Outrageous Outings

Ken and I haven't been able to go out alone too many times, but the dates we HAVE had have been a lot of fun. One Saturday morning, a friend from church called us and offered to watch our kids for 4 hours if we wanted to go out. We JUMPED at the chance (literally, I jumped out of bed. It was early and I was just that excited) and in 15 minutes, we were kid-less, with a city full of opportunities opened to us. We decided to go kayaking. (P.S. This woman is a saint. She gave us our first chance to go out in the 2 months since we had moved here, and I will forever thank her for that. Her timing was amazing :)

Near our house are some protected mangroves. There's all kinds of little channels that open up or disappear due to the tide. It was an absolutely perfect morning. Even though we were still in the city, you couldn't hear any noise. We only saw a few other people during our time out on the water.

Any time Ken got tired paddling, I took up the slack. Or maybe, it was the other way around ... 

When we got to one of the little islands, we got out and saw the ocean floor CRAWLING with hermit crabs. It looked like the ground was alive. You can't really tell in the picture, but it was pretty neat. 

We opted to go down this exciting path, in hopes of finding a previously undiscovered treasure trove. 

Instead, we discovered this tree!

 These birds were all over the place, probably annoyed with us for disrupting their fishing. Judging by the schools of thousands and thousands of fish, I'd say they eat pretty well!

Our next date night was to the Formula 1 Racetrack to see some of the qualifying races for the world Grand Prix. Talk about something new and exciting. Here you can see the expensive yachts lined up to watch the race in style. We didn't want to be just like everyone else, so we left our yacht in the garage and watched it from our box seats :)

All of my previous experience with races and racecars came from watching the movie Cars with Tyler 58 times when he was about 3 years old, so there were a couple things I didn't know... Like the noise the race cars make is absolutely DEAFENING! Covering your ears wasn't even enough. We watched a lot of it from inside the box. 

Plus, they had some pretty sweet food there too, another reason to watch from inside!

Artistic haze is due to us forgetting once again to leave the camera outside to adjust to the humidity.

Afterwards, there was a concert, and we figured we would stay for it. It was by a group called Muse, that neither of us really knew ( I was really bummed we had missed the concert from the night before, which was Amr Diab. My days in Egypt will forever be remembered to a soundtrack sung by him).

Hurriedly trying to drink our water before getting in line for the concert. The place was worse than the airport, but at least we got to keep on our shoes :)

Waiting. And waiting and waiting...

This concert led us to a startling revelation: we're getting OLD. After an hour and a half of waiting for the concert, inhaling smoke and watching people get drunk, we realized that (a) we were tired, (b) we just really weren't into their music, and (c) we just wanted to go home. So THIS is what it is like to get old! Really, it's not so bad. Excuse me a minute while I go downstairs to get a glass of warm milk from the microwave and put on my slippers:)

A couple weekends ago we went to the Marine Ball. They took a couple pictures there, but gave us hard copies and my scanner isn't working right so here are the pictures the babysitter took of us, as well as friends at the ball. Here's my date - handsome and funny!

This is where the ball was. Yep, pretty nice.

Hmm - really, just a bunch of pictures of us. PROOF, that we don't live in flip flops, shorts, and tee shirts all the time :)

I was too embarrassed to take out the camera to document all of the dinner dishes (I felt kind of like country mouse visiting the city...), but no one was getting dessert yet so I slipped a couple pictures.

Waiting for our taxi, with the Grand Mosque in the background.

A.D. Anecdotes 2

Life around here continues pretty much the same as usual. Highlights from this week include some of the following: 

In what shape do YOU eat your toast? 

After getting Will another piece of toast because he declared he was starving to death, I came into the dining room and found said piece of toast, artistically arranged. I guessed it was a dog, but he informed me it was a tank. Go figure. He then graciously offered to let me finish it.

What do you do after using a piece of tissue? 

Silly me, I thought you threw it away. I apparently forgot to inform one or more of my children, and kept finding used tissues carefully wadded up and stuffed back into the box. Lovely. Don't worry, it is now safe to use tissues at our house again! After talking with my two middle children, the incident hasn't been repeated since.

What do you do when you find a crown? 

Play king and queen of course. Until the queen decides she doesn't want a king anymore and wants you to be the doggy. Which leads to...

What do you do with a couple bored children and the terrible knowledge that your husband is gone for the week and wont be there to save help you at the end of the day? You go find a new park. Success! Everyone was happier.

What do you do when what you think is fog is really sand?

Run for the car and keep those windows up!

What do you do when your awesome aunt comes to visit and save your mom from insanity?

Have an early surprise birthday party! And use a scented candle because you realize at the last minute there isn't a birthday candle to be found anywhere in the house.

What do you do when it RAINS in Abu Dhabi??!?

Apparently, it is just like Northern Virginia when there is even a threat of snow.  

And I love it. They cancelled school partway through the day, and after it rained gently for a little while, the kids went out and put the puddles to good use! (to be fair, I heard that it really doesn't ever rain like this here, and they did tell us they thought a big storm was going to hit)

Owen LOVES this little pink trike. It's of no concern to him that it actually belongs to our neighbor, Nora, and he'll sneak into their garage to grab it every time we go out. Which is fine until Nora decides she wants her trike back!

Weekly War

Grocery shopping. Already exciting due to the fact that I am in another country, and can't always find the things I want, especially not all at one store. These shopping trips become infinitely more "exciting" when I bring my three little helpers along. Look at these sweet faces - they couldn't possibly cause any problems, right?

Wrong.

Let me tell you a story. Sunday morning. Grocery shopping time. I can do this, no big deal. Owen takes his morning nap; we all get ready, and when he wakes up, has a bottle, and gets changed, we load everyone into the car. Still on schedule. Check. Get to the mall. Yeah, we make a wrong turn somewhere, but it only costs us 3 extra minutes and some minor heart palpitations, no problem. Find the perfect parking spot in the underground parking garage, where parking spots are so small they are most likely all made for minis, not SUVs. We make it inside the mall, and as we're waiting for the elevator, I have this realization: I think I left my wallet at home...

 Frantically digging through my purse confirms this. The elevator finally arrives, and now I have to think: what to do? Drive home 15 min to get it, then 15 min back and risk the wrath of the kids? Our deadline is lunch time - these kids are serious about their food. Set them out begging in front of the supermarket in hopes we see someone we know or collect enough handouts? I opt for choice number one, since I am bound and determined to get this done while Ken is at work, so we don't use up his free time grocery shopping. Back to the mall. No wrong turns this time. Perfect parking spot is gone, but I find one farther away that isn't too bad. At the store, grocery cart for me, small cart for Will, Hailey and Owen occupying all usable space in the cart. Ready to rock.

Because all four wheels on the shopping carts here swivel, the carts will steer in any direction, except straight. You have to throw all your body weight behind it and try to wish it in the direction you want, and inevitably, it goes the opposite direction, most likely into some poor other shopper. Baby food aisle first. Owen manages to swipe out, and knock a glass container off the shelf. I catch it. Mom wins!

 I get about 5 items into my cart, when Will starts doing a mad potty dance, hopping up and down and letting everyone around me know that he has to go RIGHT now. Of course I had him go twice before we left the house, but that wasn't enough. So we leave the carts in a corner, beg the worker NOT to put our stuff away, and with a baby on the hip and holding Hailey's hand, I race after Will, searching for the closest bathroom. 

By this time, Will is frantic. So we're all in this tiny bathroom, and I'm threatening everyone with death if they touch the floors or walls, when a cockroach crawls out of the toilet. Will starts yelling and refusing to use that toilet, and I'm trying to convince him that it is probably gone (we can't see it anymore...), but he doesn't make it. So here I am, trying to clean things up one handed and not let Owen grab anything hazardous. Okay, deep breaths. I know this is one of those "testing" moments, where I show what kind of mom I really am. Must not loose my temper. 

Back at the store. One of my carts has, of course, been put away. We start over. Now Owen is getting cranky, but we are going to make it. Then, Will starts jumping again. I tell him its all in his head, but soon, it becomes fairly obvious that Will has to use the bathroom, yet again. I'm afraid it was not a sterling mother moment for me. Another bathroom trip. We come back, and now I have 3 criers. EVERYONE is staring. Somehow, we make it. Just barely. I cram groceries in every usable cranny of our car, then race home hoping against hope to make it back before everyone falls asleep in the car. I am not successful. They all wake up when we pull into the garage, and start demanding different things, i.e. lunch, milk, a new mom. I rank the trip as the worst shopping experience EVER. One of those times you loose the battle, but win the war - hey, we have a weeks worth of food now.

To be fair, you could probably find me having the same experience in my local Giant any given weekday in Virginia (minus the roach). It comes with taking little people shopping. And they really do want to help. Will and Tyler think taking the vegetables and fruit to be weighed and stickered is the coolest thing ever. I noticed that even though there was a line about 30 people long, Will was zipping back and forth to me with his bags. When I stopped and paid attention, I saw his strategy was simple: walk up to the front of the line, smile at the woman weighing the produce, and voila, she takes his before everyone else's. Those are the kind of things you can get away with when you are cute :) And a wonderfully kind friend who has one baby has even come with me and taken one of the kids, so that we each do our shopping with two kids. What a champ - I don't think I was that put together when I had one! 

The purpose of this story is not to make you feel bad for me. I love having my kids around. Hopefully it makes you laugh, and gives you something to remember when you think your kids are being little pills. I can laugh about it now. Ken sure thought it was hysterical - he could barely stop laughing when I recounted, in great detail, my shopping experience. Sometimes he gets more than he bargained for when he asks that innocent question "How was your day?" So, happy Thursday! I can't wait for the weekend :)