Weekend Update - 21 SEP 2013

Our second week of school seemed to pass by a bit quicker as the temperatures are slowly beginning to decline and the nights are now actually very pleasant outside.  When we arrived temps were in the 120s and now the highs are around 106-109 each day, which may sound hot but we compare it to the feeling of a mid to upper 90s day in Houston, but with less Humidity - so it really isn't too bad.  Joe takes his kids outside for PE classes and the survive just fine.  We are, however, ready for the temps to drop into the 80s and 70s and the days to feel awesome, for what we are told will last several months!

Lindsay continues to enjoy her class and Joe is adjusting to his three non-PE classes with middle schoolers.  It is hard to believe that October is just around the corner, and with it the Eid holiday break.

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎ ʻĪd al-’Aḍḥá, IPA: [ʕiːd al ʔadˁˈħaː], "festival of sacrifice"), also called Feast of the Sacrifice, the Major Festival,^[1] the Greater Eid, Kurban Bayram (Albanian, Bosnian, Turkish: Kurban Bayramı), Eid-e-Qurban (Urdu: عید قرباں), Eid al-Bakr and Bakrid,^[2] is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to honour the willingness of the prophet ʾIbrāhīm (Abraham) to sacrifice his young first-born son Ismā'īl (Ishmael)^a as an act of submission to God's command and his son's acceptance to being sacrificed, before God intervened to provide Abraham with a Lamb to sacrifice instead.^[3

We have the entire week off to celebrate this holiday and we have been planning on traveling somewhere like Jordan or Turkey, but Lindsay has not received her residency yet and the Kuwaiti government still has her passport for the process.  So no travel for us - at least no travel for Lindsay.  Joe might visit a couple of old friends in Turkey for a few days.  Regardless, it will be nice to take a breather and gear up for the rest of the fall semester.  In the states we get a long break for Thanksgiving, so the idea of our fall break being over a month earlier here is different and we are curious to see how it impacts the rest of the semester.

The big news of the week is that we are celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary!  Tomorrow is the exact date, but since we will be teaching we are celebrating with a trip to The Avenues mall today for some delicious lunch and shopping.  We will have a more fitting holiday celebration once we can travel (Joe has an idea up his sleeve) but look for another post soon about that!

Not quite as wonderful, but awesome still, is the fact that Joe met with the people that run Kuwait Little League last night for over two hours.  It appears he will be heading up the senior program and might possibly be taking the team to international tournaments in Dubai, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, and even possibly back in America next summer!  He is really excited to be able to live out his passion of coaching baseball while we are here and is even more excited because baseball starts in October!  He already has a couple of private lessons starting up in the next week or two!!!
Be on the lookout for some updates and lots of pictures from Joe's coaching here in Kuwait.

Well, that is about it for now, but we are sure that there will be some fun things happening regularly now that the temperatures are cooling - so keep an eye out for more updates!

Joe with one of the other PE teachers!  This is his daily wardrobe, which he loves!

Our local taco joint provided free food for teachers this past Tuesday night!

Check out this awesome McDonald's located in downtown Kuwait City!

We celebrated one month in Kuwait by finally trying McDonalds.  It was delicious!

This is the sign at the entrance to the Kuwait LL complex!  The set-up is very nice and they have Major League quality lighting on the fields!

No need for a cake to celebrate 6 years of marriage, we've got Sprinkles Cupcakes here in Q8!

Finally, here is the video that Kuwait LL created to recap/celebrate last year's season.  They are wonderful people and Joe is excited to be joining them!