Holiday time in the desert...

Finally. Time to breathe and blog in the beautifully busy Arabian Life.
How do I condense the last year or so into one blog post? I think bullet points of the highlights..

• January..we had a few days break in Dubai..and visited the souk with some friends.
• February..we enjoyed our first camp as a family (with 40+ teenagers!)and attended the Muscat Festival, an annual celebration of Omani culture.
• March..we visited our first Fort and the some hot springs.
• April..we had a goodbye weekend away for a family we love who were leaving Oman and said hello to our cousin who visited us for a day!
• May..The goodbyes of families leaving begins.
• June..Ramadan begins.
• July..we got to "go home" to America for the first time in 3 years
• August.. roads trips catching up with people, things and food we missed.
• September..new beginnings in Oman.
• October..moving house for the 4th time in 3 years!
• November..we enjoyed a free Military Tattoo at the Opera House and celebrated Thanksgiving with our youth leaders and friends.
• December..the Kiddos and I were vendors at our first craft fair.

Hopefully I will have time to blog more about these events but for now we are well into the Winter season here. Temps. are now in the low 70's which, for us desert dwellers, is a little cold! Time to find the hoodies and say bye to the flip flops.

The kiddos and I have been busy crafting for a local Christmas Bazaar. We had fun experimenting with selling our creations at a local craft fair. With no way for the teen kiddos to work legally here, they are trying their hand at earning a little money. We had fun creating and are now inspired to create some more and make it a regular part of our lives here.

We experimented in making ornaments from various salt doughs, cinnamon and applesauce and pop cans!

The loom band craze inspired Kiddo #2 to create all these!

Scoobies are popular back in the UK so Kiddo #2 created key chains in a variety of patterns.

I had a go at making some chalkboard coasters..

.. and the most popular item was my plain glass coasters re purposed using Omani hat designed wrapping paper.

The boy kiddo contributed by using my die cutter to make some ornaments from pop cans!

Some of the beautiful paintings created by #1 kiddo.

Another popular item that I sold out of was my experiment of map coasters. I only made 12 from one map and I could have sold a lot more. Last years effort was my scrapbook paper coasters which also sold well this year. But..

..for me the best part of the day was meeting other crafters and vendors. Oman is so multi-cultural so I got to meet some great people from India,South Africa, England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Hearing other peoples stories enriches my life.

One of the vendors travels into the villages here taking photos. One of his photos captured me. When the hurricane hit in 2007, many villagers were forced to abandon their homes. One old lady refused. Upon her death, the family left her home as it was found in memory of her. 

The old women's room (Taken by Clive Gracey)

Muscat is so modern, we forget the life lived by villagers away from the malls, electricity, carpets and modern amenities. Clive Gracey does a wonderful job opening our eyes to a world some of us will never get to see. clivegracey.com is well worth the visit. Ancient and Modern captured so beautifully.