Ethan's third birthday, my first gig

Ethan opening his presents

We all got up at 6.30am so that Kira and Isaiah could see Ethan open his presents before Kira and Isaiah went to school. 

Ethan's new scooter

A few days earlier, a friend of mine, Mohammed, had been visiting and noticed my guitar standing in the corner so asked me to play a song. He loved the song and videoed me with his phone. I later learnt that he had sent the video to lots of friends who were amazed and wanted to hear more. He asked if he could organise an event where I would play for his friends in a cafe. I said 'maybe', but he went ahead and organised it anyway! He arranged the event for the same day as Ethan's birthday so, while Kira and Isaiah were out at school, I was practising my songs, since I wanted to sing in Arabic.

Ethan's party

 

Pass the parcel 

Ethan doesn't really have any local friends of his age yet, since he hasn't started school and none of our friends have kids his age. We invited a few of our friends with kids of different ages to come to a party for him and they had a lot of fun playing various games and eating the amazing birthday cake which Kate made. I had to leave just before the end to go to the cafe where I was supposed to play guitar and sing.

Playing at the cafe

Mohammed brought about 20 of his friends and I enjoyed meeting them all. He had not made any prior arrangements with the cafe owner who had already lined up an act for the evening so he only wanted me to do one song. Mohammed's friends loved the song and they're all keen to learn the guitar in the future as well as English, so I joined their group on Facebook to keep in touch with them about this possibility in the future.