Meet Flat Stanley

This posting is for Mrs. Flusche and her adventurous Multi-age classroom at Jenks West Elementary in Jenks, Oklahoma! Less than a week ago I recieved a manilla envelope and inside it I found a new friend. His name is Flat Stanley and from the note that accompanied him he appears to be quite the world traveler!

Tanner and Gavin were very excited that Flat Stanley flew from Oklahoma all the way to the Kingdom of Bahrain. He is our first guest to visit from the United States! We quickly packed the car and set off on a whirlwind adventure driving Flat Stanley all over our new country.

We hope you have as much fun "touring the island" as Flat Stanley did, ENJOY!


MARHABA! (welcome) This is a map of the Kingdom of Bahrain.


Flat Stanley could not believe that there are camels in Bahrain!


He asked if he could ride one of the camels but the owner said they were getting ready to eat their lunch, maybe next visit!


We were hungry so we decided to eat a local favorite meal called schwarma at Leabnese Oven.


Tanner and I enjoyed looking at the pictures of all the interesting foods on the menu.


This is Mr. Abdul, he is a friend of the Flusche family.


Flat Stanley eating Schwarma with Tanner, his Daddy and Mr. Abdul.


Tanner and Flat Stanley having a great time at Mr. Abdul's Uncle's carpet shop in Adlia.


It's so much fun to play atop a tall pile of carpets!


Flat Stanley purchased this beautiful carpet! I wonder if it's a MAGIC carpet, what do you think?


Tanner and Flat Stanley posing on the outskirts of his neighborhood.


Flat Stanley in Arad with the city of Juffair in the distance.


This is where Tanner and Gavin live. Their home is called a villa.


This is the street where Tanner and Gavin live.


This is the back side of Tanner and Gavin's neighborhood, there is a mosque about 4 villas down their street.


Shhh... little one sleeping


Flat Stanley enjoyed taking afternoon naps with baby Gavin!


Flat Stanley out on a drive, with one of many pearl statues behind him. Bahrain is known as "The Pearl of the Gulf".


This is Flat Stanley outside of the Isa Cultural Center and Library.


The beautiful building on the left is the Grand Mosque with the Isa Cultural Center on the right.


The Grand Mosque at sunset.


Flat Stanley enjoyed tasting some local favorites, Tanner and Gavin's Mommy treated him to kiwi lime juice. Yum-Yum!


Can you find Flat Stanley? He was enjoying a game of Hide-and-Seek in Tanner and Gavin's villa!


Tanner taught Flat Stanley how to play pool.


Flat Stanley enjoyed going on a bike ride with Gavin and his Mommy!


Most of all Flat Stanley enjoyed hanging out listening to stories about our family.

The Flusche family would like to thank Mrs. Flusche's class for introducing us to Flat Stanley. He was a wonderful guest and we would be pleased to welcome him to our home again in the future. Happy traveling Flat Stanley!

Happy Easter 2010

What a beautiful day God gave us for the celebration of His Son! We enjoyed a fun family day and even attended service at the only Anglican church on the island.

The night before Easter Tanner, Mommy and Daddy died Easter eggs. We thank a friend of Katy's for sending us an egg dying kit from the States... as you can imaging Easter eggs are not commonplace in a Muslim country. Tanner enjoyed coloring on the eggs with a white crayon prior to dying and placing silly eye and smile stickers on the finished project. I'm glad we were able to share this fun Easter tradition with Tanner this year.


Tanner and Daddy dying Easter eggs


Tanner and his great creations

The day began with a VERY excited Tanner who discovered that the Easter Bunny did indeed hear that we moved to the Kingdom of Bahrain and remembered to put the Flusche villa on his world wide egg hiding tour.


Tanner and Gavin Easter morning


Tanner and Gavin checking out their baskets

The Easter Bunny displayed quite creative skills in his egg hiding ability. The EB hid all the bright plastic eggs on the first floor of our villa and challenged Tanner to reach and search!


Funny bunny, soooo silly!


Gavin on the hunt


Tanner looking for eggs

The Easter Bunny filled Tanner's Easter basket with an Ironman coloring book, Lego Jr. Magazine, a new Quiksilver T-Shirt and an asortment of KinderChocolate products (his favorite candy that is manufactured in Germany). Tanner's hidden eggs were filled with M&Ms that looked like little robbin eggs, Tootsie Rolls, Hershey Miniaturs, and little do-dads like egg shaped errasers and stickers.


Tanner's Easter basket loot


Tanner showing off his find

The Easter Bunny placed a cute Easter Egg Hunt board book, butter biscuits and glocowafers in Gavin's Easter Basket. Gavin's plastic eggs which were all "hidden" in the foyer were filled with Cherios... he couldn't have been more excited when he found out the "balls" had food in them!


Gavin investigating his basket


Gavin loves the butter biscuits and glucowafers the EB left for him


Gavin inspecting his Cherio filled egg


YUMMY - Cheerios!

After a fun morning of egg discovery and pancakes we attended St. Christopher's Anglican Church. Since arriving on the island we had been out on many excursions to try to locate this church. Paul finally found it the day before Easter.

The cathedral was packed with a congrigation of about 80-90 people. There were many families with children. The church even provided an egg hunt prior to the service. I enjoyed the service and apprecited the traditional style of worship that we miss from our home church in Tulsa. Poor Paul, spent the service walking a fussy Gavin in the courtyard and fellowship room. We look forward to trying St. Christopher's again on a regular Friday worship service when the nursery is open.

Following church we enjoyed the company of our friends the Smitts. The Smitt family is made up of Angela (Mom), Franchoan (Dad), Marco (age 5) and Luca (age 2). Tanner met Marco in his class at Nadeen and we all hit it off immediatly. The Smitts arrived in Bahrain from South Africa in Janurary, our families are both "new" and experiencing some of the same quirky things about this country simutaniously. They invited us over to their apartment for lunch and an afternoon of swimming... it was so much fun that we ended up staying for dinner and drinks as well. Fabulous day had by all.

We hope you had a wonderful and blessed Easter filled with friends and family, God Bless.

Base Easter Celebration

The day before Easter both the CDC (Child Development Center) and MWR (Moral Welfare Recreation)teamed up to help make Easter magical for the children of NSA Bahrain!


The egg hunt


Tanner hunting for eggs

The celebration started with an Egg Hunt at Liberty Pavilion where the hunt was set up in age groups. To add an extra element of fun, there were a few "Golden Eggs" hidden in each age bracket. The lucky children who found one of the Golden Eggs won a Dove chocolate Easter Bunny. Our Tanner found one of the Golden Eggs in the sand pit and he couldn't have been prouder! ;)


Golden Egg Winners


Tanner with his Dove Chocolate Bunny

This was Gavin's first egg hunt and he thought the plastic eggs were very interesting. He liked that the eggs made noise when he shook them. Gavin enjoyed watching the other children about his size run to the eggs and was very excited to see what they were doing.


Gavin's first egg hunt


Gavin levitating eggs

The Easter Bunny and his friend Alibaba (only in the Middle East right?) made guest appearances entertaining the children and posing for photographs.


Action shot of Tanner with Alibaba

Alibaba was a hit, the children enjoyed the balloon animals, hats and swords that he made especially for them. Both my boys got in on the fun with blue swords, you know, nothing says "Jesus Has Risen" like a 14 month kid swinging a sword given to him by Alibaba at his Dad and brother (laugh).


Tanner and Gavin with their balloon swords


Gavin defending base against the "Daddy Dragon" ;)

Many of the Navy's finest volunteered to help MWR serve the families hot dogs, chips and other goodies. All in all I can say with certainty that this was the best base Easter celebration we have witnessed in our almost 10 years of service. Big thanks go out to CDC & MWR for making the day special for so many kids!


Gavin's pooped out from a long afternoon of fun... nap time!!

My First Solo Trip To The Manama Souqs

This was a BIG day for me, guess you can say I feel completely at home with Bahrain (or incredibly insane) because I went into the souqs downtown by myself. I felt completely safe and actually enjoyed the chaos that surrounded me.





The entrance to the souqs is located off a pretty busy street and the parking is off site across the street. The country tried to "spruce up" the image of the souqs by building a great entrance and fancy facades (pictured above) to draw in the foot traffic. Once you get about 1/8 of a mile in there the old souqs (pictured below) are what you find. I prefer the older souqs because they give you the "full souq experience".





First things first, as my friend Katy taught me and a I will teach you... you must start the souq shopping experience by visiting Sueneil at his juice shop called Muntaz Juice which in Arabic means Good Juice (pictured below). Bahrain houses the best tasting juices in the world and Sueneil's shop is NO exception. He is friendly, gracious and personally brings his cute female patrons a plastic stool to sit on while he makes their beverage of choice. My favorite drink is MintLemon (think Mojito without the liquor) it is DELICIOUS!!!! Gavin enjoys the banana juice when Mommy agrees to indulge him.








Following the wonderful refreshment one can stroll through the back alley feel of the souqs or make a fun detour to the gold souqs. There are two gold souqs that I like to visit one is called fittingly enough The Gold Souq and the other is Gold City. Today I visited The Gold Souq to see my friend Shyjal at Joanna Silver to pick up an order. I took a photo of a shop called "Tiffaney" but even the signature blue can't fool me - it's like nobody here has ever heard of trademark infringement (laugh)!!






Hope you enjoyed the tour, come visit me and I'll buy your juice!!

My First Attempt At Doing Henna

All I can say is that one should NOT drink coffee prior to attempting Henna on themselves (or anyone else for that matter), especially if it is your first time. I had a cup of coffee that morning and regretted it about 5 minutes into the experience. That being said, I think my henna turned out beautiful!

One week prior to my henna "test run" I took a class offered through Fleet and Family Support Center on base... it was like "Henna For Dummies" and I thought how hard can this be really? Actually there is some skill involved. One must make tiny dots all connected to each other to form a fluid line. The process is similar to writing with icing on a cake - the main difference is that icing can be removed from a cake if the decorator is not satisfied with the result, Henna - NOT SO MUCH! :)




I started at the tip of my pointer finger on my left hand and less than an hour later I had worked my way down to my wrist. I am very satisfied with the results and even now as my henna is one week old it still looks great. Henna comes in either a pen or a cone (similar to icing cones that you may see at a bakery).




There is a local henna beauty parlor named Henna Rachna that decorates women seven days a week, if you go there you will see women sprawled out in lounging chairs with henna artists performing their magic. Henna Rachna is where one can purchase a cone of henna for 500 fills (a little over one dollar) each cone lasts for two weeks if refrigerated. I look forward to doing henna again in the near future, I wish my sister Lauren lived closer so I could henna her pregnant belly - it would look so cute! Henna is great fun and a nice creative outlet, guess you can say I'm hooked!

Ahoy Matey!!!

Tanner and his classmates celebrated "Nautical Day" on March 30th as part of their end of term activities. Children school wide were encouraged to wear something "Nautical" to go with the day's theme. WOW what a variety of costumes!



Tanner and his friend Magnus from Denmark


The parade hosted mermaids, pirates, lifeguards, sailors, an octopus, fish, wetsuits, scuba gear... you name it and it was represented with grand style. Our Tanner decided to go as a pirate (what can I say it's in the blood thanks to Grandpa - laugh!)



The class on parade with Miss Lynn "at the helm"


The following day the kids went to the sea shore for a day of sand play and hanging out in the Bahrain sunshine. Paul (BRAVE soul that he is) volunteered to be a chaperon. The children all had a fabulous time and are now enjoying a 20 day Spring Break before the Spring term begins on April 19th.


Gabriel and Tanner in the classroom before the parade


Even Gavin dressed for the occasion in his sailboat T-Shirt!


This kid was a hoot in dive gear!

Jack and the Beanstalk

"CHOP-CHOP-CHOP Went the Axe..."

March 25th was a beautiful morning and made the perfect backdrop for the Nadeen International School's Reception class performance of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Three classes of 5 year old children sang, danced and recited their Pre-Spring production with GREAT enthusiasm! Meanwhile their parents clapped, video taped and sang along to hits like "Grind His Bones to Make My Bread and One Fine Cow"(lets face it we all knew the songs because our children practiced for months in the shower and the back seats of our SUVs)!

The production took place in the back garden of Nadeen and the kids couldn't have been any cuter in their handmade crowns - have a peek for yourself! Beware of giants and crazy butchers trading for magic beans!


The back gardens at Nadeen International School


Marco, Tanner and Jack


Tanner as "The Butcher"


"I'll trade you these magic beans for your cow"


Proud Daddy documenting the event!


Ta-Da! And that's all folks!