Weekend Report

We had a great weekend following a great Thanksgiving. Friday we went to church, or at least most of church. We ran into my friend Kim outside and chatted for a while, so we missed a little bit of mass. After mass we headed to the Abu Dhabi Gold Club and had lunch at the club house outside overlooking the course. It was really nice, but the service was terrible. They were hosting a craft bazaar at the golf course, so after we ate, we walked around to see some local crafts. Really neat stuff and we even picked up a few Christmas gifts. Then we headed to the Exhibition Center for the Date Palm Festival. We really enjoyed that. The set up date palms for people to climb...very interesting. They also had areas with women doing local crafts like basket weaving and hena (temporary tatoos on hands). We had a great day. We got home in time to eat leftover turkey for dinner and enjoy a family bike ride throughout the compound. Saturday, we hung around the house mostely. We are having a lots of problems with our water and we lost water for the 4th time this week on Saturday. So we were watching the guys yet again pump out the water from the pump house because it flooded, etc etc. My backyard AKA garden is currently sporting a big hole due to the service company trying to prevent this problem from happening. Well since they started working, it has gotten worse. We ate out for dinner Saturday night at the golf club next door to our compound. It was my first time to go there and I was really impressed. Plus, they have all you can eat sushi on Monday nights. Yum. I can see ourselves going there a lot. Well that is about all that happened over the weekend and now we are starting our week. This weeks agenda: plan Evelyn's class Christmas party and Christmas shopping.

19 days until we come home!!!

WHAT IS DIFFERENT IN ABU DHABI: National Day is this week here in the UAE. It is the day that they celebrate the birth of this contry. This year is their 39th anniversary. They have fresh flowers planted everywhere and lots of lights for the event. They are going to have a big military parade up the island and a huge firework show over the corniche.

Thanksgiving 2010

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I would first like to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. We are so thankful for all of our blessings. We are especially thankful for all of our family and friends. We feel like we are the luckiest family to have so many people who love and care about us. Thanks so much to all of you who have supported us this year with our big move. We could not have survived it without all of your love, support, and prayers. I have to thank God as well for all of my blessing he has given me: a wonderful husband and two precious little girls. God is good.

We had a great Thanksgiving. The girls and I worked today to prepare our mini Thanksgiving Feast and Lance worked. He was not planning on going to work today, but there were some last minute things that came up and he was needed. All is well, I did not see why he needed to take the day off on our account, we spent the evening together eatting and hanging out as a family. I have to give myself a pat on the back over my menu. Lance does not like most of the traditional Thanksgiving food, but I tried to stick to the usuals. I had roasted turkey breast and gravy, mashed potatoes, rice dressing, green bean casserole, rolls, and dessert: bread pudding. It all turned out really well. Everyone liked the dinner as well. As you can see in the pictures, we taste tested the bread pudding before dinner and ate almost half the dish. Lance loves bread pudding.

While the girls and I were waiting for Lance to get home we watched Julie and Julia. That move is so cute and I really liked it. If you have not seen it you need to. I could relate the Julie because it is a story about her writing a blog. Really cute. But I was super super excitted to see that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade come on TV here. I just could not believe it. In fact I told several people about thanksgiving and how we always watch that parade in the morning. The girls were loving the parade and were dancing and Camille was screming at the TV.

I do miss seeing you all today, but I am not depressed because we will be home in 3 weeks from tomorrow. Wow that is coming up quick. I do miss reading the huge sales ads today though. It was always fun to see the amazing sales that were going to happen on Black Friday. Well I guess I can check them out on line.

After we ate supper and skyped some of you, we started putting our Christmas decorations up. We have a small tree compared to my four that I had in Katy. We only brought 2 containers of decorations and left 20 boxes behind in storage. I brought tree ortaments, stocking, nativity scene, and my dad's letter he wrote to santa when he was 10. I have to admit I am releaved that I don't have to do all of that decorating this year. I used to spent one or two weekends putting everything together inside and out for the holidays. Although, I really love to decorate and to look at the results, I am excitted to not have all of that work to do. Just relax and enjoy the holiday. The girls were so cute in helping with the tree. We did have a few ortaments get broken. Camille mistaked a ball ortament for a real ball and she threw it on the ground like it was going to bounce. That was the first casulty of the night and 3 more followed. We ooooud and aaaud at all of the ortaments and talked about everyone and how pretty they were. It was just so cute how the girls got so excitted.

We had a great Thanksgiving and we hope you did too.

The past weekend was really plesent. We got up, got ready and went to church Friday morning, but when we arrived we found out that they were not having that mass on that day. The next mass was an hour later and was in Philipino language. I guess we got an A for effert. We then headed to Dubai to go check out the Dubai Garden Center. We stopped at a small mall for lunch and ended up staying there all day. We didn't make it to the garden center, but I did buy my Christmas tree. Yeah, we will be putting it up later this week. Saturday we relaxed at home. I pulled out all of the girl's winter clothes and washed them. It took me two days to get them all clean. So today I cleaned Camille's closet and took out all of the clothes she out grew etc etc.

There are a lot of kids Evelyn's age in the hood and now that the weather is nice they are all playing in the street in the evening. This is so great. I am so glad that Evelyn has made so many friends and they all can play together. I am liking were we chose to live more and more each day. I think I am even getting used to the drive into the city.

We are so excitted to come in for the holidays and we are counting down the days until we come...24 from today.

We don't have any big plans for Thanksgiving. I am going to cook a small feast for us on the big turkey day. Also this week, Abu Dhabi is having a Date Palm Festival that I plan to go check out as well as another craft Bazaar on Friday. Well that is what is going on over here pretty much.

I would like to request all of my friends and family to please pray for Lance's grandfather AKA: Grumps. He had open heart surgery 2 weeks ago and last week had a set back that sent him back to surgery as well as ICU. We are thinking about him and our family every day. He is doing better now, and we hope that every day gets better and better for him. We love you Grumps.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT IN ABU DHABI: Last week I bought some pants at a store that were a little too long. No problem they said, they have a seamstress that can take them up for you. Apparently this is a common thing, when you go to a store if the clothes don't fit right, they can alter them for you. Talk about service.

The girls

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Here are just some random pictures of the girls over the last week. We have had a great time this week. Evelyn was out of school for the Eid Holiday and Lance had most of the week off. One thing you would all like to know is that we made our flight reservations for the holiday break. We will arrive in Houston on Friday, December 17th. We will be in for over two weeks and hope to visit and see all of you during that time. We miss everyone and can not wait to see you.

Following this post I made several posts today. The last one is the Formula One post. If you do not reach that one, click the "older posts" button on the bottom right and it will bring up more. Hope you enjoy.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT IN ABU DHABI: It is true that the local people are very family oriented and they enjoy the simple things, like spending time together. That is one of the main things that Eid is all about, seeing as many people as you can...as one of Lance's co-workers explained to me. Well now the temperature is pleasent outside. Only down to the 60's. In the evenings now in any park or grassy area families and friends will join and BBQ. It is a real strange sight for us to see people sitting on lawn chairs along side of the road in a circle eatting and visiting. But they don't care were they are, they just care that they are together. That is kind of how we feel about us living here, so far away from home. We don't care really were we are, as long as we are together. That is what makes me the happiest anyways, being with my husband and two precious girls. Living here and experiencing everyday with them is undescribable!

We've gone coocoo for CoCo Puffs

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This past week since Evelyn was out of school, we volunteered to take the class guinea pig, CoCo Puffs, home and take care of her. We have absolutely loved having her and the girls have really enjoyed her. Well, Evelyn has enjoyed her, Camille is not too sure about her. Evelyn gets to take her out of her cage once a day and let CoCo Puffs roam around in her room. The door is closed ofcourse or Ruffles and Fraizer would have CoCo Puffs for lunch. The guinea pig is soo sweet and never bites. She is pretty easy to take care of as well. This was a good experience for us because Evelyn wants to buy a small pet with her Christmas money after we get back. (This will give her something to look forward to when we get back) At first she thought she wanted fish, then maybe a guinea pig, but now she wants something smaller than a guinea pig. Perhaps hampsters. We looked at some at a pet store this week and I told her she would not be able to take them out of the cage like CoCo because they may get lost (they are very active) but she really like them and loves how they run on a wheel and climb through a tunnel. Well CoCo Puff has been a delight and she will return back to the classroom on Sunday.

Evelyn Grocery Shopping

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I usually grocery shop on sundays when Evelyn is at school. Same routine as when we were home, just Sunday instead of Monday. Well the past two Sundays Evelyn was off from school. I decided to use this time as a opportunity for learning and something to keep her interest while we are shopping. She looked through a book at home and made her shopping list. She copied the words by the pictures of the things she needed to get at the store. Then we loaded up her grocery cart and headed to Carrefour. She pushed it all through the store along side me and got all of the things on her list. We had a great time doing this and Evelyn felt empowered because she could do it as well. I am really proud of her.

Al Ain

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So all this week Evelyn was off of school and Lance had most of the week off as well due to the Eid Holiday. We hung around the house mostly and relaxed, but on Wednesday we decided to make a day trip to Al Ain. It is about 1 1/2 hour drive from our house. A good analogy would be Al Ain is to Abu Dhabi and Beaumont is to Houston. Al Ain hold a special place in the hearts of the local people because it is the birth place of Sheik Zayed, the father of the UAE and the man who had vision for the future of the UAE. We found Al Ain to be suprisingly beautiful. Every street was lined with trees and folage. Every round about of intersection had a fountain of statue. The street lights were black rod iron like New Orleans. Also, alone the side of the city is a mountain, Jebel Hafeet, whick you can drive a windy road up it and there is a hotel on top. We picked a great place to visit, but we pick the wrong time to go. Because it was Eid, everyone was off and everyone was vacationing. Al Ain also has a zoo that is associated with the San Diego Zoo and that was our first stop. The zoo was suprisingly pretty good. Not all of the animals you would see at Houston, but nicely layed out. The only problem was the crowdedness. I didn't now if the stinch was coming from the animals of the people around us. Ewwww. I did get aggrivated twice when adult would move infront of my girls to see an animal when we were patiently waiting our turn. The girls had a really good time and we even ate snow cones. After we left the zoo, we headed to drive up the mountain. It was perfect timing just before sunset. Well so did everyone else, the traffic line was rediculously too long and we would never have made it up the mountain. We decided to come back another time to drive up the moutain. We then headed to the Al Ain Mall because there were several signs around town advertising a circus act at the mall. We saw a clown act while we ate our supper (Pizza Hut). Then we had some delicious ice cream at this old timey looking ice cream parlor. The girls loved it. By this time it was dark and we headed back home. We had a great time in Al Ain and we will be back.