Merry Christmas Everyone!

2007 was a great year for us. We returned to the US this August. It was a wonderful experience to live in Qatar, but we are happy to be home. We had some great adventures, lots of learning experiences, and made many wonderful friends. We are so glad we had the opportunity to be there. (For more info, check our past blog entries.)

As many of you know, Jon has applied to be an officer in the US Air Force. We were hoping to have some official news by now, but we are still waiting to hear back from them. Living in Doha taught us patience, so we are willing to wait. For now, we are enjoying the flexibility of our “in between stage” and the time with family and friends.

We both have used this as an excuse to work our “dream jobs” part-time: Jon at REI and Emily at Barnes & Noble. We pretty much just love it for the discounts, but it has been a lot of fun. Jon is also working for UPS. Emily will be looking for a different job after the holidays.

At this time of year, we are most grateful for our wonderful friends and family. We hope you are doing well and wish you the best for 2008.

With love, Jon & Emily

(This was our Christmas card insert this year. If you didn't get a Christmas card from us, it probably means that we don't have your address. Please email it to me!)

Happy Day!

The wait is finally over! Today Emma was sealed to Jeremy and Leslie (my cousins.) This was the first sealing I was able to be a part of. It was a really amazing to be part of it. The day could not have been more beautiful.

Hampton Family

My sister had me take some family photos for her up American Fork Canyon. They turned out so cute I had to share them. I love my nieces and nephews. They crack me up!

Happy 28th Birthday! WE LOVE YOU JON!

Jon was excited that we were able to celebrate his birthday while we were in California. His sister's birthday is a couple days later, so we had a double celebration with the whole family. It was really nice. We also had a post-birthday party for him for family in Utah.

My 10 Year High School Reunion

I am not sure why I decided to go to my 10 year high school reunion. There probably were a lot of factors of why I wanted to go. However, if you had asked me if I needed any type of closure from high school...I would have said "no way!" I have some regrets and embarrassing moments from high school (who doesn't?), but I had some wonderful friends and some really good experiences too. I have to admit though, that going to the reunion was really therapeutic (for lack of a better word) for me. It was wonderful to see old friends that I had lost touch with, but it was also really nice to take measure of my life. Being back in my old school and around my old classmates, gave me a great mirror to see just how much I have changed in the past 10 years. For the most part, we change little by little, day by day, and we really don't notice the drastic changes that are taking place. It felt good to realize that I was really doing pretty well and was very happy with the way my life has turned out. I am glad I went....but as my good friend, Mike, said: It is great motivation to stay in touch with the people you really care about so that you never have to go again.

Coming Home!!!!!

We are back safe from our trip to Israel and Jordan. It was such a great trip. We are really glad we did it.

We are in "pack up and move" mode now....so I don't have time to post pictures and info on the trip right now. I will add stuff once I get back to Utah.

We should be back by August 7th if all goes well. We are excited to be back!!!! More info to come...

Wild Weekend--Dubai, UAE

We cashed in some frequent flyer miles and went to Dubai last weekend. Dubai is the "Las Vegas" of the Middle East. It is only about a 45 minute flight from Doha. It felt like being in Doha...if we went through a time warp 10 years into the future. It is just a lot more developed and "Western."

We had a GREAT time. We stayed at a hotel connected to The Mall of the Emirates. It is one of the largest malls in the world. It also has an indoor ski resort. We had to check it out. As soon as we got settled we hit the slopes. We got a two hour pass--which was plenty--the "resort" has two runs. It was pretty crazy skiing indoors, but a lot of fun.

Our friends, Rich and Amy Bangerter, have lived there the last two years. We had dinner with them and then went to the Gold Souq. It was good to see them.


The next day we slept in, had breakfast and did some shopping. Jon surprised me by making reservations at a seafood restaurant at the Burj Al Arab hotel. You have probably seen pictures of it before--it is shaped like a sail boat. It is suppose to be one of the nicest hotels in the world. We thought about splurging and staying there for one night....until we found that it was at least $1500 a night!!! Lunch there was splurge enough for us. It was incredible. The restaurant had a huge aquarium in the center.

We spent another hour just walking around the hotel and watching the water fountains. It was nice to pretend we lived this life for a little while.

After a long day of shopping, Jon finally found something to get excited about...

We had a really great time in Dubai. We are so grateful for all our blessings and all the opportunities we have had.

Demolition, Construction, Demolition, Construction

I have mentioned before that the city feels like it is constantly under construction.

I forgot to mention the other half of it: demolition.

Tearing stuff down always seems to go faster than building it back up.

Happy Fourth of July, Everyone!

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day! I love the 4th. My family always has a big party. We were sad we couldn't be there this year.

For mutual yesterday we had a pool party. In the Philippines they celebrate American Friendship Day on July 4th--so we decided to make a party of it. Kaylene prepared red, white and blue treats and I made this cake. I was very proud of myself.

Scuba Diving in Oman

We went with a group from the scuba club to Oman for a long weekend of diving. The diving in Oman is much better than the diving in Qatar. I think this is because it is on the edge of the Indian Ocean--rather than in the Gulf. We stayed at a beach resort about an hour north of Muscat (the capital.) We did 4 boat dives in 2 days at a string of small islands about 45 minutes from the shore. They have beautiful hard and soft coral. You can see some damage from the recent cyclone (IE broken coral, branches and rocks moved) but marine life seems to be recovering quickly.

I always have a sense of awe while diving and that is not just from being able to breathe 60 feet under water (which is very cool.) It is seeing that there is a whole world that exists beneath the surface. It made me want to watch "Finding Nemo" and "Little Mermaid" again. On a more serious note--it also made me want to sing "For the Beauty of the Earth" out loud (not as easy to do through a regulator as you might think.) If church and temples didn't exist--I can't think of a better place to get to know God than at the bottom of the ocean or at the top of a mountain. There were so many beautiful and wonderful creatures down there and I just kept looking at them thinking: “Wow. You and I have the same creator.” Amazing.

Here is a list of some of the things we saw (thanks to some of the other divers that helped me complete the list): Sting rays, electric rays, sea snakes, honeycomb eels, white eels, blue trigger fish, red tooth trigger fish, turtles, cornet fish, Arabian Picasso fish, bi-color parrot fish, porcupine fish, Arabian angel fish, emperor angel fish, lionfish, banner fish, many species of butterfly fish, clown fish (Nemo), rock fish/grouper fish, devil scorpion fish, cuttle fish, shrimp and sea urchins. As I mentioned before, there are also many kinds of coral and plant life including goblet sponges and table coral. I also collected a few (uninhabited) shells: limpets, cowries, textile cone shells, and auger shells. (Mom would be so proud of my "finds".)

As we were loading up the boat, a guy from the resort was washing the horses in the ocean. He gave us a quick circus performance.

On the way to the islands on our second day of diving, we passed by a huge “herd” of small spinner dolphins. There must have been more than 100 of them. We circled the boat a few times so that we could watch them pass by. They would jump in groups of 10-20 and would do occasional spins in the air. It was amazing and hardly seemed real. They were too fast for me to get a good picture, but I did get 1 or 2 ok short videos. The group is putting together a CV of everyone’s pictures, so I am hoping someone else got a good one.

We had some free time one evening, so we rented a water bike and drove around the beach. It was a lot of fun--and VERY slow moving.

On the water bike.

The flash caught us right up front, but this was the only photo I have of the group at dinner.

...If I get some of the underwater pictures from the group, I will add those later.

Touring Muscat, Oman

On the last day, we spent the morning touring Muscat. We had a great Omani guide named Hamad. We went to the fish and vegetable market, the Grand Mosque, Muttrah Souq (the market), Baital Zubair Museum (folk and history), and visited the outside of one of the palaces and two forts (Al Jalali Fort and Merani Fort.) I loved Oman. I thought it was great. It has mountains (not Rockies—but good enough) and seems less ostentatious than Doha. In Doha, it feels like image and “keeping up with the Joneses” is SO important. Oman felt more down to earth and genuine. (The photo is of Jon at the souq. This is one of the ways to wear the head scarf in Oman.)

A few things I learned about Oman:

*Population: 2.3 Million (700,000 of those are ex-patriots)
*Before 1970: there was 1 school, 1 hospital, and 1 main road. Many of the men went to other countries for work.
*Community Pride: In 2000, Muscat was voted the cleanest city in the world (it still looked great even though they were still recovering from the cyclone.)
*The Grand Mosque: the main room holds 7,000 men and has a carpet that took 600 Iranian women and 4 years to make. It weighs 21 tons and has 28 natural dye colors. It also has an institute for Islamic studies, a conference room and a library.
*Muscat: literally means “canyon” or “place of origin” in Arabic.

Fish and Vegetable market:

The Grand Mosque

Yeah! Mountains and spontaneous plant life! We love Oman!!!

The Muttrah Souq

Us in front of the Palace with our guide, Hamad. The hat he is wearing is called a Kumah.