Santa Bread

I will always equate this sight to Christmas Eve. What is it you ask? Santa Bread, of course. We would put it up in the ceiling of the kitchen, where the warm lights are, to rise.

And this is what you get to enjoy Christmas morning.

Thank you, Mom, for such a memorable and tasty tradition. Merry Christmas!

Belated 2010 Holiday Greetings

2010

Our first full year living in Qatar (recently announced host of the 2022 World Cup); Travis is teaching English as a Foreign Language at Qatar University. Living here has provided some unique experiences, like seeing Ferraris and Lamborghinis on a daily basis. The year did provide a few more highlights than just the exotic cars on the road.

• Explored Qatar when Lindsay's parents visited early in the year, including a visit to the Museum of Islamic Art featuring a temporary exhibit on pearls, and a trip to the camel races
• Qatar hosts a lot of sporting events, so we went to see part of the Tour of Qatar (road cycling), the WTA Championship (women's tennis), and the IHF Super Globe (Men's handball)
• Celebrated Leoni's first birthday and plenty of other baby firsts
• Traveled back to the US for the summer and visited family and friends in Las Vegas and Utah, including the wedding of Travis' brother, Tyler
• On our way back to Qatar, we visited Rome and ate lots of gelato

Favorite flavors-hazelnut (Travis), chocolate/orange (Lindsay), everything (Leoni)

• Europe was number four in the list of continents Travis traveled to this year

Asia-Bahrain for Youth Conference & a conference in Dubai w/ a side trip to IKEA
South America-trip to Machu Picchu w/ a side conference in Peru

• Found out we'll have another baby join our family around the beginning of May 2011

We hope that your holidays were wonderful and that 2011 has started off to be a wonderful year.

Happy New Year, Valentine's, & St. Patrick's Day!
Travis, Lindsay, and Leoni

Belated Christmas Gift

With some of the "green" Christmas gifts we received, we purchased some fun memories of Arabia. They aren't from Qatar (made in Turkey), but they still have the flavor of the region.

A Serving Bowl

Salad/Ice cream bowls (side view)

(top view)

A really great plate w/ Arabic, which Travis got a long explanation of, but I am not sure how much he'll actually remember

The "Singing" Sand Dunes

We were able to go with a group of "friends" to the Singing Sand Dunes for a Christmas celebration. Although hardly anyone I have met claims to have actually heard the sand dunes sing, they were in full force that night...aided by the ward choir.

Everyone had fun hiking to the top of the dunes

Football & sliding down the face of the dune were favorite activities

Dad & Leoni watching the sunset

Leoni LOVING sliding down the dune
(If there had been more light, I would have had more pictures. It was dark at this point, but I was able to catch this one with the flash)

Leoni enjoying time with Dad & her friend "Boom"

Us

Christmas in Doha

Glad that a Muslim country would be so kind as to sell Christmas trees for us Christians. Can you tell that these are in an Indian owned store?