Liberation Day Weekend

This past weekend Kuwait celebrated the 25th anniversary of it's liberation from Iraqi invasion. 

Also being celebrated was "National Day"....big weekend of celebrations.

And our family celebrated alongside the rest of the Country.

Apparently celebrating these holidays includes basically one big water fight. Every single grocery store, bakala (convenience store, like 7-11), and toy store is FILLED with water guns and water balloons.

We'd been warned if we went out at all, to be prepared to get SOAKED.

I'll be honest, I was incredibly slightly apprehensive, for several reasons...

One of those being I'm still recovering from surgery, and I didn't want to need to be in a position where we encountered chaos, were far from home, and I had to carry a weeping five year old all the way home.

Another of those being that more than a handful of times we've been out in public, we've had...challenging situations with the Arabic culture's tendency to not discipline their children often. I've mentioned before that children are revered here...and we've witnessed several occasions where kids were behaving horribly, and nothing was done about it.

My kids have been yanked by the shirts, cut in front of in line, shoved out of the way, and even SPIT ON.

Yeah.

So.

I was nervous how this was gonna go.

David picked up a super soaker for each kiddo, we put on rain jackets, and headed out towards the chaos...

...and I was pleasantly surprised! Everyone was festive and fun, and had great behavior.

I've never been so happy to be wrong ;)

Our kids stood with many others on the side of the road and squirted oncoming cars. The police even assisted them.

We came upon teenager after teenager who didn't even attempt to spray our kids, until our kids squirted them first =). And even then they'd soak our kids a bit, and then playfully retreat....

 ...it was wonderful!!

Very, very fun. And our kids had a BLAST.

Some things about living here are hard. Being able to walk to THIS, however, is not one of them...

We made our way to the beach and the twins played in the "ship wreck" play area...

View of Kuwait City skyline...

Yup, Momma had her rain jacket on as well. 

And her shades, even past sunset, to hide the Pink Eye.

We walked over to the Marina and the kids had so much fun getting in water fights with other kids...

Me and my babes checking out all the boats...

Brother channeling his inner Batman...

My people checking out the sights...

On Friday afternoon we walked back down to the beach to play in the sand and picnic with some friends...

 

Our little family was incredibly happy to be ALL healthy enough to enjoy the great weather!

(And I was able to upgrade from giant Kardashian glasses to my Aviators as the Pink Eye was less noticeable this day...hallelujah)

This sweet boy LOVES playing in the ocean...

Our daughter and her sweet little friend B from TBall...

Cute kiddos...

Sweet little S took a little afternoon snooze on the beach...

We are so grateful for these fun friends! We met them through TBall and have loved getting together with them on several occasions. They're from the UK and arrived in Kuwait the exact same week we did, and their apartment is within walking distance of ours...HUGE blessing!

We enjoyed a delightful picnic dinner on the beach, talking and laughing. 

 It was a fairly idyllic afternoon.

Before we knew it, the sun was setting and the wet kiddos were cold... 

 ...and it was time to head home.

It was fun to be able to celebrate a Kuwait Holiday here, especially as Americans ;). I'll be honest, there are plenty of times I'm not entirely proud of the way our Government handles International relations...especially invasions and rebuilding post - invasion.

 But from everything I've heard about this particular time, America got it right. We assisted Kuwait in being freed from the Iraqi invasion, and then really helped them rebuild the proper way.

 For the most part, Kuwaitis LOVE Americans, and that's a big reason why!