Dubai

Yes, we had another week off of school.  It may seem as though we never work, but that's because most of our days off are bunched together in these first 4 months of school.  This time, we had off because of another Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha.  It's a Muslim celebration of the time when Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Ishmael but Allah intervened.  Sounds kind of familiar.

During our time off, we decided to take a babymoon to Dubai.  We have some friends that work there at the American School of Dubai.  It was wonderful to see them again.   Jake and Jen even let us stay at their place while they went camping in Oman.  It was a time of relaxing and seeing the sights of Dubai.  It is quite amazing how Dubai has grown in the last decade.  They really do know how to go above and beyond everyone's expectations.  If you didn't know, Dubai is home of the tallest building in the world.  The Burg Kalifa stands 828 meters tall (2716.5 feet) with over 160 stories.  We were allowed to go to the 124th floor which was high enough for me.  It was quite amazing the view you can get of the city from that viewpoint.  Malls are something else that Dubai sure knows how to do.  There are a ton of malls in Dubai, but we only went to two of them.  The first was the Mall of the Emirates.  It rivals the Mall of America in size and also has a ski slope inside.  Yes, a ski slope!  You pay to rent all the equipment (snowpants, boots, goggles, skis, but not hat or mittens-go figure!).  We were really excited to go into the snow park portion since we won't be able to go home for the hoidays this year.  However, they wouldn't let us in because I'm pregnant.  We tried to explain that we're from Wisconsin and know how to walk on snow, but that didn't seem to matter.  I may of actually cried.  The other mall we went to was the Mall of Dubai which has a cinema, aquarium, and underwater zoo in it.  Plus, they have a fountain that performs a water show to music about 9 times a night.  It truly was amazing.

There are still more authentic parts of Dubai, but they tend to be quite touristy now.  They have sections of souqs (markets) that are grouped by what they sell.  There is the spice souq, gold souq, and textile souq.  These were neat to walk through, but not much different from our shops in Jubail.    

One thing that we really enjoyed was going out to eat.  You could say we indulged all week (I was even allowed a dessert a day!)  We really love good food and Dubai had an abundance of amazing restaurants with a huge variety of foods.  One of my favorites was Yum! where we got fairly authentic Thai food.  I got a Thai chicken in mango that was so good I almost made myself sick eating so much of it.

That's about it for our trip.  Below are some pictures....

Tara

Burj Khalifa - 828 meters tall

The motor city residences where we stayed at our friends house

The snow park in the Mall of the Emerites

Us in the Atlantis Aquarium

That's one big friend you made Tara.  Yeah, it's a real giant grouper fish.

The Atlantis

Dubai Mall Aquarium

These garden eels were weird.

Finding Nemo exhibit at the Aquarium.

Fountain show at Mall of Dubai.

View from the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa.

A 'normal' car to see in a fancy hotels valet parking.  This was at Jumeriah Beach hotel.

Us with the Burj Al Arab behind us.

Burj Al Arab.  If I had a million dollars we might spend the $1,600 it costs for one nights stay.

Us with our friends, Jake and Jen Dibbert.

Baby Shower

We are feeling very blessed right now.  This past Tuesday a few of our friends threw us a baby shower at school.  It was a laid back time of hanging out, eating food, playing a game, and opening presents.  Boy did we get a ton of presents.  We now feel much more ready to have this baby.  Thank you to everyone who was involved and made it such a great afternoon.

Thursday we boarded a plane and headed to Dubai where we will spend the next week.  Tune in soon for some pictures of our adventures here in the fastest growing city.

 Sign going into the room

Diaper cake surrounded by other presents

Our friend Lindsey is an amazing cake maker and made this for us.  It matches the bedding set we picked out.

A super cute onesie set we received.

The car bedding we picked out.

One of my favorite gifts, a bouncer.

All the ladies at the shower.

Our car filled with gifts.

Halloween fun

Halloween is one of the few American holidays that we get to celebrate at school in Saudi. Boy do people have fun with it. This year, we had an evening event that consisted of a costume contest, trick or treating, and Mr. Borisko's Hallway of Horror. Our friend Cory put in a ton of time and effort creating a fantastic hallway which was kind of a mix between a haunted house and a Ripley's Believe It or Not exhibit. The high schoolers had a great time working the hallway as exhibit guides, gypsies, or even vampires. Below are a few pictures of the night.

Another thing we did this week was attend our biannual ISG conference. It's two days set aside for all of the teachers in the district (from all 7 schools) to come together for a time of learning and fellowship. They were very long days, but really meaningful as well. We created new relationships with staff from other schools and were able to see those we know who we haven't seen for a while. A lady from our British Grammar school was getting rid of some baby items, so we bought a glide rocking chair from her. This made me super happy since I really wanted one, but wasn't sure if 1) it was in the budget and 2) we could find one here. Slowly and surely the baby nook is starting to fill up. After our next Eid break (yes, have another week off of school next week) we will really start putting some work into the decorating and organization of it.

Tune in next week to hear about our next doctors appt and the upcoming baby shower some friends are throwing for us.

Tara

Jamie the skier and Tara the jack-o-lantern.

A few of our students dressed as gypsies and a gangster

Our mummy librarian

Dracula lying in his coffin gave quite a few people a good scare.

Loads of stuff

For having some rather bland things to blog about lately this week is an exception. Today we had a bazaar at another compound (not the same one as last year) and we were able to get some yummy Pakistani food, see some old students that outgrew our school last year, and purchase our first Persian rug. I must say the more we look at it, the more we like it. We were looking for one for a while and finally found something we liked for the right price.

After the bazaar we had a birthday party for 1 year old Dylan, our friends Cory and Natalie's son. It was a lot of fun watching him eat his birthday cupcake in a traditional, first birthday, messy style. They stopped by a while after the party and was still wired on sugar.

This next week is a three day week with students and then two days in Khobar for a district teachers convention. It should be good a good time, but busy with driving. We are also processing the soon to be grandparents, Don and Kim's visas to come and visit at the end of January. We have seen some activity which is good, but we hope to stop in the Gov. Relations Office while we are by the district office to exchange pleasantries and see how things are going.

Well, that's all for now. Less than two weeks before we go to Dubai!

Enjoy the pics.

-Jamie

Here is it! It is super nice wool . . . very soft on the feet.

These are the 24 week pictures

Say hello to the 3rd trimester!

The last two weeks

If you saw the previous title to this post I apologize.  I was going to post an ultrasound video, but it wouldn't upload.  I'm working on it . . . slowly.

I meant to post last week, but the internet wasn't cooperating and then it was a combination of being busy and lazy.

Last week at school was virtual school.  That meant that for the three days in the middle of the week, we were at school and our students were at home.  We use a program called Moodle.  We are able to post assignment, link websites, create forums, wikis and chat rooms.  The students can also turn in all of their homework online.  We found a few bugs during the trial, but if we ever are evacuated (unlikely) we can continue school.  It is also a good way to help kids who have missed some school get caught up or we can use it as a kind of homework hotline, which seems very old fashioned now.

This past week buzzed along as usual.  Today we went down to Khobar looking for many things.  We are downsizing our living room furniture to make more room for the baby.  Our coffee table is taking up precious baby play room.  We'll sell what we have since it is a set.  We are browsing Ikea's "as is" section for a cheap TV stand and are looking for some handcrafted side tables made from old Arab or Indian window frames or parts of a door.  We found a place that does really nice work that is closing their showroom and only making custom stuff.  That means everything they have now is half off.  We also looked at some Persian rugs, but nothing caught our eye, and with a rug we better love it because they're not cheap.  Finally, after all the shopping, we came home with some groceries.  Better luck next time maybe.

T - 21 days until Dubai!

Bye, Jamie

Crib

Honestly, the only thing going on for us right now is school.  Not very exciting.  We had a 6-day work week this week and successfully made it through.  Our one day off was spent working on homework for our master's class.  As you can see, teaching and learning have consumed our lives for the past 7 days.  It was exhausting, but mostly fun work to be done.

We did find time on Sunday evening to run to BabyShop because they were having a sale.  We got a brand new crib that was 30% off.  I was very proud of us.  Of course, Jamie used the rest of the evening putting it together.  Below are pictures of the process.

We also had a doctor's appointment on Monday.  Everything went well and all the tests they had done on me came back clean.  So, no gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, or anything else out of place.  I did find out that Jamie and I have different blood types which meant getting a shot in the buttocks.  That was fun!  The one thing that the doctor did mention is that the baby has a large tummy.  I took this as "your baby is already fat", but in the words of my father "he already has a beer belly".  (Thanks Dad!)  I got a bit of a lecture on how many sweets I can have a week, and I'm adding simple carbs to that list as well.  Very little pasta, white rice, or sugar for me for the next few months.   I don't honestly think my eating habits are the result of the big belly (I do a pretty good job not eating sweets normally), but I'll appease the doctor until our next check-up.  Jamie and I were both big babies, and I wouldn't be surprised if our son followed in those footsteps.

Until next time, here are some pics:
Tara

Beginning of the assembly process

He's reading the instructions!

It's looking like a crib.....

It's done!  and he only had to take it apart once to fix a mistake!

Completely curled up with his hand in front of his face

This one is kind of hard to make out.  He was being really stubborn and wouldn't move around for us to see his face so the doctor tried going between his legs to get a face shot.  This was as good as it got.

Goodbye Money

     Well, it is official.  We have started what I am told is the most expensive phase of our lives.  We made our first baby purchase yesterday and have many more on the way.
      First, Tara had a blood and glucose test done at the clinic and we toured the maternity wing of the hospital. We found out we could have a suite post delivery room for only 4,500 riyals ($1,200) a night!  Tempting, but the normal private room should be fine.  Overall, we were pleased with the hospital and staff we met.
     Second, we shopped and shopped and then shopped some more.  We have new bedside lamps from Ikea and old bedside lamps for Mom and Dad Gillaspie when they visit in January, we have a stroller, car seat, and base combo(20% off!), and Tara has a maternity swimsuit!  We also have a lovely Arabic stained glass clock.
     We'll keep everyone updated on how our nesting is coming along as we progress.

Enjoy the pictures.  I have more pictures to post once our internet decides to cooperate a bit better.

Side View, top down

Side view, ready for the Saudi rain

Good Ole' bumper playing the crash test dummy

Tara posing with our stroller

Thought I would put up a picture of our nice new Arab clock also