The Schellenbergs.com

Wanted to send a message home to Grams… Love you, Happy birthday!

From Ryan, Jen, Daniel, Thomas, and Rosie

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…

Hey Everyone… It’s been a while.

Jen and I planned a super cool birthday for our little man. Thomas has always loved Dinosaurs, animals and trucks. Anything bigger than Mom and Dad is cool. For his 5th birthday this year, we rented a stretched hummer and picked up all his friends and took them for a little tour of Doha.  I will get the video uploaded and post it separately. Take a look:

 

 

K. I really like this one:

 

   

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.

 

It rained yesterday and today!  Thomas was out enjoying it (who knows when it will happen again).

Of course you need the camel pack when you are out for a 10 minute ride in the rain.  It’s important to keep hydrated when you live in the desert!!!

love

-jen

 

He didn’t take the mouth piece out of his mouth the whole time

 

Had to tie the straps up so he wouldn’t get then caught in the chain

Goof

Lovin’ the splashes.  Look at the speed….<grin>

So… Qatar’s national day is December 18th. it celebrates the day that the Emir fought off the otoman empire and the brits. it was established only a few years back, and they have been stepping up the celebrations in the past few years. Doha is a city that seems to be struggling like a teenager, trying to find itslef. Not being able to go back packing through europe, it is kinda left to it’s own devices.

This past national day had doha decorated tot he hilt. 80 story buildings were transformed into projection screens with animation and movies projected onto them. they had water screens spaced about every kilometer along the corniche also acting as movie screens showing diferent scenes from around doha.  They had the national anthem playing form a sound system that ran the length of the 7 kilometer stretch.

We got to the corniche at about 8, in preparations for a 9 pm start. we found a good spot and set up camp. the boys had their little video players and I spent the time chatting with Liezel and her girls(mainly about school girl shoes…)

9 came and went. then 9:30. at 10, we decided that we’d pack it in if things haddn’t gotten started by 10:30. at 10:10, the event began, and what an event it was. there was 20 minutes of sky fillign fireworks that were all diferent colours, adn diferent shapes. they had small ones that threw long trails of sparks and blossomed into flowers synchronized with the massive ones that shoot hundreds of feet into the sky. Thomas liked the fact that  these fireworks made clouds that were cool shapes, and daniel liked the big ones that when they boomed, it rumbled your stomach. there were points that the whole presentation area was filled with sparks. they had fireworks that blew up showing hearts, circles and other shapes.

it was incredible.

For the finale, they just let everyting else go… it was crazy. form the 5 (I think) fireworks platforms, there was a 10 minute barrage of explosions in the sky… anyone in our party over the age of 7 was speechless… thomas was amazed with those clouds. Daniel thought each one was beter than the last.

It was quite the evening. we didn’t get home till 12:20, and the boys had passed out in the car, but it was an amazing evening.

Well done Doha.

Dunno if you’ve heard, but there were internet cables cut on Wednesday evening in the Mediterranean… this made for a very interesting Thursday for myself and the crew I work with. I just found out that a third cable has been snipped in the persian gulf but it is less of an issue as it had some redundancy build into the design… all this is an important into to today’s post of the weekend…

Today is friday here in the warm hazy city of Doha, Qatar. we started out the day going to church, then headed down to the wheels and heels festival put on by reach out to Asia and shell petroleum. this celebration is held during the las leg of the tour of qatar, here in qatar. the tour is put on by the same people that do a little bike ride in France called the tour of qatar, but it isn’t “quite” as well known.

anyways, we went down to it. It was amazing. They had huge inflatable park equipment that the kids could play on, vendors selling stuff, bbq’s going on, tons of security guards running around and so many kids. There must have been 400 volunteers there too… just an amazing city wide picnic on a Friday afternoon. Only think that made the day kinda rough was this sand storm that blew out of nowhere… Sandstorms for the uninitiated are like fog, only the fog hurts your eyes and tastes like garbage… not a terribly nice feeling. One interesting thing though, is after being outside for 5 minutes, it kinda gets better… then after 20 minutes, your nose starts to run like crazy… amazing how the body kicks into high gear…

Thomas and I sat down and watched the bike race for a bit. there was a motorcade in front that announced it’s arrival. Then there were 3 riders who had broken away from the poleton for a bit. We took some pictures of those guys… then you hear the wind and the gears… the whizzing of the riders as they approach. a blaze of colours approach as the riders bank to attack the round about that Thomas and I are stationed at… I take one last look at him and dive behind the shutter… about 4 seconds and the whole thing is over. it is absolutely amazingly fast. so fast, so close together. quite a sight.

I have lots of pictures to upload, and I will… but I am going to wait till the internet is at least limping and not bleeding out in this area…