Jon's Trip to California

Pictures coming soon..

Christmas Eve

Due to tax regulations, I was only able to spend 6 days in the USA for Christmas. We spent it in Utah with my family. I must have been too jet-lagged to take pictures--because I didn't end up with many. Here are two from Christmas Eve at my brother's house.

Santa's TOO FAT for the chimney

The triplets singing their favorite Christmas song...

London--A ride on the London Eye

London--Buckingham Palace

London--Westminster Abbey

London--Big Ben and Parliament

Merry Christmas to All and to all a Good Night

Well, it looks like I am not going to be able to finish the updates to the blog before Christmas. I will make it a project over Eid and get it completely up to date. (As soon as I get back from Christmas vacation, Qatar is on break for Eid for a week!) Life has been crazy here lately and we are just too tired.

Life is good though. Jon and I are doing really well. He is teaching full time at the American School of Doha. They needed a 8th grade science teacher mid-year, so it has worked out perfect. Since Jon is teaching, we have decided to extend my contract another six months. That means we will be in Doha until July 2007, then we will move back to the U.S. We hope you all are doing well. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Love, Jon and Em

Ward Christmas Party

We had a great ward Christmas party. The kids played games upstairs, while the adults had a very funny "White Elephant Exchange." The idea was new to our Filipino friends, but once they caught on, they had a lot of fun. The coveted item of the game was a bright pink mosque-shaped alarm clock. I had it for a while, but it was stolen from me.

Some of the "big kids" wanted to sit on Santa's lap too.

Our friend, Syed, played Santa Clause again this year. He was a great Santa. I thought it was great that we had a Christian Iranian Mormon-convert playing St. Nick.

Asian Games--Closing Ceremonies

We watched the Opening Ceremonies on TV and thought it was so cool, we bought tickets to the Closing Ceremonies. It was probably the most amazing stadium show I have ever seen. They did highlights from different stories in 1001 Arabian Nights (Aladdin, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, Shahrzad, etc.)

This is the Olympic flame and the mega-screen at that lines one side of the stadium.

The Emir and Sheikha Mozah with their son who won a gold medal.

Stories from Arabian Nights:

The finale:

Bro. Acabado, A member of our ward was a volunteer

Asian Games--Exhibits

A side benefit to the Games being here was all the museum exhibits that came to town:

Did you catch that? "matching embroidered under-pants." Sounds itchy.

Asian Games--Heritage Village

Here are some pictures from our trip to the heritage village:

Asian Games--Around Doha

Here are some pictures around Doha during the Games:

They put lights on the Emir's palace (offices) to make it look like the Qatari flag