We hang out with kids…voluntarily

Posted on 26 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

Our Friday started out quite foggy again.

The day also ended quite foggy! Luckily it turned out to be a gorgeous day in between. We don’t really follow the weather here so we don’t know why it has been so crazy (we’ve heard it hasn’t been like this in past years) but it’s foggier by the Gulf so it has to do have something to do with the water being warmer than the air. We’re practically meteorologists!

I forgot about our dessert on Thursday evening! It was at the Chocolate Bar by Dana’s place. We had dark chocolate fondue…no idea how I forgot about it!

Friday morning we got up WAY too early for a weekend and headed to a ‘yard’ sale. Abby got a few things for her classroom and Jeff and I picked up a pizza paddle. We also came home with 3 Disney movies! We had about 10 that we wanted to buys but narrowed it down to Fern Gully, Mary Poppins and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Abby and I had a great time reminiscing about our childhood 🙂

After the yard sale I made a breakfast that was ALMOST as good as the Cocoa Room…pumpkin pancakes 🙂

We did buy the movies and pizza paddle for a reason. After a workout and a chill evening, we voluntarily hung out with 3 cute little girls (ages 4, 6/7, & 9). Even though we don’t really want kids of our own, we do enjoy hanging out with other people’s kids! You can’t call it babysitting when we volunteer to do it, don’t get paid and have fun! The girls played with our kittens, made their own pizza, played with balloons and watched Fern Gully. Pretty sure the 3 adults in the room enjoyed the movie more than the kids!

Next up…camel races!

Happy birthday!

Posted on 26 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

This long weekend is in honor of prophet Mohammed’s birthday (PBUH). We’re taking full advantage of the extra time to have fun, eat good food and relax!

Treats from the Arabic department for Prophet Mohammed’s birthday.

The excitement started on Wednesday morning when we booked tickets for Andrew to come visit during his spring break! His girlfriend, Shannon, is studying abroad in Barcelona and will be meeting Andrew in London for a layover before flying together to Kuwait for a week! We’re all pretty excited 🙂

Wednesday night we enjoyed Turkish food and shisha at Afendim with some friends that we took Arabic classes with. It was a great time had by all…even though the three of us think we have had some side effects from shisha (feel slightly sick).

Thursday morning Abby and I joined some other friends for breakfast at Cocoa Room. It was amazing as always. We shared the cinnamon roll French toast, eggs menemen and hash browns. As we were finishing up our meal, a server came over with an order of peanut butter pancakes. We told him they weren’t ours…but a few minutes later another server came over and told us they were on the house. We were all full, but could you pass these up?!

Peanut butter pancakes!

After Abby and I recovered from our sugar coma, we decided to take advantage of the day and head outside…for some geocaching!

Thursday’s weather

Jeff, Abby and I walked a couple miles along the Gulf in the gorgeous weather and logged a 2-part multi-cache.

Geocaching…in Arabic!

Along the way we found a palace that we hadn’t noticed before. we thought about exploring but decided against it 😉

No one’s going in there…

We weren’t the only ones that were out enjoying the day…there were tons of people grilling and having picnics!

Picnicking on the Gulf.

Thursday evening we met up with our friend Dana for dinner and drinks (strawberry juice and 7up sans alcohol, obviously) at her place. We then headed to City Center for bowling! Jeff and Dana were styling 🙂

It was the first time we’d been to this mall which is known for it’s cheap shops and shoe outlets. I found 2 pair of Nine West boots for 22kd before we headed upstairs to bowl.

The games weren’t our best ever but I did manage to get one legit strike and one computer glitch strike!

We’ll share our Friday soon…right now we’re heading out to the camel races!

What is that stuff?!

Posted on 21 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

This morning we woke up to craziness outside our windows. Check out this blog post to see what our morning walk to school looked like. We thought it was dust at first but then we were very happy to learn that it was, in fact, fog. HEAVY fog.

Here’s what it looked like from above the clouds. Glad we didn’t have to drive!!

Celebration!!

Posted on 20 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

You know my sister is here substitute teaching. But there’s more! She signed a contract today to teach Pre-K for the next 2 years! We’re PUMPED to have her here with us! She accepted the position on Thursday and we (of course) celebrated! Abby and I got in comfy weekend clothes and then went for cheap pedicures ($14 w/ tip)! Afterwards, we celebrated with Jeff…

: When you live in a dry country your guilty pleasures must change 😉

We’ve already made plans to go to Greece in late February (while Kuwait is celebrating the 22nd anniversary of their liberation) and we’re currently making plans to go to Thailand for Spring Break in April. We’re so excited for the next couple years and can’t wait to explore the world with our sister 🙂 All you family members now have one more reason to come visit!

7 hours. 7.5 miles

Posted on 20 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

We had another great weekend! Abby joined the YA lit book club that I participate in with a group of teachers from our school. We have meetings once a month where we eat food, talk about life and discuss the book we read. That evening we hung out with friends at a BBQ on one of the rooftops. Abby got to meet a bunch of new people and we made lots of yummy food (4 dishes for our two events!).

Yesterday was a day for the record books. We left the apartment about 12:30pm to meet up with a friend, do a little geo-caching, eat some bread and shop at Marina Crescent and Mall, check out a Co-Op and find a craft store (we found yarn!). Jeff left during the shopping to play frisbee. Abby and I got home about 7:30pm. Except for the time we spent eating bread and ice cream, we were on our feet the entire 7 hours! We were really interested in how far we walked and were shocked when we figured it out. Aren’t we awesome?!

We love sisters!

Posted on 20 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

Did you know that Abby (my awesome sister) is here?! She’s living with us (we have 2 bedrooms) for the semester and substitute teaching in the elementary. Since she got here we’ve been trying to show her around Kuwait and go about our normal lives. Her first weekend here we…

…ate at a Turkish restaurant.

…drank yummy lemon mint.

…experienced our first shisha.

…celebrated the engagement of our friends with an authentic Sri Lankan meal.

Having family here makes us miss home just a little less. We’re looking forward to the rest of the semester! 🙂

We don’t always cook

Posted on 17 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

Last night Jeff and I didn’t feel like cooking. On our walk back from the grocery store we decided to call and order Indian to get delivered to our apartment. Normally we don’t like eating out because it’s expensive and we can usually cook something better at home. Luckily in Kuwait there are lots of small, cheap, quality restaurants! After we got home we waited a few minutes and the call came that our food was in the lobby. When we got the food up to our apartment we realized there was a miscommunication on the phone…we’re not really sure everything that we got but we do know it was all tasty! And it was only 4kd with tip for all of it! We had enough food for dinner for 2, lunch for 3 AND there were leftovers!

A little belated…

Posted on 13 January, 2013 by Lissa Layman

HAPPY NEW YEAR! xoxo

Our cab driver has a degree.

Posted on 13 January, 2013 by Jeff Layman

Have we mentioned our favorite cab driver before? His name is Mohamed and he’s awesome. Here are a few other fun facts about Mohamed;

* He has a college education in Religious Studies (rough translation) from a university in Egypt.
* He’s from Egypt.
* He primarily drives teachers from our school and makes so much money during the school year that he takes the summers off.
* During the school year he’s available 24/7, with the exception of Mosque.
* He taught himself English, and speaks it somewhat fluently.

And a short story;

Yesterday we were coming home from the vet and Mohamed stops outside of our apartment. Before we can pay him and get out, a police car with two officers stops next to us and they get out and start speaking with Mohamed. (It should be worth pointing out that all Arabic sounds angry, even if the topic being chatted about is fluffy bunnies or how much you love your mother). They ask for Mohamed’s civil ID and then they ask for ours. At this point, we’re getting a little freaked out because we have no idea what’s going on and they look like they’re taking our names down. They eventually give us our civil ID’s back and Mohamed, who has been speaking with the first officer, asks us “how much you want to give me?” in a way that makes us feel like our answer could very well determine whether or not he gets deported. We tell him “5KD” and he starts laughing along with the police officer. The officer gets back into the car, drives off and Mohamed comes back into the taxi and smiles. He tells us that the police officers wanted to make sure he wasn’t ripping us off and that everything was OK. What ended up actually happening was us being scared out of our wits.

Getting sick abroad

Posted on 7 January, 2013 by Jeff Layman

(Not to be confused with “getting sick of abroad.” Sorry mom.)

Private school certainly has its perks.

For one, money gets spent on little stuff that makes life as a teacher that much easier; there’s always coffee brewing in multiple places around the campus, we have no limit on copying (color or black/white) and when you visit the nurse’s office she can shove all sorts of medication your way without any sort of payment.

As to who passed this particularly annoying ailment my way, I do not know. Several family members have apologized, but it’s more than likely the inordinate amount of time I spent outside geocaching when the temperature was single digits than some sort of airborne transmission by a loved one. Who knows.

Anyway, I’m on the way to feeling better thanks to a healthy dose of antihistamines, cold & flu relief, cough syrup, and nasal spray – all provided by the school nurse. For free.

Perks, man. Perks.