Sunny Smiles

There is just something super exciting about when a baby starts smiling at you. And there's that desire to get a picture of it - first, I get a bunch that look like this: ("why are you pointing that thing at my face again?")

or this: (sneaky sneezes - you never see them coming!)

But then, I catch this

Or this :)

And suddenly, he's smiling every time I turn around!

Of course, if the baby is doing it, then you'd better believe this guy wants in on the action as well! Whether it is a strained "cheese!"

or a full on belly laugh

Owen wants to be right there :)

In fact, it is kind of hard to get a picture of Colby alone if anyone else is awake - I just pull out the camera, and everyone has this sudden urge  to be smiling, right there next to him, as close as possible. I'm sure he feels the love :)

These are the moments I want to remember.

And when all that picture taking gets to be too tiring, there's usually a big brother around to snuggle you and sing songs until you go to sleep.

Thanksgiving

What happens when your parents decide to host Thanksgiving dinner? You get banished to the great outdoors. After a lot of trampoline jumping and running around, the kids (lead by their fearless leader, Tyler) raided their piggie banks and announced a foray to the nearby Swiss mart. Tyler announced that this was his opportunity to show how responsible he was by taking all the kids (minus Colby) to the store ALONE. Ken agreed, and I pretended to agree, so they hopped on their bikes (with Tyler pushing Owen on a bike) and set off. I'm pretty sure everyone in the compound knows where our kids belong, and before long, I could hear what sounded like a small stampede headed in our direction, with one of the gardeners running alongside, giving Hailey a boost on her bike. They proudly showed me their purchases, and Tyler had even convinced them to all go in on one for Owen.

 This Thanksgiving I was grateful for my kids, and for the fun new friends we have here in Abu Dhabi! And for a husband who always goes along with my schemes, no matter how crazy they may be :) At 10 pm I realized I didn't have a single picture of Colby on his first Thanksgiving, so I snapped one quick, and even got a half smile!

Camping Comedies Part 2

So we made it home around 4 pm from Liwa - sandy, happy and hungry. Our neighbors invited us over for a fantastically yummy steak BBQ to celebrate our return to civilization (I know it was only one night, but it felt like a lot longer :) We left our stinky campfire bags and ginormous piles of dirty clothes in the front entryway, too tired to think of laundry - I'd get to it tomorrow, I promised myself. That night, the power went out. And stayed out. Things like this aren't totally uncommon, so the next morning we called maintenance. Somewhere around 5 pm, it became obvious the problem wasn't going to be resolved quickly.

So, we packed up an overnight bag with clothes and school assignments for the next day, and took off to the hotel Ken's office was gracious enough to put us up in. At first, the thrill of adventure was overwhelming - dinner was on them! TV at the hotel! I tell you what, that thrill lasted approximately 5.2 minutes into dinner. Taking the 5 kids out to a restaurant is not something we've perfected yet… Still, we tried to keep an upbeat attitude.

Night 1: Italian food

Lemon with mint - my favorite!

Testing out the hotel lobby chairs. We told the kids this would be a new kind of camping, just with actual bathrooms and beds. They were all over it, especially when Tyler discovered there were sports on the TV.

It must be nice to be a kid sometimes - everything is a new and exciting adventure! And people let you climb and ride on things they wouldn't otherwise :)

Getting ready to sleep - don't be deceived by their angelic faces, it took 2 hours to get everyone to go to sleep that night.

Our first morning involved some public humiliation in the form of asking for a container to stuff some breakfast buffet food in for the boys to take as a school lunch, missing the school bus, and Ken being super late to work on a day he shouldn't have.

Due to car troubles, the younger kids and I were marooned at the hotel, which isn't nearly as fun as it would have been if I could have had my swimsuit at the pool instead of 3 little people. It wasn't my finest handling of difficult events.

The definite plus side was all the new restaurants we tried. One night we tried a new Lebanese place. 

Not only was the food great, but our server volunteered to hold Colby right there next to us while we ate, and then the manager assigned us two more extra servers, since he didn't want the baby disturbed. This place takes service to a whole new level!

We spent 3 days hauling clothes and homework back and forth, and were overjoyed when the problem was resolved. Without my wonderful next door neighbor, I'm pretty sure I would have lost my sanity - she saved all of our freezer food, made the kids meals during the day, and let us live at her house when we didn't want to be at the hotel. Eventually, we laundered all the piles of dirty clothes and banished the smell of rotten fridge food from our house. 

As a plus side, we can now look back on the situation and laugh - kind of. Well, when we see this picture anyways. Owen found his own quiet spot in our hotel suite!

Lulu's Luxury

November 23: So this happened today. THIS is all that is left of the toilet paper I brought with me from the States. Sure, I'm proud to see that I actually did have a year supply of toilet paper sitting in my storage room, but that doesn't change the fact that I am now facing my local options. Lulu's Luxury. Which doesn't feel too luxurious… Welcome to reality Becky. That is what my friend told me as she handed me a gift, a 10 pack of Lulu's softest :) Ah, the first world problems of life as an expat in Abu Dhabi...

Camping Comedies

We've had a wave of sickness at our house this week and haven't left our house for fear of spreading the contagion, so it seems like a perfect time to relive the excitement of our camping trips from a few weeks ago - one planned camping trip, one unplanned…

Now those of you who have kids know, you don't just 'go' camping. Especially with a newborn. In fact, the night before, as we packed everything but the kitchen sink plus 100 extra diapers, we *briefly* considered dropping out. But, craziness and love of adventure won out over common sense ("hey, thanks to Colby we don't sleep anymore anyways, we might as well go not sleep in the desert!") and we shoved everything we could into our Explorer (the van isn't so good at off-roading…) As you can see, there was no room for Ken, but we made do :)

We caravanned out to the magnificent desert dunes of Liwa with a bunch of our friends and set up camp. It felt like we were out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but sand in sight. Then a bunch of Emerati teens on their dune buggies drove all over the camp, and a herd of camels traipsed by on their way to a camel farm right by us, and we realized we weren't quite as isolated as we thought :) It just added to the overall charm of the trip though.

It was a true success - sure there were the usual mishaps and craziness that come with our family outings, but Colby gave me the special gift of only waking up once that night, which was unprecedented, so maybe we'll do this again in the near future! COMING SOON: The story about our second, unplanned camping trip...

Will, ready to set off with me and photograph the approaching line of camels!

"Camel" happens to be one of Owen"s favorite animals and words, so he just stood there shouting it over and over as we watched this long line of camels appear from nowhere, just over the dunes, and make their way single-mindedly to their pen. No one was even leading them!

Owen didn't want to stand still - there were camels to be chased!

Now Will and I were so excited, we took off barefoot after these camels to intercept them before they made it to their pen. Bad choice - we had to run across some salt flats, not quite as soft as the sand. And then, a couple friendly camels decided to stop following the leader and investigate us. These suckers are pretty big up close, and not at all timid. I was afraid of getting slobbered on, and then they started following us when we tried to walk off. One actually stepped on me (now I've got a scar with a story - a faint scar, but one nonetheless :) but we managed to make our escape.

Owen was a little less certain up close, but still happy!

He sure loves his Dad.

Time to get dinner cooking!

Different fire pit, don't worry! Kept Owen happy for quite a while.

We're thinking of paying someone to haul a pile of sand like this into our backyard, considering how it was all the 13 mobile kids needed to entertain themselves for hours and hours (the 2 babies weren't as impressed…) The sand was so pretty - different colors in the different light. This is in the morning.

Last bit of excitement came when I was helping Ken put away our tent - we found a scorpion. I know he was lying there in wait for me, since I was nervous about stepping on one the night before. The kids caught him in our sand bucket and watched him for a while.