Standing Tall

I am continuously amazed at Dylan's development. It changes on a daily basis, literally. He finally learned to clap just before his 11 month birthday. The day before he wasn't doing it and then the next day Kel started clapping and Dylan did it too. Of course now he does it all the time...while I change his diaper, when I tell him no, and when he's eating.

Now he's pulling up (which he's been doing since around 8 months) and letting go of the piece of furniture and is standing unaided. How long until the first steps?? Maybe he's waiting to unveil the coup de grace when the grandparents are here. Just a few more days!

He has a little push toy that he races around like Andretti. He gets pretty upset when he runs into an obstacle and tries to lift the toy.

Dylan has now had haircut number 2 and he's not even 1! I would have loved to let it grow and have a big cut around his birthday, but he was starting to look like a 15 year old garage band drummer. No thanks!

Dylan's friend, Maximillian - a rare bit of sharing

Gnawing on his crib

Dubai Divas Dinner Club

I miss my Houston dinner club so much I decided to start my own here with some of my new friends. Here it will be a very transient group - the nature of the city. Our first dinner was an Arabic menu and the ladies stepped up and did a great job on the food! Some of the names were hard to pronounce, but we had no problem devouring everything!

We had hummus, Prawns in biz'har spices with spicy yellow rice, Fattoush, Tabbouleh, Freekeh risotto with green herbs and broad beans, and mou'hallab'ia. I think the favorite was the freekeh which is like a barley grain. It was cooked like a risotto and extremely tasty! The mou'hallab'ia is a type of custard made with rose water. Yum!

The girls (from left) Tracy, Janice, Heather, Susan, Krissy, Carla, and Laura

Freekah Risotto with Broad beans - Susan's dish

Easter Brunch at the Polo Club

We celebrated Easter with a brunch at the Polo Club with four other couples plus kids. The food was relatively decent, but a bit overpriced because of the holiday. We enjoyed seeing the green of the polo field and despite the overwhelming amount of flies, had a good time. They had an Easter egg hunt, jumpy thing, face painting, and even a girl in bunny ears (apparently I'm the only one who raised an eyebrow).

Seriously, this is the widest expanse of grass in the UAE!

Dylan and Daddy

Our friends, Jay, McKayla, and Heather

Our friends, Brian and Amber

Daily Dubai Driving Disasters

DDDD #1
This is on the main highway, Sheikh Zayed, not too far from Mall of the Emirates.
I didn't take this picture, so I'm not sure how the car ended up underneath the SUV.




DDDD #2

On my way to the grocery store in our neighborhood I see this....





I curse myself because it's the one time I didn't have the camera on me. Obviously you can tell I turned right around and went back and got it! However, in typical Krissy fashion, I failed to turn it on before I left and when I arrived back at the scene, my camera flashed "change batteries" and went black. Again, I turned around and went back, grabbed the baby out of his seat, replaced the batteries, and learning from my mistake, turned the camera on. Now I'm juggling the baby and camera and locking the door and trying to yank the strap from his mouth since he thinks the camera is his new toy. Back in the seat and back around the corner. As if that's not enough, I'm also battling sunset which is insanely early here! No daylight savings. I hit the speedbumps at 80km and only hear a slight scrape. I get back and quickly run/leap through the weird looking aloe vera/cactus stuff so I can get the shot before the sun sets.

Passing is rampant here...even I'm an occasional passer, especially when people take the bumps extremely slow. I think this guy should probably rethink his passing strategy because he must think the oncoming traffic is just a minor inconvenience. Either that or he had a crazy vendetta against the landscaping.



DDDD #3
There's one way to get out of our neighborhood and it involves a gargantuan roundabout. When we first moved here, there were flashing yellow lights at the entrance to the roundabout, but not long after they were changed to typical green, yellow, red stoplights. We thought this was a good idea because trying to get into some roundabouts with the flashing yellow can be a bit dicey. This was logic speaking and logic and Dubai do not coexist. The light at the Ranches roundabout takes a full 5 minutes to go through a cycle. It's unfortunate that I've had a plethora of opportunities to time this.

There is ONE lane of paved road leading to the main exit for our development. However, most people make another lane on the semi-improved shoulder. Fine. It's only a bit bumpy and it turns into two lanes when you get closer to the roundabout so people just extend the 2nd lane back from where it really begins. No big deal. Next to the improvised 2nd lane is where construction (really, construction in Dubai?) is taking place to turn the roundabout into an interchange so there are barricades, sand piles, and flags everywhere. But, this doesn't stop the crazy people. A barricade is just a warning that you should put the car in 4 wheel drive. People will drive around the folks in the improvised 2nd lane and cruise right on up to where the 2 lanes are both paved. We don't let them in :)

But, a while back, the traffic was so heavy to get out (we'd sat through 2 cycles and were in our 3rd and it was looking doubtful that we'd make it through) that we started seeing cars driving past where the 2nd lane was and continuing through the sand trying to get to the very front of the line. What the sorry, impatient bastards didn't realize was that the impassable barricade continued along the edge of the 2nd lane and basically encompasses the roundabout (like a guardrail). So in the pictures below all these cars drove all the way down to the front and had to turn around! This is them driving back...hee hee. You can see the barricade in the pictures.





Since there are so many issues with driving, the UAE Ministry of the Interior has come up with a list of fines and black points for certain offenses. If you receive 12 black points within a year, your license is revoked. Here are a few samples...


Driving a vehicle without number plates 24 black points
Causing death of others 12 black points
Falling or leaking load 12 black points
Running away from a traffic policeman 12 black points
Using horn in a disturbing way 2 black points


They've got their priorities straight.

A November to Remember

I need to buy a few more beer mugs!

That's a camel in the back of that truck!
The Gold Souk

Friday Market
Le Meridien in Fujeirah

Mom on a camel!

What a busy month! Our first visitor and Thanksgiving for 10 at the villa!

After being gone for only three months, Grandma Debbie decided that she had to come and see Dylan! Mom arrived on the 10th of November and stayed for a week. It was nice having some help with Little Man! Kel and I even got to have a little adult time with friends at Yalumba brunch - that will be a post in and of itself! We managed to fit the Burj, Friday Market, Fujeirah, the Madinat, the Gold Souk, Mall of the Emirates, Bab Al Shams, and the beach all in a week.

The Burj lives up to its reputation. We ate lunch in the Skyview Bar (27th) floor and the views were amazing! We could see the world islands under construction and Palm Jumeira. The Dubai skyline is gorgeous from there! Even though Burj Dubai isn't completed yet, it completely dwarfs the other surrounding skyscrapers.

I think Mom got the complete Dubai experience...camel riding, belly dancing, traffic, lamb kabobs, camels in the back of trucks, and the beach.

Most importantly, she got to spend loads of time with Dylan. Can't wait until the parents AND inlaws get here in April!

Thanksgiving in Dubai was much the same as Thanksgiving in Texas. The weather was warm, we watched some football (a few hours later than normal), and there was a fair amount of food and plenty of wine! Trying to cook a turkey in the gas oven was a new experience. The cookers have just a few options for shelves and the one I had to use was at the very bottom! Needless to say I couldn't use any drippings for the gravy...there were some crunchy bits at the bottom. Luckily the turkey was wrapped in foil so it escaped the burning!

Since everyone had to work that day we didn't start until about 8 in the evening and put the Cowboys on at about 10. We turned on Guitar Hero after the feast and thoroughly embarrassed ourselves! I think the last people left sometime around 3am...and I had to get up at 7 with Dylan. We're having a great time with all of our new friends over here and it makes being away from our family and friends in Texas tolerable! I'm looking forward to going to someone else's for Thanksgiving later this year!

Dylan is mobile!

Before we headed back to Texas for the month of December, Dylan was just starting to army crawl around the place. I was so excited about his mobility...what was I thinking??? He's all over the place now and I spend most of my time saying "no" and pulling him away from the cat, stairs, cat toys, receiver knobs, lint fuzzies on the floor, did I mention the cat?, speaker wires, and shoes. He has ventured onto his hands and knees and really crawled, but I think he prefers moving around on his belly since we have so much tile. He frequently gets to a sitting position from crawling and is pulling up on everything! Eeekkkk. He's had a few bumps on the head. If that weren't enough activity, he does his baby push ups several times a day to build up those pecs.

At his 8 month check up he weighed 17 pounds 9 ounces and the doctor could see a tooth just below the surface trying to poke through. That was on the 28th of December. When we arrived back in Dubai on January 8th I could see the tooth on the bottom poking out and also noticed the other one starting to peek. They are both out now! He's also trying to cut one on the top. I don't think that the whole teething thing has bothered him too much. Hopefully that trend will continue. At our visit the doctor told us that Dylan could eat pretty much whatever now. He eats our table food most of the time and I finally got him to drink from a sippy cup SOMETIMES. He really likes cheese and still loves bananas. His pincer grasp is improving, but it takes him a while to eat.

Dylan loves dumping his blocks out of their container and then chewing on them. He also likes to crawl under the coffee table and play peek a boo through the hole in the side. He is extremely social and likes to stay in the same room with me. We're working on waving bye bye and clapping. We can't wait for his first birthday when Grand Pa Rich and Grand Pa Frank and Grandma Debbie and Grandma Joni will be here to see him!

Dylan celebrated his first Christmas and it was awesome! He got so many fun toys to play with! In fact, we didn't have enough room to bring back everything in our suitcases! Luckily Grandpa Frank and Grandma Joni will bring Dylan his other toys in April. I helped him open his presents and he promptly grabbed everything out of my hands - wrapping paper, packaging, tags, and the toys. He seemed to enjoy the wrappers and packages almost as much as if not more than the actual toys. For good measure he tasted everything to make sure it was worthy.

Rain, water, and Bush

Let me apologize first for my lack of posts. We celebrated Thanksgiving here at our place with several other expats and cooking while my little pickle was roaming around proved a bit challenging! Then I had to prepare for the month long sojourn home.

Anyway, we're back and unpacked and adjusted to the time zone and waiting for the sun to come out again. For the past week we could have been in Washington (the state) instead of the desert. The rain keeps quietly falling and water has been finding its way into the villa. I haven't ventured out beyond our neighborhood, but I hear that flooding is rampant and several cars in typical Dubai mentality find their way into the "puddles" and surprisingly stall out. I'm sure adding water to the driving situation here is beyond scary!

If that weren't bad enough, we get an email on Sunday detailing road closures on Monday for President Bush's visit. The major highway is listed as well as several roads near the airport and around the mall area. Since alternate routes are non existent, the government decided to declare a holiday - George Bush Day. What was hilarious is that commercials were being aired on Monday afternoon for different routes to take to the airport. Might have been a little more useful earlier...

Day before yesterday I'm downstairs playing with the baby when I hear the unmistakable gush of water UPSTAIRS. I'm thinking that all the rain has caused a hole in the ceiling or some other horrible calamity. I sprint up the stairs and follow the sound to our bathroom where our ass cleaner is hosing down the room. I guess it was getting pissed from lack of use. For those of you who are clueless...the bathrooms here all have the spray nozzles next to the toilets for...well you know. We happily stick with toilet paper here, so the sprayers sit. I have attached a picture of the guilty nozzle.