Miscellany

To follow up on my last post - sure enough, it was someone else's fault, no matter where we turned.

 Dave went into work the next morning and emailed Housing Guy, saying that he'd lost a ton of sleep because his wife had lost her ever loving mind and ranted and raved well into the wee hours when the apartment tried to catch on fire.

Housing Guy's response was that I should not have allowed Super to attempt to fix heater (and I was supposed to know this how exactly?) He said he called our building management company (we are not in college housing, but off campus in a separate apartment building owned by others) and told them to send a technician. 

They clearly did not.

Apparently I was supposed to refuse his service and demand a professional. 

Now we all know.

But I still say, as our Housing Liaison, with us being here barely over 90 days,  he should have notified us of what to expect and what to accept.

And I still say the management company should be in trouble for trying to cut corners (and by "corners" I mean "cold hard cash") and not sending a professional.

But what I still say matters very little.

In any event, the next morning I had two professional electricians, our Super, my neighbor's three year old,  and my two kids in our apartment for several hours.

Three of us spoke English.

(that would be me and my two kids)

It was a bit of a cluster with them having to keep shutting on and off our power, and me having to get Housing Dude on the phone because they kept saying "Khalas" (finished) and I was like nope not yet but couldn't communicate what else needed done.

Alas, we now have a working, safe heater.

And that is hopefully the end of all fire related stories while we are in Kuwait.

Wednesday the twins and I called one of our reliable drivers (with seatbelts and everything!) and hired him to take us to The Avenues for the morning. We'd only been there once before and hardly seen a tenth of all the stores and attractions held there. 

Also, I was on a mission for Christmas Jammies, because it's just not Christmas until I've grabbed a picture of my cuties in their festive PJ's near the Christmas tree =).

Checking out shoes at Mothercare...

Picking out some goodies at Dean & Deluca...

Tons of beautiful restaurants to choose from... 

Viewing the water feature...

Dancing on the light up squares...

Gorgeous palm trees throughout...

Cute kid waiting for our driver...

We were there a little over two hours, and still didn't get everything done we'd intended to! But seriously we walked around forever and we were all three kicked. 

(and we did find Christmas Pjs ;) yea and hooray!)

I think I've mentioned before, there is a lot more Christmas stuff around Kuwait than I'd imagined there would be. There isn't a manger scene or even an angel in sight, but that is to be expected.  But there are plenty of trees, wreaths, lights, bows, Santas, and snowman to be found. 

I picked up a tree, some lights, some cheapy ornaments, a small tree skirt, and two little decorations (a little 1 foot tall Christmas tree and a lighted snowman) at stores around the area, and we hung our stockings we brought from home. 

That should do us just fine for this Christmas and next year =).

We also made these decorations for some homeschool crafts...

(Handprint Christmas trees with fingerprint lights...idea stolen from Pinterest Told Me To)

(and because I'm a sucker for all things time-stamped...like how big my babies hands were during Christmas of 2015...we made these on canvases so we can take them home with us when we leave and keep them forever ;) )

We're listening to Christmas music any chance we get, and I'm so grateful Dave downloaded all our CDs to the laptop before we left so that we could listen to Michael Buble croon Christmas Carols while we eat dinner...

(L was SO over having his picture taken during dinner)

Also, when your kid can't sing "Jingle Bells" without starting out:

"Merry Christmas ladies...Merry Christmas Mr. Buble...Are you ready to sing a little Jingle Bells?...Yesss...."

Then it *might* be time to switch CDs and let ol' Bing have a turn.

This morning we attended a birthday party for one of our Tball friends. We've been so lucky to get to know this wonderful family! They are just as new to Kuwait as we are (they arrived the week before we did) and are both employed at the British Embassy. It was fun to meet a handful of new expats at the party - including the Australian Ambassador - and discuss life in the Middle East. Our kids had a blast too...

Happy weekend to you =).