Adventures in

Friday, December 23, 2011

Visitors!!! Days 2-5

Kiddos playing by the Mosque

So I'm condensing the rest of the days! We had a great time having Zach, Julie, Eli and Jasper here! It was soo good to get to know them, hear about their lives in Hungary and where God is leading them next, share stories with them, go on mini-adventures around Kuwait with them, enjoy some really delicious food, a date night with them, have our kids get along great and be so sad that they had to leave each other (we've heard "I miss the Anderson's" so many times since Friday morning!), paint with Julie, have Dan play Modern Warfare 3 with Zach, have the guys smoke cigars on our roof and hang out and talk and just have fun!!!

We did some serious eating and shopping of American goods :) Krispie Kreme, Caribou Coffee, Taco Bell, PF Chang's and Papa John's :) As well as Express, American Eagle and Pottery Barn Kids!

Zach and Julie toured the Grand Mosque here and enjoyed a tour by a British lady, we did the Duck Park again, visited the Avenues Mall, Marina Mall, Souk Sharq, the Sultan Center (international grocery store for items they can't get in Hungary) and the Heritage Souk! They were INSANE and IMPRESSIVE and ran home from the Kuwait Towers to our house (12 miles)! And walked in the door not even looking like they had broken a sweat!

We are so thankful they came - we had a great time having them here and the kids loved having Eli and Jasper around :) Now we'll just have to figure out where we'll see them next - in a different country or the States???

Overlooking the Arabian Gulf across from our street

Blowing bubbles outside one beautiful day

Kiddos and Zach in front of Krispie Kreme!

Eli and Jack at Marina Mall

Megan, Kylie and Jasper enjoying their donuts!

Dinner out at PF Chang's! Our babysitter stayed home with the kiddos!

Kiddos climbing on the rope pyramid

Jasper

Kylie and Jasper having fun (and staying near the bottom) :)

Big kids at the top!

Our front hallway with all our shoes (which I LOVE)!!!

The guys gaming it - Dan loved having Zach here to play xBox with him!

Julie's amazing painting! I'm still in the process of mine - it will be finished in time for next Christmas, I'm sure!

Kiddos playing at the Heritage Souk

Zach and Julie at the Heritage Souk enjoying some traditional Arabic tea :)

Monday, December 19, 2011

Visitors!!! Day 1

Dan picked Zach, Julie, Eli and Jasper up from the airport around 3am. They came home and put the boys to bed, then we chatted for a bit downstairs - until 5:15am, when the grown-ups were going to head to bed...our kids were up at 5:20am, so Dan stayed downstairs with the kids while they watched a movie and he slept for a little bit. I climbed into bed and slept until 9am! Jasper and Eli woke up a bit later and we all played for a while upstairs in the playroom until everyone woke up - they went downstairs to have 2nd breakfasts for our kids and Dan and 1st breakfasts for everyone else! :) After getting ready for the day, we all went on an adventure!

We were on the hunt for camels - and found them! After some perusing them for a bit and taking pics, we headed to our favorite playground, then to Kuwait Towers and then out to Thai for dinner! It was a great afternoon and a great time with the kids having fun together and so good to hear about their lives in Hungary and where they are headed to next!

Checking out camels in pens off the side of the 6th Ring Road!

Courtesy "fist of rock" family picture!

Cute kiddos and Kuwaiti Camels

Camels crossing the road :)

Eli, Megan, Jack, Kylie and Jasper on our favorite playground here!

Zach holding up the Kuwait Towers

And Julie looking like she's got it under control

The kids ran down to the water with Dan

Julie and I in front of the Towers

Me and my Tweeter with his amazing goatee!

And our cutie kiddos!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Visitors!!!

Crazy And Exciting!!! We are going to have VISITORS Sunday through Thursday! That's right, VISITORS!!! IN KUWAIT!!!

Are you wondering who they are???

It's THEM!

Zach and Julie and Eli and Jasper!!!

Their blog My life with boys is listed on the right under Good Blogs. They are missionaries in Budapest, Hungary and they are coming to visit tonight for the next couple of days! They had originally planned to go somewhere else for the week, but their visas fell through, so Julie emailed to see if they could come and visit us! We are thrilled to have them come and visit and hope that they aren't disappointed by Kuwait (and the lack of touristy things to do) :) Hopefully we can have fun at the zoo, go to some parks, enjoy the beach here, see some camels, eat some great yummy local food and some wonderful American goodness and enjoy getting to spend time together!

Wanna know the craziest part of this? We've never met them.

That's right - Dan heard Zach speak at RBC years ago and we've emailed back and forth for a while...and they had contemplated coming to visit us in Thailand, but it never worked out! We're thankful for this time to get to spend with them and the fact that they have chosen to come visit us!

And our kids can't wait to play with their boys! Only a couple more hours until they arrive!!!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Christmas Decorations!!!

Our home is decorated for Christmas!!! This is the first house we haven't immediately been able to figure out where to put the Christmas tree - but that's okay because Dan came up with an idea and after rearranging some furniture, it worked out perfectly! It's so fun to have our all of our nativity sets and all the ornaments Dan started picking up for me from his travels over a year ago :) I love that he's so creative in finding ornaments - sometimes a bracelet, sometimes a figurine, sometimes a key chain, sometimes a little stuffed animal, sometimes an actual ornament - but with a fancy ribbon, they are perfect for our tree!

I love having our home decorated for Christmas - and the fact that when we pull out the decorations we can officially begin listening to Christmas music - at home and in the car! We've had fun singing Christmas carols in the car and learning Christmas verses (and cutting out one to put on our wall)! I've taught the kids (well, we're working on it anyway) O Tannenbaum in German and also "Lasst Uns Froh Und Munter Sein" (Lustig, Lustig, Tra La La La, Bald ist Nikolaus Abend Da)! Now to just finish up shopping for Christmas presents! At least our home is decorated!