The Schellenbergs.com

ok… so I have been neglectful. Apologies. I was on holidays last week and we did a ton of awesome stuff here in Doha.

One of the coolest things was the release of baby hawksbill sea turtles.

We went up to one of the beaches north of Doha where the government is organizing turtle protection activities for the state of Qatar.  Apparently the project is very successful and they are finding the transmitters that have been attached to the turtles in places from Cairo to Indonesia. Quite the swim if you ask me.

anyways, the pics.

Daniel is showing off his little dude.

And Thomas doing the same

 

Bit of a closeup

 

 

Thomas loved watching them go into the water, he was a big helper

Just after this was taken, Daniel jumped cause if you look closely you can see a turtle crawling over daniels foot… Scared the big man…

Happy Easter!

we are celebrating Easter on Saturday this year. The day started with a big Easter egg hunt and will finish off with a giant Dinner. Jen is making 2 turkeys, some blunt nosed deer and all the trimmings to go with. As is usual, we invited a small army to help us process all this food. We asked people to bring something that is traditional from their families celebrations. This year we have South Africa, Newcastle, London, Ethiopia, south western USA, North eastern USA, and Canada present. It’s always interesting to see what shows up at the table.

For starters, Here’s how our morning started:

The Boys showing off their Easter Bunny Bags

 

The Easter Bunny Came!

 

 

The Egg Hunt Continues

 

      

 

 

Thomas, Grab that one!

 

 

 

Mom mentally prepares herself for the day

 

 

 

Thomas mentally prepares himself for the day.

 

Little bit of Arts and Crafts!

 

 

Perhaps a few too many photos?

 

This is as close to smiling as she gets.

 

Not too much new here, Thomas’ surgery went well, We got him some lego toys to build while waiting, both because he was having surgery and to distract him from the fact that it had been 15 hours since his last meal or drink…

Thomas was in the OR for about 20 minutes before the doctor came out and told us all went well. He did have a ton of buildup behind the tube, so the dr opted to leave the ear hole open rather than stitch it closed to allow some air in there… get the infection all cleared up. Only problem with that is no swimming for 3-4 weeks (crap)

The weather here is beautiful. 22 in the morning, 34 in the afternoons. it is a great time to be in the middle east. People are starting to un-hermit them selves and this weekend we are actually going over to a friends place for thanksgiving dinner (again).

The Janzens, the Schellenbergs and another family are all getting together to celebrate together. anyways.. hope everyone back home is having a good work week…

We went to the beach yesterday… Daniel and I spent some time hangin out on the rocks… Here is a little video of us horsing around with a few of his friends…
Other than that, we went to Rick’s country kitchen for a taste of greasy spoon, and had supper at a friends place… Order in pizza… Yummy, quick and great for clean-up….

So. it’s been a while. since I posted a real post last, we had christmas, new years, a new president and guests to Doha… it has been wonderfully busy, I got better, then sick again, Jen left, then came back again, Kara left and she came back too! You can see I was testing a new tool that linked my blog to twitter…  Jen didn’t like it, and I kinda agree… anyways…

Christmas in the middle east. It was warm? I was expecting a fairly quiet do, with some parties around the compound. It was sort of like that… the malls had christmas carols playing, there were nativity scenes in the malls available to purchase, christmas cards, all kinds of stuff… it was cool. Jen came home on the 23rd and christmas arrived as planned on the 25th.

Christmas last year was pretty tight, with the move to the middle east and all, so this year we went overboard. Hopefully next year will be a bit more restrained.

New years this year was celebrated at a friend’s place. we had a barbeque and when it was time for the count down, we ran into a bit of an issue. there really was no major countdown to sync to… so we just kinda winged it. it worked out…

Kara was away in finland for the month of december. you can read about her travels on her blog http://kara.theschellenbergs.com.

Most recently, we had Kara’s family, well, her Oma, Opa and Ant over with us. They stayed for 8 days, and I believe had a blast.

It was good for Kara to see them too. They went dune-ing, to the markets, to the souks, went shopping, and Rachelle even got some sun tanning in. We re-arranged the sleeping locations. Daniel and thomas were in with jen and I in the master bedroom, Kara and Rachelle shared Daniel and thomas’ bedroom and Oma and Opa shared Kara’s bedroom.It was nice to show people around this crazy town.

anyways, I need to run. I have a wicked headache and some sort of sinus issue… not the healthiest environment to visit, but it sure is interesting…

The family got in at 7:30 last night…

We used the Al Maha service, a meet and greet at the airport, turns out it was a colossal waste of money and arguably time. Both jen and kara said the flights were good, with the exception of the final 90 minutes, when the kids had been cooped up for 18 hours, and they were ready to run around.  When jen and Kara landed, all the passengers board a bus, this al maha service was supposed to skip that step. they were supposed to be ushered into a waiting car, adn wisked away to a nice lounge… Not so much. I think the one good thing that the service did was the imigration, but even that was a bit silly, the Qatari imigration is as  efficient as any I’ve sen, and we didn’t have any special requirements. Bah, lesson learnt.

They landed at 7:30, and we drove into our driveway at 9:10, everyone loved the work I did on the house, and the boys loved their transformers. Rosie went ballistic… she was running around, bringing us all her toys showing us them… it was cool. We unpacked our stuff(or at least put a serious dent in it) and crashed at about 11…

It’s nice to have everyone home.

I arrived in Canada on the 4^th. Got off the plane at Pearson, and immediately noticed something that I hadn’t known I was missing, the smell of growth and clean air. Doah is nice, but it is easy to take for granted the stuff like natural trees, grasses and the hustle and bustle of a busy city. Doha, 50 years ago was a tiny city, it is struggling with it’s growth, Toronto has been around for 200 years. I wonder if people from Frankfurt feel the same way towards Toronto as I feel towards Doha… Humm…

The colours. There are colours everywhere in Canada, and natural colours. Now, given, I was there in the summer, and it was a very wet summer, so it really isn’t a fair comparison, but still, it was nice to see. Then there are the friends, all the people and family that you miss and think about often, all waiting for your return.

When I returned to Doha, I came home alone. I was thinking that I may have made a mistake when I was on the return flight. Leaving all the memories and that lifestyle to come back to the desert… As I flew over Doha with it’s little gated compounds, and it’s roads that stretch off to the middle of nowhere, I was reminded that it is a little city that is growing so rapidly, and being a part of that growth is exciting. It was great to go home, but it’s also great to be back.