small victories

Calvin finally has an ID. We went in on Friday after church, secretly suspecting that they wouldn't be open, but they actually were. It felt like going to the DMV on a Sunday -- only 2 other people knew of the best kept secret on base. We were out of there in about 30 minutes (a friend waited 5 hours for a new ID card the other day). I'll never go during the week again.

I also got the boys set up with bank accounts/debit cards. Calvin needed an account for direct deposit for his job so like everything we do, we did it in bulk. They all now have usernames/passwords/PIN numbers and security codes. It took over an hour to get each kid set up with online banking. It's funny how their different personalities shine through in everything we do. Calvin was straightforward and mature in his choices -- standard security questions about grandparents and school, no surprises. Carter wanted his username to be coolboy973 (no meaning to the number), but I convinced him to choose a form of his name for something as important as a bank account. When it was finally Caleb's turn he read through the security questions and instantly selected "The name of your first girlfriend." Really? The kid has had a girlfriend? When he typed in the name, I laughed and suggested that he needed to be able to spell the name correctly to use it for security purposes. So he switched to grandmother and typed in "barbra." In the end, he settled on Pam. Spelling isn't his strong suit.

But now the kids can spend to their heart's content and I only have to hear "can we buy ______?" half as much. At the rate they are going, they will be broke in a few weeks. They only have a bunch to spend at the moment because Josh and I never had cash to give them their allowance so we kept a running tally. A forced savings plan, if you will. They better figure out how to save on their own pretty quickly.

Ramadan starts tonight. The stores are packed with Ramadan specials. Twin packs of Nutella? Yes, please. It's funny that a holiday that is centered around fasting has all sorts of bulk food sales (rice/sugar/tomato paste/pasta -- all the staples are put in Ramadan packaging), but I guess all the extra special dinners and eating at night means extra shopping for people. 

Camille had her birthday this past week. I can't believe we made it to 4. We did our traditional birthday breakfast for dinner, but Camille wanted mint chip ice cream too. She basically had bacon and ice cream for dinner. It's good to be 4. 

She loved being the birthday girl and spent the day saying things like, "The birthday girl doesn't want to watch that on TV!" and "The birthday girl doesn't like being splashed in the pool." She adored all of her presents and now every time we're in a store she asks for things "for my birthday." Sorry kid. It's birthDAY not birthMONTH (even though your Auntie Kristy is all about the month). 

We have a new doctor in the house! 

And a princess. 

We've both aged a ton in the past 4 years. 

Happy Birthday to us!

. . . and repeat

Feeling a bit sad today – Josh is happy and content at the embassy in Iraq (seriously, he's chatting it up in Arabic with the local embassy employees and that's his version of Disneyland), but my life feels a bit like groundhog day. Wake up – drive child somewhere. Get home, pick up other children, drive them somewhere. Kill time with Camille on base so I don't have to drive anywhere else for two hours. She sits at a table and plays with toys while I . . . I don't know what I do. I guess this. When I have 3 of the 4 kids back with me we could go home, but why not kill a bit more time and wait for Calvin to finish work so I don't have to drive on base for the 3^rd time in one day?

Entertainment thanks to Play-Doh and Polly Pockets 

Yes, my child is an actual employee. He applied for the summer internship work program and was accepted. They went through classes on resume writing, interviewing, and workplace ethics. He's filled out employment forms and tax forms and will spend the next 9 weeks working with the School Age Care program at the child care center on base (SAC). And yes, with three boys in the house I've heard more testicle jokes in the past week than I ever thought possible. Starting with, “Calvin, how's your SAC today?” and devolving from there.

I've become a non-glorified taxi driver and keeper of the $$$. “Mom, can I get ________?” and “Can we ________?” are the never-ending refrains. I think I'm most bugged by the fact that we've spent more hours on base this past week than in the past month, yet Josh isn't here to eat lunch with, run into, or drive the kids home at the end of a long day.

Everyone has been extra-nice and supportive. “Let me know if you need anything.” “Call me if there's anything I can do for you.” “We are always there for you and the kids.” I joke that it's survivor's guilt. Everyone who is still here or has a husband here is so thankful that it's not them this time that they are happy to do whatever they can. We've all been there before. Thankfully, I haven't needed much and it's nice to know that people care. 

We've been killing time in the afternoons in the base movie theater so at least the kids are getting the most out of our time on base. How to Train Your Dragon 2, Maleficent, and todays' showing is Million Dollar Arm. I can recommend the first 2, especially Maleficent (and now that the movie is over, I can heartily recommend Million Dollar Arm too. Especially if you've ever been to India or lived in an area with a large Indian population. It's funny and cute and sweet).

Bob just leaned over in the theater and said to me, “Mom, I know you're not a movie mama, so thank you. We've seen 3 movies in a row!” OK. Now it's all worth it!

Since we had an hour to wait for Calvin, they pooled their savings and bought a lego set

I've got people coming over for Bible Study at our house tonight and I haven't figured out what we are doing. Usually we have a long term plan, but we finished up our previous study a few weeks ago and then people moved and went on vacation without deciding what to read/discuss/watch next so I'm having to wing it. I kind of want to watch one of Rob Bell's old Nooma videos because I love them, and they are thought provoking, but I know he's currently outside of the circle of accepted beliefs and practices and I don't want to freak anybody out. I'm probably going to go with it because it's where I felt drawn this morning. (Watched it, discussed it, all was fine. It's hard because so many people are away that the few of us left here kind of sit around and look at each other with much less to say than usual.)

My day started with me feeling kind of sad, but ended well. I guess that's all I can hope for. I'm trying to switch things up tomorrow and do a little more driving back and forth so we do a bit less sitting on base and waiting. One more day and then another weekend. Did I mention that I just took over as the volunteer Children's Church director at church? (They asked. I figured that was a sign to say yes, since I never would have come up with that idea on my own.) Yes, my life is a bit nuts. (Go ahead and make a SAC joke. You know you want to!)

swimming through sand

I'm plenty progressive, but in our family's division of labor there are some things that I leave exclusively to Josh. I hear about wives going to this office on base or that one – tracking down elusive signatures and filling out endless government forms, but all of that is Josh's domain.

First of all, he works for the government so he's being paid to be given the runaround. If he wastes an hour jumping through hoops to get the parking passes updated at least his frustration is putting pennies in our pockets.

Second, because rank has its privileges. And I mean any rank. When trying to get things done on a military base I have found that things go a lot more quickly and with half the effort if it's the service member doing the asking. So why fight it?

But here I am with a kid without an ID card (since his wallet was stolen a few weeks ago at school) and five expired residence visas that have to be renewed. Armed with manilla file folders fat with documents establishing my authority, I set out to tackle the mountain.

First an ID for the kid. He's been cramping my style ever since it went missing because without it he can't walk to base after school, he can't enter the NEX, and he's big enough that they can ask for his ID when we drive on base together so I've had to act as his personal escort everywhere. We had been holding out for Josh to come home from Jordan and apply for a new card for him, but we all know how that turned out.

The ID system is a first come, first serve kind of DMV hell. The only way to escape it is to get there as soon as they open at 7:30am which is my own personal hell. But in the interest of setting the man-child free and making my life easier, we arrived first thing Sunday morning, prepared to sit there until Calvin was official once again. Our plan worked. Maybe a bit too well. We walked into the waiting room at 7:45 to find it empty and dark. It appeared we had even beaten the ID department employees. We settled in and read newspapers for 15 minutes and saw people arriving in the other offices when I became suspicious and checked the sign on the door:

Closed Saturday and Sunday.

Yes, that looks normal to you, but Sunday is our Monday. The day when everything that you've been waiting all weekend to accomplish must be done and DONE NOW. It's like having the Post Office closed every Monday. What is the sense in that?! Everything here is Sunday through Thursday – even the bank and the Post Office are open on Sunday and closed on Friday. It didn't even occur to me that they wouldn't be open since the military ID is such an essential part of life.

Oh well, at least since I was on base, I could turn in our stack of immigration paperwork that I spent two hours filling out the night before. It had to be submitted online, pieced together with information and numbers from our passports, CPR cards (not the life saving kind -- our Bahrain residence identification), and a photocopied instruction sheet.

The process looked like this: Fumble through five identical passports to find the identification page – nope, wrong person. Nope, not this one either. The last one I pick up is always the one that I need. Find the passport number and input that. Put the passport down and flip through five identification papers looking for the corresponding CPR number. Hmm, it says this number is supposed to be 9 digits long. This kid has an 8 digit number. Screw it and put in an extra zero and cross my fingers that it will work out. Find the correct passport again and locate all the dates of issue/expiration/birth/etc all to be submitted in European form like this: 13/12/73 – that will twist up your brain. Figure out which blank needs which piece of information since the webpage has been translated from Arabic and “holdover date” must mean the date that it expires, right?

And what sort of visa am I applying for? Residence yes, but work? Family? We are here for Josh's work, but we aren't working. So family . . . does that mean that I am a family member of an approved worker or that I have family here in Bahrain? I just know I'm going to go through all this to have them kicked back because I picked the wrong kind of visa . . .

At the end I had to print bazillions of pages in color (each application was 4 pages, multiplied by 5) but my printer was running out of ink. You better hold out because if I lose momentum on this project I will never start again . .

But I got it all finished and printed and I was fully prepared with my special folder when I left the ID office and wandered over in the direction of where the Immigration office supposedly was (never been there – Josh's domain). I wandered around in-between 30 identical metal trailers (they look like metal shipping containers stacked on top of each other) until I found the one that says “Immigration.” Happy day!

Open 9am. Awesome. It's 8:02 and 100+ degrees outside. Too bad I'm not getting paid for this.  

camels

This sign in one of the compounds always makes me laugh. Did they really have to show the poop dropping out of the dog's butt?

Last Saturday, Carter and I went to mosaic class together. The boys all wanted to go, but Carter's friend is moving back to the US and he and his mom were going to be at class so that made the decision of who to bring very easy. We both decided to make camels. Carter went for a multicolored approach and got straight to work. 

From the previous class I had my eye on these particular red, gold, and brown glass tiles. I wanted to make a black camel since I had seen one running through the desert a few weeks ago. Until then I didn't know there was such a thing as a black camel. They are very dark reddish brown, almost black.

(not my photo)

Complete. I was racing to finish at the end, gluing little bits here and there to fill in the spaces before grouting. Carter helped by finding a perfect stone for the camel's tail and the two glitter pieces for the top of the camel blanket. He finished early and had time to play soccer outside with his friend while his camel dried. 

Carter's camel with blue legs and a green saddle blanket. I think his turned out great. 

With the black grout -- time to polish all the little tiles. 

Getting rid of all of the excess grout takes forever, but it's fun to see the final project take shape. 

All cleaned and sparkling!

We made them so they could face each other if we hang them on a wall. We need to take them to the framer and have a wire installed on the backs. Carter was fun to have along. He works fast and doesn't mess around. He always seems like the quiet one until you get him by himself and then he can't stop talking. We had a great day together.

I love FaceTime. God bless Steve Jobs. For the longest time I thought it was a waste of money to pay more for "the apple name," but I've been converted. The ease of use and integration with everything makes it so WORTH IT.

Josh is happy he is there. That sounds weird, but if he were here and all of this was going on it would be more stressful for everyone. This way he's gone and we're not left wondering if he's going to get a call at any moment to leave. Every military wife I know thinks the worst part of a deployment are the days leading up to it. Once they are gone, the countdown is on for their homecoming!

This girlie turns 4 tomorrow! Unbelievable. 

True Impact writeup

I don't have any more information about Josh, what he's doing, or what we will do this summer, but I can say that all is well. We've had one sleepover here, another boy farmed out, and a second sleepover happening tonight. Camille has had her fill of Girl Scout cookies and chocolate, so everyone is happy. I can almost guarantee that we won't be going to Italy as planned since contrary to popular belief, I am not superwoman, and can't see myself trucking 4 kids around Italy by myself. Technically, I probably could, but that sounds like much more work and much less of a vacation than I had planned. My hope is that we can shift the trip to later in the summer (or even fall if we have to).

I got this in my email the other day and thought some of you might like to read another write up on Calvin's trip to Uganda and see some more photos of the home and the kids. You know, since Calvin never got past writing about day 2. This was written by our dear friend from Oman, Ross, who invited Calvin to join them on the trip. True Impact

There's no minute like last minute

AKA: Inshalla

Yesterday was a normal evening at casa de Chartier. Sitting around watching Chopped while kids ran through the room and I read up on Venice travel details. Josh answered his phone and I figured someone from work was checking up on him since he had been home sick with the flu. Until I heard his surprised, "OK. OK." and was kicked in the gut. He's gone. 

I guess I had a bit of prior warning the night before when he fielded a call regarding another Marine who had just gotten word that he was going to Iraq. I asked why this Marine was chosen and not him (trying to calculate my odds of losing this particular lottery) and he said that since so many new people were arriving this summer, they wanted him around to provide continuity. Sounds good to me. 

Well someone not in Bahrain decided they knew better and scrolled through a list of personnel and Josh was one of the lucky few chosen to head to Iraq. With less than 24 hours notice. 

I traded my travel books for powers of attorney, visa renewal forms, and all the other administrative paperwork that Josh was going to take care of now that he was home from Jordan. We had an enjoyable week at least. 

Today he leaves in about 2 hours for an undetermined period of time. It's really the best way to go -- like ripping off a bandaid. Otherwise we sit around and look at each other and say things like, "I can't believe you'll be gone in a week" or "7 months is going to take forever." We barely had time last night to do more than figure out which lose ends he could tie up this morning and which ones I had to handle after he was gone. He hadn't even unpacked from his Jordan trip so he threw a few things in the washing machine and zipped his bag closed. That was it.

****************

So he's gone, without a return date in sight, but we are good. We went and said goodbye to him at base this morning and as I was about to take a photo of him with the kids, a soldier walked by and she asked, "Would you like me to take one of all of you?"

Not how we expected to be spending our last day of school, but it's done. And God is good. 

Tis the season

Our fourth Ramadan starts in about 10 days. I say "about" because Muslims follow the lunar calendar and they actually wait until the moon-spotter (I don't know what his official name is) sees the small crescent moon and then they declare it (with canon fire, though Twitter or text messages is how we check to see if it has begun or ended because you can't always hear the cannons). It's a rather archaic way to go about it since technically we can calculate the moon cycles to know when Ramadan will be 20 years from now, but it adds to the mystery of things. 

It also means that we may call Ramadan before Oman calls Ramadan (each country declares it for themselves). Supposedly a spotter in one country may not see the moon due to cloud cover, but in our experience the Omanis manage to make Ramadan fall in a way that offers the most favorable holiday weekend conditions. I think last year we called it on Friday night and they didn't call it until Saturday night. As a result they didn't have to start fasting until the work week began. 

Technically, I don't mind Ramadan -- it's not like I have to fast, but it can put a cramp in our normal routine. It is illegal to eat, drink and chew gum in public for everyone during the month of Ramadan. So though I'm not fasting, I can't even take a sip of water while driving or shopping, even though it's blazing outside. And there's something about Ramadan that makes me extremely thirsty. The rest of the year I can go all day without thinking about drinking water, but during this month I'm like a man in the desert with a parched mouth. 

The other "problem" is that all restaurants and coffee shops are closed until the sun sets every day so there's nowhere to actually go during the day to escape the heat, unless you like shopping. And even then it's not like you can stop for a bite to eat or a cup of coffee. We do tend to get a bit stir crazy after a few weeks. Many who are fasting work in the mornings, sleep in the afternoons, and then eat and drink at night as soon as the sun goes down. 

Yes, an actual display on base. Ramadan approved!

But my biggest irritation with Ramadan has nothing to do with Muslims at all. The base has created a policy that during the month of Ramadan, all base personnel and their dependents must dress in long sleeves and long pants (technically elbows and knees have to be covered when seated). Supposedly this is out of respect for their conservative culture, but tell that to my Muslim landlord who strolls around in shorts and tanktops. Really, it's a policy that the base would like to enforce just for women, but they can't, so men have to suffer along too. That includes while working out -- it must be done in long pants and long sleeves (unless you are in your house or on base). Have I mentioned it's 110 degrees out? 

The knees thing doesn't really bother me since I generally keep my knees covered anyway, but elbows? Come on. When we lived in Oman it was a policy to "dress conservatively as you do the rest of the time, being sensitive to their religious holiday," but not a knees and elbows ban. All it really serves to do is make it super easy to pick out all of the Americans when you go to the mall. They are the only ones wearing long pants and long sleeves. Which seems ironic when we're always told to keep a low profile for force protection, but whatever. I've got my "Ramadan sweater" so I can wear tank tops at home and then throw the sweater on over them when I go out. It's not a real sweater, but a super thin, cropped cardigan that does the job of covering my shoulders and elbows. I tend to wear it all year since shoulders are forbidden (I say that tongue in cheek, though there is a base policy for shoulders to be covered) and once you've had them covered for a while, it feels naked to be showing them off. 

We purposefully planned our vacation to Italy for the second half of Ramadan. We'll be walking around Rome in our tank tops and eating pizza by the slice, feeling absolutely free!

Happy Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day. The day on Facebook when everyone tries to one-up each other with touching tributes, photo collages, and effusive praise for the "best dad ever." Whoops. Totally missed that one. I'm serious when I say that living in Bahrain is like being suspended in a time warp, where every day is the same and then all of a sudden: AMERICAN HOLIDAY! Except by the time people in the US wake up and start posting about it, our day is already halfway over. Add in the Sunday as a workday twist and we are perpetually confused.

I hate to admit that last week (or 2 weeks ago? Again, time warp) Josh's mom asked what Camille would like for her birthday and it took me a few seconds to realize that we were already in the month of June and ohgoshIbetterordersomethingfromAmazonTODAY! I'm glad I have people in my life who are on top of things because otherwise her birthday would have been sprung on me when Josh brought home the boxes of presents from the Grandparents that came this week and I would have been left wrapping packs of gum and tic-tacs for her gifts. Instead she'll be getting a Doc McStuffins costume (I know, I wanted to get her an unbranded doctor kit instead of the commercialized Disney one, but she wanted to be Doc McStuffins and I am weak to her charms . . . ), provided it arrives on time. 

In spite of my failings, I hope both dads in my life know how much I love and appreciate them. We couldn't ask for more supportive parents. Many people ask, "How do your families feel about you being so far away/living in the Middle East?" and it surprises them to hear that not only do you encourage us, but that you've also come to visit us in both countries. When we hear about families that guilt trip about the distance and refuse to travel to this region it makes us love you all even more. (Moms too. Especially when we have taken your grandbabies to the other side of the world. Sorry.)

As for this dad, my kids are lucky that I picked such a good one. I knew he was the one when I was working as a nanny and he would carry Joe and help me put his infant carseat in the back of my gold bug when we'd take trips to the zoo. At 21 he was already showing that he had what it takes to be a great parent. And we are glad he is home! 

We are also off schedule because Josh is home for 2 extra days (as a break from their extended exercise) so the 3 of us headed to the pool/resort today for swimming and lunch. On actual Father's Day I forgot to wish Josh a "Happy Father's Day" until I saw a dad hugging his son in the mall and Josh cooked dinner for us that night. Whoops again.

Tomorrow is the boys' last full day of school (and they are debating whether they have to attend the last 1/2 day or not) and then we are on VACATION. Happy summer!

beep, beep!

(Picture this scene on repeat -- that was today.)

My car horn has started honking spontaneously. It's a part in the steering wheel that has gone bad, but in order to fix it the entire airbag module has to be replaced. I don't trust the mechanics here to do it and it's not worth $1000 just to be able to honk at people who need to wake up on the road. For about 2 months I went without a horn because Josh figured out how to cut the connection so it wouldn't wake up the neighborhood every morning at 5:30 when I would drive to bring Calvin to soccer practice. (Just putting the key in the ignition would cause it to start honking continuously.)

Finally this week, the mechanic came and picked up our car to fix the horn problem. They rewired it and instead of hooking it up to a separate button as originally planned, they hooked up the leads to the original (faulty) sensors. I'm not sure how they thought it was fixed because the very first time I turned on the car, it blared at me until I banged on the steering wheel hard enough to make it stop.

Carter and I were driving home today and the horn was blasting -- no matter which way I pulled at the steering wheel panel and how hard I bashed it, it wouldn't stop. Picture me driving down the road with a horn out of control, looking like I've lost my mind as I'm punching the center of my steering wheel. I guess it was funny enough that Carter took a video of (one small part of) it.

Privilege

I'm sitting in my car, AC running (of course because it's three degrees below the flames of hell outside) and the only place to park is right by a group of laborers grabbing a few minutes of rest in the shade. What am I going to do while I wait 10 minutes for Josh? Let me get out my iPhone and see what is happening with my Facebook peeps . . . ugh, that feels uncomfortable and very "white princess." These sweaty laborers probably don't make enough in a year to purchase an iPhone and a data plan and here I am with a cool artificial breeze blowing in my face, lamenting that my electronics aren't loading fast enough. And they sit watching me, because that's what people do here.

I have bags of groceries in the car, but nothing I can give them. I don't think they want a slab of frozen hamburger meat or cans of cat food. If I only had some bottles of water or snacks in my car. Oh great! I just realized that they are having to breathe in my exhaust while I idle here. I'm not only rubbing my excess in their faces, but I'm bathing their lungs in cancer causing fumes. Awesome, Rob.

Living here means always teetering on an uncomfortable edge somewhere between self-preservation and sacrifice. Yes, it's awesome that I have a housemaid who takes wonderful care of us and does every little bit of laundry in the house. But with it comes guilt that she's there mopping the floor and I'm here on a very expensive computer. Giving her a job and paying her well means that she can send money home to her family and care for many people, but it doesn't answer the questions of "why me?" or "Why her?" or "What about everyone else?"

I've decided to start keeping drinks and snacks in my car (in a cooler) so when the opportunity arises, I do have something to share. It's not much, but in a place that treats laborers as less than human, maybe a little kindness will go along way.

Sometimes it's hard to find the balance -- how can we justify spending money on a trip to Italy when there are starving people in the world? Should I be eating steak when I could eat more cheaply on rice and beans and give the extra to charity? I think (I hope) those answers come by listening to God's promptings. Just after having this conversation with myself and thinking that I needed to keep an insulated container in the car so I could carry food and drinks to hand out (because otherwise the water would be scorching), I walked into a store and spied an insulated bag on clearance for $3. "Yes, do this!" is the answer I heard.

It's been an exhausting week. Josh came home, our best friends moved away, end of year goodbyes and parties right and left . . .

Camille has been wanting me to braid her hair "like Elsa" (from Frozen)

All the layers in her hair makes it difficult, but she was happy. 

She was happy that her daddy finally came home on Tuesday. I guess it was only 3 weeks, but so much happened while he was gone, it felt like more than a month. We had house guests, Calvin came home from Germany, end of year award ceremonies, a baby shower, sleepovers, and endless amounts of driving. 

Reading up on Rome and Pompeii in preparation for our trip. I gave Carter a similar (easy) book about Leonardo da Vinci and he complained: "I don't like books with facts. I don't even want to go to Italy. Everybody goes to Italy!" Of course, 3 days later, he's popping out facts about da Vinci right and left. Typical Carter.

Oh that's right, we were dog sitting too. Huck left for New York with our friends and I keep feeling like somebody is missing here at home. 

Last goodbyes

What my bag looks like these days . . .

And finally, a little comic relief. Of course it makes perfect sense to block off the handicapped spaces to reserve them. I'm sure people with disabilities have no problem getting out of their cars to move the barrier out of the way . . .

hook

I use this blog as a place to share what our family is doing so that family and friends who are far away don't forget who we are, but also as a place to keep those memories I don't want to forget. It has been invaluable when someone asks a question like "What did you do last Christmas?" On the spot, my mind is a blank, grasping at fog that fills the dark void in my head. But never fear, I can always go back and look at my blog history for December 2013 and remember all the little details of our trip to Turkey that I otherwise would have forgotten forever.

A few weeks ago we were talking with friends about babies eating lemons and making faces and it reminded me that Camille used to LOVE lemons. It was one of the only things that would keep her quiet. I knew I put it on my blog somewhere so I went back through my mental file: post evac, at my mom's house . . . I can picture Camille sucking on a lemon while lying on the floor, that would have been right before we flew to Oman, so start looking in March of 2011. . . bingo! I know you're all dying to see lemon-sucking Camille, so here's a direct link: lemons! and more lemons!

In the spirit of minor splices of life becoming priceless memories someday, I had to put this (very short) story here: Carter came home from school this week, bounding into the room where I was reading. "Mom! I learned to read a spinny clock today! I taught myself! Each of the numbers around the clock equals 5 minutes!" I gave him the requisite "Yay! That's great!" while thinking to myself, "You didn't know how to tell time on a regular clock before? #awesomehomeschoolmom" In my defense, the boy COULD NOT read and I'm positive that any spare minute of instruction I had was dedicated to reading with him. Technically he would sound out words and I would fall asleep. We even started doing reading lessons in my bed because I gave up pretending to stay awake. It took 2 years post homeschooling and several teachers before he was finally reading fluently so I feel somewhat vindicated. And now he can read a "spinny clock." Hallelujah.

The other funny story was from this morning. Josie told me that Camille came downstairs and said, "My mom said I can have candy. But don't ask her." I came into the kitchen to see Camille eating a bowl of candy, so clearly those tactics are working for her, but she's going to have to get a bit more clever than that once she no longer has Josie under her spell.

On an unrelated note, one of the high school students that went on the trip to Uganda with Calvin made this amazing video (with a GoPro camera) so you can see a bit of what they saw. He made it as a project for school, so it doesn't explain the mission of True Impact Ministries as a faith based organization, but it's a fantastic glimpse of what they were doing there.

Mosaic

Because I need another hobby like I need a poke in the eye with a sharp stick . . .

I went to a mosaic class with a group of friends a few Saturdays ago. You pick a wooden shape ahead of time and upon arrival, you start with a blank board. Mine is the shape of a door/archway like we see all over here in Bahrain. Other options are camels, Bahraini teapots, palm tree, hearts, a mosque, and more. 

These two long tables are FILLED with jars of glass and ceramic tiles (and there's a third table that's not pictured). Me, a blank canvas, and 5 hours to create = heaven. Having a time crunch was actually a good thing for me because I didn't have time to second guess my choices. I knew I wanted to do a door, so I found various light brown tiles and some dark ones to mimic the ironwork of the traditional styles. I thought we'd be using a super special adhesive on the tiles: nope! Just Elmer's glue. You can see my glue outline in the top photo as I'm working on the sun. 

I love this camel with the bejeweled blanket over his hump

All my blank spaces are filled in! You want to lay the tiles with a small amount of space between them to make room for the grout (which is what actually holds the tiles in place eventually). I used a lot of square tiles for the door, but for the arch and the border, I had to use the tile cutters. They look like a set of pliers with two blades on the ends (red handles in photo), but the action is more of a snapping (like a nut-cracker) than a slicing or cutting. Aside from making sure that tile fragments don't go flying across the table, it's pretty easy. Some people were getting amazingly straight cuts, but mine all seemed to be curved or uneven. All day long I joked that it was totally the tool's fault, but at the end of the day someone picked mine up to use it and said, "Oh, this one doesn't work right!" So maybe my cut tiles would look straight and professional if I hadn't had a broken cutter. Stay tuned for that update . . .

We worked from 10am until 3pm almost non-stop. The pieces are much bigger in person than they look in the photos and it's a lot of decisions to make: color choices, shapes of tile/layout, size of pieces, finding the last few of one color to make your design work, etc. Around 1pm, the lady running the class served us all an excellent lunch, but I had to hurry up and get back to the tiles. (above are an elephant, camel, and coffee/tea pot)

By 3pm everyone has to be finished gluing so the tiles have a chance to set before applying the grout. We take about 30 minutes to sort all the leftover tiles that were pulled out throughout the course of the morning. Try finding the one jar with the metallic brownish gold tiles in the middle of a sea of glass! 

Half of the fun was walking around and seeing what other people did with the same tiles or how two camels, lizards, or mosques end up looking completely different. 

I love the reddish lizard that is at the top next to my door. You can't tell from the photo, but it's a bronzy gold and red glass that shimmers in the light. The bottom square one is a tree of life design that the woman sketched out herself. 

On the left is my friend's mother/baby piece. She's going to put a baby photo inside the heart and hang it as a frame.

After the glue is set, it's time to apply the grout. Do not use this photo as an example for all of your future tiling projects. It's too dry and thick of an application. 

The grout is pressed into every single crevice and then gently wiped off the top with a damp sponge. It seems like it is NEVER going to come clean. Wipe, rinse the rag, wring it out, wipe some more. 

Finally the tiles begin peeking through and the pieces are set outside to dry completely. 

After it's completely dry, the individual tiles have to be polished with a soft rag to remove the haze from the clay. 

 

At home and on display!

It was so much fun, I already booked myself for another class. Carter and I are going to spend this Saturday making camels. 

And because no post is complete without a funny picture of Camille . . .