What a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven't happened yet.

Happy Earth Day! I continue to make my way through the final stretch of this year with May just around the corner. If I have been counting correctly then I have 48 teaching days left this year? There were definitely days earlier in the school year that I did not think I would ever make it to this point! Ramadan starts in June. We have half days and teaching is from 8:30-1:30. I doubt any of my kids will be fasting because the second after they eat snack they ask me when it is time for lunch because they are hungry. However I have heard that attendance does go down during Ramadan for those that do fast during this time.

2 more days until Game of Thrones is back! 

School wise we just had our second field trip of the year. We went to Al Wakra Park for Earth Day and the teacup humans were required to bring egg shells, egg boxes, and water bottles. April has been nice and all because I have seen more rain this month than I thought I would during these 2 years but it has started to heat up again. Imagine that, the desert getting hot again. Our field trip yesterday was no exception. The kids were great in the beginning and I am glad I got a class photo in the beginning because by the end of it some of them were absolutely miserable and just wanted to go back onto the air conditioned bus. Some tears were shed and I gained some upper body strength from carrying a child around. I can't blame them because I was not the happiest camper either. That park needs more trees and more shade! Some of their favorite parts may have been sitting on the bus singing Alice the Camel.

See there is some green in Qatar! But mostly there is tan. 

School wise things are good. Each week I try to do some kind of craft with them. Here are some pictures of things we have worked on. The main things we have worked on are number pairs/number bonds that equal up to 10. I had them trace and cut out their hands. This is always amusing to watch because some of their hands when they finish tracing look like baseball mitts. And they always want me to cut them out for them and I have told them nope. Do it yourself. Time to get ready for grade 1. They manage to get through it and they turned out pretty cute!

Underneath their hands they had to write the different number pairs that equal 10. I saw another KG2 teacher had this
as her bulletin board so of course I had to steal the idea. Teachers are kleptos! 

Leading up to the field trip all week we talked about Earth Day and how we can reduce, reuse, and recycle. Sadly you do not see much recycling in Qatar. I have yet to see a single recycling bin here. But we talked all week about turning the lights off when you are not in the room, using less water, and other things like that.

How adorable are their Earth faces? I know we aren't supposed to put stuff on the walls... I've kind of given up on that at this point. They wrote down their promises for how they would care for the Earth. 

Weather wise April has been pretty awesome. We have had some rain and some intense thunderstorms the other weekend. My friend messaged me and told me to go outside and enjoy the light show and Doha did not disappoint.

The light show! Truth be told I did not see this particular lightning strike.. thank you internet! 

Middle Eastern sunrises and sunsets are some of the most beautiful ones I have seen in the world. You truly do get to see that red sunset or sunrise out here in the desert and it is amazing. Nothing compares. 

I bought my ticket to come home for the summer! I had to do some calculations when planning because in order to be exempt from taxes I can only be in the US for 35 days. July 12 is the magical day! Technically I will be home for 42 days... so I am planning to hang out in Canada for a week. What the exact dates will be I am still figuring out. I am hoping to travel somewhere in the beginning of July before I come home. Only time will tell! Since I will be spending my 35 days home in the summer, this means I will not be coming home for Christmas. This bums me out a little but if everything works out with what I am planning for, it will probably be one of the most memorable and incredible Christmases of my life, even if it is away from home.

Not only have the students been learning and had a lot of growth but apparently I have too! I was feeling guilty thinking it made me a bad person or bad teacher because this month I have not been bringing my work home with me as much as I have in the past. Well that is because I have learned to adapt. Typically in the beginning the year, mainly before winter break, during my prep breaks I was not doing lesson planning. Usually I was completely and utterly exhausted and would stare at my laptop dumbfounded wondering what I should be preparing and where I was supposed to find energy to prep for lesson plans. Now it seems I have learned and found the energy during this time. One of the other KG2 teachers once told me "You will be amazed what you can get done in 20 minutes" and it is so true. Yay for adapting and not having to always bring work home with me! Now I have become one of those teachers that brings their work bag and laptop home with them... and it sits in my bag untouched while I pass out in bed early like a grandma. Less than 50 days to go... we are nearly there! Now for some teacher memes to make you smile:

November is a rough month teachers. Get through that and you are a superhero!

This is been me for the past week... and I venture this is what it will be like in
May-June. The kids are starting to get ready for summer to get here!

My teacup humans have yet to understand this concept and probably never will.
No matter how many times I tell them we are all going to the same place... they still
fight over those first few spots in line! 

You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.

I am back from my spring break vacation with the family spent in London and Dublin! I have been meaning to update after school one of these days, but my body had the nerve to be exhausted after an eventful and semi-stressful vacation (my fault completely).

My adventure to Europe started off with me being a genius who left her phone on the airplane. I thought that I had placed my phone in my purse- spoiler alert I didn't! Things like this kept happening to me a few times over the vacation. So I relied on my mom and sisters for all the Kodak moments. It was so good to see all of them and spend time with them! We also met up with friends in London and spent a few days with friends in Worcester. By the way, everything in England and Ireland is not pronounced the way it is spelled. The sooner you accept this the better. And be prepared if you go to London it is very expensive! Especially to get around on the Tube. And eating food. And just everything in general. It is amazing how much the prices drop once you are outside the city.

London calling! 

First stop was London! All throughout my time in London I became very familiar with the Underground. It actually is an incredible setup and much easier to understand, especially compared to what they have in Dublin. I forced myself to get familiar with it because when I first got there, I met my family at the hotel. I was originally going to be charged for a cab ride at the lovely price of 97£ AKA $137. So train it was for under 20£! My mom and I are huge Harry Potter fans so of course we had to do all the Harry Potter nerdy stuff. Unfortunately we were not able to do the Warner Bros tour because apparently they fill up really fast. We did however end up doing Muggle Tours which I highly recommend! Our tour guide was Tom Riddle and having him as a guide who was just as passionate about the series as us made it awesome.

We were late getting to the tour... we did some wandering around for a bit and
thanks to my sister's GPS we met up with our tour group! We spotted a guy in
a Gryffindor colored scarf and a Harry Potter bag and it was our tour guide! 

We saw all of the major sites like Big Ben, the House of Parliament, Tower of London, and Buckingham Palace. Oh and if you value your life at all please stay to the right on escalators! People in London are constantly in a hurry and do not have time for you to stand on the left side of the escalators which is purposely kept clear so that people can walk/run/sprint up and down them. Haven't the people of London heard our family motto before: there's no hurry!

Gonna go way out, way out! For all you Flintstones fans... 

Why hello there Benjamin.. it really was surreal seeing huge
landmarks in real life that you are used to only seeing in pictures

Of course we stopped by Kings Cross station! We did debate for a little while
of not waiting in line to get our picture taken. Perfect opportunity for a family photo!

No there's no place like London. We visited Trafalgar Square.. passed through Baker Street and Fleet Street... the amount
of history in London is incredible. We also went into the National Art Gallery where I got scolded for taking a picture of
my sister with the flash on by Van Gogh's sunflowers. Well we knew we weren't supposed to but we were being rebels. 

We did a lot of walking around London. I kid you not my Fitbit said
we did 20k steps one day and 32k another day. 13 miles in one day!
And then my Fitbit died and I have no idea how many steps I did in Ireland.

Next stop was Worcester. Don't ask me to say it because I will definitely say it wrong. We visited friends and stayed with them for a few days and got to see Stonehenge! It was ridiculously windy and pretty rainy but again another cool part of history to see.

Why yes we did go through 4 hours of total driving to see some wet rocks!
 

Walking through Worcester! We went inside that cathedral in the distance and it was beautiful. 

See it wasn't all rain and clouds in England! Occasionally we got some rays. 

Next stop Dublin! But it would not be complete without me being a complete and utter idiot by leaving my bag with my passport and my sister's iPad... at the train station. We were on our way to Paddington Station to then go to the London City Airport to fly to Dublin. I went back myself to take a train back and meet them at the airport later on. Fortunately my bag was still there and I made it back to Paddington. My family took a cab while I made my way through the fantastic train system. And then I followed the pirate's code of 'fall behind, left behind' and arrived at the airport and went through security. I got some food and calmly waited with my Kindle for my mom and sisters. Did I mention that I do not have my phone and the Wifi was not working so I could not even use the iPad to communicate with my mom where I was? Turns out they were downstairs waiting for me and growing more panicky by the minute as each time a train opened up and I was not on it. Whoops! I can only imagine the wild scenarios that were swirling around my mom's poor head. I pinkie swear I will be more organized and not such a forgetful dunderhead on my next vacation! But yeah really I was just upstairs eating my little salad and reading All the Light We Cannot See. Which was a fantastic book by the way that received the well deserved Pulitzer prize last year.

Fortunately we all made it to Dublin in one piece! Our time in Dublin seemed to zoom by way too fast. For 2 of the days we did rail tours where we got to see all different parts of Ireland. Those rail tours leave promptly at 7am and last for a minimum of 10 hours. Our tour guide Bob was very friendly and informative. The first rail tour we visited Cork, Blarney Castle, and Cobh. One of the train stops we passed through was Thurles, which apparently is where the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was founded. Shout out to all the Gaelic football ladies! We each kissed the Blarney Stone and walked through the poisonous garden. It contained different plants like Lily of the Valley and ricin which of course made me think of Breaking Bad. In Cobh we visited St. Colman's Cathedral and also went through a Titanic exhibit since Cobh was the final port for the Titanic.

Blarney Castle :-* 

Our second day we spent exploring Dublin. We visited Grafton Street and did a lot of walking that day, but probably not as much as our 13 mile day! It was just so nice waking up each day and being with my family. It was definitely a well needed trip for me. I missed them much more than I realized and as always at the airport it was hard to say goodbye.

Ireland is pretty. 

Coolest glass ever. And Orchard Thieves is a delicious cider. An apple
a day keeps the doctor away right? 

Love my peeps. Cannot wait to see them in the summer. 

Our second rail tour was even longer than the first! We visited Bunratty Castle, the Cliffs of Moher, and Galway. We could not have asked for better weather! The skies were sunny and shining when we got to the Cliffs of Moher. And at Bunratty Castle we also made a stop at Durty Nelly's, an old pub that was established in 1620!

Durty Nelly's! I got a t-shirt and everything!

All that green <3

Cliffs of Moher. Don't look down! What a view though. 

The hills are aliiiiiive... seriously look at this shot. You almost expect Julie Andrews to come waltzing through and singing.

And now it is back to reality. It was a tough transition this week. It has gotten better as the week has gone along. My flight left on Saturday and it was delayed and I ended up getting back home around 3:30 AM... and then leaving for school at 6:30 AM! Fortunately I slept a little on the plane and got a little nap when I got back home. And happy news I did get my phone back! But now it is April. The last trimester of my first year. Hard to believe it. From having my kids pee in the dark from September-December because I did not realize that my bathroom light was supposed to work. You mean the kids can have more light than just the sun shining through the tiny top part of the door? That was a nice treat for them to come back to in January! Lumos! Let there be light! How far they have come since September. And now we make the final push until June. Less than 60 teaching days left I can do this!