Suq Waqif

Having been here for three weeks and not yet having visited the suq, I suggested we head out for the evening on Thursday and see what the suq had to offer for dinner (Andrew was also in the middle of having an argument with Phoebe about whether or not dinner at McDonald's was a good idea—I'll let you guess whose argument was which). 

Our hotel apartment has a kitchen, but the stove is highly inefficient and the oven is (as a friend put it) EasyBake oven-sized. Our washing machine (which we are very grateful to have, but which is running nearly constantly) also seems to have been made for elves. 

Hotel life is great but...perhaps not suited for a family of seven. 

It's hard to make a full meal with the limited space and dishes that we have and we have laundry hanging to dry everywhere all the time. 

It's fairly glamorous. 

I mean, we love the view. We love that we have beds for everyone. We even enjoy having housekeeping come by three times a week (though I also like they days they don't come by). But we still feel a little bit like we're just camping out...still.

It's been a long time of feeling displaced, first living in our own house for six weeks with little to no furniture, and then living here in our temporary—wonderful but less-than-ideal—apartment. 

Anyway, all that is to say that we've gone to McDonald's three times since moving here and Phoebe thinks it's the absolute best (we used to only get McDonald's on our way home from the beach and whenever the power went out and we couldn't cook any food). She's always trying to convince Daddy it's a good day for a trip to McDonald's.

But I was like, "Why don't we go to the suq, see what kind of places they have down there..."

Andrew thought that was a great idea, so that's what we did. Even though it was hot.

"Your sweat is so shiny and beautiful!": Umbrella Park, the Corniche, and Monumental Play Area

It's 35°C (95°F) right now (10:00 PM), with a feels-like temperature of 46°C (114°F)—not too shabby!—so logically we took the kids to the park before bedtime. 

Andrew suggested we take the metro to the Corniche (a station named for its proximity to...the Corniche) and visit Umbrella Park, so named for its tunnels lined with umbrellas.

Vienna 🤝 Doha

When Josie and I visited Patrick in Vienna, he took us to the Vienna Central Cemetery to see graves both famous and interesting. One of his favourite graves to take people to see is that of Franz West, a sculptor from Vienna.

Here is his grave with this interesting worm-thing poking out of the ground:

And here is the sculpture we stumbled upon this evening in the park:

Miriam and the libraaaaaaar...ian

After we finished with our school work, we took the metro to the Qatar National Library. I really like the metro (I just wish it went more places). It's very clean, riding in the family car was perfectly chill (though Andrew really felt like a duck out of water because he was the only man in the car; without us he would have to ride in the "standard" cars, which he reports are also just fine). 

Here we are ready to hop on once the doors open:

A nighttime walk

On Saturday (our first day in Qatar) we went to the food court (at the mall! in our basement!) to find some dinner. We also found a yellow submarine playground, which Phoebe rather enjoyed.

Schönbrunn in the morning and Vienna at night (and the trip home)

On Tuesday morning (May 12), Patrick took me out to visit Schönbrunn Palace, the Habsburg family's summer residence (in view of their winter residence, the Hofburg). It is large (but only about a third of the size of Versailles). We didn't get tickets to any of the exclusive tours, but the grounds are free to wander through—we even saw a handful of joggers enjoying the paths. 

Benjamin's DC report (a guest post by Benjamin)

This is the first time I went to Washington DC with the capability to remember things. I have gone before, most notably in 2014, and 2016. I also went in November of 2012, but I was a tiny baby then so I really don’t remember anything at all. Rachel and Miriam have taken this trip before with Grandpa.  Their record walking distance was ten miles. We did not walk ten miles in the blazing hot sun as Rachel and Miriam did, but we did walk 6 miles the first day and 8 the next, which brings our total to 14, which is higher than theirs. This trip was the third time we planned out the dates. We had originally decided to go in September of 2025, but Grandpa had surgery and couldn't go. The second time we planned it, the government shut down for 43 days–both breaking the previous record and closing all the museums we wanted to go to. This third time, however, was not postponed, so we were able to go.

Washington D.C is our nation's capital. It's where the seat of government sits and it's where many people live in and travel to. It was founded as “Compromise Capital”, as the government wanted a place to be outside of an actual state. My Grandpa said that L'Enfant Plaza is called that because it has so many museums and kids love going to museums. Which is true but I think he was joking because it was actually named after the architect who designed the city on land that New York and Maryland donated whose name was Pierre Charles L'Enfant. It is built on the Potomac for many reasons. The first being that no one wanted that land because it was swampy and gross so that's why the states donated it. And the second is that it helps with defense because an attacking army can only really invade from one side. That second reason however is posing problems as the city expands as it makes commuting harder for those who live across the river. As there are only so many bridges and metro lines for commuters to use to get to work. Speaking of the metro, we used it to get around everywhere. So I will talk about it next.

The Metro

The metro in Washington DC is not the best in the world that goes to multiple ones in Asia but it tries to be clean and a thing that people want to use. We mostly used the blue line train because it's the one that we needed but we did use orange and silver sometimes as well. I loved using the metro and not touching the car for a week. I have many funny stories but the best one is when Zoë got stuck behind the gate. She swiped her card and then grandpa said Zoë! Over here she went over and tried to swipe her card on the other side but she could not go to the other side twice so grandpa had her go in front of him and he succeeded! But right as she went through it closed on him! And so he had to hand Darla his card so she swiped it on one side and then gave it to him and then he swiped it on the side that he was on and finally went through. We then went up the stairs and to the spy museum.

Lincoln

Lincoln was our country's 16th president. He was the first one assassinated and has left a mark on our history.The Lincoln memorial uses stone from all across the country to symbolise how Lincoln brought unity to the states. The terrace walls and lower steps comprise granite blocks from Massachusetts, the upper steps, outside facade, and columns contain marble blocks from Colorado, the interior walls and columns are Indiana limestone, the floor is pink Tennessee marble, the ceiling tiles are Alabama marble, and the Lincoln statue comprises 28 pieces of Georgia marble. The statue is 19 feet tall and one hundred and seventy five tons. The Gettysburg address is carved into the wall on the right of the Lincoln statue and his second inaugural address is carved into the wall on the left of the statue.

The entire monument is based on the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, which was once the largest temple of Athena in the world. 

Long Hunter State Park

During quiet time/nap time one afternoon, Auntie K took us to Long Hunter State Park so we could do the Storybook Trail. We got off to a bit of a rocky start because we made it to the visitor's center just as it closed for lunch—and they were very serious about closing for their lunch break. We could see them all in there...and they could see us...but there was no way they were going to ask us if we needed help with anything. 

The bathrooms were locked from the outside, only accessible through the main entrance (which was locked). We had a map, but weren't quite sure what we were looking for because the Storybook Trail wasn't on the map. 

So we had our lunch and waited for the doors to open. 

An Amazon delivery person came by with some packages and they opened the door for them and while the door was open I passive-aggressively made a remark about how I couldn't wait for the next five minutes to be up so that we could finally take our toddler to the bathroom...

And the lady working inside must have heard me because after the five minutes were up and she finally unlocked the door for us, I took Phoebe to the bathroom and the lady made a point of finding Kelli to tell her that the bathroom doors were open, should we have needed to go. 

They weren't. 

But that's okay. We went potty and figured out where to go (kind of). When we got to the right parking lot we just had to find the "hidden" trailhead for the Storybook Trail. It, again, wasn't on any of the park maps. But we were pretty intimidated by the bulletin board, so perhaps we didn't look closely enough...

Why nobody lives here?

Miriam found Cannonsburgh Village while she was researching things to do around Murfreesboro. It has historical buildings that have been moved to the site or replicas of historical buildings (often made of reclaimed materials so they look as if they're from the time period). 

Here are the kids working on some of the "backpack program" materials...

Ruby Falls with Auntie K

Zoë writes: 

My favourite part of Ruby Falls was finally getting to the falls. The falls were beautiful, even more so because of the lights and music put on.

Beautiful Butterflies at Cannonsburgh Village

This morning we took the kids to Cannonsburgh Village, a little tour through history constructed to celebrate the 200th Independence Day back in 1976. It was a pretty neat place to visit, I think! They had all sorts of buildings—a telephone operator's house, a school, a chapel, a blacksmith shop, a mill, and more. They had live chickens. They had checkerboards. They had about a million organs (just about every building had an organ in it, I think). 

For right now, I thought I'd share pictures of the kids by this butterfly wing backdrop:

 

Zoë holding Oaklyn

Home from London

Rachel and Miriam arrived home from London on Monday. 

Grandpa and Darla stayed behind to do a bike tour through France and Germany, so Rachel and Miriam travelled home alone. They all went to the airport together—both Miriam and Darla got pulled aside for extra security—before going their separate ways. Poor Miriam had applesauce in her liquids bag and apparently it didn't pass the vibe...so after running it through several tests, security had her toss it, and then gave her a pat down. She was rather upset by the whole ideal (especially since she had brought the applesauce from the States...bug couldn't take it back to the states). 

Anyway, the girls had quite the journey—their flight ended up being delayed, and then they were switched to a new flight, and then their flight switched back. They finally arrived home about four hours after they were supposed to. 

We made a poster to welcome them home:

Flying to London and Fireflies

On Sunday afternoon, Rachel, Miriam, Grandpa, and Darla piled into Grandpa's car to head to the airport. Andrew was their chauffeur. 

They made it to London without a hitch...except for the fact that their accommodations fell through. 

Allatoona Falls

I do need to write the introduction to a paper this evening, but Blogger uploaded my pictures in the exact order I wanted them (instead of the exact opposite order, which is what usually happens) and so to reward the system for doing a good job, I will write a little bit about today.

Evidently we didn't communicate things very well and so weekend plans got a bit complicated. I think Grandpa texted us rather early in the week about weekend plans. Tuesday, if I believe, which is one of our busier days around here. I was already nagging around about it on Wednesday morning. And at some point he wrote to his dad and made a plan.

The plan was that...because Andrew had taken so long to write back to his dad...and then his dad had taken so long to write back to Andrew...that Rachel was busy babysitting on Friday night and then on Saturday night the girls planned a wild night of crocheting with their friends, so if the kids were going to squeeze in a sleepover at Grandpa's house it was going to have to be Sunday to Monday (because it's a long weekend). 

So they planned to go up on Sunday for dinner with some of Darla's kids and grandkids. And then they'd watch some movies (a kid movie before putting Zoë and Alexander to bed and then a scary movie with the big kids because Grandpa likes scary movies (he calls them "suspenseful")) and then sleep over. 

In the morning, we'd do a hike...and then return for lunch at Grandpa and Darla's and then go swimming. 

Boom—weekend planned.

Benjamin informed me at church that he'd forgotten his pyjamas. This was slightly problematic because in order to get to Grandpa and Darla's house in time for dinner, the kids had planned to leave directly from the church building. But, I mean, pyjamas aren't the end of the world, so I was like, "Well, deal with it."

It's not like we hadn't told the kids precisely what to pack—a change of clothes (with underwear! because Alexander forgot underwear the last time he slept over at Grandpa's house...but had arrived in his swimsuit...so he just wore his swimsuit all weekend), pyjamas, toothbrush, swimsuit. I mean, they were all bustling around packing things Sunday morning.

"Who is going to pack the toothpaste?" I heard Benjamin.

"I will!" Zoë volunteered.

"I'll pack the melatonin!" Alexander offered.

He got out a ziplock bag and counted out three doses of melatonin. One for Zoë (the most important dose) and then one for him and Benjamin...just in case.

They seemed to be doing well.

But it turns out they all forgot their pyjamas! 

And then Rachel and Miriam somehow didn't get the memo about bringing swimsuits!

And then, Andrew and I left the house en route to the trailhead, thinking that everyone else would be meeting us there. But they were blithely sitting around playing "Happy Salmon" (a card game), thinking that we were going to drive all the way to them before we all drove to the trail head together. But the park is between our house and Grandpa & Darla's house, so we had no intention of doing that.

Luckily I texted Rachel to tell her we were running a bit late but would be at the park in 5 minutes or so and she was like, "Wait...at the park??"

So they all scrambled to rush to the park (where the trailhead was) and we took our sweet time to get there (stopping at a gas station to fill the van and take Phoebe potty). We arrived within minutes of each other. 

I got out of the van—in my swimsuit—and the kids were all like, "Why are you in your swimsuit?!"

"There's a waterfall at the end of the hike," I said. "Remember...we talked about this..."

"We did not!" Rachel said. 

"Benjamin—we totally talked about this!" I said. "Because remember you wanted to do that other hike."

"You can't swim at that hike."

"I know! But that other hike was farther away for Grandpa and Darla, so we picked this one and you can swim at this hike. I showed you pictures. I told you to pack your swimsuits for the hike..."

"Oh, yeah..."

So, it was a morning filled with miscommunication, but in the end we made it and it was a beautiful day for hiking, given the season (which is still hot). 

Our first point of interest was this sand mine:

A day in Charleston

We had initially talked about attending the local ward while we were on vacation, but the closest ward is over an hour away from where we were staying...so we opted to Zoom into our own ward instead. We spent Sunday morning reading, crocheting, resting (for those of us who were up all night with an upset toddler), and then holding primary and priesthood lessons. 

Here's Rachel working on a crochet project in the sun room:

 

Cooper's Furnace

Last night for FHE we reflected on the goals we made in 2023 and discussed our goals for 2024. As usual, we listed a number of "Georgia Adventures" to complete (in the past these have been "Utah Adventures" or "North Carolina Adventures"; anything that gets us out exploring our own state (usually for free) so we gain and maintain an appreciation for our immediate surroundings). We also split up "hikes" and "Georgia Adventures" this year, so that hikes can't count as adventures (I guess because I've been craving wilderness lately, though I recognize that history and culture and civilization and things like that are also valuable).

Anyway, today we thought we'd get started by checking off both a hike and an adventure! We headed out towards Cartersville to hike the trail to Cooper's Furnace. We first stopped at the Allatoona Lake Visitor Center & Museum (which was really marked as the Land Bureau or something like that, so we were a little bit timid going inside) so that we could use the potty.

Very technically, we stopped at a random gas station about 10 minutes prior to arriving at the visitor's center so that Phoebe could make an emergency potty trip. When I ran up to the gas station shop with her, however, the doors were locked! A man ran up behind me and when he saw that I had trouble with the door he said, "It's locked?! You have got to be kidding me! It's 11:00 in the morning!"

Fortunately, the worker came to the door, removed a sign (that she'd taped to the top corner of the door, above all the other signs and stickers on the door, that said she'd be out momentarily) and let us in. That man busted past me and Phoebe to the restrooms, so evidently he was in some dire straights. 

Phoebe did her business and then we went to the visitor's center where Phoebe did some more business of a different nature. And then we were ready to begin our adventure.

The museum is small, but interesting. We learned about pig iron (so called because the cooling forms look like piglets nursing a sow), the Allatoona Dam, the Civil War, and some of the local wildlife. (We also were lambasted at every turn by reminders to wear our lifejackets—with catch phrases like "Lifejackets worn, no cause to mourn" and other cheerful things like that. 

Nauvoo (June 24)

I roped the kids into helping me write about our summer road trip because (1) it's good to hear their perspective about these things as well—they depend on me to record memories far too much and as much as I've tried to cultivate a passion for journal keeping within their little hearts...somehow I have, so far, failed (but Zoë has started watching the Victoria series and was very impressed by Queen Victoria's record keeping skills, so I have hope that the journal writing fire will kindle within her yet).

I've rambled so much that I'm afraid my list is completely lost, but my second reason (2) is because we did so many amazing things that truly did need to be documented, and I was so swamped with getting my thesis finished that I knew I couldn't manage to write about everything in a timely manner all on my own. I mean, here we are, having been home for 46 days already and we're still not quite done (though we are so very close). 

However, I think the kids are running out of steam. Zoë said she'd write about Nauvoo and this is what I managed to extract from her:

Nauvoo was our last stop on the way back to Georgia. Nauvoo was very pretty! Even Phoebe thinks so! We slept in a brick hotel, and on the outside, it looked very old. On the inside, not so much. We saw Sunset on the Mississippi, and got to dance on a stage. At first, I didn't want to dance on the stage, but then Mom said that it was my chance to be on the stage! We went to the temple at Nauvoo, and saw the real Sunset on the Mississippi. After that, we went to Carthage Jail. At Carthage Jail, I wanted to stay as close to the sister missionaries as possible. I don’t know why I did that, or I just don’t remember why, maybe it was because I thought they were pretty, I don’t know! But I do know that I was right behind them pretty much the whole time.

She didn't mention that I went up on stage with her because she was too afraid to go up on her own! Here are a few more pictures of the 'Sunset on the Mississippi' from Andrew's phone:

Winter Quarters and Sunset on the Mississippi (June 23, with thoughts by Alexander)

Winter Quarters was a slight deviation from our route to Nauvoo from...one of the Sioux places (I can't really remember whether we stopped in Sioux City or Sioux Falls, though I do remember that it was dark and storming and the roads were slick and completely dark because they'd recently been repaved but hadn't yet been repainted and we were just so glad to reach the hotel alive), but we though it was worth the extra half hour of driving to make the stop at the visitor's center. 

As one of Andrew's friends commented on Twitter—they have better bathrooms than any gas station around! They're clean, they're fully functional, and you'll be greeted by no fewer than six smiling faces on your way in!

We didn't stay long, in part because we still had five hours left to drive to Nauvoo (and we wanted to be sure to get there for the 'Sunset on the Mississippi' show), but also because Alexander had just thrown up in the car the day before, if you recall, and we were nervous about whether any other kids were going to...also be sick. 

Fortunately, it just seemed to be a him-thing. Everyone else was just fine!

Here are the kids exploring some pioneer things:

The High Museum of Art

On Friday we took a field trip to the High Museum of Art to see the Samurai exhibit that has been running this summer. 

It will be there until mid-September and if you haven't gone to see it, you should...because it is pretty spectacular!

Yellowstone: Fountain Paint Pots, Black Sand Basin, Emerald Pool, and things (June 21: coauthored by Benjamin and Mom)

On Tuesday night (June 20) we slept in Rexburg, a city in Idaho, at the AmericInn where I slept on a couch. The next day we had a two hour drive to Yellowstone. It took us a long time to get to the entrance gate, but once we got inside the park things were smooth sailing. 

We started to drive a twisting mountain road. A few moments later we saw steam rising off of the hills. 

Mom said we should probably pull over to explore, so we drove down the road to investigate and stopped at a parking lot next to a trailhead.