Boxes, Balls, and Girlfriends

Last Thursday all our household goods arrived.  Brad was home but was sick as a dog.  The movers unpacked all our stuff and then took the boxes and left.

Brad was doing things like this all day:

I was feeling overwhelmed by views like this:

Thankfully I had scheduled our maid to come Thursday afternoon.  She helped with Kent for a bit and then put the kitchen in order.  A lifesaver!  While she worked in the kitchen, I got Kent's room ready for play.  There are still a million toys to give away, but for now it is in working order for him.

Friday Brad took Kent to his first T-Ball practice.  He had a great time, and the head of the T-Ball league says Kent needs to move up to the minors.  His skills are beyond those of T-Ball.  He can hit a ball pitched to him with good accuracy and can catch balls pretty decently.  We were nervous about this idea at first because he has not had any team play experience.  We would hate for him to feel "behind" on a team.  Brad and I talked it over all weekend and finally came to the decision to move him up.  It may be a bit more challenging but good things in life often are that way.  We really hope it works out well for him.

While Brad and Kent were hitting balls I was getting things in order at home.  Then I went to a nearby salon and got my hair cut.  I am growing it out again, but needed some reshaping as it was looking unkempt.  Haircuts in Kuwait are EXPENSIVE.  I have held off on getting one because I was doing a lot of research/asking/investigating on where to go that was less expensive and still knew how to cut Western hair.  Well, this led me to a British salon called Strands about a 10 minute walk from our apartment.  A cut with a blow dry and style costs 25KD ($90 USD).  This is about standard around here.  It hurt me to spend that much for such a low frills appointment.  My stylist was nice but very curt.  The salon was clean and stylish.  The head massage at the hair washing was extremely nice and relaxing.  For 25KD it should have been!  :)  The cut turned out well, and I think next time I go I will skip the blow dry and style- bringing my total down to 18KD.  Still not cheap, but better.

Saturday should have found me at home but, instead, I was at the mall on a scheduled girls' day.  Kent's teacher, Sarah, her friend, Petra, and I met at The Avenues mall for window shopping, lunch, and pedicures.  I felt a bit guilty leaving Brad and Kent home on the weekend, but really did enjoy the time out with girlfriends.  We laughed a LOT, talked about some "real" stuff and all dozed off during our wonderful pedicures.  Here are some pictures from my day at the mall.

I spent the late afternoon grocery shopping at Carrefour, a French Wal-mart style store at the mall.  Grocery shopping takes a long time here.  I hope to, one day, get it down to under an hour.  Alas, not yet.  When I got in my car to head  home I realized the sun was down and traffic was HORRIBLE.  Half an hour later and I was STILL in the parking garage.  Then it took an hour to get home after leaving the garage.  This is a 7 mile drive.  Luckily I had all my cold items in awesome insulated bags from Costco.  Nothing spoiled except my attitude.  Upon returning home I apologized again to Brad for being gone all day and committed to not making any weekend plans for at least 3 weeks.  And I encouraged him to plan some boys' days between now and then.  I really am an equal opportunity social agenda person.  Really.

Our weekend went by in a flash.  This coming weekend is an Islamic holiday weekend for Eid.  There will be no school on Thursday, Sunday, or Monday.  Happy five day weekend to Kent and me!  Still waiting to hear which days Brad will be home with us as well.