ON YOUR MARK....GET SET....GO!!!! (Boat Races - this is for you Uncle Jim!)

So, when we told my family about moving to Qatar, my Uncle Jim immediately went into telling Mark and I about their fast boats.  Apparently there is a boat race in southern Indiana and Qatar races its boats there, too.  Somewhat random as I now think about it more... Anyways, he told us how fast the boats were, and that if we ever had a chance to see a race that we should go.  

Well, our chance came, as we recently have discovered that Qatar will try to host everything and anything here, and we took full advantage. A group of us from school went to the race on a Saturday afternoon.  It was a lot of fun! I can't complain about upper 70 degree weather, fast boats, and enjoying time outside with others...all the while it being in November. 

The race reminded me of the Indy 500 to an extent, minus the crazy crowd.  We watched the fast boats go around a circle in the water.  We quickly realized we were at the "right" corner, as we witnessed 2 fires (everyone was fine), a flipped boat, and another boat destroy the bouey for the boundary. With the numerous restarts, the race lasted about 30 minutes.  Qatar won with flying colors...it really wasn't much of a competition in that sense. 

Here are some of the pictures and videos we took...So, thanks Uncle Jim for the recommendation; I'm glad we went. 

 Watching the boats go into the water

 The gang getting ready to watch the race...

The view behind where we were sitting

Qatar with the VICTORY

Mark and I went back the following weekend to watch the larger boats.   We decided to go a bit early and get some work down outside...oh how I love November in Doha. 

Although they may have been faster and louder, the smaller boats were more fun to watch. This race with the bigger boats lasted about 10 minutes.

 Only had the Ipad with us, but you can see the splash line from the boats...

"Surprise" Birthday Party

So, last week my kids started asking me all sorts of out of the blue questions such as...

* Do you like surprise parties?
* What is your favorite color?
* Are you allergic to anything?
* What do you have planned for "Golden Time" on Thursday?
 (Golden Time - is free lesson if students behave all week and we get all our work done)

The questions were then followed later in the week with telling me they can't wait until Thursday and all of the class knows why, but me.  It didn't take long for me to realize that they were planning a "surprise" birthday party for me.  In theory, it would have been quite a surprise as my birthday is not for another month.  On Wednesday I noticed my kids whispering something to Mark, which is when I realized that he was in on it too.  I was impressed they sought him out at school to make sure he could come and help with the "surprise".

The kiddos were cute the day on Thursday telling me they were excited for Golden Time, and then I noticed some whispering more than normal, but tried to keep up the act that I didn't know what was going on. The kids had arranged for another teacher and Mark to distract me, while they quickly got the cake, set up the classroom, and got ready to surprise me.

I walked into the room to absolute chaos of kids yelling surprise, stuff written all over the board for me, and cake and gifts being shoved into my face.  I appreciated their thoughtfulness.

Here are some pictures from our party.  Mark was able to stay for about 10 minutes before his next lesson and then the kids ate lots of sugar and then went home. ;)

They put blue and green sprinkles on it to represent my favorite colors! :)

 These are my 5-4 darlings!

 One of my students was so excited to tell me how he changed the schedule from "Golden Time" to "Party Time"