More Adventures in Kuwait

December 28, 2018

Hello all! It has been a while, well at least it has felt like it has been a while! Life just gets crazy busy as we get into the holidays, as I am sure you all know. However, we have done a lot of fun and different things in the past month and dad came to visit!!

Let's get started!

-We sent Ethan off to the MTC! Well not exactly "we" but my incredible uncle and aunt got him all ready and sent him off (thank you!!) He is doing AMAZING, and we love hearing about all of his adventures. He is at the Mexico City MTC for about 3 more weeks before heading to the SLC West Mission! We got to talk to him on Christmas, which was so fun. He hasn't been gone for that long, but it was still fun for all of us to talk to him!

Dad came to visit! A lot of the adventures that we have had in the past little while are things that we did while he was here. Even though we packed 6 people in a 5 person car that smelled like throw-up (story to come in a bit, keep reading), we had a really fun time.

Here are the things we did:

-We went to the Souk (again)! This is our second time going to the Souk, and we love it. The food is cheap and SO GOOD and it is fun to walk around and look at it all.

-We went to the CAMEL RACES. Now, I know that before we moved here, camels were 100% out of the question. There was NO way I was going to have anything to do with camels. My family made fun of me, but were fine with whatever. When we got an invitation to go to the camel races, I did LOTS of research and stressed a LOT, but we brought hand sanitizer and everything was good! (I'm pleased to report that even after a week, no sign of MERS from any of us)

So this is how the camel racing works: you get in a car and drive around the camel track while the camels are racing. The camels have robots equipped with whips on their backs to keep them going. People are honking and dust is going everywhere, but it's a good time.

Then after, they had some camels saddled for us to ride!

Just look at how awesome Adam and Syd are! They are fearless kiddos!

-We went up the Kuwait Towers! It was a pretty good view of the city and the ocean.

-We had a BBQ in the desert! We drove to a place in the desert that was about 50km from the Iraq border with some friends and had a little barbecue! It was in a pretty cool place that Kuwait actually bombed after Iraq invaded Kuwait because the Iraqis were using the area. We had a fun time exploring all of the remains of the buildings.

-Last but not least, we went to the Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre here in Kuwait. We explored the museum part of the centre and WOW. We had a BLAST! The museum section is split into 6 different buildings: Ecosystems, Our Earth, Transportation and Robots, Human Body, Arabic Islamic Science Fine Arts Centre and Space.

We spent 2 hours there today and only explored the Human Body and Transportation and Robots sections. They were pretty spectacular.

My personal favorite was the human body building. The bottom floor was all about exercise BUT the second floor was AMAZING. It was an interactive exhibit all about the body's biological systems, viruses, bacterias, protozoa, fungi, allergens and diseases. The second part of it was all about DNA, mainly replication and various components. I thought they did a fantastic job with the building; the information was accurate, concise but in-depth and the models added so much.

Definitely will be going back to see the rest of the museums (and the science building again 😊)

THROW UP STORY TIME!!

We were on our way to the Avenues (big mall here) and there were 6 of us packed into a little 5 person car. It wasn't terrible, but we didn't have any extra room. All of the sudden, Adam took off his sweatshirt and holds it up to his face. Well, unbeknownst to us, he was trying to hold his throw up in. Big mistake. His throw up came squirting out of the sides of his sweatshirt and all over the car and dad. Preston and I dodged it pretty well. We got everyone cleaned up and Adam was fine, he just ate too much candy (oh who doesn't love Christmas treats).

But the only problem is THE SMELL. We cracked the windows, bought air freshener, sprayed the car with disinfectant and even used bleach. We did everything. After 5 days, the smell got a little better. Every time we got in the car, it was SO BAD.