Happy Birthday Abbey! Eight Years Old?!

Yesterday was Abigail's eighth birthday. The time has flown! She was worried she wouldn't have a good birthday, because she is so far away from family and old friends, but I think it turned out okay. Thanks to Marcell, Grandma Kearney, Grandma Giggey, Kristy, Jan, and Jennifer for thinking ahead and sending her birthday gifts with us when we were in Utah. She loved all her gifts. My favorite part of the day was when she said her prayers and thanked Heavenly Father for all the people in her life showing her how much they love her. She has been such a gift to our family. Abbey keeps her old parents young (and tired!).

It was an early morning, but Abbey didn't fuss about getting out of bed this time. She got to follow a crazy string all over the villa to find her presents. It made for quite the adventure when Ci Ci got involved. It was great to see Abbey walk out the door for school with a pan full of homemade cupcakes. Do you remember those days when you could take homemade treats to your class on your birthday? Students can't do that anymore in the states because it is a health code violation. I guess until some careless mother poisons an unsuspecting student, Doha will allow it. After school Abbey got to go to the The Jungle Zone at the Villagio Mall with her Doha friend Brynn. They got to go on rides and bounce around being wild, while Brett about went crazy supervising their fun with all the noise and spoiled Qatari children he saw there. He survived though, brought the girls home, and we had our first Doha dinner party. Brynn's mom Cydney and brother Garrett came and so did Abbey's teacher Miss Verhoye. Our next door neighbors Jesse and Felicity came and so did Felicity's sister, brother-in-law, and niece. It was quite an interesting crowd. They were all kind guests and raved about the white chili I made and stayed for some good visiting after dinner. They even ate the red or blue jello according to the political persuasion they have - just kidding.

The next big thing is Abbey's baptism on November 29th. What excitement for her! An interesting thing happened today during Primary. While the Primary children were singing "Happy, Happy Birthday" to Abbey and "I Am a Child of God" after that, we could hear the call to prayer blaring loudly through the neighborhood. An interesting contrast.