This Trip Headed South

This post is brought to you courtesy of Tennessee, North Carolina, and wifi on airplanes.

Santa must be following the blog because he found us Christmas morning.

No trip to the South is complete without fried chicken.

That grub was earned with plenty of manual labor.  I showed those leaves who's the boss, and it wasn't Tony Danza.  

Just some folks getting down on the farm.

Happy birthday Jay.  We hope you feel more important than the cats today.  Miss you.  

Happy New Year to all.  We hope 2014 is full of many blessings and joys.

Merry Christmas

This weeks adventures took place in Colorado, Wyoming, and Tennessee.  We have been blessed with amazing companionship and lots of laughter.  

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas.  Thank you for following our family.

Tourists

We are on American soil and have been visiting our favorite places in Houston and Kansas wearing winter gear.

Happy belated birthday Megan.  You are such a great person and I hope your birthday was just as great as you.

Holiday Spirit

Happy December!  We are in maximum holiday spirit.  Our decorations are up and the Christmas music is blaring.  We are counting down until our feet touch U.S. soil.

We had lots of good eats this weekend.  We celebrated Thanksgiving with our neighbors at a block party complete with carolers.

We also had a small gathering with friends and a couple soldiers stationed in Doha.  Jonathon cooked a turkey and my first pumpkin pie was a success thanks to a co-worker bringing canned pumpkin from Houston.

The weather is just lovely in Doha (bet you never thought I would write that).  This week we enjoyed dinner outside overlooking downtown.

 
We are headed back to the U.S. of A. to celebrate the holidays.  We are super excited, but looking forward to a few special things:

• Seeing family and friends
• Mexican food with margaritas
• Pulled pork BBQ sandwiches
• Seasons- fall and winter
• Saying Merry Christmas
• Going to the movies with an audience that knows talking on cell phones is rude
• Holding hands in public (maybe this is just me and not Jonathon)
• Wearing shorts and t-shirts without offending others
• Going to public places and know that a child unattended will be quickly sought out by a guardian, rather than left to the involuntary supervision of strangers
• Driving without being run off the road because some jerk is in a hurry and flashing his headlights while tailgating 10 feet away
• Getting a decent radio station while driving in the car
• Purchasing clothes at outlet stores, hello DSW
• Wearing a jacket

Let us know if you are lacking in holiday joy.  We are currently overflowing with it, so we might be able to spare some.

Dhow town

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving everyone.  We are extremely thankful for each and every one of you.  We appreciate that you take the time to check out the blog.  It helps us stay connected and feel closer.  

This week we got a little educational.  To fully embrace our Arabic surroundings, we attended the dhow festival.  Before oil and gas, the main industry in Doha was pearl diving.  This was accomplished using wooden, sailing boats called dhows.  Now we kindly present our photographic proof to you and anyone else who can navigate the internet.

 


In more breaking news, our local paper has an article highlighting a recent trend to have cheetahs, tigers, and lions as house pets.  I will be more careful now accepting invitations to dinner parties.
http://dohanews.co/columnist-gulf-wide-practice-of-owning-exotic-pets-is-not-cool/

Surprising nobody, I ran again.  To make it even better, my boss' boss documented that my face can turn the same color as my shirt.

Happy anniversary Jared and Kaleigh.  I love how much fun you have with each other.  You make going to the grocery store an adventure.  

Happy anniversary Greg and Mandy.  You have taught me so much about unconditional love and when to make sacrifices.  

Happy birthday Meghan.  Thank you for agreeing to live with a stranger.

Desert Challenge

Hi Team.  Sorry it has been so long.  Last weekend we were a little more 'in motion' than normal and competed in the desert challenge and it took a while to recover.  (Yes those are clouds in the below picture.  It rained!!!)

The desert challenge was a two day event where our team participated in various events including building a boat to use in the ocean and a scavenger hunt at night.  Jonathon thought it was the dessert challenge, so he was a little upset when we showed up and there wasn't any cake.

Here are some pictures so you can enjoy the event without having sore muscles like us.

Campsite:

Starting line:

 Playing the game board with our team:

Programming our GPS (of course Jonathon was in charge of the maps):

Getting event instructions:

Event fun:

We finished eighth of 27 teams and third of the coed teams.  We were also awarded best team spirit.

Refueling with a typical Arabic meal served on a large platter in the middle of the table:

This week was a great week.  It rained multiple days and I got to hug Sam!  (I can't believe I didn't take a picture.)  The countdown is on until we are in the States to celebrate Christmas break.

Happy birthday McKinley.  Your sweet smile brightens my day.  Happy birthday Joe.  We will watch the Hulk and drink protein powder in your honor.  Happy anniversary Jared and Kaleigh.  I look forward to wishing you well year after year.

Johannesburg

After our safari, we headed to Johannesburg for some last minute sight seeing before boarding our flights home.

No trip to South Africa is complete without a touristy photo of a Nelson Mandela's statue.

We visited the Cradle of Humankind which is an excavation site famous for holding some of the oldest human fossils.

Part of the tour included slithering through Sterkfontein caves where some of the fossils were discovered.

We also visited a beautiful olive grove for some oil olive tasting.  Be careful inviting us to your home.  We will now judge that oil olive in your cabinet the next time we come to visit.

We finished our South African journey with some oil olive shots.  Isn't that normal?   

We thoroughly enjoyed South Africa and would return in a heartbeat.  It is definitely one of our favorite trips so far.  Let's all go together.  How can you turn this down?

During our South Africa trip, I celebrated my one year anniversary in Doha.  Today is Jonathon's one year Doha anniversary.  Hard to believe you guys are still reading this rambling after so long.  So, what haven't I answered?  What do you guys still want to know about our life in Qatar?

Happy birthday Grandma Jones and Haley Rose.  You deserve to feel super special and extremely loved on your birthday.  I am thinking about you and sending huge hugs.

Pilanesberg

Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Cape Town, but we were excited for the safaris to begin.  We flew into Johannesburg and then drove two hours northwest to Pilanesberg National Park (#3 on the below map).

source

We stayed at a lodge inside the national park and went on two safaris a day.  One at sunrise from 6-9am and one surrounding sunset from 4-8pm.  We were not messing around.

Seeing animals in their natural habitat is so much better than at the zoo.

I still have goosebumps.  Worth every minute in the wind.