Mike and Debbie's Updates

Good morning! The last few days have been really bad in the weather area. We woke up the morning after we got back to Doha and the wind was blowing. Now that isn't an unusual thing, but by noon we had no sun and the sky was orange or everything you saw was orange. We were having a sand storm. It lasted till the next night. It really lasted through that night too. We woke up yesterday and it was looking a lot better, but the winds were still really blowing. Sand everywhere! It was our day off so we went to buy a few things so we could last a few days since we had not shopped yet. On the way to eat at Ric's Kountry Kitchen for an afternoon lunch I missed a perfect picture of the sand blowing. I should have decided to take the picture sooner. The sand was blowing across the road so thick and hard you could have seen it so well. It looked kind of like when you see sheets of rain only on the ground. Something else. We had a norther blow through yesterday evening and it is much better now. We still have strong winds but the air is lighter and it is in the 60s. It was in the 90s the day we got here.


Anyway, I forgot to share these pictures while we were home. These pictures are of the inside of one of the women's restrooms in the Amsterdam airport. The first one is supposed to be the base of a windmill. That is the striped object in the middle of the picture. The next picture is of right behind the windmill. It is the area where the toilets are located. Those are the fronts of the doors. They were too cool. The next picture was to the right of the windmill. It is the beach with a white picket fence in front of it. You can see clouds and seagulls. There is sound playing in the restroom and it is for this picture of the beach. You can hear the waves coming in and the seagulls calling each other. I thought it was too cool to pass up. Of course, when I went in to use the restroom there was no one in there. When I went and got my camera there were two people in there. I felt weird taking pictures of it so I explained to the other lady in there that my Mom and some other folks back home would get a kick out of the way this restroom was decorated. She laughed and agreed. Made me feel a bit better.

While we were in Amsterdam on the way to the states it was snowing. It was so pretty. Wish I could have caught how beautiful it was, but being inside and only having a few things for a background so you could see it was hard enough. We didn't want to go through the trouble of going outside and coming back in. We would have had to go through security again and we also would have frozen to death, because we were in real light weight long sleeved t-shirts. Anyway, you can see some of the snow falling in the last picture. That is not our plane in the picture. We had to get de-iced before coming on to Memphis. I never have experienced it but it is amazing how fast those chemicals can work. We couldn't see out because of the ice on the windows and before you knew it you could see plan as day, so I watched them de-ice the rest of the plane. Too cool! We had a really nice smooth flight the rest of the way to Memphis.

Well, I just thought I'd share a bit. Hopefully Mike will be home soon and we will go to the wholesale market and get some really nice fresh veggies. We love to make huge salads over here. Hope you all have a great day!

Debbie

Well, as most everyone knows we are home and doing great! We got home on Thursday night, the 7th. Had a great flight. We finally got business class and boy does it spoil you. Seems Mike slept the whole way home! We had to be deiced in Amsterdam. Never done that before, but it was nice to see the snow while we were there. Lots cooler there than in Doha! We weren't late anywhere that it amounted to anything. Got up on Friday morning took care of some business and got a hair cut. Michelle said she hadn't seen my hair that long in a really long time. Had a great day! Got in the middle of the night coughing and ended up with the flu. We were supposed to baby sit Saturday, but with 101.3 fever we thought we would cancel. Finally got over the flu just in time to get to Jason's for his birthday.
Between Danielle, Mike and I we really surprised Jay for his birthday. We got there the day before and ate out after he and Danielle got home. We gave him his gift on his birthday, I think. I can't remember too well. He was very surprised about the tickets to the Rockets game. We had a blast! The Rockets at the very end, but that was ok.
We have now had a wonderful Christmas. We had our whole family including grandparents here. It was so nice to have the family together. We were in Kilgore for a couple of days this week and just got back yesterday. We got to see Mike's aunt Jean and his cousin Jan while we were there. We got to visit my niece, Jenny at her new house and really enjoyed getting to work that in too. We visited a few other friends and had a great time.
We got home yesterday evening and babysat Preston for a bit then visited with Michelle and Chris. We had a nice time just visiting with nothing else to do.
Hopefully we will get to stay here in Lafayette for the rest of the time we have at home. We still have a few more things to get done and time really flies.
Hope you guys have great days!
Debbie