Today was another mini-recital in the TES Informal Concert Series.  About every six weeks the school’s music department puts one of these on and this time Sydney was asked to play.  There were maybe a dozen students of various ages and abilities playing piano, flute, recorders, violin, and even a cello.  Overall everyone did a very nice job.  Afterwards we were chatting with Sydney’s instructor who mentioned that she thinks Sydney would be a natural on the french horn!  Dad was a tuba player and Aunt Shari was known to have had a trumpet at one time or another so who knows!  Anyways, there are a few shots from the show below along with a short video of Sydney’s piece.  Enjoy!

Tickling the ivories...

She did exceptionally well we thought - wish I could've played like that at nine!

TES Informal Concert Series

Well for anyone who stopped by over the last two days – we apologize.  I had to move the database to a new hosting account and didn’t take into consideration how long that would take given the site has been up in one form or another for over 7 years now.  It took over 14 hours just to back everything up and the site has been uploading for two days now!  Anyways, I’ve got a couple new posts from over the weekend and a great one from today so check back in a bit.  We’ll be back to 100% normal in the next hour or two.  Thanks for you patience!

Our apologies…

So today and yesterday were pretty all around nasty here.  Yuck – sandstorms.  Generally speaking this whole country is a little light on the aesthetic – it’s ugly here – everything is brown – always.  Even the sky is brown.  That’s just how it is.  Of course when the sand rolls in its even nastier.  Sydney was pumped – it was blowing bad enough this morning that the ministry closed down schools.  I’m not sure that I really get that – I mean Kuwait is a desert – there are sandstorms and all.  At least when Ft Benning gets closed down due to a chance of light snow flurries you can write that off to being in the deep south,  Whatever, its a Kuwaiti snow day.

At least it wasn't raining mud...

It does get a little creepy when it rolls in and the house gets dark...

Kuwaiti Snow Day…

Sydney’s friend Amy was over today as her parents were off at a soccer tournament her older brother was playing in.  The girls had a great time and Amy is always so nice to have over.  Anyways, around 9:30 this morning before Sydney had to go to piano the girls brought down an invitation to a private dinning party – to which I had to dress – apparently Cafe Sydney has a new strictly enforced dress code.  I had to break out a suit but I could still wear my sandals – Anita made some reference to the end of life as we know it should that look ever step foot outside the house – I didn’t follow.  Turns out that Amy was serving as the celebrity guest chef at Cafe Sydney.  The girls set the table, prepared starters, salad, and multi-course carb fest that included pasta and mixed vegetables, baked potato with cheddar, and a house specialty – omelets!  After that settled a bit there was a dessert course and even gift bags as we left!  We highly recommend you stop by if you ever get the chance and have even heard that they may be getting a rating from Zagats!  You can check out the digs and the dishes below.

The chef's waiting for the guests to arrive...

Salad and starters

Lunch menu...

The first course...

Dessert menu...

Gift bags to boot!

Lunch at Cafe Sydney…

Being a former USAF type I’m all about the F-22′s vast superiority over nearly all other types of military hardware, the Star Wars stuff that we’ve got that no one really knows much about, the MOAB, and all that other cool stuff.  I’m even up for a good ‘Go Air Force! Beat Army’ from time to time – those silly navy types can go play with their boats.  Anyways, despite all of that I’ve always had a great deal of respect for the USMC. Marines are just about as All American as you can get with a big ol’ side of warrior-poet too boot.  On top of all that – they’ve got some rockin’ commercials.  The latest just came out not too long ago.  Enjoy.

Which way would you run?

So if you’ll recall back on Valentine’s Day we mentioned that there was a package on the way from Mimi & Pop that hadn’t arrived yet – well no longer – we got a mail drop!  Our friendly neighborhood mailman had been putting in ungodly hours at his real job and finally worked himself into a fun little case of the flu so it had been several weeks since he was able to make a mail run.  He he did tho – it was awesome.  Anita had bought like 10 pairs of shoes for Sydney in the size she wears now and the next three larger so the kitchen (where we unpacked all the boxes) was covered in shoe boxes – not really my thing but the girls seemed to really dig it.  Several of Anita’s birthday presents (books and videos) showed up so she was all sorts of excited about that.  Mimi & Pop’s Easter box made it in way early and had a ton-o-magazines for Anita so more excitement there.  And finally – the missing Valentine’s box was there.  Full of heart shaped candy and American Girl accessories for Sydney and low carb Atkins goodies for Anita.  Fun was had all around!

Shoes shoes shoes shoes... oh look, more shoes...

Anita's birthday presents...

New American Girl party outfit...

Yummy Valentine's candy...

Valentines in March!

Jack is a really sweet dog.  He was a bit on the stinky side tho and after a few failed attempts to get him washed up outside we decided that we could stand it no longer and cornered him in one of the upstairs bathrooms.  Once we got him in the tub he was actually pretty calm about it.  It did take all three of us to get him in there and keep him in long enough to hose him off but for a dog that doesn’t seem to like water he took it all pretty well.  Of course as soon as we were done and he was all dried off he immediately ran outside, jumped the fence, bolted across the street and rolled around in the dirt.  Seriously – he couldn’t have at least waited an hour?

Sydney getting Jack up to the bathroom...

Jack getting scrubbed down...

Drying him off...

Jack needed a bath

So every year TES holds a “character day” where they let the kids dress up as literary characters.  This year Sydney’s grade is studying Science Fiction as a genre so the year 4 classes got to dress up as their favorite Sci-Fi characters.  This led to a bit of a quandary on our part as we searched for FEMALE Sci-Fi characters from LITERATURE that Sydney had read.  As Sci-Fi is much more of a visual medium and an adult genre finding children’s Sci-Fi books was hard enough – finding one with a strong female lead was painful.  We finally decided on the book Michael Vey – Prisoner of Cell 25 as it was actually a BOOK and the lead character’s “second in command” was a freshman cheerleader named Taylor Ridley.  The book is a pretty decent ‘young adult’ book that actually poses some pretty tough scenarios to kids who are usually just flooded with crap about their undying longing to be impregnated by a vampire.  The lead characters love their parents and when faced with the easy but wrong path chose the hard but right thing to do.  Anyways, after pulling the book down to Sydney’s Fire and getting her started Mr. Wigg (her teacher) let everyone know that he’d be coming in as Luke Skywalker as Star Wars was his favorite Sci-Fi story.  So yeah, we dumped all of that and jumped on the nearest tydirium shuttle.  As we’d already heard most of the girls in class were going as Princess Leia Sydney was having none of that and opted for Queen Amidala! Anita pulled off a costume fairly reminiscent of the one she wore during the end of Episode I when the queen and her security forces attacked Theed in order to recapture the throne room and force the droid army to retreat.  Sydney got to bring her Star Wars blaster in as part of her costume so she was excited and apparently it was a big hit.  Check her out below.

What we were shooting for...

The finished product - not too bad for one night's work.

TES Character Day

So yesterday when we got home from Sports Day there was a new friend under the car port.  He’s a desert dog – a local mutt.  However when we got out of the car he came right on up wagging his tail like he’d living here all along.  We put some water and food out for him and he wasn’t having any of the dry food but as soon as we poured some water over it he scarfed it up.  We’d been thinking about getting a new friend for Zed as he seems a little mopey so the next thing we did was try to introduce the two of them.  Bad idea – new dog (since named Jack by Sydney) thought Zed was all sorts of cool.  Zed thought Jack was trying to get us and damn near attacked on sight.  Jack has been with us since about noon yesterday and Zed is about to have an aneurysm – he’s still barking anytime any of us get near Jack, growling when Jack gets near him, and Jack thinks the cats are something to eat which has caused poor Zed to nearly have a heart attack.  So Jack’s gotta go.  He’s a very sweet dog with us – even Sydney.  He wants Zed to like him and I think he’d be good with other dogs.  He’s not been aggressive around his food or his bed.  He has however damn near scared our cats to death (eh, I’m a bit ambivalent but Sydney would be crushed).  He seems to be housebroken – he has not gone inside – and even went to the door to be let outside to do his business.  He looks like he would love to have lots of room to run and he really likes attention.  He can sit by himself but if he sees you he wants to play.  He played very well with Sydney so I don’t think being around kids will a be a problem at all either.  Finally, he’s not been fixed so he’s going to have to go through that sometime soon too.

So – if anyone out there knows someone looking for a really sweet and seemingly intelligent dog let us know – we’ve got one for you.  We’ve also got a neurotic, overly clingy, dog with bald spots but he has to stay.  We really can’t keep him due the impact he’s having on Zed and the fact he seems to want to eat Sydney’s cats.  We’re also calling K’s Path today so if they beat you here you’ll have to pick him up with them.   Also, many thanks to P.A.W.S. for posting info about Jack on their site as well.  Pics of Jack are below.

Here he is with me petting him - trying to show you his size in relation to me - he's on the big side of medium sized dogs

Curled up outside waiting for someone to play with him...

With Sydney - for scale...

That's usually Zed's spot in my office and he was not digging Jack being in there...

Just lounging. Those are 16in tiles for scale.

Jack with a chair - again for scale. He keeps wanting to play so it was hard to get him to sit and pose...

Jack needs a home – in Kuwait

The Kuwait Friends of Guiding will be hosting their annual Blue & White Ball on the 13th of March at the British Embassy of Kuwait.  This is a black tie event and is shaping up to be an amazing evening.  Those who were lucky enough to be in the know and have already purchased their tickets can contact info@fogq8.com to find out where to pick them up and everyone else can use the same email address to find out if there are any tickets left at this point.   Tickets must be presented at the door or entry will be refused.  Also, please heed the security instructions on the back of your ticket.  Failure to do so will also result in your being refused entry.  A picture of this year’s ticket can be seen below and the full invite can be viewed here.

This is just a phone capture - we'll get a real pic soon...

FOG Blue & White Ball tickets are available!