christopher's birthdays (yay for only being 8 days apart-- 9 on leap year)! My dad could only take two weeks off but mom took an extra week and flew out before him.

Her flight arrived at 1030pm and Stella was hopped up and so stoked for her Noni to arrive. It felt like forever but she finally made it through customs and came out grinning from ear to ear!

We stopped for a schawarma and headed home for Stella to give her the grand tour and we all crashed a little after midnight.

The next morning we got up and headed to one of our favorite breakfast spots, Lumee and introduced her to Arabic breakfast! She loved it!

We took it easy the rest of the day and showed her around the city, had an afternoon nap, and then ordered Indian food for dinner! To be perfectly honest, we didn't really have to do anything- I was just happy to have my mom here!

She did pretty well but towards dinner time jet lag hit... she succumbed a few times to the pull of a jet lag nap...lol

We had science club the next day and she got to meet our friends and we learned all about mummification in ancient Egypt! We went grocery shopping after that and I showed mom all the different foods and spices and then we headed back home.

The next day we went to our other favorite breakfast place- Emmawash- and had really traditional Arabic breakfast with my Georgia blind date, Michelle, and her dad who was visiting. We all headed to Delmon Pottery after that and picked out some awesome pottery pieces!

We went to the souk and Stella and I showed her around and we did a little shopping!

Oh... and just in case anyone was wondering how our air quality has been lately... less than stellar. This is dust on a plant by the souk entrance. The whole city has looked like that. I imagine my lungs look like that too.. 

The next day the sky opened up and it actually rained! It was amazing! We got a reprieve from the crappy air and dust everywhere! Stella was confused...lol!

Mom also got to experience something she never thought she would... she ate Mexican food, drank margaritas, and listened to a filipino band sing John Denver... but apparently in Bahrain anything is possible...lol! My friend Lindsey's birthday is the day after mine and our friend Donna set up a birthday dinner to celebrate Lindsey before I headed out of town to the UAE so mom got to come! 

On Friday we took her out to brunch at Bushido and had amazing sushi and Japanese food!! It was so yummy! We all loved it and Stella finally is over her sushi strike!

Friday night brought Dad into town and we headed to the airport at 1030pm again and brought him home (after our evening schawarma stop of course!)

Dad's first day in country we got ready for our UAE trip and drove him around Bahrain a bit. We went to base for them to exchange some money and we dropped our cat off at a friends house for her staycation and took them to one of our favorite Indian food places to eat!! That evening we ate baklava cheesecake and opened birthday presents since we were leaving first thing on my birthday for the UAE!!

World Schooling update!

Well it's been three months since we disenrolled Stella from the DOD school and began our world schooling journey. It's been a journey, that's for sure. 

Like most moms, I'm incredibly hard on myself. I go to bed most nights utterly spent and wondering if I should have said yes more or yelled less or played more or cleaned more and on and on and on. Homeschooling Stella has only added to that list of concerns that runs through my head every night. I wonder if we made the right decision or if we were too hasty, if she's thriving and growing or if I'm holding her back, and again, on and on. 

We've not had a lot of breakthrough moments. We've had some moments of "okay, well this is going okay, maybe it's not so bad" and some moments of "dear Jesus, what was I thinking?!". There have been days where an incredible amount of schoolwork gets done and days where it's midnight and I wonder if anything made it between her ears that day. But finally- this week we've had a couple of breakthrough, stand out moments! 

Stella is super STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) minded (much to my little language arts loving hearts chagrin) so math and science come very easily for her. She gets excited about maths, eager to do her work and learn more. This kid enjoys arithmetic and numbers and lights up with math and science stuff to do. Anything to do with language arts is a fight. She can read, and read pretty well, but she hates it. She fights us on it and absolutely makes every excuse not to do it. She can write, and when she's taking her time she has decent handwriting. But she hates it and fights us on it every step of the way. This past week she started asking to read the book we're reading for book club (Matilda) and has done phenomenally well with it! And yesterday, she told me she loves her primary journal and wants to do more each day! (She writes in her primary journal every day- she draws a picture and then writes a story about the picture). So, finally I feel like we're getting somewhere! It was just the push I needed this week. 

We've become pretty active in our homeschool group here on the island. 

We do science club once a week... this week we learned about mixing and unmixing and the kids made ice cream and a vinaigrette. They learned about molecules and compounds and watched as milk, sugar, and ice and rock salt made creamy, delicious ice cream and how vinegar and oil won't stay mixed if it's not being whisked or shaken. 

We do book club every other week... we're currently reading Matilda. We do three chapters and then talk through some questions about what we read and then do an activity. 

The kids recreated their favorite scene from the first three chapters (Stella's was Matilda going to the library and getting her own books) 

This week we played pictionary with characters from the book and then the kids acted like some of the characters. It was hilarious and adorable! 

She's also got an art class that she goes to once a week with an actual art teacher. She gets to learn from someone else and I get a two hour breakfast with grown ups! It's a win win. This term they're focusing on Indian art and I am blown away by how great she's doing! 

This was what she brought home yesterday! I love it! 

We've also enrolled her into soccer on the base and she's had a couple of practices and her first game is Saturday! 

We also went yesterday to a free Lego event at the mall after art class! They got to build a little Lego walrus and take it home with them. It was awesome- bahrain can be expensive so to have the occasional free event is great! 

It's funny. When we started this whole home/world Schooling thing I had a picture in my head of what I thought it would look like. It doesn't match the picture at all, but I'm liking what it's looking like. The moms I've met through the homeschool group are such a fantastic resource and I don't feel like I'm alone in this on days when I could very easily retreat into myself and feel alone. Christopher is a huge help on the weekends when he's off work, but for the most part this is on my shoulders. It's a lot, but I think we're making it work!