Sand Storm - 2011

Wow.  This is definitely not something I had hoped to experience, but I got to anyway.  I cannot even begin to describe to you the amount of dirt that accumulated in my house and on my patio in just a few short minutes.

We had been at the baseball field and come home to change clothes.  We had big plans to celebrate Landen's birthday that night.  He had invited two friends over to spend the night and we were going to Hard Rock Cafe to eat dinner and dessert.  To make a long story short....  this is what was approaching when we were ready to leave.  Needless to say, we didn't get to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z6SpbWTucg

To give you a better idea, outside it looked like this:

Inside looked like this:

Newspaper Link:
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NDEyMjU3MzQy

Don't you wish you lived in the Middle East??  Of all times, Kumari is gone to Sri Lanka.  :-)  Ya just have to laugh and move on.  Thankfully, we were home and not out.  We had friends that were out camping and got trapped in their car for 4 hours.  15 more months, 15 more months, 15 more months.....

Update

Kumari's daughter is better, I think.  This is really hard communicating and understanding the severity of it from Kumari.  I'm not sure she understands herself, and then she tries to translate for me.  From what I gather now, she has a very badly damaged shoulder and she is in a neck brace.  They are waiting on the swelling to go down so they can see if her neck is broken.  She is moving all of her limbs and talking so that is a good sign.   Obviously, she is still in the hospital.

Kumari is taking it one day at a time and in good spirits now.  She is considering going over my Spring Break week (in 2 1/2 weeks), but I'm not sure if she will or not.  We have told her we are sending her back for the entire summer as well, regardless of what happens now.

Thank you for the prayers for her.  I know she appreciates them!

This and That

I'm not sure if we are coming or going these days.  Time is FLYING and I am thankful for that.

First, let me start with an update on Kumari.  Most of you know a little about her from my prior post, but in case you are just joining in - she is our live in maid from Sri Lanka.   Today, she got a phone call that her youngest daughter (14) had been in a motorcycle wreck.  She is in the hospital and Kumari is getting updates by phone.  As of now, her daughter has opened her eyes, but they want her to rest and she has not spoken.  I'm a little unclear as to whether she is sleeping from some form of medicine or if she hasn't spoken since the accident.  It has been about 24 hours since it happened, from what I understand.  Please pray for her and her daughter.  She will get another update in the morning and will decide if she needs to fly back to Sri Lanka to be with her.   She is worried because she doesn't have the money to go, she would be leaving us (she stays with Jordyn daily) and of course, she is fearful for her daughter.  Her oldest daughter has come home from school to be with her little sister, but she is very upset every time Kumari speaks with her on the phone.  I will keep you posted on that and we are hoping for good news in the morning.  I truly can't imagine what she is feeling.

Today was yet another day on the baseball fields.  We found out today that Landen's team is going to get to go to Qatar AND Dubai in April (and Poland this summer.)   We have been toying around with what to do about Spring Break and I am thankful we had not booked any trips!  I was able to get off work for the Dubai tournament because I have been saving my 2 personal days all year knowing this might be a possibility.  I was bummed when I found out about Qatar because I thought I wouldn't be able to go.  However, I was happily surprised when I found out the dates fall during the week of my Spring Break!!  So, I get to go to both and I am delighted.  I don't think we'll have any time to really sight see, but it will be fun to at least go and see what little we can.  Hayden is doing fantastic too, but his age group does not travel.  He'll have to get a little older before he has the opportunities that Landen is having.  Today he knocked another home run.  His team was down 7 to 2 and they came back to win it 9-8, so it was an exciting day for him!

I've gotta get to bed so that we can wake up to hit gymnastics and baseball again in the morning and another scrimmage in the afternoon.  I've gotta figure out when to get to the grocery store at some point in there (which is not like running to Wal-mart right around the corner.)  This whole working full time thing sure puts a kink in things!  ha!

Here are a few random pictures:

First, a picture for you of some men dangling from power lines near our house.  Looks SCARY to me!

Here's a picture of Hayden in his 2nd grade program at ASK.  It's not to hard to find him.... hee, hee!

Here's a picture of some of the drivers waiting outside the school.  I'm telling you again...  the drivers drive the maids to the schools, the maid hops out of the car and takes/picks up the child, then jumps back in the car with the driver to go home.  It is a sea of maids and drivers when the bell rings - it's the same way at the school I work in.  One day I'll get a picture of them all coming in at bell time....    See how they have double and triple parked on the side of the road?  Yep.  Our car was blocked in when we got back to it.

Kids....

Nana was asking for some pictures of Jordyn, so I took a few last night.  Right now, she enjoys spending a large majority of her day on her head.  Wonder where she got that from?

Here she is talking to Pawpaw and Grace Ann....

I don't post a lot of the kids because I guess I think I will bore my readers - who ever you may be (except for the faithful few that comment and send me e-mails....)

Today they had a surprise birthday party for me at work after our staff meeting.  My birthday isn't until next week, but we don't have a staff meeting next week.  It was a fun way to end my day at work.  They tried to be sneaky about it but I had it figured out considering one of the Arabic TA's comes by my desk yesterday and says, " what day is your birthday?"  That was kind of a give away!  They gave me a few presents, but I told them I was going to wait until my actual birthday to open them.  I think one of them might be perfume and I'm clueless about the other two.  

The baseball tournament went well and Landen's team ended up losing 2 games.  The umping in one of the games was terrible and did not work in our favor.  It was very disappointing and frustrating for the players, but I guess that makes you a better sport.  Now...  we're waiting to find out if they are going to take a team to Dubai or not.   I thought it was an annual event, but Dubai has not sent the invitation yet so we have no idea at this point.

Due to the uncertainty of baseball, we are looking into tickets for Spring Break and a quick visit for a few days as a family to Dubai.  I found cheap plane tickets, but we haven't bought them yet.  Maybe we'll make a decision this weekend.  We obviously don't get to travel here like we did in Europe.  It's not as easy as jumping in the car and within an hour being in a different country.  Here, you have to jump on a plane and even then, the places you can visit right now are extremely limited.  I had a couple of people suggest going to Europe for Spring Break and I politely said, "no, thank you."    I think I am done with Europe for a few years.