We like Oman

Oman is situated on the end of the Arabian pennisula. The main city, Muscat is on the east coast. Unlike most of the gulf, Muscat and Oman has mountains which is a nice break from the flat expense of the gulf.

Kuwait's national day is the end of February. This year the country took two days off for the national day. That plus the weekend gave a four day weekend which gave us time for our trip. The flight was only 2 hours, but a lot warmer than Kuwait was.



The Sultan's Al Alam Palace in Muscat is the place that the Sultan entertains dignitaries. This is as close as we got, but looks quite nice on the outside.



Talyn, of course, was not impressed.



The boys liked the fort in Nizwa.



See the mountains, aren't they cool. Even more impressive is the guard rail near the edge. You do not always get such luxuries in this part of the world.


Here is a garden in Misfah.

Some of the doors were quite ornate.

I have no idea what they are looking at, but they seem interested. What can I say? My kids like looking at rocks!

Here is the main shopping drag. This is the Souk Muttrah.

Look more mountains.

The highligt of the trip was the Grand Mosque. This Mosque can fit nearly 15000 people inside and the persian carpet was one piece! It took four years to weave.

Women had to wear long sleeves and keep their head covered.

There is Talyn wandering ahead again.

Deanna went shopping with friend one day and brought back an Abaya. She said it was a good deal. It had a big design on the front. Deanna liked it since she could remain covered in the Mosque and then took it off for the rest of the trip.

We stayed in a simple hotel. Here Nyssa and Dante size up the pool. It was Februrary, but still quite hot. The sun was so strong. This place must be brutal in the summer.

Here is the view out the window of the hotel.

The hotel we stayed at had a continental restaurant, a pub, and a Japanese restaurant. The hotel was not near anything and after doing a day of touring the kids were too tired to eat anywhere other than the hotel. The pub was not an option as you had to be 18 or 21 to enter since they served Alcohol. So we ended up eating in the Japanese restaurant every night.

Deanna loved the Japanese restaurant. We had not eaten much Japanese in Kuwait as it was so expensive. The food was not cheap, but we could get things that we did not have in Kuwait namely Tonkatsu(Pork cutlets) and Alcohol. Deanna and I tried a couple of beers and then the next night we tried the Sake. It was very good Sake. We had several servings during the trip.

The kids loved Japanese also. Talyn has been eating Sushi for years and he will often order specific types of Sushi. This time I told him about Sashimi (Sushi without the rice). We ordered it one night and then he wanted it the next night. However Nyssa and Dante wanted Sushi, so Talyn asked to order the Sashimi just for him. I did get him an order and he finished off that dish in such a short order.

We have not had Sushi since and we will probably not have any Sushi for a few more months. In Kuwait when you find something you like, buy a lot of it as you never know when you see it again. We found good Japanese and we had our fill as we did not know when we would be this way again.

Deanna also got some furniture in Oman and we had it shipped. It is carved wood from Syria. We will post some pictures soon.

Kuwait Seaside Chalet

Kuwait is situated on the Arabian gulf. So there is much property on the water. If you go south, there are chalets that many people use to get away on the weekend.

My friend Fatma invited the family to the chalet one Saturday afternoon. The kids had great fun.

Here is the back of the chalet.

The kids had fun playing a game with Fatma.

Quite a cool day, however it was February.

The kids were getting a little bored so I decided to teach them to sand sculpt.

I am not very good, but good enough for the kids.

Dante is concentrating hard on his project.

This is Talyn's collection. I helped a bit with the name.

Talyn was proud of his work.

Talyn is enjoying the sand.

Dante tries his hand at kite flying.

Talyn plays with Fatma.

A peaceful day after all.

At night we played villagers and wolves. It is a party game where you have about 12 people in which 4 people are wolves. Each round the wolves will kill a villager, while the villagers also have a round to kill a wolf. The reason it is tricky is that no one knows who the wolves are. Villagers must keep their eyes closed while the wolves decide who to eat. The villagers kill a wolf by voting the wolf off. There is a very heated round where people are accused of being a wolf, and the accused will try to argue that they are innocent. Sometimes the villagers get it wrong. The game hinges on how well you influence and con others. The game ends when all the wolves are killed or the number of villagers equals the number of wolves left. Nyssa did very well in the game.

Time for the pan

Nyssa landed a starring role in Peter Pan. She was not Peter Pan, but Wendy. The production lasted for 60 minutes, but was enjoyable. After six weeks of rehearsal, they were all done.

Wendy and Peter are enjoying some post play cake.

Wendy encounters the lost boys.

Hook makes Wendy walk the plank.

Peter does not like the idea of Wendy going home.

Curtain Call!

Today the sky turned yellow

Late last night it was windy--very windy. It was one of those nights where the wind howled so much that you woke up and hoped it would end. It used to howl like that in Chicago, but when the wind stopped there was nothing left to be done, but pick up the patio furniture that was scattered on the lawn and finding the trash cans halfway up the street.

In Kuwait, there was more fun to come.

I arrived at work at about 7:30. There was no blue sky. It looked foggy outside, but it was not fog. When the wind picks up the sand from the desert is lifted into the air and you get a dust storm. So as the morning progressed, visibility continued to fall. One by one, the buildings outside my window disappeared. Dust was everywhere.

In the desert people comment on the beautiful sunsets. One reason is that dust in the air scatters the light and you a nice bit of color. When you have a lot of dust, you get a lot of color.

So after visibility dropped to zero, the color outside my window changed. First it became brown and quite dark and then it turned orange. It was if you were outside an industrial building near a neon lamp which had a pale orange glow sort of filled the foggy air. It surrounded and enveloped you. After a few minutes the color turned to yellow. A bright yellow that radiated through my windows dulling the bright red on my walls and creating odd contrasts to the many colors on my monitor.



It was freaky.

December in California

Deanna was insistent on spending a full three weeks in LA to help cope with the moving blues. It seemed like a long time, but she had a long list of items that we needed to buy in the states. There are some things that are far too expensive in Kuwait and there are things that are just too expensive.

So we spent the first week shopping and shopping and shopping. It was the best week to do it as it takes 1 week to recover from the jet lag--Kuwait is 11 hours ahead in the winter time! We shopped so much that by the end we had trouble getting the rest of the items on the list as we were simply tired of spending money.

When were not shopping we were at Grandma Smith's house. That was the better place to be as the kids loved it there. There was simply not much to do at Deanna's dad place for the kids. My brother had an enormous TV and he had Xbox with Rock Band. The kids spent most of the days playing the musical video game, including vocals for the three weeks in California.



Talyn is rockin' out to tunes of the 80's. After the last three weeks they can sing along with Duran Duran and the Go Go's.



Nyssa sat this one out while Uncle Jon took over on the drums.


The first Christmas thing I wanted to do was to see the decorations on the Mission Inn in Riverside. It was not the most amazing thing ever, but it was nice. The Mission does do a nice job, but it was quite a drive from Azusa.



Here the kids take a quick picture with some of Santa's helpers.



Here is a nice "California Christmas" picture..no one needs a jacket.

As the first week wore on my sister Anne decided to invite us to a day at Knott's Berry Farm. Knott's Berry Farm, the red-headed step-child of SoCal theme parks, can be quite a nice day as it is never very crowded.

One of the must-see attractions is the Wild West Stunt Show. This was the first thing we saw and the kids loved it. The skit went through its standard pratfalls and high falls and then it began to weave a lit stick of dynamite into the story line. The actors ran around the stage with the dynamite trying to get rid of it.



Most of the audience laughed at this point, but some of the kids were quite concerned about the noise would ensue the impending explosion....




After the stunt show, we rode the mine car ride. Boy, does that ride need updating. That was almost painful. We spent a good 5 minutes at the station waiting to begin the ride.

Talyn tried to distract himself by listening to the conversation that Nyssa and Magali were having. I don't think it was working.



We ended the day with the requisite Charlie Brown picture. I think it turned out well despite the tree being too healthy.

The next week I decided to take the kids to Disneyland. We went last year and we had a good time. I thought to take the family again and see if we could repeat the experience.




Nothing says Christmas like the Main Street Christmas shot.



Talyn did not appreciate me commenting on his driving.





The morning that we leave Disney we try to hit a Disney Breakfast. The kids like the Lilo and Stitch breakfast. The kids enjoy the company for the chance to meet the characters...



as well as to function as a resting post.




Nyssa, Dante, Talyn and Deanna's knees pose for the Christmas family picture.


Who needs a lot of stuff when you are with family? This is Christmas day. We had a big shindig with the family on the 24th complete with gift exchange. Everyone was happy.

I thought it would be a neat idea to do something neat for the my neice's and nephews. But what to get them? Well, I thought I could do something different. I would buy them snacks that their parents never buy for them. So I bought Kraft macaroni and cheese for Magali and Natalie. I bought Batman snacks and Veggie tale fruit snacks for Markie and Madion. I was having so much fun that I started buying breakfast cereal. I was shopping alone very early on the 23rd. Since I was alone I did not keep track of how much I bought. In the end I think I bought nearly 20 boxes of cereal.

I not only bought things for my neices and nephews, but my siblings and their respective spouses. It was a little surreal to spend the next two hours wrapping cereal and macaroni and cheese. However, the gifts were cheap and I was having fun. Was it a hit? I think many people were surprised. In the end, I will only know next year if people say "remember last year" and "that was fun, let's do it again". With this economy, I may have ahead of the curve for Christmas 2009.

Merry Christmas from the Xystus family.