The Stecherbush Abroad

I love that Ms. Rossi, Elise's teacher, keeps a blog and posts pictures of the kids. It feels so important to me since we can't really go into the schools and I've never been to school. It's incredibly important to me to be able to visualize what the classes are doing. I still feel like it takes an incredible amount of faith for me to turn my kids over to a whole set of random people. Nobody will EVER care about their success like I do. That said, I am incredibly grateful for this set of random people who seem to genuinely care about the success of the school and even my individual children. There's plenty that isn't perfect and there is certainly some trial and error going on but in today's world that's what we're all doing. I've even seen something I should've done better and am trying to work on my parenting and leading imperfections to help my kids through those mistakes I made. Elise has swim PE for the next 3 weeks or so. The logistics ...

Today was a sacred experience of the most beautiful things that money can buy. My dear friend Michelle was as excited as I to go see the inside of the beautiful castle we pass frequently. It's  about 4 minutes from my house. Matt noticed it reminded him of a sand castle from the outside. He wasn't far off. It is patterned after a traditional Omani Castle which is almost made of sand.  There are many artistic and architectural elements taken from  Jabreen Castle in particular. This teak carved into the Omani style that was used traditionally for men in the bottom windows and the woman in the top.  It isn't that way anymore of course. The ceiling patterns is traditional for Omani castles that are a symbol of opulence.  The lower entrance is for the Royal family and the upper entrance is for his Royal Highness, the Sultan. The marble inside is Travertine from Italy. It's all inlaid and astonishing in details.  Michelle is looking down into the VIP and Dip...

My teacher, Huzaim. Patiently trying to teach me to read and speak Arabic.  My attempts to decipher the dots. IYKYK. I'm thankful my kids are smarter than I am and they're learning Arabic much more easily. I'm also taking two Chemistry classes online. Thankfully, even though this requires much more work, it comes much more easily than remembering which squiggle has a dot below, which two dots above, which had three dots above and which of the 10 forms of the verb we're using. Alena and I also learned a lot about Europa and the future plans for the US space program from an Embassy guy who gave a lecture followed by a telescope demonstration at the Oasis Club.   

Produce can be pricey here in Oman. It's really hot and dry and there aren't many foods that grow easily here. Much of the produce is shipped in.  I heard once that there's a food shortage here. I'm not really sure about that. My friend Lauren and I ventured out to the wholesale food market near Muscat. We went early and I was really glad she was with me. It's hard to figure out where to go. There's so many shops and trucks and fork lifts and a big messy, exciting and fascinating. There are men with carts willing to help you do your shopping. This guy was persistent following us until we were ready and he was very careful to pick out the best and load it and then help us load it into the car. He even made suggestions for other produce we might want to buy, checked to see the crates we were buying were full. He made the trip even more fun. This was my haul. I took 10 OR and spent it all, we are LOVING the abundance.  I love driving around and seeing beautiful thi...

Never have I ever ridden a school bus. My kids have been able to win at this game for their entire lives, but no more because we are slowly checking off the entire file of public school experiences that they've been able to avoid. This week we experienced two. The infamous school bus. Now, granted, they have a private bus that we fill between our 4 and the Bosse party of 5, no more than 10 kids per bus. It comes to our door and accompanies the younger kids to their classrooms. It is unfortunately loud and very bumpy but it bought me around 6-9 hrs this week. MIRACULOUS. The school is close but you have to go early, then sit and wait and the traffic is so bad that it takes 45 minutes of waiting to pick them up and sometimes 10 or 15 dropping them off and that doesn't include driving time! Villa 1483 wheels up! And. . .our first crazy hair day. Fun for kids crazy pills for parents. This was my best attempt in 15 minutes for unicorn  hair. They were happy, so I'm happy.  

We get pretty excited for the weekend by Thursday. Even a party needs to end sometimes. We just brought it home in this case. Saniya and Sophia are school friends come home to celebrate another successful week at school. Followed by the Sabbath. We were due for a very relaxing day. On Thursday a good hunk of us got COVID shots. We found out Wednesday night that kids couldn't come to school Sunday without at least the first dose so we went in the next day during school hours and got it done. Sore arms and tiredness made us  especially happy for a day of rest. I love these pictures of the girls trying to sing with Primary. They're using hand actions to learn the words to 'Reverently, Quietly'.  We're actually not in this picture, but we definitely participated to clean up the beach behind the Embassy early Saturday morning. We didn't wake the kids up because of COVID shot recuperation but Matt and I went and cleared out trash before church started. Veronica and Ad...

  There is nothing more zen than swimming with turtles. Whale sharks was cooler but there is something about those big eyes and the way they go down and munch and pop back up and go back down. I really can't explain it. It's mesmerizing. Honestly though, I could swim with a whale shark all day too. I kept fearing I'd just keep going and suddenly pop up and be too far from the group and get left. The waters around the islands were full of bright coral and fishes of all kinds. Unfortunately my GoPro picked that moment to die so all the pictures here are from friends and our guide from Daymaniyat Shells. That meant I got to be in a lot of the pictures but I would've captured the amazing assortment of other marine life. If you google it you can see better pictures than I would've taken anyway. It was a beautiful day and except for dear Rose who got very sick for most of the trip, nobody wanted to return to real life again. I love that I was able to make some friends her...