Happy Birthday Lydia ...

 I was kind of nervous to have Lydia's birthday here in Bahrain because I have limited resources to find things here, but boy did this girl have a good day and she was spoiled!  It started out by the breakfast staff making her this adorable fruit face and coming out and singing Happy Birthday to her.  She was so thrilled and slightly embarrassed too.  What a fun way to start out the day!  We got to go swimming too and Jake even got to join in for a little while too, so fun!  After we had lunch we went to the movie theater to watch Rio 2 and ended up having the whole theater to ourselves, she thought she was so special! It was a cute movie that we could relate a lot too since the birds go on an adventure.  Lydia even came up to us at one point and said that the GPS on the movie was like what we had in our Italy car ... "You have reached your destination!"

 We even found balloons to hang on her door, which is one of the only things she asked for, phew!  Thankfully Jake found some at the store.  After the movie she picked to go to McDonald's for dinner.  Jake and I grabbed shawarma's from a local shop instead, but the kids had fun running around the play place.

 We came home from another cake that the cleaning crew had left!  AND Jake's co-worker Mike had made Lydia a special cake too.  Three cakes in one day! She was so lucky!  After we sang to her she got to open her presents which were her own candy, a beautiful dress and some pink sandals!  Happy Birthday Lydia!

Things I LOVE about Lydia ...

~She is so sweat.  She will randomly come give me hugs during the day and tell me she loves me!

~She loves her yellow hair, so do I.

~She loves to look pretty.  She is always asking if her clothes are pretty, if her hair can be pretty or if she is pretty!  Of course!

~She is a wonderful sharer.  She will share her things if someone is sad, even if it means she doesn't get anything.

~She loves to say the prayer, especially in Italian now.

~She is so excited to be 5!

~She loves to color, play play-doh and do puzzles.

~She is so excited to go to Kindergarten next year, even though I tell her she cannot leave me for that long in the day, I'll miss her smiley face.

~I love you Lydia!!  I am so lucky to be your Mom!

Swimming ...

 We are so lucky to have a pool at the hotel!  Well, almost every building has a pool in Bahrain, but we sure have enjoyed our personal pool :).  We have it almost to ourselves every day.  We spent at least an hour at the pool almost every day.  It has been fun to watch the kids really take off in their swimming and security in the water.  Lydia didn't even want to swim the first few times we got in.  We got these floaties for her and now she will swim all over the pool!  Owen hated getting wet the first few times and then Jake came in and did a whole bunch of underwater bobs with him and played games with the bigger kids and now Owen loves it too.  He spends a lot of time in the little pool too, putting his toys at the bottom of the pool and getting them out.  It sure has been fun to have a pool, maybe we should think about putting one in when we build a home!

It is always more fun when Dad comes to the pool too!  The kids get dolphin rides and it is a nice workout for Jake!  I love the memories we are  making as a family!

Shell searching ...

 We headed down to the beach yesterday in hopes to let the kids swim in the ocean ... we were quite surprised to see that the tide had gone WAY out...but that made for some good shell hunting!  We found some really beautiful shells and brought home lots of the same ones over and over too.  Anthony and I even found a exoskeleton of a crab, still intact.  Pretty cool.  When we got home and the kids washed their shells in the sink they discovered a few creatures were still inside of some of the shells :) ... quite a surprise to see your shell moving around the sink!  We will have to go back when the tide is a little higher so the kids can actually swim in the ocean here!

Things to do ...

 We are running out of ideas of things to do during the day now that we have had the SAME toys and activities since we left home in January.  My ideas have been stretched to the limits and the kids are bored with all the things we have.  My Mom sent us some things when we learned that we were going straight from Italy to Bahrain and inside she included some fun little activities.  I have been saving them for when the novelty of being in Bahrain kind of wore off and we sure needed it the other day.  It was really fun to sit down and make all these foam animals with the kids.  We enjoyed it a lot.  I'm sure we will all be very happy to go home and see all of our other toys and activities and have friends other than siblings to play with!

Amwaj islands ...

 Bahrain is a island to the east of Saudi Arabia and north of Qatar, right in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula.  While it is a desert island, it sure is beautiful in its cities!  We drove over to the Amwaj islands, which are just little islands off the main island that they have connected with bridges, to go see the Bird Kingdom and we decided to take a drive out around the islands to take in the beautiful area we are in.  We got to see some amazing villas and enjoy the beautiful world we live in.  It is amazing how very different the architecture is from Italy and home in Idaho.  I love it here.  It is beautiful.  While we were over there we stumbled upon Lagoon Park, which was beautiful! (I know I say that a lot)

It was a bunch of restaurants surrounding the Lagoon area.  We picked Johnny Rockets because the kids wanted burgers and got to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather here.  The kids played tag on the lawn (even with our waiter at times) and we completely enjoyed the evening. The pace of life here is slow and so enjoyable...we are soaking in as much as we can before we head back home to our busier lives.

Bird Kingdom ...

 This little bird kingdom opened up while we where here so we just had to go pay it a visit!  It was very neat to see all the cool birds.  Lots of them are threatened or endangered and are rare birds so it was fun to see them.  I guess it all started from guys personal collection of birds and he decided to make them into a sanctuary and let the public enjoy them as well.  It was hot and humid when we went so it almost made us feel like we were in the bird's local habitat, which was mainly South America or Australia.  The kids enjoyed it.  Anthony even got the one bird to say Hello back to him ... it was fun!

Tree of Life ...

 We took a little road trip out to the middle of no-where, literally!  Oh, except for Bahrain's claim to fame!  The Tree of Life!  Seriously, we saw more people here than we did at some of the sites in Italy!  Funny...it was neat though.

This tree is around 400 years old and is the only one of its kind around this area, literally in the middle of no-where.  Even through studies have been done nobody is really sure where its source of water and nutrients comes from yet the tree thrives on.  It was neat to see a huge tree out in the middle of no-where.  It was right in the middle of lots and lots of oil fields.  There were oil pipes and pumps as far as you could see!  It was a very cool drive out to see it.  The kids enjoyed playing in the beautiful, warm sand.  They found spoons all around the grounds (lots of liter) and enjoyed playing in the sand.  I taught Owen to bury the ants in the sand and watch them find the way out!  It was a fun day!  We completely enjoy the drives we have taken on the island and all over Italy.  You really get a feel for the country you are living in and since the gas is only $0.80 a gallon here, we could drive all over the island multiple times!

Dad's helper ...

 Jake took Owen to the little market that is by the hotel.  He was thrilled to have this little cart to push around!  Jake said he was the best shopping buddy out there as everyone thought Owen was so cute that they even let him go ahead of him in the line.  Gotta love little Owen and his contagious personality.  People LOVE him here...he has become quite shy here because everyone makes such a fuss over him that he gets overwhelmed.  We have taught him to at least wave at them so he isn't rude, but I really cannot blame him as some of the people are a bit overbearing!

Camel love ...

 Who knew the kids would love their camels from the Easter Bunny so much?!?  The kids were thrilled!  They even put them down for naps when we left for a while...cute!

Easter in Bahrain ...

 My kids were super worried that the Easter Bunny wasn't going to make it to Bahrain because they do not really celebrate Easter here.  They were so super excited to wake up and find the Easter Bunny had actually come and even remembered to leave them a trail of eggs to find their baskets.  I love how happy they were to find an Easter basket!  The Easter Bunny even knew exactly what their favorite camel was and brought that with their basket!  What a fun and smart Easter Bunny!