Festivities of February

February:
This nice short month started off with a school field trip to the beach! Our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders got on a few buses chaperoned by teachers and headed off to the beach! This trip was not about hanging out at the beach, having a picnic and enjoying the sun. NOPE, the students' job was to pick up trash on the beach! FUN! Well the kids saw it as a fun game of "who can fill the bag the highest and find the coolest trash!" I guess that works for a fun event to get out of school!

February keeps getting exciting as I finally passed my driving license test and now can legally drive in Qatar! The process of getting a license here is Doha is quite grueling! To make a long story short...

To get a license in Qatar, one needs to complete a ridiculous amount of paper work and then pass 3 tests! I have never been so nervous to take a test! First, I had to pass the test on all the road signs, and WAIT to see if I passed. Then take a parking test while driving in a car, and WAIT to see if I passed. And then finally, I had to take a driving test on the road with 2 police officers in the car, making sure I did every detail correctly, and of course.. WAIT to see if I passed! When all was finished 3 hours later, I got my license in hand and could drive that very day! This whole test started at 5:30 AM! I missed some of school, so my students were very excited for me once I came back with my license! :)
I am hoping the next post in a week or so will include a photo of our new rental! Enshalah... "God willing!" in Arabic.

Did they celebrate Valentines Day in Doha? Yes! I was quite shocked to see the hype at the malls and restaurants for the "holiday". Yet on the other hand, we were not allowed to say a word about it a school because of the religious connection to Saint Valentine. Rather than celebrating Valentines Day, us single ladies did some celebrating for Summer's birthday and even treated ourselves to some great meals. First, we went to a buffet at a 5 star hotel. This is a typical event for a hotel to offer a Friday buffet. WELL we certainly hit that up for all it was worth! Without trying to look like "those Americans", we enjoyed plate fulls of salads, lobster, fish, and even were surprisingly amazed with delicious duck liver (foie gras)! We saved a bit of room for the tables upon tables of desserts! Haha, we had to laugh at ourselves trying just about every single chocolate moose, strawberry tart, cheese cake, or freshly made crepe! We could hardly get ourselves out the door, but look forward to going back for another experience!



For Summer's 25th birthday we gathered our friends from school and other acquaintances to Spice Market at the W Hotel. We enjoyed the company and being out on the town!


I was lucky enough to meet up with some good friends in Dubai! A close friend from high school, Laura, and her husband, Glen, traveled to India and then stayed with Glen's sister in Dubai! His sister, Joy, and brother-in-law Gavin just had a baby boy- two months OLD! It was an amazing 3 day weekend! It was SO nice to have a ton of fun, catch up with a good old friend, to have some "family" time at the apartment, relax and do some sight seeing! What a nice way to end the month of February!