Random Bits and Pieces

I am way over due for a blog post and life does not seem to be slowing down. In fact, it seems to be speeding up and I'm left hanging on by my fingertips trying not to be left behind.

So here is a quick bullet point list of some random thoughts I've been having recently:

-- Brian was sick first... got over it and was able to resume life again as normal just in time for me to get sick. We lost almost 2 weeks as a result. Life still functioned almost as normal, just our heads were in a perpetual fog with a couple of days for pure misery.

-- You know you live overseas when you taste the milk before giving it to the kids to drink. Every time. Even if it is lunchtime and you gave them some for breakfast.

-- The streets here are just a huge game of Chicken. Equally valid are cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists. The only "heavy-weight" on the street are the buses. Whoever gets there first has the right of way. Or whoever starts honking the most if there are traffic police out. Stop signs are few and far between and completely ignored. Yes, it seems crazy, but if you learn the system, it actually works. 

-- My girls spend hours playing downstairs with their friends. Emily is constantly surprising me with the Arabic she knows and how quickly she puts new words into her vocabulary.

-- Emily has been taking Arabic classes twice a week at a Language School 5 doors down from us. She loves it. A week ago, I was grading her math and was surprised that her worksheet had so many mistakes. But when I talked to her about it, we discovered that the problem was me - she was writing all the answers in Arabic numbers. We compromised and she wrote them in English and Arabic numbers.

-- Homeschooling is still going well. Savannah has been progressing through her workbooks really quickly, but I found a bookstore tucked out of the way that sells English workbooks for preschool at a reasonable price. Emily has good days where she easily accomplishes her work and seems to want more and (thankfully) much fewer days where she thinks she can never finish her work and it is boring and terrible and I'm a horrible person for even suggesting she do her work.

-- Sophie is free standing and keeping her balance very well. She moves around the furniture and people more quickly each day. Its exciting and scary.

-- Ryan Shupe's CD Dream Big is again my "go-to" music.  It will probably change next week.
-- I'm currently reading The Way They Learn by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias
-- I'm baking Pumpkin Bread a lot since it is fall and the weather is cooler. I think the low is 70 tonight.
-- I'm missing Sour Cream and Onion chips and dill pickles. The chips I can get every so often, but the pickles I can't. Well, I can, but I can't bring myself to pay $7 a jar for them. ha. We were eating local pickles today (that only resemble real pickles in that they are both made from cucumbers) and I promised Savannah that when we come home, we will always have dill pickles on hand.

And speaking of chips... I have some in the kitchen calling my name.
I promise a post with pictures soon :)