Greece Holiday

A few months ago some friends stationed in Europe asked if we'd be interested in meeting them in Crete in October. The dates lined up perfectly with our own school break and we booked shortly after!

We met up with our friends in the Athens airport and then headed over to Crete together.

We spent our days laying on the beach, catching up, and letting the kids run around and play.

We headed downtown and explored the downtown Heraklion, visited the Cave of Zeus, and a Dinosauria Park.

We had to say goodbye to our friends and our fun time together. It was such a memorable time and we hope we can go on holiday with them again soon!

There was some time before our flight to Athens so we visited the Minoan Palace of Knossos.

We arrived at our Air BnB in Athens and relaxed that evening. The next day we did lots of walking with our first stop being the Panathenaic Stadium, then the National Garden for some playground time, the Temple of Zeus, grabbed lunch at the famous Kostas, explored the shops at Plaka, and finally took the Happy Train to give our feet a rest.

Our second day was filled with more walking - this time around the Acropolis ruins and afterwards the Acropolis Museum. The girls loved exploring the ruins and we had fun taking pictures. They also discovered an intense love for grilled corn on the cob. :-)

We visited Greece for the first time back in 2014 when we did a cruise and that evening I decided to see what pictures we took then and discovered we accidentally stopped and took a family photo at the exact same stop - how cool! What a difference five years makes, ha.

The next two days were very relaxing and easy-paced. We headed in a taxi to take the tram up to the highest point in Athens, Mount Lycabettus. The afternoon was spent playing in a playground that was recommended and slowly walked our way back to the apartment and grabbed dinner along the way and dessert at Little Kook, a restaurant with themed decorations. We ended the evening with a glass of wine on the amazing balcony our apartment had to offer.

Our last day we ventured onto public transportation to go to a park / playground along the water called Flisvos Park. The girls loved taking the train and enjoyed the park all day. We came back to the hotel and enjoyed one final sunset not he balcony along with some dance parties and lots of laughter.

We had an amazing time in Greece and feel very fortunate to have time to explore more of this beautiful country!

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September Craziness

As I was going through the pictures for this month's post I was surprised at how many I have taken. However, then I remembered we had five birthday parties, lots of playdates, and getting underway with school activities and overall it was a pretty busy month. [If you want to keep up with more day-to-day activities then Instagram is the best option as I've started trying to post more Stories on there.]

1. The girls had a sweet reunion with some of their best friends for a playdate. 
2. Loving their pho noodle soup!
3. Ice cream with friends we hadn't seen since before summer.
4. Followed by the trampoline park to burn off the energy. 
5. Love this shot of Olivia!
6. Evy helping Dad make almond butter. Yum!
7. Cat in a small tray. So awkward.
8. The most stressful night of September. Painting. I was very good at the wine portion.
9. Madi's new classroom door decor. 

1. Madi lost her second tooth!
2. This month Jason took each girl out on a different Saturday for a Daddy-Daughter date. Here's Evy having breakfast.
3. Madi also had breakfast with Daddy.
4. Liv ended up going for lunch and ice cream.
5. Each of the girls picked out something for their sisters (and me) on their date. These are the roses we got on one of them. 
6. Madi has started doing math and statistics at school. Clearly winning the recessive gene pool over here with our ginger hair and O- blood type - ha!
7. Fun lego glasses after a birthday party.
8. Roasted tomatoes to start a new batch of salsa.
9. And the salsa is ready to sell!

1. Loved this cute drawing I saw outside Madi's classroom.
2. Sweet friends.
3. Playdate with neighbor and Madi.
4. While Liv shows her new friend the wall mural.
5. Fun playdate with these girls!
6. Such a lovely birthday party for this sweet friend.
7. Madi and her friend's matching face paint.
8. Pool party!
9. Because clearly the roof is the best place to eat your snow cone. 

1. It was a long month. That required sustenance. 
2. Twins trying out a yoga class.
3. Yard work to wear them out on the weekend.
4. Cheese curls - sooo good!
5. This girl - she gave us quite the scare this month and we aren't sure we are out of the woods yet with her. Four times in three and a half weeks she woke up in the middle of the night throwing up. We did blood test, stool samples, and have started a food journal to try and see what's going on. So far she hasn't been sick in a couple of weeks, but we still have no clue what was causing the illness and why it was always in the middle of the night and then she'd be fine the following day. :-/
6. Bible study started up again which I am so thankful for because I need that routine and accountability. 
7. So awkward CeCe. Now I have to wash literally all the girls soft socks and slippers.
8. Teaching time at home. 
9. I came upstairs while making dinner to check on them and Madi had bathed herself and was washing her sister's hair. Granted she was using conditioner rather than shampoo, but I'm still classifying this as a total #momwin

1. Best friends. :-)
2. These girls had a "pretend" sleepover. {Pajamas and late night, but then going home with Mom and Dad}. They wore matching pajamas like their big sisters.
3. We decorated cupcakes and had pancakes for dinner.
4. The first PSL of the season. In 105 F.
5. Part of the expat life is goodbyes and this month a sweet friend left to move back to the US.
6. Evy the puzzle master.
7. Madi's diverse class - love it!
8. Her presentation on the Fourth of July for the Cultural Celebration they are doing this month.
9. We snuck away for a date night before Life Group. 

There was a 50% discount deal to visit the Aqua Park so we decided to do that once more with friends. We love these two families dearly and are so thankful to have found them in Doha! All of our kids get along well and so do all of us as couples. Looking forward to more adventures together this year. :-)

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August Update!

We arrived back in Doha after our summer in America (Part 1 and Part 2) and celebrated our 11th anniversary. We had about a week and a half of summer left before school started and we tried to make the most of it!

Our first stop was Kidzmondo to take advantage of their buy one, get one free promotion. We visited with two other families and literally had to drag the kids away after eight hours because we were starving and the husbands were waiting for us at the restaurant. They had a blast!

The rest of our time before school was spent re-training the cats (who took advantage of our absence this summer) and playing with their besties. We also visited the Qatar National Library for the first time.

The last week in August the girls had their first day at International School of London (ISL). We realized this is their third school in two years and we are thankful they have been so amazing with the changes and have adjusted wonderfully. We are looking forward to this being our school for the next few years!

The girls had more playdates, I had some coffee dates, and we got to have brunch with friends, do some baking, and lots of laughter and playing. We also had breakfast for dinner. :-)

We filled the last week of August with another visit to library, a cat who wanted to be left alone, a good reminder for our family, Thursday night pizza movie night, celebrating a friend's birthday, and family card nights.

We finished out the month with a visit to the Aqua park. We took some video and pictures with the go pro so I'll update the post once we have a chance to sort those!

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