He's playing for WHO?!?!?!

Serious ball player


Tanner played his first Coach Pitch/T-ball game in Bahrain last weekend. There are two teams in the "league", the METS and the CUBS. Each Saturday the two teams play each other. Paul's Grandmother (a lifelong Cardinals fan) is rolling in her grave over the fact Tanner is playing for the CUBS! (laugh)



Up to bat!



Tanner Action Shot



The Bahrain School Ball Field



Tanner's Cheering Section



Teammates



"Good Game, Good Game, Good Game, Good Game..."

My Musical Baby

Me and my Musical Baby


Gavin and I have started taking a Musical Babies class at the Nadeen School every Wednesday morning. While there we sing, dance and play musical instruments. Gavin enjoys his teacher Miss Vicky who plays the piano and guitar. He always signs for "MORE" when she stops playing the piano. Gavin loves the interaction with the other babies and I love that he's wiped out after class... He always naps well on Wednesdays! :)


My Little Drummer Boy



Gavin, my social butterfly, wanted to be in the middle of everything, hmmmm... wonder where he get's THAT from? (laugh!)



Love'n the music



Scarf Juggling makes him laugh

NQR: NOT Quite Right (AND a few other things that make me laugh)

Yeah, that's what you think it is. I guess the guy thought "I know I've got the WHOLE highway but, why NOT drive a huge truck down the sidewalk?" I almost missed this photo op.



Amphibious War Machine or a VERY serious duck hunter?



This has WT trailer-park jokes written all over it, it's not every day you see a trailer with camels out on the front porch...



This guys was giving himself a haircut with large scissors while driving 60klm (40mph) I could not believe it! Look closely you can see the scissors!




McDonald's Delivery? Now that's called service!



"You can check in but you can never leave"



This guy was doing wheelies up and down Arad Ave... I've never seen anything like it, especially not THAT close.



This guy ran out of fuel, do you see where he is? So why did it take 45 minutes to get this guy out of the road?



Things that make you go "Hmmmm?"



A closer look



Apparently you can drive anywhere you want here. Just make your own lane.



Ok, so a truck of sheep may not be that big of a deal BUT a truck full of sheep at about 85 mph is!



I love this sign, every time I drive past it I can't stop laughing! It makes me think of my Daddy the Super Diving Dude!



Imagine being at a party with all the attendees lounging all over the floor on beautiful luxurious carpets.

Gavin's First (AND LAST) Haircut!

OK, now it's been almost four days and I've stopped crying long enough to type this blog update. I don't want to press my luck - so let's make this quick (like ripping off a Band-Aid)!

Gavin had his first haircut on Saturday. I wanted to the kind lady (whom I now so lovingly refer to as Sweeney Todd) to take a little off the top and even it out... what we got is something totally different. My "baby" now looks old enough to drive AND I HATE IT! I want his curls back! All of them, and not in a Ziplock lunch bag thank you very much! (I know that Super Glue could suspend a dude in a hard hat to a metal beam - big deal, what I want to know is does it work on hair?!?!?!)

I posted pictures, but please, PLEASE don't make me look. Oh, Geeeze here they come, anyone got a box of Kleenex?


Here we go!



The first cut is always the hardest!



Sweet baby, he has no idea what's being done to him.



Now this is where she goes CRAZY and moes my poor baby down.



Note to self: Go to Sally's Beauty Supply, apparently my child can be bribed by a hair clip... VERY INTERESTING!



His tiny little "Superman Curl" sitting in my trembeling hand.



Who's that bald kid in the mirror?



All done. The finished product.
"Why's Mommy crying?"

OVEN UPDATE!

My dear friends...

I think my husband finally saw my desperation after reading my blog on the gas spewing death machine in my kitchen. Last night I returned home from my Arabic Language Class to find my landlord in my kitchen replacing the gas line to the oven... aaahhhh, do you smell that? That's the smell of a fume free kitchen! Thanks Honey, a batch of Oooie-Goooie Bars are in your very near future! ;)

Rug Flop

Think "jewelry party", only with Persian rugs instead of earrings. A rug flop is the only place you'll see a group of bare footed people rubbing themselves all over beautiful, one of a kind, expensive silky carpets. I was privileged to experience the craziness first hand this weekend at our friend Nomer's home!


Some of the finery we experienced that night.



Our Sadeeq (friend) Abdul gave a little background about the carpets he would be showing us that evening.



The guests "Ooooed" and "Ahhhed" as each rug was unrolled.



Guests really checking out the beauty of the carpet.



You only thought I was joking when I said people rubbed themselves all over the rugs... I wouldn't lie to you... see, I'm not kidding!



My Sedeeqa (friend) Katy striking a pose!



I really admired "The Tree of Life" Carpet, it is a silk on silk rug. It is so beautiful I would NEVER let anybody step on it - EVER! So don't even think about it! :)



This is the rug I fell in love with... then everybody jumped on it (literally)! It sold at the end of the night to our friends Erin and Jason... guess I'll have to go over to their home to enjoy it.



So many to choose from!



The back should be as lovely or more so than the front. Look at the detail!



Admire all the tiny knots, some rugs take more than a year to complete when worked on by 2-3 people. Can you imagine working your hands in knots for over a year's time to produce one item?



This is the van that delivered all the beautiful Carpets, talk about being loaded down! ;)


Thank you Nomer for opening your home to us and many thanks to Abdul for the food, carpet education and lots of fun!

HELP I'M ON FIRE!!!!!

Now that I've got your attention...

Take a look at my oven.



Seriously, take a close (really close) look at this picture and tell me how would YOU set this oven to 350 degrees?



Yeah, I know, NO TEMPERATURE SETTING!!! Seriously, doesn't ANYBODY bake in this country?

I'm all good with the top burners and that fact that it's like rubbing flint together to get the thing kick started but really the oven is just about to push me over the edge!

Last weekend I wanted to bake my beloved 12 month old son a much deserved (and 2 week belated by the way) birthday cake. I procrastinated for two whole weeks because I'm a little intimidated (OK, A LOT intimidated) by this oven. Honestly, the thing FRIGHTENS me!





I couldn't get the darn thing to light. I was turning the knob and pressing the "clicker button" (the ignition switch, if you want to get all technical on me). NO light, just a STRONG smell of gas. (Which is a whole other blog posting entirely - I think our landlord is trying to kill me slowly by fume inhalation!!!) So then it dawns on me: "OLD SCHOOL CAMPING TRIP"! I reflect (due to the fact that I am TOTALLY high in gas fumeage) on the YMCA Indian Princess camp outs that I used to go on with my Dad and kid-sister... GREEN COLMAN STOVE! I remembered (or was that hallucinated) that you need to use a match... yet another not so bright idea from the "Jann School Of Cooking With Idiots" when three sheets to the wind on gas.

Paul (my hero) returns to the house with a long nose lighter designer for this sort of drama and we get the thing to BURN!

AND BURN IT DID! We made it like a pow-wow in there. The Flusche & Aebi parents all stood in the "dirty" kitchen (where this dinosaur of an oven resides) and tried to get my oven to 350 degrees. We tried both the top and bottom burner on the lowest setting we could get with out the thing blowing out. The oven reached upwards of 600 million degrees. So we brainstorm and decide to take out the top burner all together, keeping the bottom burner on the lowest setting... we arrive at 450 degrees.

Now, lets think logically here... no cake recipe on this planet (or any other planet I'm aware of for that matter) instructs it's cook to bake a cake at a temperature THAT high. Hmmmm, that's our lowest setting and we're still reaching 450 degrees... hmmm... bake with the oven open? NO! THAT CAN'T BE SAFE!


(Check out the "fancy" wiring and hook up!)


(Here's a closer look, I have to turn this knob each time I want to use the stove or oven.)


Then again I don't think anything about this oven is safe. (See above petrographical evidence). So we cross our fingers, crank up the oven then shut 'er down, then crank 'er up and shut 'er down (you get the idea) and lo and behold...

BIRTHDAY CAKE!







The good Lord was watching over this poor ol' Mommy who didn't want to spoil her son's first birthday party. I would like to add that the birthday cake was actually eatable, more than that - it was GOOD.



I might even go as far as to say delicious.... naaa.
For this story, GOOD will do.