Colin, Kelsey, Aberly, and Emalyn Price: Fall nostalgia

While Fall has started back home, we are still sitting here in the mid to upper 90's weather during the day and full sun on our back. I was joking yesterday with a co-worker that Fall here in Oman simply means humidity is less than 50"%, there are bluer skies, and slightly "cooler" evenings (ie. upper 80's).

But the idea of Fall is still around, with many of us expats putting Fall scented candles in our homes and other decor items we might have.

I have accented our house with some orange candles, fall colored fake flowers, and a twig garland.

Exhibit A

We find Fall where we can and enjoy it the best we can.

A place I found fall last week was during my weekly shopping trip.

Due to the larger and larger expat population here in Muscat, the stores have increased the various items us Westerners like to have. Canned yams, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin are usually on the shelves most of the year. Luckily squash is very common here for cooking, so we can find various types to enjoy.

Actual jack-o-lantern pumpkins do come in right around Halloween, but it's ridiculous how much money they cost. We have not purchased said pumpkins.

The girls got dressed up the other day together. Aberly has been talking about Halloween since September 1st. She cannot wait. Em was pretty jazzed about the experience.

Anyways, my surprise last week at the store was bags of shelled nuts. They had individual bags of shelled almonds and hazelnuts (noted from Oregon, nice!), but they also had bags of mixed nuts (Brazil, Walnuts, Pecan, Almond and Hazelnuts). Memories of my childhood came swarming in as I stood at the display. My mom would always buy mixed shelled nuts in the fall and put them in a wood bowl in the living room. We would work hard as kids to crack the nuts and pick out their innards with the special picks.

Nostalgia got the best of me and I spent about $12 on two bags of mixed nuts and a nut cracker from the utensil aisle.

But it was worth it. I got the nuts out at home and the girls had so much fun. Izzy, our neighbor, was over, and she and Aberly loved guessing what kind of nuts they were and put in a lot of effort to get them out of the shells after Colin's demonstration. Emalyn tried to eat them in the shell but quickly realized that wasn't going to work. She resorted to moving them from bowl to bowl.