Our Neighborhood

We are finally getting settled in our now permanent apartment.  We have furniture, our boxes from the States has arrived and now we are slowly unpacking.  I've taken some pictures of some of the sites we see every day.  They are from the car as it is too hot to walk around! Hope you enjoy!

This it main road in front of our apartment.  If you look closely, in the center of the picture, in the distance, is Jebel Hafeet. (Mountain with an oasis at the bottom of it.) It has a an elevation of 1250m.  Someday when it is cooler we'll explore it more.  There are several parks and other things to do there.

The current Oasis Hospital and the new one being built in the background.

A new mall within walking distance from our apartment....too bad it doesn't have any stores in it right now.  We've heard rent is too high for most stores to come.  : (

 The Al Ain Club football (soccer) fields right behind our apartments.

The small grocery store in our apartment complex...we haven't made it in yet.

Gabe wanted me to add this...FC Al Ain is the best team in the Gulf and their practice fields are behind our apartment.

Some towns in America have a church on everyone corner, here there is a Mosque in every apartment complex.  This is our neighborhood Mosque.  At night the top of the tower is lit up green.  And you can see the loud speakers on the tower that broadcast the prayers throughout the day.  

Our apartment.  We've been blessed to stay in this 4 bedroom apartment since we've arrived and now we get to call it "home" while here. The balcony is just off our dining room (where I'm sitting and typing at this very moment) and the window to the left of it opens to our living room. Behind the gates in front is where we will park our car....which we will be getting very soon! We only have one other apartment in our stairwell which is nice.  They are an Egyptian family with 3 children (2 girls and a boy) who are several years older than our kids.  Hopefully when the weather is cooler they can play outside some together. We took them a cake recently and they invited us right in, sat us down and fed us fruit and some delicious desserts that I think the wife must have whipped up while we were there.  We have much to learn about what it means to be hospitable in this country.  

Looking out to the right of our balcony.  When it rains...which I've been told happens in January, the creek under the bridge fills up.

Looking out to the left of our balcony.  To the right is the roof top of the new hospital.  Gabe can walk to work. 

The view from our bedroom balcony which is screened in.  The kids looked out and said, "Wow, so much sand to play in."  Yes, yes indeed. 

We love you all!  Ma'a salama.

A Little Fun in the Sun

We are slowly getting settled in, but I wanted to share a few pictures from this week.  Gabe celebrated his 37th birthday on the 9th. It started out as a bit of a stressful day as Evelyn was sick with an eye infection and needed to be taken to a doctor.  But ended with a chocolate cake and a banner that the girls made for Dad.

Temperatures have been around 122+ F and too hot to do anything outside.  One of the local hotels has a wonderful recreational facility with several pools that can be used all year round.  We signed the family up for a membership and have been enjoying our own oasis in the desert!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

The girls waiting to go down the slide.

They are worn out after a few hours of sliding and swimming. 

We might come here everyday!

As a follow up with Evelyn, she is doing much better and her eye is finally healing.

We made it!

First I want to apologize for no pictures as 1) the camera is still safely packed away and 2) it has been too hot to venture out far.  We have never craved water as much since arriving.  

I'll back up a bit in our journey here.  The flight was actually very nice and the kids did extremely well given the circumstances. We are so thankful that my mom came with us to help.  Such A BLESSING!   I highly recommend Emirates if flying abroad is in your future.  It was a direct 15hr flight from Houston to Dubai.  We were in economy class (the cheap seats) but it felt fancier than that : ). I can only imagine the treatment one gets in first. They even had special treats for the kids and we all had about 1,000 movies/shows to watch.  We arrived in Dubai fairly well rested and with all our 12 bags!

We are currently staying in a 4 bedroom guest apartment provided by the hospital and hope to see the apartment we will move into on Sunday.  We are adjusting to jet lag...the kids current wake up time is about 3am.  That is plenty of time to enjoy coffee and breakfast before the neighborhood call to prayer, which is broadcast over loud speakers throughout the apartment complexes every morning at about 4am.  It actually sounds like a song and is quite pleasant.  After only few mornings the girls have started thanking God for their day, food, etc. when they hear it.

Speaking of worship, the typical day for rest and taking time to worship is Friday.  So today we will be visiting a local international church.  Last night we checked out a service and the couple who helped to start the church met at A&M.  It was nice to meet someone familiar with our home town.

Well today's agenda hopefully includes getting me a phone and a trip to a local mall to let the kids run around.  : )

Will post pictures when we start taking them (which will be soon!)

Thanks for reading,
Stacy, for the family