Beach Bum.

We had a great weekend. On Friday we took Kaden to the beach in the morning, which was pretty fun. He had a great time playing with his new sand toys and walking with his sandy feet on Mommy’s towel, sprinkling her and her book with sand. I ended up with a sunburn on my shoulders and upper back (I wear a tank top, so luckily the rest of my back was spared). Kaden and I took a nap in the afternoon and then we went to the Flower and finished up our night with a bootleg showing of Twilight (yay!).

Today we went grocery shopping in the morning and then I got together with the girls for our monthly knitting group. It was nice to see everyone, as always. Lulu made it to her final group meeting as she is out of here after this month (lucky!). It is always sad to see people go, but I suppose that is the crutch of being an expat. I will always be grateful for having known her since she taught me how to knit, which I have absolutely grown to love. She definitely will be missed.

Here are some pictures from the beach since I was a big failure with the camera last time! Enjoy!

Yay for new beach toys!

Splashing in the water!

Daddy!

Hospital Trip.

As the mother of a boy, this day was sure to come eventually. I was in the kitchen making lunch and Kaden was playing right outside in the hallway with his stroller. He likes to buckle and unbuckle the seatbelt. Sure enough, right as I'm scooping a handful of lettuce into a bowl (with the intent of it becoming "salad"), I look up to see that he has climbed up into it (standing of course) and then watch him topple face-first onto the floor (the whole stroller just tipped over backwards).

I rushed over to him and picked him up as he started to wail. So here's the thing... I knew he didn't hit his head because I watched him fall. He definitely hurt his little hands because he was holding onto the handle when the stroller fell and when I picked him up, his body was still smashing them into the tile floor. Ouch. But when I picked him up, his shoulders felt more loose than normal and I had to sort of grip his ribs to lift him instead of just relying on his underarms. Odd.

Then, he didn't stop crying for FORTY FIVE MINUTES. At that point I was near hysteria. Stu was no help, saying that if he needed to come home and take us to the hospital, I needed to let him know. I didn't know what to do. So, I did what any adult, rational woman would do... I called my Mommy!

She said that since he'd been crying for so long that he might have broken his collarbone or something else equally horrible. And that it would probably be best to take him in as a precaution. So I called Stu, got him driving the 45 minutes it takes to get here and in the mean time, between fits of hysteria whenever I'd put him down (like to change into jeans from sweats), the monkey finally fell asleep sprawled across my lap.

By the time Stu got home and called me, Kaden had woken up on the way downstairs and didn't seem in nearly as much pain when I shifted his weight to my hip. He let me put him in his carseat without a fight, so I decided we probably didn't even need to go. But we decided we should get him checked out anyway since Stu had already come all the way home, and to put our minds at ease.

We get to the doctor and of course no one will see us. Pediatrics says it will be over an hour wait, and General Practice will not see a baby. So after shuffling all over the hospital, a heavy-set Greek-looking receptionist escorted us back down to Pediatrics and spoke forcefully in Arabic with the receptionist, nurse, and doctor before they finally relented and we were seen. Doctor May (we've seen her before) poked and prodded Kaden, making him scream bloody murder and determined that he was fine. He had a decent-sized bruise on his back (which explained why he wailed when I laid him down) but otherwise seemed to be in fine shape. He also weighed in at 12 kilos... 26 and a half pounds! She told us to keep an eye on him for any odd behavior and to wake him up at night to make sure he doesn't have a concussion.

Anyway, so that was our too-stressful afternoon. I did finally get to come back and eat lunch right around 5:00, haha. Kaden is now finally sleeping for a late nap and I got a chance to clean up the house a little bit and relax. Hope everyone else's day was a bit more calm. :)

One Year in Exile...

If ya'll check your Facebook page often, you may have already noticed that Stu mentioned we've officially been here a year. Yep... One. Whole. Year.

It's kind of amazing to think about it really. I mean, a year ago my little monkey had just learned to crawl and definitely wasn't anywhere near understanding what we were saying to him. Today he asked to "eat" dinner, then wanted a "dink" to go with it... I asked him if he liked his dinner and he said, "Nummm". Yep, things have definitely changed. He also got to talk to Momma E on the phone the other night and told her he loved her. Sweet baby.

(I should pause here to mention that I just had to take a break from writing this to go clean up the dinner that my little talker just dumped on the floor... super-stain food Lasagna, too. Little shit.)

Anyway, so a year. Hoo-ray. We're both pretty over being here and are eagerly counting down the days until our Rome trip, but the year bonus will be a nice addition to our bank account, so why complain?

I have been passing my time by watching and re-watching (and watching again) Twilight while I intermittently read my favorite excerpts from Midnight Sun (please, Stephenie Meyer, for the love of all that is holy, finish it! Please!) and Twilight (before I have to give it back this weekend... gotta get my fill!). Next week I will head on to New Moon again.

Stu has been listening to Kissin 92 and adding up the thousands of dollars until he will feel satisfied that we can go home (ask him, he can tell you EXACTLY what we will have saved if we leave in July, September, November, January, or next March...). :)

We took Kaden to the beach this weekend since Stu had an extra day off because of the Prophet's (pbuh) birthday. So that was nice. Kaden had a great time except for the time he fell in the water face first. He's not a fan of seawater. I got a little sunburn, but it is a vast improvement over the deathly pale tone I've been sporting lately.

School is going well, but it is getting tedious and I'd really just rather it get over with, or have it get more intellectually demanding. I have good grades for now, so I am happy with that at least.

Other than that, we really haven't been doing much else. Same old stuff.

Here are some pics of Kaden over the last year:

March 2008

April 2008

May 2008

June 2008

July 2008

August 2008

September 2008

October 2008

November 2008

December 2008

January 2009

February 2009

March 2009

Border Weekend.

We had to do another border run on Friday... which is never fun. Especially since Stu is now working nights, but still has to get up and go in early on Thursdays with the day shift guys. It's weird and he is soooo tired on Thursday nights, which makes for a happy Stu, lol.

So we took off a lot later on Friday than we normally do and when we got to the Omani side of the border, it was jam packed. They only had one computer up and running which meant that they could only process one visa at a time. The Prophet's birthday is this Monday so everyone here has a holiday this weekend and it looked like practically everyone and their Mom was on their way to Muscat. Instead of waiting in the ungodly long line, we opted to drive out to the other border across the mountain (Hafet port) which had nearly no line, but it is hotter and further. It worked out fine and we celebrated with KFC for lunch in the car on the way home. I forgot the camera AGAIN and it sucked because we saw not one, but TWO camels sitting in the backs of trucks, and we saw a donkey! Hehe

It was otherwise a fairly uneventful trip except that in the morning when we were packing up to go, Stu was cleaning off the windows so we could see and I ran to the little store to get some pop to take and somehow we forgot to put Kaden's stroller in the trunk (seriously... who loses a stroller???). We didn't know about this until we got home and Stu tried to get it OUT of the trunk and it was missing. Sigh. Retards. We asked around and no one seemed to have seen it. But, it was completely falling apart and we have been looking for another, more sturdy, one anyway, especially since we are going to Rome in about a month, so today we got another one. Kaden loves it so far, so that is good! :)

After getting home from the border last night we got a call from Matt and went to eat Korean food with Matt, Mike, and Kyle. It would have been really nice except my son was a TOTAL brat! He screamed his head off more than he was quiet and would not stop getting into everything. It was awful. We ended the night by heading to Hamed Center for some movies (stupid Green Branch was closed... stupid Fridays).

Unfortunately either from the KFC or Korean I was puking all night (sorry for the visual), so I got very little sleep and then my stomach physically hurt all day today, so it has been a pretty relaxing day. We just grocery shopped and then I took a two-hour nap with Kaden while Stu played some Madden. I made Crepes for dinner and we might walk down to Baskin Robbins for some dessert.

That's all for us. Pretty chill weekend once again. :)

Breaking Dawn and the Roof.

Alright, so I'm half-way through Breaking Dawn (the fourth and final book of the Twilight series) and I just have to say that everyone is right, this is the best one so far! And I've delved into a new realm of obsession: I had my first Twilight dream last night. My brain took over and made Bella's choice about... the, uh... thing, for her (don't want to give anything away for those who haven't read it or aren't there yet). Stu thinks I'm losing my mind. I just downloaded the movie to watch and Stu said, "Oh my God, you are a LOSER!"

In other, more human, news... we took Kaden up to the roof this morning (gotta process that Vitamin D somehow) and it was fabulous. The weather was PERFECT. There was still a slight breeze, but the sun felt very warm on your skin. So nice. Not to mention that it was one of the clearest days I've ever seen here. Probably THE clearest day. So of course, we had to get some pictures of it. :)

Otherwise, our lives have been basically the same. Sorry I've been silent... for those who have asked, we will be solving our "pickle" conundrum today or tomorrow. Stay tuned.

All ready with his pack pack to go to the roof.

See how clear the sky is?

Daddy is training him to be a grill master!

Checking the settings to be sure they are just right!

Holding hands... Sweet babies!

Re-reading.

When I was a little girl, my Mom used to be able to pick up one of the Little House on the Prairie books, open it to a random page and just start reading. She had read the books so many times (there are like 15 total in the series) that she basically knew them by heart and whatever page she turned to, she'd know exactly where she was...

...I always thought she was nuts. It took me long enough to get through ONE book, let alone read any book more than once, and she had read ALL of these books tons of times!

Then... along came Twilight. Sighhhh (And Mom, read them.) Last night since I had finished New Moon and I obviously didn't want to start another random book knowing full well that my wonderful husband was taking me to get the other two in the morning... I picked Twilight back up, opened to a random page, and started reading. Yep, it was just as good the second time (three days later)... obsessed much? To add insult to injury, we were driving to the mall to get the last two books and I was apparently quiet for a while and Stu asked me what I was thinking... I was actually thinking about dialogue in the damn book! (The meadow scene... Sighhhhh)

Lindsay, the saint that she is, even volunteered last night to bring the next book to work with her so we could pick it up (how awesome is she??), but I knew I'd want to read them again and Stu already we could get them... instead, she and I and our mid-twenties-selves gushed about Edward via text message...

So, after I finish this blog I am going to go start Eclipse (book 3 of the series for the non-Twilighters). I put dinner in the Crock Pot, vacuumed before Stu left, just finished up dishes, and now Kaden is down for a nap... Yay! Time to read! Lucky for me I have until tomorrow before next week's assignments come out for school. Thank goodness because I have been a little preoccupied!

This was me this morning, btw. See? I do other things than read! :) (Skeletal system lab... that's a cow long bone) See the focus? :)

Sleeping In.

This morning my wonderful husband sneakily got up with Kaden and let me sleep until TEN in the morning!!!! (Ok ok, so I HAD stayed up until almost two reading New Moon, rationalizing as the time went by that I REALLY only needed 6 (5…4…) or so hours of sleep...)

When I got up he asked if I would make pancakes. Of course! After letting me sleep, it was the least I could do... until I found out we had no Bisquick. Crap. They of course didn't have it the last time we went to the store (or the time before) so we went without. So I had to find a recipe on how to make them from SCRATCH. It was easy and they turned out fine, thank goodness. So that was good. (Who knew pancakes were so easy to make???)

I also got a chance to christen my Crock Pot today and we have a scrumptious smelling roast in there now (only 6 more hours to go! Lol). I am hoping this easier way to prepare meals turns out well since I just can't bring myself to cook complicated meals when I know only a less-than-eager toddler will be waiting at the dinner table. And let's be honest, he'd rather have toast anyway. Kaden and I had sandwiches for lunch and leftover pizza for dinner but hopefully tomorrow we will have yummy leftover roast for a REAL dinner instead! :) (And poor Stu can be sent off with a better lunch for work)

In other news, we're sort of in a pickle right now. I don't want to go into details before we know what's going to happen, but suffice it to say, we've both been extremely preoccupied this weekend and hope that we find out soon, one way or the other, so we can soothe our nerves. (No, grandmas, I'm not pregnant...)

Anyway, I am already on the Epilogue of New Moon and I am not sure how to wait again. Maybe I can just talk Stu into letting me just buy the whole series since I already KNOW I will be reading them again (and again). I have NEVER been this excited about a series before. I find myself thinking about the characters like I know then in real life... wondering about upcoming decisions and whatnot. It's retarded. But still exciting! Haha

That's about it. Like I said, not a lot going on in our world. Kaden is still adjusting to this new schedule and it is weird for me that he sleeps from like 2-5 now! Now I am going to go play with blocks for a bit before he abandons me for his infinitely-cooler-than-Mom toys.