Happy March everyone!

It has been yet another whirl wind of a month for the Richards Family, with crazy weather, Rob's field trip, trips to the hospital and a major water maine break, we are ready for our trip to Dubai!

Some humor for ya

International Day

It was International Day at the Hills school for the kindergarteners. They had to dress up in outfits from the country they are from. There was a huge parade around the school and then a wonderful performance by the kids where they sang songs and danced. Even sang a song in Arabic about family....so cute!

Singing their hearts out

International Day

(L: Jordyn, Gabe and Riley)

Princess Canada and Captian Canada

Jordyn and Riley

Riley and his mom, Leanne. Miss you guys!

Friends of ours moved back to Australia, gonna miss them a lot.

Record breaking news:

Yes it snowed in Saudi Arabia

Us Canadian's call this a skiff, but to them it was a blizzard!

More snow

snowy roads

We didn't get any snow here on camp, but it sure was cold enough. We actually hit -2C (28 F). I actually went out and bought the girls mitts! This was in Tobuq (toe-bouk) where Rob was heading for a 2 1/2 week course/field trip.

So what do you do when its cold? Have a get together Star Wars style!

Storm trooper hookers

(Tanya and I...who else could make a storm trooper costume look good?)

Kelly and James

Pregnant Princess?

Storm trooper

Don (Luke I am your faaaathhher)

Now the real drama hits:

We had a really nasty shamal (sand storm) and that caused Jaymee to have an asthma attack, so we headed to the hospital, but when we returned we found our front yard in the street!

What we came home to after the trip to the hospital

There go the tiles

So I called maintence to come out and fix this problem, what they found out was there was a water break somewhere under our house! But it gets better, I get Jaymee settled on the couch and get Jordyn ready to go back to school, after lunch, and Jordyn jumps off the couch and embeds a 'bull dog' clip in her foot. Screaming and lots of blood. But I was not going back to the hospital so I managed to slow th bleeding down enough to crazy glue the wound closed, it worked. Now I have two children on the couch and a massive water main break on my hands!

The crime scene
With all the fences in the front yard and blood on the floor it looked like a crime scene...only at our house.

They worked through the entire night

Safety first

Hole in our yard
After two days they finally found the break and fixed it up. But the water needed to be shut off, so we decided it was time to get out of here, so we headed to Bahrain for a couple of nights.

Bahrain, yes I am wearing a long sleeve at the pool it was chilly 25C (77F). I'm gonna freeze in Canada this summer!

Cannon Ball!

Cannon Ball

Silly girls

My how they have grown

Always the character...don't know who she gets that from.

Jaymee and her lemons, that kid kills me she eats them like oranges!

Ooodles and oodles of noodles!
(L: Cooper, Jaymee and Conal)
Other fun pictures

The metal chunk that went through the tire of Rob's vehicle while they were out in the field. Pretty lucky those guys are that it hit the tire and didn't fly higher considering everyone drives 140km here!

Looks like something out of Star Wars, just need the sand people to come running out

Cakes, cakes and more cakes

Beatles cake

Yoda cake

Zebra cake

Well that is all for now, stay tuned as we are heading to Dubai for a much needed vacation! Miss you all!

Love The Richards Family

Wow, December and January have flown by!

DECEMBER 2011

Like most things in our lives, there is never a dull moment. 2 days before Christmas break let out, Jaymee came home from school at lunch crying that she tripped and fell. I didn't see any blood...and was more concerned with her eating her lunch because she was late and we had limited time. I went upstairs and heard her cryiing downstairs that it hurt her to lift her arm, so pulled up her sleeve and well we headed to the emergency room. Sure enough Jaymee broke her right arm in two places! We need to seriously get some meat on that kid! So they casted her up and we headed home.

Jaymee's broken arm....again
She was quite upset about having a cast so she hid it under long sleeves the entire 4 weeks. I even colored it in highlighters to try to brighten it up, her friends even signed it, but she DID NOT want a broken arm, Jordyn on the other hand...let's just say she was calling Santa and asking for a broken arm for Christmas, because it wasn't fair that Jaymee ALWAYS gets to break her arm...oh honey I'm sure your time will come, after all you have my blood running through your body!

So school has let out for winter break and we went to the K-9 show. It was chilly, but the kids had a great time watching all the dogs do their tricks.

K-9 show

K-9 show

k-9 show

Quick trip to Bahrain to do some last minute Christmas shopping!

It was nice to head to Bahrain, where the malls were decorated for Christmas, the loud speakers were playing Christmas music, it was nice.

Jaymee and Jordyn in winterwonderland in Bahrain

an igloo in Bahrain?

Looks like real snow

Daddy and his girls in Bahrain

Mommy and her girls



CHRISTMAS IN SAUDI

Hey who ate the cookies?

Santa was really here!

Jaymee gets a bike...with gears!

Jordyn gets a scooter!

Suva gets a cigar...imported all the way from Canada! These are her favorite treats. She was so happy!

Yay! Daddy gets his x-box!

X-mas dinner

x-mas dinner

kids table

What's Chirstmas dinner without a Snowman cake?

JANUARY 2012

We had a quiet New Years, everyone had to work the next day, so it was tough to stay up for midnight. On the 26th Rob and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary, the two of us headed off to Bahrain for some mommy and daddy time. It was great. Suva also turned 10 years old!

Jaymee finally got her cast off and we promised her a trip to the beach, so we rounded everyone up and headed out for a day of fun in the sand, sun and water

Jay and Rob taking out the boat for the first time!

Our boat, yes we have bought a boat. We are the proud owners (along with the Harrington Family) of a boat. We now have a memebership the the yatch club.

Good friends

(L: William, Jaymee, Micheal, Jordyn and Gabe)

Such good friends

Love this picture of Jaymee and William looking for starfish

Starfish!

One, two, three....

Dune jumping

Jaymee loving that her cast is off and she can jump down the dunes

Everyone jumping off the dunes

Such fun!

Jellyfish

Love the ripples in the calm water

Doesn't even look like water does it?

dolphins!

So amazing to see how close these dolphins are to shore

Mama dolphin with her baby

Digging the biggest hole possible

Sibiling rivalry...Matt did you really think you could stay dry walking in the water without out your brother around?

Kelly and Heather....chillaxin'

My two girls....my how they have grown

Jay and Heather enjoying the day

Jordyn enjoying some cake

LaLani, Kelly and Heather

The William's family

Daddy gets a shoulder rub from Jaymee

crusing on the surf board

the surf board tips over!

Little cold?

sunset on the beach...perfect way to end a perfect day at the beach

sunset

Miscellaneous picutres

The best thing about Mommy making cakes....the icing

My icing testers

Delicious

The icing testers

Making pancakes with Daddy...a Thursday tradition
Every weekend morning (remember our weekends are Thursday and Friday) the girls and Rob make homemade pancakes. They used to do this back in Canada, but breakfast also included bacon...oh how we miss bacon!

Making pancakes

The Second Grade class did a Dr. Seuss performance for the entire school. It was so cute!

Jaymee and her buds

Friends

Jaymee and Reyna have been in the same class since kindergarten

Princess Jaymee catching a grasshopper!

She loves bugs

Jaymee trying to catch the grasshopper

Larry the lizard is still around!

Larry the lizard

Larry

Larry

traditional Saudi band. They played at the Harley Davidson show that is held here each year, unfortunately we had a huge sand sandstorm that day, so there wasn't that great of a turn out. We still had fun though.

Like across the world we have been experiencing some weird weather too, it has been unusually cool here a high of 13 C(55 F), we even got down to -1C (30F). Hey its snowing in Turkey and Italy...global warming at its finest!

Neat sky huh?

The clouds were amazing this day

Camel crossing...seriously. I'm used to seeing deer crossing signs. This is an actual overpass, it was crazy!

Lord help us, Jordyn has started karate!

Its hard to be tough when you're that cute

More cakes I've made:

Aladdin cake

Mad Hatter cake

Dr. Seuss cake

Pink x-mas baby shower cake


I hope you I got you caught up on what we've been doing for the last couple of months. Rob has been working hard on his Master's and the girls are and I are trying to stay sane with school, ballet, karate and life in general! Miss you all lots. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year's, Happy Valentine's day! Stay warm and dry!

Hugs and kisses to all,

Love THE RICHARDS FAMILY