The Desert and the Tree of Life

We finally took some time to escape from the city and go explore a little more of the desert.  We drove down to the southern portion of the island and really got to see the old Bahrain.  Of course, parts of the desert were full of trash and old oil infrastructure, but it was fun anyway. The kids loved the tree of life.  That may have something to do with the fact that there were 2 ice cream trucks there, and we bought them ice cream.

The following picture is a panorama pic of the desert on the side of the highway.  You will probably need to click on it, so see it larger.

 The desert here is not all sand, it is more rocky and hard.  The pictures you see of camels with sand dunes in the desert are not from Bahrain, The sand blows around here, but there aren't really dunes with loose sand.

 This is the tree of life.  Full of tourists wandering around a tree in the desert.  Of course we had our own photo shoot, like the rest of the tourists.

 This is another panoramic picture, I am standing in the middle of the tree.

 Yes, you can climb up into the tree.  There is some graffiti on the tree, but not as much as I expected.

Monkeys

Despite living in a new country, the kids are still kids who like to have fun and sometimes get into trouble or get hurt.

Munchkin split her lip and made a tooth loose while playing on the bleachers during her brothers Dodgeball practice. This was our first trip to the ER, I am sure there will be more trips to the ER in our future.

 The kids still act like Monkeys while waiting for the school bus to pick them up. This was their last morning in the hotel.

 This one seems to be attached to me most of the time. He wouldn't get off my lap during his sisters recorder concert. Thanks to Mrs. Long, she was able to jump right in to Recorder Karate and not be behind in Music Class.

 This little boy keeps me on my toes every day and loves to ride his bike now that it has arrived again. It helps that there are not any hills around and he can only ride in a circle on the front patio.

Pool Sharks

We are still living at a hotel, and it is a little tough to keep everyone busy and not watching TV and using tablets  all day.  The one thing the kids love lately is the pool table in the activity room.  The table is not level and the cue's are not great, but they love it anyway.

Bahrain Fort

We visited another fort this week.  This is the Bahrain Fort, Built in stages through several centuries.  First built in the 15th century and then built and rebuilt several times through the 17th century. This is a major picture dump, and I may not caption them all. The kids had the camera for the day, so there is a good mix of pictures.

The entrance to the Fort

 We could not figure out how these little cubbies might be used.

 Cool series of arched doorways.

 Munchkin took lots of pictures of the signs, these are the first and only interpretive signs seen at a historic location.

 This is the interior of the 17th century portion of the fort with reproduced grass huts in the rear.

 The Grass Huts

 Love the city skyline beyond the old fort.

 This is Bahrain, Random bags of trash on the site. Munchkin

 Well that was part of an Art exhibit. Lots of mirrors.

 Arched ceiling above the well.

 The view towards the water.

 The cool shadow of the 5 of us.  I just thought it was cool.

 As we were leaving, we saw these cool houses that were painted with lots of bright colors and designes.