Beach time!

We went to the beach this weekend. We went to the Le Meridian Hotel and to their "club" which has a private beach. Kaden loved the sand... didn't so much like the cold water. haha. But he did like standing up while the little waves hit his feet. It was too cute.

Kaden eating sand and sunblock...

Kaden and Mommy at the beach

Daddy at the beach!

That night we went to dinner at the Sheriton Abu Dhabi. They served "International" themed buffet-style food and it was very good.


Stu tried to drop the computer out of the window last night... yeah. haha. He decided not to listen to oh-so-wise Sydney when I said, "Be careful, don't drop it." He went to put a CD in and hit the bottom and there is starts to go, toppling over the edge. I watched as my ability to connect with the outside world was dropping out of sight, but he reacted quickly and caught it before gravity knew what was coming. In the process he popped off the"c" and "v" buttons and gave himself a mighty cut, but he put the icing on the moment when he said, "I hate it when you are right." Serenity right there... lol. So, I reattached c and v while he reattached his finger, and all is right with the world.

What else... Kaden got a new bed.

He loves it when it is just a "playpen", hates it as bed. He got used to sleeping in his carseat during the many trips we took recently, and refuses to sleep anywhere but there. Fabulous.

What else has been going on? Kaden is still getting more and more mobile! He bonked his head AGAIN today falling. He can't just slow down. I wish we had carpet like in America. Stupid tile floors. Poor baby head.

Mommy's little man!

Baby Killean

Our friends Joslyn and Aaron lost their baby on March 21st at 20 weeks along. It just breaks my heart for them to be going through something so awful. Jo noticed some spotting in the morning before work and so they went to the hospital just to check and make sure everything was ok. It turns out she had dilated to 6 and then her water broke. At 4:00 PM, Killean "Bean" Smith was stillborn.

It is humbling to think of how fragile life is. At 28 weeks pregnant with Kaden, Stu and I had a similar experience. I was bleeding at home and we went in to find out I was having contractions. They gave me a shot to stop them, after a few hours, things were back to normal and we were allowed to go home. Why is it that two such similar circumstances can have such drastic endings? Here I sit, staring at my now 8-month-old, and thinking about what a gift he is to us. But he wasn't even planned. Joslyn and Aaron had been trying to have a baby for months, only for this to happen. Is that fair?

Anyway, there cannot be anything more painful than losing a child. Even the thought of it happening to us scares me to death. Now, their daughter is coming home from vacationing with grandpa and grandma and they are going to have to find a way to tell their eager-to-be-a-big-sister 4-year-old that she is not going to be able to have her baby brother like she thought. The idea of that conversation kept me up last night.

So, I hope that their family can keep their heads up and find something good out of this situation. I have nothing to offer in the way of false encouragement because I can see nothing about this that warrants positive thought. Call me bitter, but what can you say to parents who just lost a baby... "Don't worry, everything happens for a reason." Bullshit. It is just heartbreaking. Nothing less. My heart goes out to them...

Stupid lack-of-internet...

Well, the internet stopped working yesterday around lunchtime and I haven’t been able to find another signal yet. As you can imagine, I am pretty much dying. Heh. It was bad enough trying to adjust when I did have access, now I can’t talk to my family either. Not good news. :(

Anyway, So what I decided to do was to write anyway and then just post it the next time I have access.

Last night Stu, Kaden, and I, and two other “new” guys to "the job", Shane and Nick, went to this resturant called the Lebanese Flower. I’d heard good things about it before and then Stu went there for lunch a few days ago and came home and said it was the best food he’d ever eaten. So I had to see for myself.

We ordered the Flower Grill, which is basically just a spread of a bunch of Lebanese-type food so you can get a taste of it, and, since I’ve been wanting to try one since I’d heard about them, I had to have a Shawarma too. The Shawarma was every bit as good as they say, and since it is Arabic, it is a very cheap option if you are going to get something to eat here. Not that we have found that ANY food is very unreasonable, in fact, we’ve been thrilled at the prices we have found. Especially since the presentation and service here are like NOTHING you’d ever find in the States, even if you did pay top dollar for it.

After the meal, Shane ordered Shisha. It is flavored tobacco without all the chemical additives in it that normal cigarette tobacco has. We had Grape flavored. It is smoked out of a Hookah, which, for those who haven’t been to a college Frat party, is a two-foot tall slender vase-like stand made of glass or metal or a combination of both and it has a long tube that comes out of it with which you inhale the smoke. The tobacco is heated by coals that are placed in tin foil. Anyway, it is just one of those things. We were sitting there at dinner and Shane pointed out that here we were dining on traditional Arabic cuisine, in the Middle East and that we were doing something that 95% of the people we know would never have the opportunity to do. It’s easy to forget that we aren’t just hanging out in a heavily Muslim-populated American city.

I miss Boise though. I miss our friends and family, my job. I miss being able to drive and feeling safe doing it. I miss our carpeted apartment. And conversing with other Americans that I can understand easily. Between talking to Kaden all day and then with the Arabs that come in to fix things in the apartment, when I do finally see a person who speaks English well, I find myself talking to them in broken English. With Kaden and the Pakistanis, you use just as much English as you need to get the point across, then here comes an American and I say, “You want drink?”

Sigh…

It feels better the more I get out. It’s less scary every day. I still don’t feel good enough about being out that I can actually do much with just myself and the baby, but it will come.
In other news, my son just got a black eye… yeah. He started pulling up on everything but hasn’t mastered “balance” yet. He was up on the coffee table and went to reach for something and slipped and cracked his eye right on the edge of the table. You know, the sharp part. So he screamed his head off and then wouldn’t let me hold an ice pack on it. It has swelled up already. Poor baby. So we cuddled and then he promptly decided it was time for a bottle and to relax.

As for me, I am working on my teeny tiny cup of now cold coffee. We have no TV still and I finished the book I was reading, so it is time for something new. Love you all!

The ties that bind.

Getting used to living over here is pretty tough. I go outside and the first thing I notice is every other dude is wearing a dress... then I look arbitrarily to the left or right and I can't read street signs or shop names. It's 90 degrees and March. I know I am being just one big complainer, but other than the "job" workers, I haven't seen a single other American since I've been here. And it is so much harder getting used to a new home when everything, literally everything about it, is unfamiliar.

On a more positive note, tonight we went to dinner at a Korean Resturant. It was very cool. Take off your shoes and sit on the floor and everything (see Stu below...and that is Matt across from him). It was very good. I had Dumpling Soup and Stu had this beef stuff that started with a "p". Can't remember now what it was called.

Since I haven't posted since then, the other night at poker I won 500 Dirhams. That was pretty cool for the first time playing with these guys. I got to meet a lot of the guys Stu works with and a couple of their wives.

Well, Kaden is up again, so much for going to sleep. Got to go.

We're not in Kansas anymore...

We are finally in Abu Dhabi! :) And it was NOT as easy getting here as I would have liked.

Stu left Greenville (South Carolina) without us, headed for Memphis, and didn't get to see us until Abu Dhabi. Poor Stu (read with extreme sarcasm) had to fly First Class WITHOUT a baby.

So, that said, Kaden and I left Greenville headed for Dulles after dealing for an hour and a half with United because I didn't have a paper ticket to fly with Kaden. They told me I just couldn't fly that day then. Once I talked to our travel folks and the Qatar Airways people (our carrier for the overseas leg) I was assured we'd get to Washington Dulles and all would be right with the word.

Nope. I get to Dulles at 9:30 PM and had to haggle with the Qatar Airways woman until I boarded (late, and making the plane delayed) at 11:20 PM. Needless to say, by this time I had a starving, grouchy baby, and Mommy wasn't doing much better.

Kaden did great on the first part of the trips... until we get to the 14-hour flight, of course. He decided that sleep was overrated and decided to take cat napes of about ten minutes apiece, adding up to about an hour worth of "nap time" for the whole flight. Being that it should have been our "night time", we failed to sleep for something like 38 hours straight.

As far as Qatar Airways goes, it is a nice airline. The food was good, and interesting, and the flight staff was very helpful. They all loved the baby so they would stop by to sit on the floor and play with him every 20 minutes or so, haha.

We had our first "this isn’t America" experience with the first meal they served. The flight attendant asked me which menu option I'd like to enjoy... My options were roast lamb stew or pan-fried chicken. Now, I have a dish I make that I lovingly refer to as "pan-fried chicken". I cut up pieces of chicken, coat them with some flour and seasonings, and fry them in oil in a skillet..... Not quite. The chicken was "pan-fried" in a way that looked roasted to me, and was doused with a sauce of tomatoes and some sort of green seasoning.... it was new to my palate. But it was good. Also different was we got a package of wafer crackers and a little bit of cream cheese to spread on them. Not something I would have considered. Thank you, Brits!

After the meal when everyone ELSE on the plane turned in for a good 8 to 12-hour nap, Kaden and I alternated between looking out the window, playing on the floor, screaming our (his) heads off, etc. It was not quite the pleasant, restful flight I was so hoping for. Red eye or not.

"Brunch" was a fabulous cheese and onion Quiche with sautéed mushrooms and spinach on the side. We had our "tea" after our meals, lest a Brit keel over dead without such a staple in everyday life.

Qatar. Now, when I first got to Dulles, the reality of what we were doing began to rear its ugly head in the form of the folks waiting for the plane. I left Greenville on a plane of 8 folks, all of which were Caucasian, many of which with fair skin and hair. I get to the waiting area of Qatar Airways flight 52 and I am reduced to only one of THREE Caucasians on the whole full flight (at least 200 people, probably many more... the plane was ungodly huge) and the ONLY blonde. Since I was warned about this phenomenon, I took it in stride. But most of the women did in fact have full burkas on. This was new.

Doha Qatar is a beautiful city to fly into at night. They have huge buildings that line the Persian Gulf and the lights are really a treat. I was awed.

It definitely is strange being a Western woman here and travelling alone with an infant. For starters, the people here love babies and they have no reservations about coming up and touching your child. Secondly, the men here WILL stare at you and will rush over to "lend a hand" all the time. I get through security at Qatar and I had to tell at least ten men that I didn't need help with my stuff and could find my gate on my own.

But then Hell starts all over again as Qatar Airways tells me yet again that I cannot fly with my baby because they do not have proper documentation. I am a 45-minute flight to Abu Dhabi and they are telling me that I cannot leave THEIR country with him. (Here I am thinking, not only did MY country let me leave with him, but I am in a foreign country, my phone stopped working in Washington, and I have been travelling with a baby for a whole day... I can't NOT get to Abu Dhabi tonight...) So I do what any level-headed, rational person would do. I lose my mind. After the idiot woman told me to "sit down Ma'am" for the tenth time, I did, and bawled my eyes out. After a solid two days of no sleep, and a baby who hates me and just wants his bed, I'd had enough of dealing with little things. A very nice burka-clad mom sent her ten-year-old over with Kleenex. That was nice.

Ultimately, everything got figured out and we did get to fly (delaying yet another flight) and we did get to Abu Dhabi.

Once there, my Western-womanhood worked for me again and I was picked out of a ten-thousand-person line for Customs and ushered to the empty line that was for "UAE nationals only". I got through Customs in less than ten minutes. The woman at the counter didn't even look at Kaden who was thankfully now asleep in his carrier covered by a blanket. Nice to know the airlines need proper documentation, but the country its self... naw, no big deal.

Seeing Matt waiting for us in the crowd of Arabs was a welcoming sight. I'm looking through faces and there at the end I see the lone white boy. Matt!

Two hours later we got to come back and get Stu. I've never been so excited to see that man either. Haha.

The driving here is interesting to say the least. The speed limits are somewhere around 80-100 kilometers per hour. Matt was doing close to 160 and we passed a cop car like he was standing still. Apparently they don't pull you over for much, haha.

So we are staying with Matt until the housing situation gets worked out. They didn't actually have as much together as I'd hoped. We have no idea when we'll be getting our place, and even where it will be. We could move on Sunday to a small apartment right next to a huge Mosque and hear prayer calls blasting through our house five times per day (we've been advised against this by everyone we've met here) or we could wait and see if Al Ain is a go, or wait longer still for an apartment here in Abu Dhabi. We're not sure what we'd like to do yet, but we'll have to see.

I killed a spider before I took a shower tonight that looked exactly like sand, haha. I saw some sand running across the bathroom wall and it took me getting within inches to see that it was actually a spider.

It is 2 AM now and Kaden thinks it is morning. (He is sadly mistaken and Mommy hopes he figures it out soon)

I am sure I will think of more, since so very much has happened in such a short amount of time, but for now I will call it good. I will update you all as things change. (or stay the same, whatever.)

Also, I have not had a chance to upload pictures yet but when I do, I will post them.

Idaho v. Michigan: Round One

<--- "Morbark" water tower (the largest employer in Winn, Michigan... they make wood chippers. Hehe, seriously...)

<--- This is the church that is across the

road from Stu's parents' house. It was built in 1890.

<--- Kaden playing with Uncle Norman.

<--- Kaden playing cards with Uncle Hayden

<--- Justine, Hayden, Maddison, and me. My siblings.

<--- Bathtime at Grandma's! :)

Well this sure has been a long week! It feels like we left Boise at least a month ago. I am so ready to have a place we can go where we won't have to live out of a suitcase with a baby anymore!

So, I had a whole paragraph written about the differences between Idaho and Michigan. But, why bother? I am not an economist, or a travel agent. No need to pitch what anyone would already know if they had the same visual experiences I had this weekend. Enough said.

As far as the family aspect of the trip went though, it was good. On Saturday morning we flew up to Coeur d'Alene (by way of Spokane) to see my family. It was fun. Relaxed. But it always is for me, so there isn't much to report about it. My siblings are getting so grown up. It kind of makes me sad. I remember changing their diapers (cloth in some cases....ugh) and here they are with boyfriends and girlfriends and underarm hair! haha

We also went with my parents and saw Juno (the one about the 16-year-old little girl who gets pregnant) and it was actually good. Very quotable.

So, Michigan. :) We flew from Spokane to Denver then connected to Detroit. Then we had a three-hour drive back to Mt. Pleasant with an unhappy baby. Poor kid.

We stayed at Stu's Grandma's house, which wouldn't be worth any note, except that she just died two weeks ago. So the first night was somewhat eerie for us both. There would be weird noises and we'd look at each other... lol. But the remaining nights were fine. Though I did have a freaky dream where his grandma was talking to him through me. Now THAT will get you some good sleep! haha

We spend most of the time at his parents' house watching TV and just hanging around. Got lots of Discovery channel in. Never can have too much of that. :) I got to know his parents better and that was nice. The town was definitely different than I'd anticipated. I wouldn't want to live there. But I met some extended family and yesterday Kaden got to play with Stu's cousin Jessica's kids. Soooo cute and sweet! The youngest is just two weeks younger than Kaden and they had a good time playing.

We flew from Detroit yesterday. Stu got a straight flight to Greenville, but Kaden and I had to connect (with a three and a half hour layover) in Charlotte. The airport in Charlotte is nice. Kaden and I got Daddy a little bear sporting a Carolina Panthers sweatshirt. Kaden picked it out.

He was good though and then was great on the flight (all 20 minutes of it) to Greenville. He fell asleep on my lap right before we took off. Good baby.

Last night we went to dinner with Stu's friend Kender. And now here we are in Greenville. :)

We're staying in the Drury Inn and Suites. Nice hotel. We upgraded to a Suite and so we have a living room and kitchenette and a separate bedroom. Pretty cool with the baby.

Unfortunately, putting a little wrench in my day, apparently Kaden is allergic to the detergent we used in Mt. Pleasant. He has a rash exactly where his t-shirt was touching his skin. And now he's irritable and slightly warm. Poor baby. So he's fighting his nap now and isn't very happy to be a baby right now.

So, I'll keep everyone updated on where we are and what is going on. But that's the nutshell version of our past week. Now I have to go bathe a rash-y baby. :(

Can't sleep.

Soooo, I woke up probably 15 times last night and this final time decided I was trying in vain to stay in bed any longer. So I am up. Heh.

I guess I didn't anticipate being this nervous about leaving. I mean, we're going to my Mom's today, not Abu Dhabi yet... why be so stressed out? But alas, here we are on the old laptop, sitting in my aunt's living room, waiting for even Kaden to wake up and join me. I was going to go ahead and take a shower and "greet the day" but I realized that Stu packed up the car last night so I don't have any clothes pulled out. Haha. Looks like I will be wearing a jammies shirt today! :)

Anyway, so we leave Boise this morning for Coeur d'Alene (Spokane actually) for three days with my family. If it's anything like last night, we're going to be hard-pressed to find a family member willing to let us take Kaden without a fight. My aunt and uncle are plotting ways to keep us here.

Last night Kyle, Melissa, and Kristin (with little Kaden) came over for food and goodbye (again, haha) and it was pretty tough. I can't imagine having to do this for the next week straight! (Although, it should be noted that yesterday when I left work, I decided to "say my goodbyes" and started [and subsequently finished] with Brett. I did it to myself, but I went to knock on his door and thought, "How many hundreds of times have I done that?" And of course got all teary-eyed. So my goodbyes ended with Brett. haha. I decided I'd send an email once we were in-country and I couldn't change my mind anymore, lol.

I am going to go get some cereal and pace around the room "packing" until someone else decides to get up with me. :)

Stay tuned!

Syd