Saturday, January 30th - End of term 1

Our last two weeks have been pretty quiet as we were getting into the end of term 1 at school. We finished exams on Monday then had the rest of the week to mark. Jacqui's grade 4 kids were at school everyday, so no break there. Officially, our second term starts on the 8th and we have a 4-day weekend coming up as the 3rd and 4th are our midyear break. This leaves the first three days of this week ... we're not sure how many kids will show up since we are technically between semesters. It will be interesting to see on Sunday morning.

We have tickets to go see Russell Peters on Monday; it will be nice to have a comedian that has our "accent" and that we can fully understand when he speaks. We are really looking forward to it.

As temperatures are cooler at this time of year, most trees and shrubs are flowering. It is therefore very nice to walk in Qurum Park, as you see flowers everywhere.

Not available at your local LCBO - but we now have it in Muscat. So thrilled to find some GB51 here! Will try the others as well, since we've never seen them at home!

Flowers in Qurum Park

January 16th, Back to the routine

Our Christmas holidays were pretty hectic, mostly the first week back. Staying over night in Dubai at the start of our holiday was "brilliant", to use a UK expression! It really cut down on the fatigue after we got "home". Thanks Rich and Jackie, Lucy and Harry for letting us have a "home"; it was greatly appreciated! The first few days, we were all over the place, trying to see as many people as we could. Things were pretty hectic, but a lot of fun at the same time. We had a chance to visit with friends and family, and spend time with our kids and son-in-law (so nice and yet weird to write this). The return to Muscat (and to school) was physically challenging. We left TO at 10ish pm on Jan 1st, got home at about 1am on Jan 3rd and were at work on the same day at about 7:15. There is a 9 hour difference, but classes still start on Oman time. So basically, we had 3 hours to adjust to our local time and to get going, It took about 3-4 days for both of us to get back to the local time.
Our first weekend was fine, and quiet,,,, some time at the pool at Crowne Plaza, and finishing some school stuff.
Big news coming back on the first day: our VP has been promoted to Principal, which means we don`t have our "energy black hole sucking principal" in place anymore. That is really good news for all of us!! Our VP, now P, is always positive and an educator, instead of an administrator. It makes a big difference!
We had a social gathering this past Thursday at one of Jacqui's grade 4 colleague. He lives in a different part of town, and has a nice patio, with a BBQ grill on it! We therefore spent our whole time outside and enjoying ourselves a lot! Friday was a pretty typical day, which entails a walk on the beach, a bit of school work and we went to the movies at night (The Revenant). I did some tutoring on Saturday while Jacqui relaxed at home. Our weekend ended with a nice meal at a mexican restaurant and a quiet evening evening afterwards!

We don't have the northern lights, but we sometimes get this as the sun goes down

Very nice!!

Our first Friday breakfast - yes, the bacon was brought back frozen from Canada!

The meter display at the apartment building we went to on Thursday!

Sunset on Muscat, from the patio at our friend's place

Ready to cook on wood coals

Chicken!!