Our Staycation

Staycations - a name that became popular in the US in the last couple of years - are basically when people don't go on some expensive, extravagant trip during their vacation times.  Or, as I prefer to say - what people normally did during their time off for work or school until relatively recently.  All that to say, Alison, the kids, and I are on a stay-cation this summer!

Because Gabe was born in May, we were not able to get a passport in time to travel for the summer. Our plan is to stay here in Bahrain and let family visit us.  My brother, David, is here visiting for six weeks, and my parents arrive in two weeks.  The day after they leave, Alison's mom visits for two weeks.  All will get plenty of cuddles and pictures with the children.  Thankfully, a family in church has gone away for the summer and has graciously lent us their villa while they are away (provided we feed their dog and water their plants - a sweet deal if you ask me!)

Staying in their house has a couple of benefits:

• It's nice to get a chance of scenery for us.  We love our apartment, but the house is great. 
• Again, our apartment is great, but not big enough to comfortably house 5 adults and 2 children.  The house has enough room for us to spread our proverbial legs.
• Eva loves animals, and is in love with the dog.  I'm not sure the dog knows what to do with her, but does enjoy the occasional snack that Eva shares. 
• Eva is loving the space.  She walks alll around with her play stroller loaded up with various toys. 

We've never stayed in Bahrain for the whole summer before, and we keep hearing about how hot it gets.  I'm both eager to experience the 'real' heat of Bahrain, and dreading it at the same time.  Praise the Lord for air conditioning!  It also means that the summer will be a little slower.  We love going to the States to visit family and friends, but it always ends up being 8 weeks of running around like chickens with our heads cut off.  It'll be nice to have some time to relax. 

So what will we be doing the next two months with so much time on our hands (or, with extra time for me - Alison doesn't really experience a change).  Here's a couple of goals that I have:

1. Read.  My goal is a book a week.  I have a host of books that I haven't read, and have so far lived up to this goal (we're not done with school yet, but things have slowed down now that the students are in finals).  Alison thinks I should post a book review of some of those books.  I may yet do that. 
2. Modern Parables:  I don't remember what put this in my head, but I'm going to try and 'retell' some of the parables of Jesus as if He were in Bahrain telling them to us.  I may find that the stories are not that different.  Or I may find that they are.  We'll have to see. 
3. Playing with my children:  I get to do this already, but now we'll have more time to go to the pool, go to parks, build blocks, etc.  Eva is in a really fun stage right now and I'll be soaking that up. 
4. Preaching:  Unfortunately, our pastor and his family are returning to Australia for good.  Our church is looking for a new pastor, but until then, the preaching responsibilities are being spread around some of the men in the church.  
5. School Projects:  I've got a couple of school projects that I'll be meandering through (nothing heavy duty, of course).  I don't plan on spending a whole lot of time on them, but a little bit here and there would be good. 
6. Blogging:  I haven't done a whole lot of this lately - it's been a busy last couple of weeks for us.  But hopefully I'll have something interesting to say over the summer!