The Month of March

We arrived back in Baku after our site visit to Doha and prepared ourselves for a month without Jason. Thankfully we only had to get to the middle of March before my mom was here visiting for the rest of the month!

1. Zoey was quite happy to get us back home, but protested unpacking. (Maybe she thought we were leaving again?)
2. Evy asleep on the car ride home after school. It's been an adjustment for them being in Montessori.
3. Liv asleep another day after a trip to McDonalds where that beauty was in the happy meal.
4. Who knows who will be having dinner in our house. A puppy and two princesses that evening.
5. Bedtime shenanigans.
6. The best dinner ever for an expat. My friend gifted me pizza rolls and since my un-American children wont even try them I felt no guilt in not sharing.
7. Ladies curry night out. Food was amazing and we laughed a lot - much needed!
8. Kathleen. I am sure going to miss this sweet friend when we move. 
9. And Grandma's here! She of course needed her hair fixed by these three.

We surprised the girls again with Grandma's arrival!

We took advantage of a sunny (and more importantly not windy!) day to test out the scooters around Fountain Square and just enjoy the afternoon.

Grandma brought a Moana microphone, which has been a big hit in our house. Lots of performances.

1. Madi and C got a chance to spend the morning together at the beginning of the school break and scootered over to Sunset for breakfast.
2. And they wore their matching pajamas. They always ask for a pajama party and that's not always the easiest in the evening so pancakes and pajamas for them. 
3. Zoey loves Madi snuggles...
4. I attended a sweet friend's baby shower that was wonderful!
5. Grandma has lots of sleepovers with these sweet girls during the school break.
6. We started swim lessons for the twins. Liv is still a bit hesitant and I've been getting in the pool with her, but Evy is no fear and doing great!
7. There are much softer places to lay than a box of office supplies...
8. Kathleen helped me out and took Madi to Wonderland with her guys and snapped this sweet photo of her during lunch.
9. After they'd been inside the two of them played together outside the rest of the afternoon!

Third culture kids. Last summer we told Madi she was going to the US. My mom asked her over FaceTime if she was excited to go to America and Madi retorted "I'm not Grandma. I'm going to the US." Whoops. Now she pronounces "tomato" wrong. We have a lot of work to do...

We loved having my mom here most of the month, but we were so sad we didn't get to see Jason...especially since his birthday was March 18. The girls made this sweet video for him and we will for sure have a make-up when we hopefully see him in April. 

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Novruz 2018

We got to experience Novruz in the city this year and it was lots of fun! Our compound did a celebration the week before the holiday and Madi's classroom had a small celebration before the end of term. We also made our way into the city to enjoy the festivities in Fountain Square. The weather cleared up perfectly for the Tuesday, which is the main celebration day, of the week. Here's all of the fun we had over the couple of weeks and the girls in their beautiful Azerbaijani outfits!

The celebration in Royal Park was first. They provided food and entertainment and the girls had fun. It was a bit chilly still and we didn't stay for the fire jumping (you read that correctly), but the girls enjoyed getting dressed up and got even more attention than usual!

My mom was here for the Novruz celebration in Madi's classroom and loved getting to see her dance and help her decorate eggs (like we do for Easter!). Our sweet nanny made treats especially for Olivia without nuts.

They also decorated the city with these large and beautiful eggs. I saw artists painting them in the beginning days of Novruz and they were all unique and fun. We also watched a super scary tight rope walker with of course no net or any sort of safety mechanisms and the girls got to sit on horses in Foutain Square were we ran into friends and enjoyed listening to the music and wandering the crowds.

And here are the most beautiful Azerbaijani girls. :-)

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Site Visit to Doha

In case you missed the announcement, we are moving to Doha. Jason headed there at the end of January and we got a chance to visit him towards the end of February. We had just over a week there to visit schools, houses, and have some fun exploring the city we get to call home soon.

We timed the visit to attend school assessments and y'all - this whole process is intense. We actually missed a lot of the deadlines for schools (for the 2018/2019 academic year) because they were in December...and some schools wouldn't even consider the twins for enrollment without previous school experience so I am thankful they started at Bumblebee this year! You also have to do one to two hours assessments (for all ages...) before you are either rejected, accepted, or waitlisted. 

Thankfully we visited two wonderful schools and got acceptance into both making it difficult for us to decide which to attend (and you only have like one week to decide after you're notified!).

In addition to visiting schools we decided to go ahead and view houses during the visit even though we don't need one until we move at the end of June. We were able to find one compound that we know is a great fit for our family and good location. There was only one house available and while we were tempted to go ahead and secure it now, we knew it didn't make sense to start paying for an empty house now. We prayed about it and got an email the following day saying that there was one which would become available at the beginning of July which works perfectly for us! 

Once we got the serious stuff out of the way (school and houses), we had some fun. Jason was working during the day so we took advantage by visiting some of the malls, playgrounds, and of course swimming pool to pass the time. In the evening we enjoyed some American treats with PF Changs, The Cheesecake Factory, and Arby's!

Overall it was a wonderful trip and Doha seems like a lovely city. It's definitely going to be a weird adjustment moving to such a big city and not having much outdoor scenery (this Colorado girl is going to miss her mountains!), but we are looking forward to the move and having just one flight to visit friends and family in the US. 

There was a beautiful park and playground near our hotel that we spent most of the day at after arriving.

We finally caved and let the girls ride these animals at the mall after they'd been asking most of the week.

One of the malls has a small canal imitating Venice and we enjoyed taking a ride after dinner.

Taking a break from the pool for Nutella sandwiches. So glad Olivia can have it since clearly she is a fan. ;-)

Enjoying a family brunch before heading back to Baku.

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