The Stecherbush Abroad

Brigham's Middle School Choir concert was so much fun and a little tearful. Here Director Schaffer is presenting appreciation to Ms Brink who is moving after 20 yrs of dedicated choir directing and TAISM. She is the one who made the choir program. Everyone sounded lovely. We ended up in a place my children have never been before. Cayetana's Mom needed me to pick her up from school so that she could attend the concert. I did but didn't really have time to go from school to home to school again and the only place around really, was McDonalds. Cayetana was happy to fill Elise in on the exciting opportunity to get a toy prize inside those happy meals. The rest of us were not impressed or overly anxious to go back.  We were one group of many to came to chill before the concert.  Savvy got to ride with us in the girl car.  It was fun to see Brigham hanging with his friends. Choir is not his thing-or so he says. I think he did a great job. He's learning soooooo much.  

Sennia, loves Saniya and Sayuri but we got the sad news that Sayuri is moving back to Tokyo. They will miss their tiny friend next year. We had this little party for her. Actually, we had party pt 1 and party pt 2. Pt 1 included pizza, ice cream cake, gifts and swimming. Saeida did a lot for this so I offered to do pt.2 the next week. Pt. 2 was vegetarian sushi and cupcake/cake balls and swimming.   

I've been developing a profile of my own. I'm the paddle board groupie. I set up groups to go paddle-boarding pretty much ever week. There are 3 of us who have boards and we set up this group. The favorite place to go is Yacht Club to Sidab. It's the perfect trip. This is the second time I went. The other thing I've been doing is taking more video footage that photos when I do water adventures. I don't have lots of photos from some of our activities and I have a lovely video that won't load here. Some of the highlights from the trip were helping Kate save a turtle, and just visiting with all of them.  She was very pleased with the stuffy she sewed, even if it was pink. Something else I'm loving-miraculously-are my early morning runs with Lauren. She really has inspired me to commit to getting up early and sweating it out. The humidity has been ridiculous-50-76% every day. We put in our miles and are drenched. She kept me going! She loves school, her bestie C...

Matt was leaving for the States for a while so we went out to the Souq and a family Juice place. He was barely gone for an hour when my car started acting up. Thankfully my friend Mo took a look and helped me out. We added oil and got an oil change and it was fine. Swim team wrapped up. Brigham had a good year. Coach Kuhlke left after this year so Michelle put this together for him. Relay team. We found out a classmate of Elise's lives close to us. I wish I'd known sooner! Playdate with Sayuri. Farewell luncheon with Embassy Folks.  Arabic lessons continue. Yummy Dill Pizza. Alena had some friends over to watch her favorite 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. They'd never seen it, but with all the hype Johnny Depp got recently in his trial, they were interested. I'm really glad she's found some fun people to hang out with.  

School wasn't out, but the embassy was. Golden holiday spent on a Dhow boat with all these fun people.  

The MEA Club had a Memorial Day event that included a flag ceremony by the Marines.  The kids had a blast and basically took over the bar. Yep, this is the bar. Typically at embassy events it is full of adults.  This boy of mine tries really hard. He's a good sport. Life is hard. It's hard to see your kids hurt. It's hard to watch them struggle with what isn't fair, navigate rejection and stand up for themselves.   I'm always thankful when we find nice kids to play with.  The embassy band played a lot of the night. We couldn't stay for all of it but we did stay through Hey Jude. I felt kinda sad. I will miss many faces who leave this summer for other posts.   

Twin day School was adorable for these two! Screenshots from Elise's teacher. Actually there have been a few more lately as well. I'll have to find them. I can't remember where Matt was but this happened while he was there. Frankincense ice cream. It was lovely.    While Sennia was at a birthday party Elise made these for our friends Lauren and Mo. Her picture of Mo was especially cute. They had come over for crepes that morning.  Here are a couple of photos of Sennia's school year from her teacher. These are just from the last couple of months.