When I was a kid, my family had an advent calendar that we used every Christmas season. It had little paper doors and behind each door was a part of the Christmas story. When Isla was a baby, I wanted to recreate it to use as our advent tradition as well. I rewrote the story a bit (gotta…
Beirut+ School Database – UPDATED!
Way back when it was time to choose a school for Isla, we were a bit lost. A colleague of Caleb’s at the time, who we shared similar values and goals with, recommended the school where his kids went… so we did the interview and registered her. We had no clue how very different the…
Learning Arabic in Lebanon – a database
Beirut is not the easiest place to learn Arabic. It’s completely doable to live here for years and never pick up more than basic phrases. You can shop, socialize and entertain yourself all in English or French if that is your desire. But just because it isn’t easy, doesn’t mean it’s impossible! We are positive…
Sports to the rescue – a Beirut database
It’s been almost two years our kids have been home. They’ve had a few weeks of semi-normal life here and there before the Revolution kicked off, before covid lockdowns started, and at the end of last year when things were starting to open up again in Lebanon, but for the majority of the past two…
Your ten hours
What would you do with 10 hours of electricity? The immediate thought, when you are dripping with sweat, is AC. Or do you turn on the water heater so that you can take a shower at the end of the day? Ooh, ooh, what about laundry? Do you use the internet or try to get…
Face to face
My 11 year old writes a name on the wall with a piece of chalk, while another volunteer uses a broom to cover the space with a homemade paste mixture. Some of the names are familiar – Alexandra, Isaac, Sahar – but most are just names. The next step is simple… grab a rolled up…
In case you haven’t had enough online school
It’s been almost 18 months since this season of school closures began for kids here in Lebanon. When the Revolution broke out in the fall of 2019, we found ourselves home for weeks because of protests and road closures. Some of the big international schools have contingency plans for such situations, but most schools were…
Safety Trap
When our eldest child was five years old, we were spending the afternoon at a secluded park in North Carolina, surrounded by trees and not much else. All of a sudden, I realized my daughter was nowhere to be seen, and after a quick and frantic search, we discovered her in the public bathroom. We…
A pharmacy by any other name… is a ski slope!
I’ve always been a rule follower. Caleb likes to tell the story about how I ruined his proposal plan when I refused to jump a fence to sneak onto a golf course. I’m usually comfortable with rules. I want to show respect to those in authority, and I don’t like getting in trouble. Not always…
The next post is always the hardest
It’s not the first time it’s happened, and for any of you who have been following the blog over the years, this post might feel familiar. After living through a difficult or traumatic experience, after post after post of heavy material, how do you go back to writing about daily life? By moving on, are…
beautiful feet: the blog version 