Sri Lanka: A Gem of a Holiday

Taking interesting vacations is one of the great benefits of living where we do.  So any opportunity that we get to leave this God-forsaken can't-drive-after-one-glass-of-wine Christmasless place called Doha for a bit should be met with excitement.  But I was meeting this vacation with reluctance, head-on.

Who in their right mind, I asked myself, and then my husband, and then his parents when they arrived in mid-December (who wondered why I would ask such a question, when they had just flown half way around the world to come with us), and pretty much anyone else who would listen, would take a vacation for the week leading up to Christmas, returning with a day to spare?  How could I possibly get everything done before we left?  Who would pack? Wrap presents? Bake cookies? Take out the turkey?

And why would we go to a country where only a small minority even celebrated Christmas?  We wouldn't experience that pre-Christmas spirit that I so desperately craved.  No thanks—I've read THAT novel in Doha.  In fact, I think I WROTE it.

Well.  I've been wrong before.  Shocking, yet true.  There was that one time...I forget exactly when.  Ask Dan.  I'm sure he remembers.

Turns out our trip to Sri Lanka was exactly what we (I) needed.  On Day 3 I declared it one of our top three vacations yet.  It might be even higher.  We had hired a tour company with a big van and a friendly, knowledgeable Sri Lankan tour guide/driver named Lahki (which is short for some 17-syllable name which I had already forgotten the instant I heard it).  Here are the highlights:

Scenery, Greenery...Surprising Pristine-ery

What a treat to leave beige, dusty Doha behind for a week and visit a place that is lush, green and unbelievably humid.  (I want you back, Sri Lanka hair!)  Through the course of the week, we drove from Colombo to Dambulla, then to Kandy, and Ude Walawe, and Tangalle, and finally back to Colombo.

Before climbing Sigiriya Rock.
We made it to the top!

Our travels didn't afford us a lot of vistas, as we pretty much stuck to winding roads bordered by canopies of palms, ironwoods, jack and fig trees.  We visited Sigiriya Rock fortress, climbing to the top of the 180 m rock to the palace ruins above, giving us a panoramic view of the area.  During our  visit to a spice garden in Matale, we saw first-hand how black pepper, cinnamon, coffee, tea, vanilla, and other culinary staples grow.  Other interesting stops included a gem museum and a The Temple of the Tooth (a Buddhist Temple) where we watched a traditional dance ceremony.  Larger-than-life Buddha shrines are everywhere in this country, as are Hindu temples.  The latter Dan referred to as "yard-sales"—hundreds of porcelain dolls stacked up to make a tower.

It wasn't until we were well into our drive from Colombo to Dambulla that we understood why it would take four hours to cover 150 km.  The roads wind their way through the island, which seems to have a continuous string of villages and small cities dotting its path.  Dogs and cows wander freely across the road, and we rarely caught sight of third gear.  Car-sickness aside, we were struck by how clean the country is.  Compared to other countries where straying from a resort leads to filthy streets and rivers filled with sewage, Sri Lanka is downright pristine.  When I asked Lahki about how the country deals with garbage collection, he pointed out the tractors towing flat-beds.  The workers towing these tractors collect garbage daily, and everything that is collected is either recycled or composted.  Pretty impressive for a "Third World" country.  Sri Lanka also just opened its first highway (Southern Express Highway), connecting Matara with Colombo, and we were able to use it for the last half of our drive from Tangalle to Colombo.  Clearly this project was well thought-out—it has interchanges and everything!  Doha, take a lesson.
  

Welcome, and Ayubowan

Without a doubt, Sri Lanka's natural beauty is only exceeded by the generosity of its people.  We were humbled by the level of hospitality time and again.  The staff at each hotel greeted us as if they had been anxiously awaiting our arrival all day.  On Day 4, after winding slowly down a muddy road through the jungle in the rain, we arrived at Kalu's Hideaway, and were greeted by staff with umbrellas who led us into the lobby where a group of about 15 carollers were singing Christmas songs in Sinhala, and then in English...just for us.

Priyantha's family, at his home

The highlight of the trip for us was our visit to Priyantha's house.  Priyantha is a young man from Sri Lanka who works in Dan's office building, serving tea and coffee to the company employees.  He has been living in Doha, apart from his young family, for over a year, and has a year left in his contract.  His earnings here are allowing him to build a modest house back home.  Prior to our trip, Dan told him that we were going to his home country, and he couldn't have been more excited.  And when he found out that we were going to be travelling within two kilometers of his family's home, he insisted that we go for lunch.  No amount of negotiating could talk him down to just tea.  Priyantha's wife and much of his extended family greeted us and served us not just lunch, but a veritable feast.  There were more dishes than I could count, including chicken curry, vegetables and rice, curried jack, aubergine with wild boar, and fresh papaya, mango and pineapple.  I don't think I'd be misguided to assume that they did not eat like that every day, or any day.  We were truly welcomed guests.  It's hard to think of a way to repay that amount of kindness.

All elephants, all the time!

If there was a theme to this trip, elephants were it.  The seven of us shared the backs of two elephants for a half  hour long walk through the jungle and swamp in Dambulla.  We visited the elephant orphanage at Pinnawala, where the kids bottle-fed a young elephant, and then sat for an hour while watching the herd bathe in the river, while sipping Cokes (us, not them).  At Ude Walawe, we went to the Elephant Transit Home, which is not a home for wayward pachyderms, but a spot for calves to recover after being orphaned, abused, or abandoned, and some have been released back into the wild.  After visiting the wood-working shop in Matale, we will soon have our own two-foot tall, beautifully carved elephant in our home.  (Clearly the shopping addiction is not exclusive to Doha.)

Beds, breakfasts, and beaches

We were booked into several four-star accommodations, which, given how standards can vary depending on the country, had me a little worried before our arrival.  Turns out, I had nothing to fear.  From our two nights at Amaya Lake hotel cabins in Dambulla, to beautiful Amaya Hills resort in Kandy, and onwards, we were very pleased with our rooms.  And I should mention that every single hotel we stayed at had at least one decorated Christmas tree, if not more.

With Kalu

On our fourth night in the country, our tour company arranged our stay at Kalu's Hideaway, a seven room hotel in Ude Walawe.  The company cautioned us that the hotel was very basic, but in hindsight, they must have been setting us up...the place was intentionally rustic, yet gorgeous.  It is an eco hotel set deep in the jungle, with a pool, walking paths, a tree house, and a comfortable open-air restaurant.  Kalu's Hideaway is the result of the vision of owner Romesh Kaluwitharana, arguably Sri Lanka's most famous cricketer (who knew? not us!), and he and his family happened to be staying there the night we were there.  And in small-world fashion, the only other guests that night were a family of Canadian expats.

View from Claughton
House

We were looking forward to the end of the week and our stay in Tangalle, on the south coast, and we weren't disappointed.  Claughton House was our home for two nights, an estate in a bay on the Indian Ocean.  The seven of us occupied the main building with three bedrooms, while two other guest stayed in the guest house.  Although Claughton House is a hotel, it felt like we had our very own staff:  we were asked in the morning what we would like for lunch and dinner (one time we requested fish, and I'm sure I saw them catching it off the rocks later that day!), and again at night what we would like for breakfast.  We spent our time there jumping in the ocean waves, swimming in the pool, and playing cards.  And of course, eating.

Mount Lavinia

Our last night was spent in Colombo at Mount Lavinia, a colonial heritage hotel.  We enjoyed the great restaurant, the pool, and the beach, and it was a perfect place to stay for our last night in the country.

So long, Sri Lanka

Beautiful country, beautiful people.  We will have fond memories of this place for years to come.  And it's even OK to go the week before Christmas.

This Little Piggy Went to Market

I hate Tuesdays.  In our world, Tuesday is Hump Day, as the work week is Sunday through Thursday.  Tuesdays have been hard to get through for us since moving to Doha.  Every Tuesday, the kids are dismissed from school at precisely 12:30, instead of the usual 3:00 pm.  Oh yes, half days.  It conjures up images of children romping through the compound, blissfully relieved of their arduous schedule, an afternoon off at their disposal.  However, on Tuesdays, they don't get a lunch break, and by the time they get home from school at about 1:15, they are cranky, tired, and ravenous.  Every Tuesday, I try to circumvent this as best I can by making sure that they get a really good breakfast—usually eggs, toast, sometimes some beef bacon on the side.  Yes, beef bacon.  After a year of living in Doha, turkey bacon has worn out its welcome in this house, and at the very least, beef comes from a mammal, so bears some resemblance to the country's forbidden meat, pork.

Tuesday this week started like any other:  My alarm went off at 6:15.  I dragged myself out of bed and brushed my teeth.  Threw a sweater over my pajamas and walked out to the office where my iPhone sat on the desk.  I picked it up and browsed through the emails before waking the kids up.  I quickly logged onto Facebook just to see how everyone's day went back home and saw that my friend Inge, who moved to Houston a couple of weeks ago, had posted on my wall just minutes before.

"Donna...are you eating pork right now??"

Ha ha, very funny.  "No, are you??"

She cyber-laughed, and asked, hadn't I heard?  She had discovered, through the magic of Facebook, that pork was now being sold at QDC (aka The Only Liquor Store in the Country), starting yesterday.

I beg your pardon?

My two favourite animals:
pork chops and bacon

Surely she had to be mistaken.  Talk of the possibility of pork being sold in this country has been going on for like...ever.  Why hadn't there been a swirl of rumours leading up to this?  Why hadn't someone told me?  And, why, for the love of God, wasn't I sitting in a lawn chair outside QDC right at that moment waiting for it to open, with a camping stove, a dozen eggs, and a cast iron frying pan?

Sounds silly, I know, but I actually felt giddy.  To be denied a main staple of our Canadian diet for the last year, and then to have it suddenly reintroduced, without warning, left me, well, elated.  I think I wept a little.  Terrible Tuesday just got a whole lot better, and it wasn't even 6:30 am.

I glided around the kitchen making breakfast, humming a tune from Babe, with the kids looking at me quizzically.  This was not Evil Tuesday Morning Mom.  This was Bacon-Crazed Mary Poppins/Fairy Godmother Mom.


If only I could put into words how un-Doha-like this is.  After you’ve lived here for awhile, you get used to nothing getting done.  Promises are made, deadlines pass, and hopes are dashed.  Inshallah, and all that.  I can only imagine that for those pork lovers who have lived here for years, the shock of the news must have nearly put them into cardiac arrest.  And it turns out that it was actually news, not just rumours.  When I got to the bus stop, my friend Heather told me that she had been at QDC the day before, and had seen with her very own eyes the emptied-out former Cold Beer room, resplendent in its new-found purpose, with shiny freezers and a permanent “Pork Products” sign etched on the window.  Who needs cold beer when you can have a bacon double cheeseburger?

But it gets better.  We have it on good authority that in the next week, Parma ham and salami will be here, and in another month, pork chops.  And there's even the possibility of ham by Christmas.  I must be dreaming. Somebody pinch me.

The only wrinkle is that you need a QDC permit to enter the store, whether to buy alcohol or pork.  Dan has one; I never bothered.  But I will persevere.  Now that I'll be buying "groceries" from QDC, I think it warrants me having one.  In the meantime, I've got a pound of bacon in my freezer (from an undisclosed source to whom I am eternally grateful), awaiting the day when the five of us are here for breakfast.  Or lunch, for BLTs.  Or bacon-wrapped whatevers for appetizers.  And then we'll drizzle bacon grease on the light bulbs to fill the house with the scent of progress.  Ah, pork.  The one I love.

Holiday in Jordan

The Eid Al-Adha holiday fell in the first week of November this year, and both Dan and the kids got the week off.  As for me, it’s hard to differentiate between “off” and “on”, but I was allowed to join them on their trip to Jordan nonetheless.  We had a driver for the week (Essam) who shuttled us around the country in his very comfortable van.  We wanted this trip to have a good balance of hanging out by the pool and sight-seeing.  With so much to see, we prepped the kids as best we could.  In the words of the great Scott Feschuk, "OK kids, time to walk slowly past old stuff."  In the case of Jordan, REALLY old stuff.

Indiana Jones 1, 2 and 3
 at the Treasury, Petra

Petra
Petra is  nothing short of spectacular.  We rode horses for the first short part of the tour through the ancient city, and then walked the rest of the way, making it to the Treasury, and continuing on all the way to the Monastery. In the first nine months of this year, the site saw about 500,000 visitors less compared to the same time frame last year, and the people who make a living off of tourism are really hurting.  Boy, were they happy to see us.  Because there were less of us, their numbers seemed amplified, and we were targets of the men offering donkey rides, and the women and kids hawking silver jewellery, postcards, rugs, etc.  Nicholas and I got a good work-out practicing our "no thank-yous", but we did come away with a few souvenirs.  It was a very full, physical day, but a once in a lifetime experience.

The Drive to the Dead Sea

The Promised Land

We left a cold and foggy Petra to travel the 200 kilometers and 1200 meter elevation drop to the Dead Sea, with a lot of points of interest along the way.  We stopped at Ain Musa (Moses' Spring), Montreal Castle (built in 1115 during the Crusades), Wadi Mujib (Jordan's Grand Canyon), Byzantine ruins at Um Rasas (including St. Steven's Church), and the Greek Orthodox Basilica of St. George in the city of Madaba.  We made a stop at the Madaba Art and Handicraft Center, where we bought a beautiful (read:  expensive) mosaic table.  We were as surprised as anyone that we needed one, but with a little luck it will eventually be delivered to our house.  Our final stop was at Mount Nebo for a view of The Promised Land, where Dan quipped:  "I guess if  you spent 40 years in the desert it might look like the Land of Milk and Honey!"

The Dead Sea
And whose idea was it to have a little vacation within a vacation?  Mine, that's whose.  Brilliant, too, I might add.  After a couple of fun but long days on our feet and on the road, it was great to sit back for a few days in the warm weather at the Dead Sea, which is the lowest point on Earth, with an elevation of 420 meters below sea level.

The Three Buoys

We spent most of our time in or near one of the pools, and ventured out into the sea several times.  The beach is made up of salt encrusted rocks, so we had to be careful walking in.  The ground drops off a few feet from shore, giving way to deep water very quickly, and we were told that going in backwards was the best way to approach it.

Dan, floating...

Sunset at the Dead Sea

Amman and Points North
After three days at the Dead Sea, Essam drove us back to Amman, the capital of Jordan.  We wanted to try something local for dinner, so we went to Reem Bawadi, a restaurant serving Middle Eastern fare and housed in a large, high-ceilinged hall.  The cab ride was an adventure, with the five of us crammed into a Honda Civic with the driver.  We discovered that Jordanians drive a bit like Qataris, only with older, smaller cars.  Since it was the last day of Eid, the restaurant was quite busy, with lots of families sitting on cushioned benches at the low tables.  We told the waiter to bring us what he thought we should try, and had a great meal of grilled lamb, chicken, fish, and beef, stuffed grape leaves, falafel and various salads.  (One day I'm going to write a whole post on dealing with a sesame allergy in this part of the world!)

Corinthian column heads in Jerash

The next day we went to the old Roman city of Jerash, and Ajlun Castle, a Muslim castle built by Saladin during the Crusades.  Between these two stops, Essam assembled lunch for us by pulling over at a small shop, and coming out with a bag of falafel.  He drove a few blocks further, rolled down the window and said a few words in Arabic to some men on the street, and then made his way to another shop where he picked up two large, flat warm breads and handed them to Dan.  "Put the falafel in the bread and roll it up - the Jordanian Hamburger!"

On our last day in Jordan, we caught a cab and went on a self-guided tour of the Citadel in the heart of Amman, featuring a collection of ruins from Roman and medieval Islamic periods, and offering fantastic views of the surrounding city.  Then it was back to the hotel for a great lunch (with the manager and three waiters serving us, the only guests in the restaurant), and then on to the airport for our late afternoon flight.

There is easily another week's worth of places to visit and things to do in Jordan, so who knows?  We may have to make another visit someday.

The Hand That Feeds Them

There was a time in our lives when Dan and I were responsible parents, trying to raise responsible, independent kids.  We recognized that our job was not to coddle, or to protect from adversity, or to wait on, hand and foot, but was instead to comfort, to find learning moments in conflict, and to teach the finer points of being able to take care of one's own basic needs.  Then we moved overseas, and it all went to hell.

Well, "all" is a bit of a stretch.  We're still OK on the first couple of points, but on the latter we've really let things slide.  Long before we moved, back when the kids were learning to read, count to 100, and visit the loo sans Mom, they were also learning to be pretty good little helpers.  They did get an allowance, which wasn't tied to chores; they got money because they needed to learn how to use it wisely.  Chores were all part of being a member of the family: everyone was important, and had something to contribute.  The boys set the table, loaded the dishwasher, washed the dishes, made their own beds, and even—wait for it—cleaned the bathroom.  As the only "sitter" in the family, I had reached the point where I wanted to, for once, sit on a pee-free toilet seat; hence, I turned the job over to them, and I have to say, they learned to do a pretty good job.

Since moving to Doha, though, chores have become a bit of a, well, chore.  The kids have a longer day at school here, their activities often start too close to, or too soon after dinner, and really, sometimes it's just nice to have a conversation with one's spouse while doing the dishes together.  So, we pick up where they leave off, and do all things for them that they were so capable of doing themselves a few short years ago.  The persistent culture of service here doesn't help either; there is always someone to whom you can pay a ridiculously little amount of money to do almost any job.  Or you can depend on Mom and Dad to do it for free.

Last Wednesday was an afternoon like any other:  Nick and Dan had hockey practice right after dinner, so as usual, in my solitary efforts to have everything ready on time, to make it easy for everybody, I made a trip to the clubhouse store to buy milk.  I stopped at A.G.'s house to borrow a small bottle of fish sauce for the green curry chicken I was planning to make.  A.G. lives about a block away from me, and about half way home the toe of my flip-flop caught on the pavement.  I stumbled forward, dropping the bottle, and then fell hands-down into the broken glass.

Now, I handle the sight of blood with about as much grace as I handle flying, and when I do cut myself I'm usually convinced that I've severed an artery and that I will surely bleed to death before I get someone to help me.  Lucky for me I've got friends who are much more sane about these things, and after I hauled myself and my dripping hand to A.G.'s, she took me to the hospital and Mary stayed behind to clean up the scene of the crime.

Ben making a cake, 2002

Four stitches to the palm of my hand, a scraped knee, and a bruised ego later, I arrived home to a chorus of "poor Mom" and a lot of hugs.  Their concern was genuine, but you could see, crossing their faces as they looked at my heavily bandaged hand, the dawning realization that that's the hand that does the dishes, makes our lunches, and folds our laundry.  Dan and Nick were leaving for a hockey tournament in Abu Dhabi the next day, so Ben and Jacob were given instructions to help me out as much as possible.

The three of us got through the weekend, and at least I thought it was kind of fun.  Ben and Jacob made dinner both nights—and not just something frozen and heated up:  chicken breasts one night, and homemade pizza the next.  And every dish got washed, but not by me.  I don't think it's hyperbole to say that they were both invigorated to rediscover what they had long been capable of.

I'll get my stitches out on Saturday, and I guess things will return to normal.  Yesterday, when I went to the hospital for a dressing change, the nurse asked me if I wanted a big bandage around my hand and wrist again, or just the water-proof bandage that covered my stitches.  I said a big bandage, reasoning that that would stop me from getting it wet, or getting it all dirty.  And then I thought of all we had regained with that one little bandage:  a little step forward for independence for the kids, and a reminder of what my job as a parent really is.  I might just wear one of these bandages for a little longer than necessary.  I wonder how long it will take the kids to figure out that I take it off as soon as the school buses pull away.

Margaritavilla

I have a confession to make:  I've developed an addiction since moving to Doha.  Which is strange, because this isn't the kind of place where you find a lot of vices.  But I get restless when I haven't done it in awhile, and if I set my mind on that particular thing, it takes up all of my attention until I get my fix.  The feeling of making the score is beyond ecstasy.  I admit it:  I can't stop shopping.

photo:  Steve Mohundro

Granted, we expat wives have an unfair reputation.  We're known as high-maintenance, mani-pedied, fake-tanned divas who have our massage therapists on speed-dial and are never more than an arm's length away from our Margarita blenders.  That stereotype is mostly a myth and I'm sure would make great fodder for a future post.  But boy, can we shop.

There's a reason our husbands drive the cars and we get the SUVs, and it's not just because we often have to transport a bus-load of kids from point A to point B.  We're also the couriers of cargo.  I've never tried it, but I'm sure it would be hard to fit a set of lanterns and an armoire in the trunk of Dan's sedan.  If Lexus or Porsche ever make a cube van, there'll be a stampede of us climbing those running-boards to get behind the wheel.

If you check out the links at the bottom of this post, you'll see what I'm up against.  Doha is not exactly a hotbed of mainstream shopping, but there is a plethora of shops that carry some really cool stuff to outfit your villa.  And after you've been here awhile, there's a certain panic that sets in, the result of realizing that you can't get these kinds of things anywhere else.  Picture traditional lanterns, mosaic lamps, Arabic clocks, Persian rugs, and imported, hand-made furniture.  Now picture 100,000 women after that one unique piece.  Shopping isn't just an addiction with me; it's a full-contact sport.

I've compiled a pre-shopping check-list for those of you new to the Doha retail experience:

1.  Tell no one but your closest allies of your intentions.  If word gets around, you may find yourself in a slow-motion race across the showroom floor with your next-door neighbour, and having to tackle her inches from that coveted sofa table.

2.  There is too great a risk of your husband receiving a text from the bank when you debit your account for the big purchase.  Remove the battery from his mobile phone.  Utter soothing phrases while he frantically looks for it before work.  Feign ignorance.

3.  If you see something you like, sort of like, or harbour the possibility of kind of maybe feeling indifferent to someday, buy it.  It might not be there tomorrow.  Or even three minutes from now.

4.  When you do decide to buy an item, RUN, don't walk, to the nearest sales associate and state your intentions (see 3).  Act fast or one of you might change your mind.  I find it helpful to have a friend waiting outside in a get-away car.  Tell her to keep the engine running.

5.  Don't be afraid to explore your creative side.  Get crafty.  Like many of you, I suffer from "dimentia". [dimentia:  noun; origin: Desert Mama; def.: a condition which disables one's spatial memory, so that while standing in a store and having forgotten to bring the actual dimensions of the space one is trying to fill, one thinks, Oh, it looks like it'll fit.]  It won't.  You'll need a hack-saw and a rudimentary knowledge of how to re-wrap wicker.

This week, hot on the heels of a successful previous week of shopping for things for our new villa, I set out on a quest for a bar.  And, like any purchase driven by addiction, the whole transaction took about three minutes.  I didn't just buy a bar; I bought the bar I've envisioned for the last six months, my Holy Grail of bars, if you will.  I went through the whole gamut of emotions:  disbelief at finding it, panic to purchase it, followed by elation, and sheer joy on the drive home.  Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards recovery.

Dan arrives home tonight from a week in Houston, and I hope he likes my latest find.  Now I'm off to look for Margarita mix.  I think I remember seeing one last bottle on a store shelf the other day.  Ladies, start your engines.

Click on the links below to see a couple of my favourite Doha stores:

Darriche - imported and antique furniture

Artifacts of Arabia (David Mowby)

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Home is Where You Unpack Your Boxes

Blogger has a new interface, just in time for a new season of Letters from Doha. Sort of like a fresh start. And convenient for me, as I've suffered from procrastination, avoidance, lack of inspiration, jet-lag and move exhaustion when it comes to writing anything lately.  I've been getting used to this new system - I can now cite "technically incompetent" as my official excuse for not writing.

After arriving in Doha on August 11, we had three full nights' sleep in our own beds (or maybe not sleep, but whatever that thing is that you get when trying to get over an eight-hour time difference).  On the fourth morning, the movers arrived to pack up our belongings and transfer them over to our new home: a brand-new villa in a brand-new compound.

The scheduling gods weren't on my side when it came to having Dan take care of the move while we were in Canada.  But there are some benefits to moving after such a long trip.  For example, I didn't put a lot of unnecessary planning into the move, as I was preoccupied with last-minute shopping, visiting, and eating bacon.  Our old house was relatively organized when we arrived home because Dan had been there for five weeks on his own after we left, and he had taken care of a lot of pre-move issues.  And, if you're going to be tired and cranky from jet-lag anyway, you might as well add the stress of moving to that, instead of being tired and cranky for a whole week on two separate occasions.

Our villa

After two and a half days, all of our things were moved over to the new house.  A week after that, we were mostly unpacked.  Like our old house, this one is fully furnished, but of course there are some differences and there are still some things we need to get to fill in the gaps.  When we weren't unpacking, the kids and I spent most of that first week shopping for things like bedding, rugs and lamps.

Front entrance

We're nicely settled now and every day I find another reason to like this new place.  We are now a seven-minute drive to MegaMart (joy!), and just over 10 minutes to Villaggio Mall, where the boys play hockey.  And, the kids no longer have to get up at 6:00 am to catch their school bus.  It's a luxury to sleep until 6:30!

Back patio

Here are some pics from before we had our pictures hung up today.  Sorry for the screwy lay-out - still trying to figure out this new interface!

Kitchen

Dining room

Breakfast nook

Kitchen

Master bedroom balcony

Master bedroom

J's room

B's room

Second floor family room

N's room

N's room
(complete with air hockey table
and balcony)