Doha and Pam camp

I feel like I never do justice to the fabulous places Oscar visits from time to time. I do get a lovely synopsis when he comes home, but when it comes time to write the blog, not seeing them first hand is a bit of a detriment to describing the experience as a whole… So, without further ado, in summary, Oscar had a relatively uneventful trip to Doha, and managed to take a few pictures to share while he was there:

hotel room view

Market by day (during Ramadan…) - No one else was crazy enough to go out during the 120 degree heat of the day!

Market by night

Some relief from the heat

Enjoying some cold tea

Summer in Doha may be hot, but New Orleans can hold its own with heat and humidity. The few days we were here this summer were a quest to entertain the kids while trying to keep relatively cool. We did manage to hit the free city pools one day, which was fun, but with daily rolling thunderstorms it was challenge to coordinate timing of swimming without thunder. (It's still 100 degrees out, but they're closed now since kids are back in school.)

Fortunately, our friend Pam has been toying with the idea of starting a camp or after school program. We happily volunteered as "test subjects" during our free week in town, and the kids had their first experience with summer camp. It wasn't quite the real deal, since I was there for half the time, but "All Ears" camp was an awesome experience.  The kids had a lot of fun recording sounds, stories, and interviews. Here are the few pics I managed to take during the week of the non-recording activities (which involved lots of water play and crafts), and I can't wait to hear the end results!

a fungus Oscar found on one of the great oaks during an outing

Random aside worth mentioning - We discovered the Jurassic Park movies on TV over the summer. I was worried it would be a little scary for the kids, but we snuggled closely and they both LOVED them (the first was their favorite, of course). They were unfortunately on network TV and there were a lot of commercial breaks throughout the movies. When one commercial came on at a particularly exciting part of the first movie, Oscar exasperatedly asked, "Mom, can I please say the 's' word one time?" I laughed and told him no so he asked with a smile, "Then can I say 'f' word?"