DHS Sports Banquet

 Jonny had a very rewarding sports banquet this year.  He played on the JV Volleyball and Basketball team as a Freshman and received the "Impact Player" award for Volleyball and MVP for Basketball.  If he had played one more sport this year he would have been a contender for Most Athletic JV player.  Next year for sure.  He said he's going to play both soccer and Coed Softball along with Volleyball and Basketball next year.  

A Day In Bahrain

 Last weekend Gavin and I decided to leave the kids and have an all day outing in Bahrain.  We haven't gone too much this year just because we were usually busy with some type of sport or kid activity but finally had a Thursday to ourselves.  We left the compound at about 8:30 in the morning for our adventure.  This is leaving our compound.  All the compounds are barricaded and have security checks to go through.  This is the exit as we drive out of our compound.

 We decided to take a few pictures on our way to Bahrain.  This is a shopping center on the road by our house.

We live about 1/2 a mile from the gulf coast and right off the coast near our house is this large desalination plant.  For months we weren't sure what this was because it looks like a fancy building on a little island off the coast but eventually learned it is a desalination plant.

Bahrain is an island off the coast of Saudi.  They built this long causeway connecting Saudi with Bahrain.  We actually can drive right up to the beach here but not real advisable without four wheel drive.

 In the middle of the causeway they built a man made island where the border and customs is located between Bahrain and Saudi.

 Here we are entering one of several stops as we enter Bahrain.

Bahrain is a basically just a big city.  There is all kinds of construction of new projects going on.

This was a pretty cool building in Bahrain.  It was shaped like sails on a boat.  In between the buildings they had these wind turbans.

Bahrain is only about 45 minutes to an hour from our house depending on the traffic at the border.  It is much more relaxed then Saudi.  Women don't have to wear abaya's and can actually drive.  They have several large malls with movie theaters.  Gavin and I ended up at the City Center Mall and went to see "The Avengers".  We felt like we were back home in the states for a little while with a real movie theater and real popcorn.  We did a little shopping and headed back home.  It was a nice relaxing day!

Nicole's Big Day's

 April 19th was a big day for Nicole.  She turned 12 and is now officially a young woman.  Her friend Yasmine gave her a surprise birthday party.  It was more like a wedding reception.  It was at Yasmine's house or should we say compound.  They swam and had a catered buffet along with this birthday cake.  Each letter of Nicole's name was the size of a sheet cake.  They brought it over to our house, I guess they thought we would eat it all but it was way too much cake.  Nicole had a very fun day with lots of her friends.

 Nicole was also on the starting team for our middle school girls basketball team.  Gavin was able to help coach the team.  They got second in the Eastern Province tournament.

 A few weeks later they than played in the SAIKAC tournament where they played awesome.

Nicole was a huge part of the team playing her little heart out.  She is the female version of Jonny and is a major key to the team.

After two long days of basketball they came home with the bronze but the more exciting part about the tournament is seeing how far they have come over the season.  At the Eastern Province tournament they lost in the championship game to ISG Jubail by about 20 points.  They played them again in the SAIKAC tournament and lost their first game with them by only 3 points.  The Jubail coaches were amazed at how well our girls played and they had improved.  They then played them again for the 3rd/4th place position and beat them.  It was a very exciting tournament.  The girls were excited to get 3rd place but were more excited that they had finally beaten Jubail.

Many coaches commented on how well Nicole played and were very impressed to hear that she was only a 6th grader.

Amsterdam...

In April Gavin had to take a quick trip back to the US for his Dad's funeral.  On his way back to California he had a seven hour layover in Amsterdam and decided to get a quick look at the city.  He took a train into the city and spent a few hours just wondering around.  Someday we hope to get us all back there, even for just a few hours would be cool.