What to do in the summer in Baku?

Now that it's summer in Baku and school is out, you might be wondering what do we do in Baku to cool off? 
 Winter went straight into summer here.....no spring at all, maybe a week of sneezing and that's it! Today the car thermometer read 107 degrees at one point in the day but mostly it said 99-100! HOT!

So.... school got out last Friday and we were HOT! So when a friend invited us over on Tuesday and said she has a cool blow up pool with a slide, we of course, said YES!!!!! Wednesday, we went to the playground early in the morning! In the afternoon they were BORED to death as I had to get the oil changed in the car! It took FOREVER to change the oil in the car.....in the U.S. I remember waiting like 20 minutes tops.....but here it was like 2 hours.....at checkout when I was shocked when the guy said it would be $60 manat when I had already provided my own oil! I said I only have $40 and he said ok, that's fine! Really? LOL! whatever! 
And in other news.....while waiting over 2 hours for the car we went next door to the pet store called the ZOO here which I find quite funny since it is VERY small. We bought another Russian dwarf hamster. He is just a baby and was being bitten and hurt and Grace and I felt sorry for it! After the last one died Grace and Ty have been begging for another one anyway....sooo of course I had to say yes! He is super cute and Grace named him Mikey!
Last but not least, we went to a cool waterpark with some friends about 45 min away by the airport that was just perfect! It was about $20 to get in for me and the kids (7 and under) were free! Oh yeah! They had SOOO much fun!

See for yourself below:

 Kiddie pool at Amburan water park resort

 Our crazy new baby hamster climbing upside down in his cage!

 Barry's hot pepper plant! He loves this thing!

 These are Barry's other plants....tomato, mint, and several hot peppers.....

 Mommy and Daddy found chick peas and tahini here and made fresh hummus.......we all enjoyed it as a late afternoon snack last weekend....grace and mommy and daddy of course dipped fresh tomatoes, cucumber, and tomatoes (and broccoli) in it after washing in vodka of course! Ty dipped pretzels in his hummus since he won't eat vegetables....but hey hummus is good for him too! :)

 A selfie of mommy and gracie in the living room! Love my Girl!

 Grace and Ty by the slides at the water park at Amburan! The water at the bottom of the slide is over their head so they have to swim to the ladder to get out. Grace had no trouble with this at all. She just goes underwater and ends up at the ladder. Ty is so excited to get down the slide, he forgets how to swim, even though he knows how, and the lifeguard jumped in both times and brought him to the ladder!!! LOL yep I'm that mom watching that in action lol! sorry.....I don't know what else to do....clearly 3 years of swim lessons gets him able to swim in the pool area but not down an exciting slide!

 Cooling off in the backyard with squirt bottles!

 Pretending the playground is a castle!

 Grace and her friend chilling in the lounge chairs at Amburan! The biggest difference here than at home is that ALL the lounge chairs are THIS nice and covered! At home, I feel you have to "reserve" these type of lounge chairs!

 At a friend's house cooling off in some pools.

 Grace dumping water on herself!

 Grace on the monkey bars at the playground!

 These beautiful fountains are right next to the playground about 5 min from our house here!

 Grace and Ty....first time swimming in a pool since we left the states back in August.....LOVING is an understatement....the water!

 Grace with a sad face....she thinks she has a sunburn on her cheeks after swimming today!

 Grace posing by the fountains here at the playground.

 Grace on the slow yellow slide at Amburan!

 The group we went with to Amburan!

 Ty and his pretzels and homemade hummus and Grace and her veggies and homemade hummus!

 The new baby hamster....the kids named him Michael.

 Our older hamster.......Nibbles...enjoying some fresh broccoli....

 Nibbles enjoying some lettuce.

 Nibbles is so fat he fills up his food bowl when he sits in it.

 The new baby hamster.....

 Ty on the blow up slide at a friend's house.

 Ty and Grace at the fountain a the local playground.

 Grace and Ty at the fountain at the playground near our house.

 Ty lounging on the chair at Amburan.

 playground near our house

 ty on blow up pool at a friend's house

 Grace swimming at Amburan

 Ty swimming at Amburan!



Last Day of School as 1st graders (AKA P4)

I really don't know what to do! My babies are growing up way too fast! Their classes had a pizza party yesterday and Grace went overboard and had way too much! Needless to say she was quite sick to her stomach last night and we all were up all night. I let them sleep in and then we headed to school to say our goodbyes. Grace's teacher is actually from Canada and headed back to the states! He will be teaching very close to where Gma and Gpa Craft live and gave us his personal email and said he hopes to see us when we visit them next summer! Grace and him hugged goodbye a lot! We also hugged the Music teacher and the visual arts teacher here who really helped both Grace and Ty blossom in so many ways. 

So anyway we hugged their teachers goodbye then headed to the market to find some clothes and sandals and stuff for our upcoming vacation. We went with 2 other moms who happen to be blond and let me tell you something, Azerbaijanis love blond people for some reason and like to take pictures of them and often will NOT ask permission to do so. They will also touch their hair a lot. So they did at the market...to my friend's 2 year old blond son and to Grace as well.

After the market we wanted to celebrate the last day of school by taking the kids to a playground at Fountain square and McDonalds. We tried....and tried...and tried....but....it wasn't meant to be......there were a million and one road blocks due to the Baku games going on and it became an impossible task:( So we stopped at a store and got stuff for sandwiches and then went to the Embassy to eat and say hi to the "daddies". Then we got re-routed several times again on the way home and finally ended up finding a really cool playground by mistake! The kids were so happy and it ended up being much nicer than the playground near Fountain Square anyway! It had plenty of fountains as well as a nice breeze and was only 5 min from the house! So we let the kids play for over an hour. Finally after leaving the house at 10am we made it home around 4:30pm! I am wiped.....I think we will ALL sleep good tonight!

:)

Here are the pics! Enjoy!

 Grace and her teacher at Fountain Square during a field trip a week or two ago.

 Grace and her teacher's assistant Ms. Safura just before the Fountain Square field trip.

 Tyler and Ms. Clara during sports day.

Tyler and his teacher Mrs. Lucy. 

 Tyler and Grace back in September...their first day of first grade aka P4 in a taxi ride on the way to school.

 Tyler and Grace, first day of school back in September in the hallway before I dropped them off.

Tyler and Grace first day of school back in September. 

 Grace last day of school on the way to say goodbye to her teacher in mommy's car.

 Grace and Tyler last day of school before we went in to say goodbye.

Tyler mommy's car last day of school. 

 Grace at the market with the guy who made her and Jake sit next to him so his friend could take a picture of them mostly because they are blond and American. The other little boy with us is pictured in the left corner. They pulled him first as he is little and cute and blond.

 A cat that keeps visiting our backyard thinking we owe him food. We never give him any, I know we are mean, but I actually don't want him to keep coming back as Ty is allergic and he keeps sleeping on our patio set! :( I have no idea why he decided a flower pot was a good place to sleep anyway...

 The fountains at the playground we found near here today! The kids wanted to jump in SOOO bad as it was 93 today! I said NO WAY you are not getting in my car soaking wet!

 My little monkey Grace showing off her monkey bar skills at the playground.

 Grace at the playground.

More playground pics.

 Fun with the new family in the fountain near the playground. Thanks to this mom being in my car I didn't lose my cool after getting rerouted and lost SEVERAL times today!

 Grace and Ty posing by the fountain by the playground.

 Grace and the fountains!

The new family found a friend in their backyard this morning too! We found cats, they found turtles!