Pool Time!

As we know, it’s hotter than Hell here and it just gets hotter with each passing day. So in their last packages to us, both Mimi and Marcia sent little blow-up pools for Kaden! I thought it was ironic that they both thought of such a thing. So we took the “frog” pool up to the roof this weekend and Kaden just loved hanging out in the water while Stu and I laid out to tan for 20 minutes. (After just 20 minutes I ended up with pink shoulders… here, the sun is actually better for tanning than an indoor tanning bed back in the States… Spare me the lecture; I know how bad it is. )

Mohawk baby!

Touching the ice cubes in the water... they melted in seconds and the water was still warm!

Stu setting up our chairs

It is pretty lame how dependant I am on the internet for my communication with the outside world. Our router went down this weekend and we didn’t have any support until the call center opened back up today, Sunday. So we were without this weekend and you begin to feel so isolated when you can’t just get on MSN and read the news, or check an email from a family member. It’s definitely easy to be here when you feel closer to home. Yesterday I ended up reading the new English-language newspaper that just came out here. It’s called The National and I learned so much about some things that are going on here. Like a huge issue they are having with ships dumping oily waste into the Gulf and the beaches of Fujairah are often streaked with oil. They haven’t even caught one dumper yet because the ships venture out beyond the reach of the UAE Coast Guard and dump. Basically the consensus is “don’t swim in the water”, but that doesn’t seem like an acceptable solution to a huge environmental problem. I tried to imagine reading the same story, but the oil being on the beaches of San Diego and practically laughed out loud at such an absurd thought. But it isn’t just because we keep all of our environmentalists in San Francisco, and they’d be there in a few hours to protest such mayhem. It’s because we have agencies and checks in place to prevent such a thing from happening. It’s like the driving situation here, and reinforces the ever-present message in my law book, if the law isn’t respected, it might as well not even be there, because it will not be enforceable. We were talking about heading up to Fujairah one of these weekends to hang out on the beaches at a resort, now I am beginning to rethink that.

Kaden's favorite place to play... inside the toybox

Anyway, it was so cute watching Kaden up on the roof. He learned how to splash in the bathtub last night and had a great time getting himself (and the whole bathroom) soaking wet. He even gagged himself he was going at it so fast and got water in his mouth.

During the day yesterday we went down to the little indoor souk-like-thing across the street from the Abu Dhabi Mall. There are a series of shops inside that have all sorts of trinkets and Arabian and Indian souvenirs. We got a little something for our freshly graduated siblings! I’m so sad that Justine walked yesterday while I was stuck across the world…

We also decided while we were there to walk around the mall some. I got a shirt on sale from Nautica. It’s cute. I have so few clothes here (2 pairs of jeans and 9 shirts) that I can wear. It will be like getting brand-new clothes whenever we get to go back to our storage unit for the rest of our clothes some day!

Last night after dinner we decided to head down and walk the Corniche after the sun set. It was really nice because in spite of the humidity (everything wet to the touch) there was a somewhat cool breeze once the sun was gone, coming off the water. It’s just so great to get to be outside anymore without feeling like you might die.

I tried to take a picture of a Dhow that was on the water but since it was moving it was pretty blurry. We still haven't mastered this camera yet! But the Sheikhs are in the background!