I am exhausted this week without Lance.

Yesterday, I got my residency finally. Yeah Yeah. Today, with the help of one of the guys at Lance's office, I got my driver's license. In order to get my driver's license we had to follow these steps:
1. Go to typing center and fill out emirates Id application
2. Go to Mussafah (30 minutes drive) to get Emirates ID picture and fingerprints
3. Get Texas driver's license legally translated into arabic (back to the city)
4. Go get Driver's license (half way back out of the city)

All of this was done today before noon with the help of a man named Leslie. I owe him. It would have taken me two days to find all of the places that we went today.

I am so glad all of that is over. Now I can drive my van. YES! The rental has been good to me, but I am glad to see it go. It was a good car to learn how to drive in Abu Dhabi. I will be honest, it is not exactly going back the way I received it. A few remnants of the tight parking garage are still on the front bumper. It was an honest mistake. We'll see the damages tomorrow.

I started working with Evelyn on writing her name yesterday, and she is doing very well. She can write the entire name as long as she can look at an example. She also colored some pictures for some friends in class and she wrote their names on the pictures. I was so proud of her. She was also able to read their names to me. For example, when I showed her the name Lucas, she could tell me that it said Lucas. I am so very proud of her.

My neighbors 4 doors down lost their entire backyard of grass to a black caterpillar. It only took 3 days the the whole thing was gone. Remember this is not a very big area. Still very disappointing. I noticed some brown spots in the yard this evening and found some caterpillars in the grass and climbing the walls.I immediately called my neighbors. They came over late tonight and sure enough the same worms. I have a call into the service company and hopefully they can come and spray before we loose the entire garden. I am so worried that we are going to loose all of our grass that we just put in.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT IN ABU DHABI: There are no child safety laws to my knowledge in regards to children in car seats. I have seen small toddlers sitting in the mother's lap in the front passenger seat of a car. It is not uncommon to see kids pressed against the back windows just bouncing around the back seat while going down the highway. Lance even saw some kids standing up with their heads sticking out of the sunroof going down the highway. This is absolutely crazy. Some companies, etc and trying to promote child safety. This week one of the local radio stations in conjunction with the police are stopping people and rewarding them for driving safely with 750 AED (about 200 US dollars)

Today was a good day. Mostly errands and such. I brought some coloring books from home to Evelyn's teacher so she could see exactly what Evelyn does at home without any distrations, etc.

All of this wonderful weather talk and "it feels like autumn" on facebook makes me straight up depressed. The weather here is getting better, but not like at home. Fall is my absolute favorite time because it means the end of hot weather and the beginning of the holidays soon. This is the time of year that I start my Christmas shopping. Well, the weather here is 70's in the morning and up to 90-l00 by the evening. The humidity is down. It is pleasant outside compared to last month. And I don't feel completely wet when I walk from my car to inside.

I don't know if I have explained before, but our villa is off of the main island. We have a hefty commute to make everyday for school and work. Now that all of the schools are in session and Ramadan is over, the traffic is in full swing. Lance has to leave by 7am to bring Evelyn to school at 8 before he goes to work. The traffic is terrible in the mornings to say the least. And Heaven for bid there is a wreck. Thank goodness Lance brings her to school in the morning and I only have to travel the distance once a day. Plus the traffic is much more pleasant in the evening and I can make it there in 45 minutes with time to spare. This commute is already wearing me out and we have been in our villa for almost a month. I just hope it gets more tolerable and I stop letting it stress me out. This week Lance is in Oman, so I am the morning and evening driver. There is a bus that comes to our compound that we could pay (yes this is an extra cost) if we wanted her to ride, but we think she is too young. I am afraid of her knowing when and were to get on and off the bus. I feel safer driving her.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT IN ABU DHABI: The currency here is called Durham (spelling?) or AED (Arab emirates Durham) as you may have seen me say before. 1 US dollar is equivalent to 3.67 AED. So we have to divide the AED amount by 3.67 to see what it costs in US dollars. For example 100 AED is about $27 US dollars. This is a constant rate, meaning it doesn't change and will never change as an agreement between the UAE and the US. Some people, like those from the UK have to deal with their currency from their home country changing according to the market. So if they went to the ATM and withdrawn 100 AED one day, and withdrew the same amount the next day; it would not be the same amount deducted from their account both days. This becomes a problem with people who are paid their salary in their home country. They have to watch the market and see when it is a good day to exchange.

We had a great weekend.

First, I have to comment on my rampage about Evelyn's teacher. I hoped to meet with her last thursday, but she was not able, so I met her today after school. We talked for about 1 1/2 hours. I now feel like I have a better understanding of what is going on in the classroom and how it is effecting Evelyn. Her teacher is trying to get Evelyn to be self motivated to learn new things. Evelyn will do the work, but she rushes through it so she can move on to the next thing like playing. But once Evelyn sees everyone elses work displayed and how well they did, Evelyn will want her's to be the same. Her teacher commented that Evelyn has improved since the first of the year and she could tell that we were working with her on the issues that arrise. I am still sceptical on the teaching style, but after speaking with her I think it could be really beneficial in Evelyn's case. As far as my thoughts on moving Evelyn to another class, I don't think it would be the best choice. This would only hurt Evelyn in the progress that she has made. It would be like starting all over again. Plus, what kind of message am i sending Evelyn when I move her to a teacher i like better. I think the best course of action is to keep a tight knit with the teacher and what is going on in the class. And try to work on things with Evelyn at home as well that I think need more attention. Next week, while Melinda and Dennnis are here, I am going to sit in one morning to observe the class while Emme and PaPa D watch Camille.

Now Lance and I could honestly say we had more social events this weekend than what we would have in a month at home......Thursday night we went to Dubai to a Nalco party. The girls stayed in Dubai with another Nalco family's two girls and two baby sitters. They did OK, Poopsy cried a bit which just kills me. The party was great, everyone there has just moved here in less than a year. Most of them more like this summer. They all live in Dubai, we are the only Nalco family in Abu Dhabi. And I must say, compared to the other wives, I am doing way better than they are. I don't know if they didn't have enough time to process everything, but they all look like they are in shock. It must be the roads in Dubai. I find it confusing to drive there, esp compaired to Abu Dhabi.
Friday was a quiet day at home and working on hanging picture, etc. Friday night, we had a housewarming party three doors down. Anna, our housekeeper, kept the girls. I put Camille to bed before we left and Evelyn and Anna watched movies. The girls did great. The party was fun as well. The couple is from Norway and most of their friends were as well. We met some really interesting people and had a great time. They were really great hosts and have done a lovely job setting up their house.

Saturday we were back off to Dubai to do some shopping. We didn't get to all of the places we wanted but did make some headway. The malls are so crowded on the weekend. It gets crazy.

Today I had my appoitment with a GP for my stomach. She was really really good. she doesn't think it is my gallbladder. Thank you God. She thinks I have some kind of stomach bug. She is going to run some tests just to make sure....bloodwork and ultrasound. She also put me on a bland diet and gave me a prescription for something like pepto.

I think of things often that I want to tell you about that are different and interesting here in Abu Dhabi. So I thought at the end of each blog I would put a few lines of Different Things In Abu Dhabi. The thoughts for today: did you know that the speed limit etc is not in miles/hour, but KM/Hour. The speed limit on the main highway between Abu Dhabi and Dubai is 100 KM/HR, which is about 70 miles per hour. Things are measured differently here, like instead of inches and feet they use cm and meters. So instead of a rug being a 5 X 7 it is 150cm X 240cm I think. The fruit, veggies, and meat are measured in Kilograms in the grocery store, so if I want to buy a pound of meat it would be 2.2 KG or I just say 2 kilos.

Well last night I woke up in my sleep with stomach cramps around my diaphragm region. I was dry heaving, sweating, chills, weak, etc. It put me to the ground in the fetal position. Over about an hour it let up and went away. The very same thing happened to me about a month ago. I thought I might had eaten something that upset my stomach. But it is funny how it happened twice now. I am beginning to wonder if it is my gallbladder. It is real common for women to develop gallbladder problems after they have babies. I am asking around to see about doctor recommendations and I am going to get it checked out. The rest of the day today I was tired and a little weak. I just hope I don't have another attack.

Well I think it was yesterday that I mentioned how Evelyn was monopolizing the "house" station in school. You can not imagine how it has been eating me up. Look, I am the first one to admit that my sweet little Evelyn is...well...you know...spoiled. And the good Lord above knows how hard I try to teach her the right things. We aren't all perfect right, but at least we try our best. It is so completely embarrassing to know that your child is causing problems. I was talking to Lance about the whole class situation and I have been making note about how things are run. Basically, Evelyn's teacher is running it like a Montessori program. The kids choose whatever they want to do. There is a definite lack of structure in this class. When I pick her up in the evenings, there are kids running all over the place and I have to hunt Evelyn down. Evelyn needs structure and boundaries; her teacher is not doing this. On top of it all, Evelyn has not brought home one thing since school has started to show what she is doing academically. No worksheets, etc. Oh, I take it back this week she brought home a small book that she made about the letter E. But that is it. If any of you know Evelyn you can understand that she needs to be in a structured environment.

Well as all of these thoughts are running through my head I meet another mom from Evelyn's class today. She has been completely outraged with the lack of teaching period in their class. As she said it, they are bored, and when they are bored they get bad. She (Violet) said her son comes home everyday talking about how other kids were bad. When I asked Evelyn today about what she did in class: do you sit at your tables and do worksheets or do you do whatever you want? Her reply- We do whatever we want to do mommy. Hum... Violet has been to the principle etc about this matter. Her son is academically advanced and is completely wasting his time in this class. The teacher sent out an email stating that she has evaluated each child and will divide them up into groups depending on their needs; then she will work with each group. Now how is she going to do that with 20 4 yr olds. And while she is with one group what are the others doing? Sounds like Montessori to me.

I called one of my friends tonight and her son is in other class in the same grade. They are doing way more than we are. She has worksheets that go home to work on writing his name. She even had a worksheet that went home over the Eid break to work on some pre writing. I haven't seen anything like that. Each class has pets as well and both of the other class rooms the kids take turns bringing home one of the pets (turtle, hamster). We don't do that. Our class bulletin board is supposed to have life size paper people for each child that they created. Out of the 20 we only have 3. The other class rooms have all kinds of things on their bulletin boards and you can clearly see that every child in their class did the projects. Not just the one's who wanted to do it.

I am pondering over what I should do about all of this. I don't want our time to be wasted. Plus I don't want Evelyn to have the wrong impression about what she does at school. I am afraid that she is not going to learn much as this rate and she will be in for a rude awakening next year. I definitely don't want to cause problems or burn bridges, so I have to handle this delicately. The first course of action is for Lance and I to have a conference with the teacher and try to better understand exactly what is going on in the class. I'll keep you posted.

Today was a good and preductive day. I love those kinds of days.

Now that I have my residency papers, the last step is a medical check. I guess to make sure I am not bringing any infectious diseases into their country. Well imagine a medical facility packed with middle easterns. Crazy crazy crazy. In this country money talks, esp for things like this. Instead of waiting in the lines, I paid extra money to have a "fast track". Basically that means I go to the front of the line while everyone else waits. It only cost 100 AED which is about $27 US. Thank goodness I paid, because I had Camille with me as well and she certainly would not have wanted to wait. I was through in no longer than 30 minutes..that is an exam (she asked me three questions), blood work, and a chest xray. Tomorrow I can pick up my results and send everything in to get my official residency stamp on my passport. So I hold an US passport, but on one of the pages it is completly dedicated to my UAE residency. The page has a picture of me and all of my residency info. Lance already went through this process and thank goodness the girls do not have to do a medical exam.

Well after my medical screening, I headed to the Marina mall for some shoptherapy. ha ha. One thing I don't think I have mentioned is that the grocery store is in the mall. Well the supermarket called Carrefour which is the French version of Walmart. Too funny, we live in the UAE, the supermarket if from France so all of the labels are in French. The UAE has added an additional sticker on items explaining what the item is in arabic and english. So you can basically get everything and anything at the mall...the appliance store, furniture store, grocery store, restaurants, clothes of course, you can pay your utility bill, phone bill, hardware store, etc. It is too hot and crowded to have seperate stores so they put them all together in a mall. That is why Abu Dhabi has like 8+ malls on this small island. Island? Yes, Abu dhabi is an island.

Another interesting thing here is you have to pay for you buggy (trolly as they would call it)at the grocery store. All of the buggies are connected together by chain and you have to put a coin into your buggy and it will release the chain. When you return the buggy after your shopping you get the coin back. Most of the time there is a guy hanging around the parking lot that will gladly take your buggy back for you because he wants your coin (about a quarters worth). Poor things, I gladly let them take my buggy, that durhaim means more to them than it does to me. Plus who wants to walk their buggy back in the heat?

I am back

Thank you God..We finally have internet as of today. I can finally get back in touch with everyone. We have missed skyping with everyone and writing on this blog of course.

So much has happened over the past 2+ weeks. We are moved into our house now. All of the shipments have arrived and all of the boxes are unpacked. We are in decorating mode now...hanging curtians, pictures, etc. One major problem that we have run into is closet space. Or the lack of. We are shifting things and trying to make the lack of storage space work. The girls are both sleeping wonderfully in their rooms. I can tell it made them feel like home once their things arrived. You wouldn't believe how well they play with their toys after not seeing them for 2+ months. The dogs are adjusting well. Esp since we put the grass in the back yard. Ruffles could not stand to walk in the sand.

Now to hit the hilights of the past few weeks:

The first night we stayed in our house the Emirate family next door had their maid bring over a tray with a pitcher of arabic coffee with two cups. Too cool. Lance and I loved it. The arabic coffee tastes like a cross between tea and coffee. The following weekend was Eid (the end of Ramadan) which is like Christmas for the muslims. The Emirate family next door sent us a tray as well that weekend with a bowl of fruit, dates, and arabic sweets. Too nice. But the hilight of that weekend was the 2010 Lamborgini infront of thier house. The 23 year old son said he bought it, but after the weekend the car was gone. Evidently he rented it for the weekend for show. Well Eid is the time for giving to the children. They don't give presents just money and the kids go buy whatever they want with the money. The son gave Evelyn 1,000 AED which is about $270 US for Eid. We could not believe it. We are going to use the money for something to play on in the backyard for the girls. Needless to say the Emirate neighbors are really nice and we are glad to get to know them.

Speaking of neighbors, we have so many lovely people living around us. We have people from Norway, Spain, France, South Africa, US, UK, etc. all in our one block of our compound. We have gotten to know them very quickly and are actually attending a party with them this weekend. The Norwegans are having a house warming party.

Lance got his car and loves it. My van arrived at the port last week and by the end of the week we got it and had it registered to Abu Dhabi. It was a very stressful week trying to get that done. The day we went to pick it up at the port in Dubai was one for the books. Lance and I got lost several times. When we finially got to the van the battery was dead. If it could have gone wrong it did. Well my van looks great parked infront of the house, but I can not drive it yet. I just got my residency today and now can work to get my driver's license. You see, I can not drive a privately owned car with a foreign driver's license. I can drive a rental though. Maybe by the end of this week I will be set and can drive my car. I did not realize how much I missed it. We were all so excitted to see the van.

Maintenance issues with the house are still ongoing. We have to date lost water 3 times since we moved in. The service was very prompt and fixed it with in an hour all three times. Electrical issues arrise every now and them, but all in all things are getting ironed out.

Evelyn is loving school, but having some problems including all of her friends. Her and another girl named Anna take over the "house" station and don't allow any other kids play there. Needless to say we are working on feelings and how the things we do make others feel. She is coming around and her teacher told me she is getting better about sharing.

Camille is walking all over the place. She gives kisses all the time. She still sleeps with her pappy, but as soon as we get her up from her bed, she takes it out of her mouth and throws it into her bed. Too cute. She also feeds herself with a fork if we load it for her. She is saying a little more...like baba for baby and making animal sounds. Her hair is getting longer and she is thinning out sice she started walking. The funniest thing is some clothes that were in her closet in Katy do not fit her now. Same for Evelyn.

Well keep checking cause I have a lot to get you caught up on. I have to say it again, I am so glad that I have internet.

I forgot to mention something very funny yesterday...When I was out getting lunch, Lance walked into our guest room and found the Pakistani truck driver taking a nap on the floor. I assume he is Muslim and was fasting during the day, which means he is up all night eating, which means he probably sleeps all day. Too funny..

I will say this the packers on this end were way better and way more careful with our stuff than on the US end. They took very good care of our things today while they unpacked everything. All of the furniture is put together and all of the boxes are emptied. Everything that was in boxes is layed out on surfaces. All we have to do now is find homes for everything. Only one thing got broken out of the entire 40 foot container and 273 boxes...a small green pitcher that I bought for our new home in AD. I was the one that packed that box, so it was completely my fault. But that wasn't the drama of the day. As we were unpacking all of the kitchen stuff, I put dishes, cups, etc. in the dishwasher to wash. After the guys finished and were outside putting the empty boxes in the truck, I realized I was missing all of my dinner plates and some of my bowls. 12 plates and 7 bowls to be exact. They started going through all the boxes to make sure we did not mistakenly not unpack those things. All of the boxes did arrive and were all accounted for...you see as each item or box left the container one guy was marking off the corresponding number to it's sticker on the roster. The only solution to this problem is the idiots on Katy put my dishes in the storage container. So all 12 of my dinner plates must be safe in a warehouse in Houston. We later discovered that Evelyn's shaggy rug must have been placed in storage as well. The Indians here understand English better than the Mexicans over there. IDIOTS!!!!! I was about the blow my gasket... So now I have a lovely partial Mikasa dinner set.

Oh everyone can imagine this...Lance began to put the TV and DVD player together this morning. While he was doing this the guys started on Evelyn's bed. Her bed is so old it doesn't fit today's standard mattress, so we have to extend it with 2X4s and screw it all together. We do not have a drill and neither did the workers so I left to go to the store to get the appropriate tools to assemble the bed. Lance still working on the TV. I returned from the store. Lance still working on the TV. The bed is assembled. Lance still working on the TV. The movers finished their job. Still no TV!! LOL.... Well there is always tomorrow. I think Lance called the cable guy to come and give him a hand. Finger's crossed.

We went to the school tonight for a newcomer's dinner. We had a lovely time. We didn't meet anyone new, but did talk with everyone we already knew. ACS has so many activities for the kids and the community. We are so excited to be at this school.

After the dinner at school, we stopped by the BMW place to take a looksy at Lance's new car. It is a sweet ride as he would say. I am so excited for him. He definitely deserves to drive whatever he wants. We are supposed to get it sometime during the first part of next week.

Saturday is our last day in the Hilton Baynunah. This place has been good to us. Housekeeping everyday...room service if needed. Well, I may loose internet connection for a while because we don't have it set up in our villa yet and it could take a while. Nothing happens fast here. Just stay tuned and I'll get back just as soon as I can.

Tomorrow starts the weekend and we will be at our house all weekend getting things settled. Hugs and Kisses to you all!!!

Last night while Lance was walking the dogs in the park, Fraiser ran into a bush after cats. He ended up getting B***H slapped by a cat. He ended up with a small scrape above his left eye and a cut on his left ear. Ruffles just crouched down into a ball and cried like a baby. The stay cats here don't back down like the ones at home. The fight back and do not run away. I don't think he learned his lesson...my guess is he would do it all over again.

Our 40 foot container of our belongings showed up today. The group of Indians (about 8 of them) emptied the truck in just a couple of hours. They even began unwrapping some of the furniture before the day was over with. All of our living room furniture and master bedroom furniture is put together. My only complaint is the workers stink. Don't they know how to use deoderate? I bought them lunch, which is a difficutly thing to do because of Ramadan. Nothing take out is open. I had to go to the grocery store and get some things from the deli. They ate is all, so I guess they liked it. Before our truck arrived the workers were their waiting and I spoke with them for a while. Only one of them has a child, 8 year old son, he only gets to see him every 2 years for 2 months at a time. Can you imagine that? So sad. That is the price some of the workers have to pay here. They think it is all worth it because they are making a great living compaired to what they would make in their own country. So sad.

We are excitted to see our things after 2 months. Evelyn especially was excitted to get her pony stuff. Tomorrow the workers will come back and finish emptying all of the boxes and putting all of the furniture together.

Lance has a company Iftar to go to tonight in Dubai so it is just the girls and I for supper. I decided to give myself a break and order room service. I plan to take it easy tonight and rest up for another day of unpacking tomorrow.