Tooth Repair, Take Two (end of January 2013)

I forgot about this until I synced my phone today and downloaded a bunch of pictures.  On my first sick day, I sent the kids outside to play, having given up trying to encourage school while I was half asleep on the couch.  Sometime later, Jess came running in, crying, with her hand over her mouth.  An all too familiar sight.  Once I got her settled down, I learned that nothing was bleeding and she wasn't even in any pain.  She had taken a soccer ball shot to the face and got a chunk of tooth (the fake part) knocked out.  She just didn't want to go back to the mean dentist.  Luckily, we had recently found where the nice dentist had relocated.  Then she was all smiles again.  I called and made an appointment for the next day.

Laughing as Isaac tried to document it. 

I took some Dayquil and took her to the new office.  She got the live part covered with cotton because it's extra sensitive without the bottom.  She had to get a couple shots too, but the end result was great.  

The dentist told us to go get a mouth guard and USE it.  She said it's likely to happen again because there is no anchor.  So one tooth made it 8 months.  I'm hoping the other lasts longer.  

Archery

I know I mentioned that the kids are trying archery, but the second time we went, I brought the camera to share and remember.  I don't know which part they like best.  Having their time to shoot, or free play while others are shooting.

Jess

Makenna

Isaac.  They moved Isaac back after a couple rounds and had him shooting from last line by the end.  Impressive.  He did qualify for his archery merit badge, but still needs to make an arrow to finish the the workbook. 

Game Days

This was the second Game Day we have done with the homeschool group at Al Barsha Park. I brought the camera this time to snap a couple pictures.  We have been spending more time here recently.  Jana and I have been running here a couple mornings a week because it's high tide right now around 7:30 in the morning which makes beach running most unpleasant.  There is a mile track around the pond here and it's closer to home.  We love it.  This is also the place the YM meet to play basketball.  It's also where we have met up for games.  A couple different moms ran a couple games each with a snack break in the middle.  I ran a couple versions of tag with the older kids.

Jessica's Friend Party

Last year in Sicily, Jess had a rather pathetic birthday with a half raw, half burned red velvet cake.  I determined to make this year more fun.  After several brainstorming sessions, she came up with a list of girls to invite and the following requests.  #1 Chocolate cake with green frosting.  #2 Eat barbecue chicken sandwiches and fruit and vegetables and drink "birthday juice" #3 play DOOMED.  I think we succeeded on all counts.

We had a houseful (or yardful) of girls from 3-6 on Saturday.  We couldn't make it a late-over because it's a school night.  When the girls first arrived, everyone went out back to play DOOMED, a game they had made up with the parachute and lots of running and screaming.  They would pop in for drinks every now and again, but were completely happily occupied until dinner time a little before 5:00.  I wish I had popped out to take a couple pictures, but there were always too many moving targets....  After they ate, they headed back out to take advantage of the sunlight and more DOOMED.

I herded them back in for cake at 5:30.  The cake looked poisonous green, but it must have been tasty, because there wasn't a bit left for me or Isaac.  The girls gobbled it up.  My friend Glenda stayed to help and chat and she took these pictures.  Thanks Glenda!

We love the birthday banners, grandma.  

No more Jessica8.  She has moved on to J9.  

After cake, she opened presents.  She received a monkey mom and baby, Dubai sand art with her name, a new soccer ball, clothes for George, a gift card to a book store, and some fun hair accessories.  It was a very fun party.

We have turned off our A/C

The kids had their first piano lesson again after a 7 month break.  I did find a couple options that we coud have persued before now, but I wasn't willing to fork over $40 a lesson, per kid....  We had a new sister move in a month ago who teaches preschool and has 20 years of piano teaching experience.  She is now our new primary pianist and we drove her home with us after church last Friday to have lunch and start lessons.  I hope it will work out well.  I love hearing the kids practice again.  She also informed them all that they will be expected to play in sacrament or primary once a month.  I love that motivation!

Other than piano, gymnastics is back on for the girls, scouts for Isaac.  And speaking of scouts, the girls and I are joining him for a 3 day campout in Oman.  We will be hiking to the top of Jebel Shams, the tallest peak in the region.  The next day we will hike along the rim of "the Grand Canyon of the Middle East".  I have seen pictures and it looks amazing.  I am mainly worried about freezing though.  We ate dinner outside at our favorite cafe last Thursday and the kids all had their sweatshirt hoods over their heads and I was shivering   And drinking the fruity drinks made us colder.  Matt checked the weather on his phone. Current temperature in Dubai: 70F.  We were a little embarrassed, but still felt cold.  It snowed last week where we will be camping.... If we survive, I'll send pictures next week.  

We started something fun last week.  We signed up for 4 weeks of Archery lessons.  We joined 3 other homeschool families and drove out to Sharjah (another emirate about an hour north) where they have shooting, archery, and paintball!  We stuck with the archery, although Jessica's shirt got splattered with a paintball a couple of the girls found and decided to bang with a rock...  The drive was a pain, but the weather was beautiful and it was so nice to sit outside and talk with the other moms while the kids took turns shooting and playing around in the grass.  This is the time of year where living in Dubai is at its best.  

Isaac has learned about some freeware programing sites and has really been enjoying dabbling.  Check out Scratch, Game Salad and Code Academy.  He thinks Scratch is a little too basic, but is loving Game Salad right now. 

Jessica had her friend party for her birthday, finally.  Her only requests were to play DOOMED (a game they made up with the parachute), have a chocolate cake with green icing, and serve BBQ chicken sandwiches with fruit and veggies.  So I did the cooking and inviting and basically let the girls run wild in the backyard.  It was the easiest party to plan ever and was a huge success, if you measure by happy, hungry kids.  

Friday night (after piano), we were hosting a group of people at our house for the Priesthood Preview.  We combined with the 1st ward because we each have one boy turning 12 this year.  We rearranged furniture and managed to find seating for 21 by including the rolling computer chair, piano bench and ottoman.  It was a sea of suits, excepting me and one mom.  The girls hung out upstairs (mostly on the stairs being shy, but listening in) until refreshment time.  Isaac and the other ward's deacons quorum president gave talks, as well as the YM President and 2nd Ward Bishop and a 1st Ward counselor.  Two other deacons gave the prayers and it was all very nice. Listening to the other young man speak made me forcibly think of Kyle who has just begun his mission in France.  This boy's family is from France.  Two of his older brothers got back during the holidays from serving missions there (both different French missions, but both Mandarin speaking!)  I sat listening to him speak about magnifying the priesthood in English with a French accent thinking Kyle might be doing the very same thing with the languages swapped around.  Pretty cool.  The Counselor who spoke is from Lebanon.  I talked with him afterwards and he has a neat story.  Makenna took it upon herself to serve and clear away dishes.  I was given many compliments on how thoughtful she was.  

Early the next morning we saw most of the same crowd at the park for basketball.  The girls brought their rollerblades and skated 3 mile laps with me while I ran before stopping at the playground.  I would check on them when I passed by.  after 6, they joined me to get back to the boys again and go home (to get ready for the friend party--this is not chronological).   

Goop

Jess got this concoction kit in her stocking. Lots of fun with the first color over a few days.  We'll wait a bit before trying the next.  It is crazy stuff--has a bit of a life of its own.  Flubber/ghost buster slime.

Bat Jess 9

Jessica turned 9 as we watched the fireworks explode off the sides on the tallest building in the world.  She slept a couple hours in the car before getting back to her cozy bed and sleeping till noon.  Her birthday breakfast of choice was scrambled eggs and hashbrowns, served at 1pm.  She did come downstairs to find her birthday banners hanging.   I managed to put those up before crashing at 3am.

She finally got to have her nails done ON her birthday!  Happiness.  Then she got to come home and have 4 C soup a favorite she doesn't get as often as she would like.  

They want to do nails with grandma Chris at the Nail Spa while Grandpa plays golf if they ever come visit.  

Her cake choice changed several times over the past few months.  Until a few weeks before she finally settled on Red Velvet.  But then the girls went to a cake decorating craft day activity on the 29th and came home with 2 red velvet cupcakes and two round cakes.  They were so very yummy, but Jess decided to change her mind again and have a Rice Krispie Cake.  We got the candles in for a picture, but they kept drooping... till we got out the remains of Makenna's red velvet cake to hold the candles for the singing and blowing.  

 Jess started lighting them herself, but got frustrated and handed the job off to Isaac.  Then she tried her best to frustrate him.

Martin "bonk on thy head" tradition.  

Thanks g'ma Chris!

Ah ha! New shoes! Thanks grandma Terry.

 Over the next few days we played tennis with Matt and tried to go swimming (but the water was too cold!) as per her birthday wishes.  On a good windy beach day, we'll go try her new boogie board.

Happy New Year 2013

We lived in Las Vegas for 4 New Years Eves.  We never went down to the strip to join the hundreds of thousands of people who flock there to ring in the new year in "sin city".  At the end of 2012, we found ourselves in another destination city.  Matt said, "We don't know how long we will be here.  It would be a shame to be here and miss all the fun just because we don't want the hassle."  So we started thinking about how to participate with a minimum of hassle.  We tried out the metro as mentioned in a previous entry.  Due to the false info, we didn't pursue that course, which was good because from what I heard, it was CRAZY trying to use it to leave downtown.  We knew parking would be the biggest issue, so we just opted to go early.  Matt had to work (he took off for Christmas, single guys get priority for New Years), but we were hoping he could join us later....um that didn't work out.

This is how the day ended up.  I got up early to go on a run.  When I got back the kids got up and we had breakfast.  I had them do a couple lessons for school (mean mom!) and then we packed up the car.  I had everyone bring a sweatshirt, pillow, blanket, and something to read.  We also brought the Bean Game--a fun game we learned about from Sicily Troy.

We got to the Dubai Mall around 2pm and carefully picked a parking spot for ease of departure.  It was very busy, but not packed.  When I first parked and started to get out, Jess was disappointed.  She thought we were going to put the seats down and make cozy spots right then.  Nope, that was for later.

For the next two hours we wandered around laughing at ALL the signs, banners and bright yellow pillar wraps directing traffic to the fireworks from every corner of the mall.  They all led to a single point--seemed a little crazy to me.  We went outside as close to the fountain as we could.  They had closed all doors to the outside except one and had metal crowd control barriers set up all over to corral the people into lines....  Seemed an ominous sign.  We could see a lot of activity going on on the water.  A guard told us that the fountain show would start at 8, as usual, but have fire added.  Plus there was a live orchestra on hand.  Also during that time, we ate lunch slowly while taking a reading break.  If we wanted to stay by the water, we should have stayed from that point on.  I don't think I could have lasted that long.

We had a lot of time to kill still, so we decided to follow Matt's suggestion to go see Life of Pi.  It was wonderfully comfortable in the theater and we all voted that the movie was good, interesting.  But before going into the theater, we went to the car for sweatshirts--it's always cold in there.  It was about 5 o'clock and the parking lot was PACKED.  I had to tell dozens of cars slowly trolling the lanes, "Sorry, we aren't leaving," using words and/or hand signals.

After the movie, (7:15) we grabbed a quick bite and then started to head outside.  We quickly learned that where we had hoped to be was completely packed.  In an effort to shorten this narrative, we ended up father than we hoped, but with a good view of the Burj Khalifa.  And for the next 4 hours we tried to entertain ourselves.  We played the Bean Game, we read, the girls made up a "blend in with the crowd" game, we people watched, we watched an endless stream of people jumping over a wall....

Eventually midnight came.  The fireworks were completely unique off the Burj.  There were also more traditional bursts being shot off the mall, The Address hotel, and around the fountain show.  It was very cool, but over in 5-6 minutes.  I included a link to one YouTube video showing pretty much what we saw.  There are many, many more videos (much better) on there that show a compilation of shots from ground and helicopter and include the music (which we couldn't really hear).  We have watched several and they are very cool.  I'm including some pictures we took.

I pilfered Isaac's sweatshirt because between Las Vegas and Dubai, I am now a cold blooded desert rat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU7u4Xsszzs


Then we packed up and quickly walked back into the mall for a bathroom break.  Good thing we were fast because on our way out the line was loooong.  We were amazed to see every single store, kiosk and restaurant open.  Matt and I have been at the mall after a midnight movie from when I visited him 2 summers ago, but it's always been dead afterwards.  Not for New Years.  It's all open for business.  Several dozen kids were skating on the ice rink!  We headed to the car.  I was thinking maybe we didn't neen my plan of waiting out the traffic after all if everyone was staying to shop.  Everyone was not staying to shop.  When we got to the car, there was already a solid line of cars in front of us and they weren't moving.  So we laid down the seats, got cozy and took naps.  Every so often I would open my eyes to look out, but it wasn't until after 2:30 am that the line was gone.  We started for home.  Right before leaving the parking lot, we drove by the line of people waiting for taxis--I couldn't see the end of it.  Poor people.  Driving home was busy, but not packed.  I am sooooo glad we waited for the worst to be over.  I hate inching along.  And I appreciated the nap.

Since then we have learned that Dubai was at 100% occupancy for New Years. Over 1 million people go to the area around the Khalifa.  That is a LOT of people.  Also the fireworks at the Burj al Arab last for 20 minutes, and you can hang out on the beach with far fewer people, AND you can see them going off at Atlantis on the Palm too.  Next year?