The Sperling Grandparents arrived in Doha a few days before we actually left for our Croatia trip. This allowed them some time to get over jet-lag, play with Jacob, and get re-packed before we left. It also gave Jacob and I some time to show them some of our life in Doha. We were excited to take them to Jacob's My Gym class since it was going to be on hold for the summer once we returned.
After our Europe trip, Micah's parents traveled back to Doha with us to spend a couple weeks exploring the middle east and spending more time with us. It took us a couple days to get unpacked, laundry situated, and recover some energy from our trip. At last it was time to show them around Doha. To be honest, there isn't that much exciting to the Middle East but we did our best to entertain.
Jacob and I took them out to Aspire Zone park. When the weather is nice, I really enjoy taking Jake to this park and letting him play. However, it was already way too hot to really enjoy. Jacob played for about 5 minutes and then we were all too hot to stay.
Since we needed to cool off after the park, we drove over to Villagio Mall. I had a couple of errands to run and specific items I was looking for at the mall. We also stopped at the amusement park area and let Jacob ride the carousel. Finally we had some lunch at Shake Shack.
The great outdoors is way too hot to really enjoy in the Middle East in the summer so there are lots of malls and almost all the malls have indoor play areas. One of the malls close to us has a really nice soft play area for little ones. We decided to take Jake to play and then met up my friend Dawn for lunch.
We all took Grandma and Grandpa out one evening to the Pearl for dinner and a leisurely stroll along the water. It was fun to dream about owning one of the massive yachts parked in the marina.
Another night we all headed out to Souq Waqif. I might have enjoyed this visit to the souq as much as Micah's parents. It was fun to shop with people who were actually looking to buy stuff. We parked by the "camel souq" so of course we had to let Jacob talk to the camels.
I was trying to think of something to do that was unique to Doha and that I hadn't done before so we ventured out to the Falcon Souq. We went in the morning in the summer so it was actually pretty quiet but we were lucky. The first shop we deiced to go into, the handler was actually feeding the falcons their lunch. It was fun to watch them eat. Some were almost too concerned about us being in their space to feel safe enough to eat.
From the Falcons, we wandered over a little ways and found the horse souq. One of the guards pointed out that one of the horses actually had a baby. We wouldn't have even noticed! One of the horses tried to sniff Jacob and he wasn't so sure what to think about that.
After the souqs we needed to cool off so we headed for the Museum of Islamic Art. We walked through pretty quickly since Jacob was getting kinda restless. Plus, lets be honest, I don't care that much for art museums.
The final weekend we had together we decided to take Micah's parents out to the desert and give them a little taste of what we enjoy doing on our weekends when the weather is a little nicer. We drove out to the desert towards the Inland sea and did a little playing on the sand dunes. Micah specifically bought his car so that we could do one of the only fun, adventurous things to do in Qatar, play in the sand! We have enjoyed that feature tremendously. After driving around a little bit and playing on the dunes, we stopped at the beach for a picnic lunch and some swimming.
Of course we spent a lot of our time just playing at home, and swimming at our compound pool. We had a blast playing with Grandma and Grandpa all day every day.
We had a blast having Grandma and Grandpa spend time with us in Doha. We were sad to see them leave. Thanks for visiting!
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