Thanksgiving in Dubai

We celebrated our first thanksgiving here in Dubai, and it went off without a hitch! We were a little worried we wouldn’t have anything to do for thanksgiving, but we ended up with an invite to a thanksgiving dinner with 50 of our closest church friends. We are so thankful for Scott & Jennifer Rose who opened their home to all those with nowhere to go. Here in Dubai, unless you are American or lived in America, you wouldn’t really know its thanksgiving at all. Other holidays make themselves known with big store front decorations and window displays, but not thanksgiving. It kind of just sneaks in between Halloween and Christmas. In fact, the only mention I saw of thanksgiving at all was on thanksgiving, at Carrefour, the grocery store, we just so happened to walk by a cooler full of turkeys.

Our Thursday night was spent showing Joe around the Mall of the Emirates, and the indoor ski resort. It was Joe’s last night in town, and that was the last thing we wanted to show him. Steven and I were bummed Joe wasn’t going to get to celebrate thanksgiving with us, but it was ok because all Joe wanted was Taco Bell anyways. Unfortunately, there is no Taco Bell in that mall so we settled on CKP instead.  After dinner, we went back home, picked up Joe’s suitcase and took him to the airport.

Friday morning we woke up at 5am to Skype with all our family back home. I was so excited to get to see family I hadn’t talked to since we left I could hardly sleep the night before. We dropped in to my sister’s house in Long Beach to talk with my mom & aunt and cousins. Then we jumped over to my dad’s house in LA to talk with him and my younger sisters, before finally landing at Steven’s brother’s house to talk with him and his baby, and Steven’s dad.

We are so thankful for our family thousands of miles away and for skype to keep us connected. We also got to skype with our good friends Morgan & Lisa who are in Hawaii, (you can keep up with them at: http://konaandbeyond.blogspot.com/) And Liz & Bernie Keach, whose house we usually crash on thanksgiving anyways.

After all the skyping and short nap, we went to church, came home, and started cooking for our thanksgiving dinner that night. We were in charge of bringing cranberry sauce and an appetizer. Again, a huge thank you to the Rose family who put on an amazing thanksgiving dinner. There were 4 turkeys to feed all 50+ of us, mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans, stuffing, corn, yams, rolls and of course, pumpkin pie!! They even had the Lions/Packers game on! Steven said all he was missing was his finest sweet pants and a nap on the couch.

There was even a blind folded pie eating contest along with thanksgiving jokes & trivia:

There was so much food that we even got to bring some left overs home.

Although we didn’t have our family here, we had a great thanksgiving. And we hope you all had a great one too!

Making a run for the border!

Even though I should soon be getting my visa through my work, another month has passed which means another border run for us!  A border run is simply that: running for the closest border (The Sultan of Oman), leave the U.A.E. and getting stamped back in for another 30 days.  People who are out of work and not being sponsored by another person’s passport have to do these border runs every month in order to keep their visa valid. So, on this run we took some pictures to show you all back home what it’s like. It starts with a full tank of gas, some snacks, and a decent CD to listen to on the 1 ½ -2 hour drive to Oman.  From our house, we take the 44 towards Hatta/Oman:

It’s pretty cool to drive through the desert and see the sand change colors and go from trees and bushes to straight sand dunes as far as the eye can see:

When you see the mountains, you know you’re getting close, but if you are not paying attention to that, your phone will let you know with the mass amount of text messages you will receive with offers to switch from Etisalat (Dubai’s main cell service) to Nawras, which is Oman’s main cell service:

The first stop you make is to be stamped out of Dubai:

Once stamped out, you get back in the car and continue driving towards Oman for another half an hour or so.  Oman welcomes you with a window tint warning:

I guess they take that pretty seriously… anyways from there you park and walk in and get what is called an “entry/exit”. It basically stamps you into Oman and then right back out again. You pay your 200 dirhams collect your passport and are on your way! Sorry, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside:

The road down to Oman reminds me of Mexico. There are all kinds of random shops that specialize in few things:  rugs, pottery, tires & hub caps, and gigantic vases that are twice the size of me.  You will usually see camel on your way there along with goats and their shepherd:

But you know you are back in the good ol’ U.A.E.  when you are greeted by a picture/billboard of Sheikh Hamdan the crown prince of Dubai AKA His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum:

I love that there are huge pictures of the leaders here all over the place and that the leaders are highly respected and loved.

In other news, we have been playing lots of monopoly with the kids, a game I can’t stand but for some strange reason they all seem to love it:

And we have been going to the beach every weekend. 2 weekends ago there was the slightest bit of surf, which we totally loved! But as you can see from last weekend’s picture that was short lived and the ocean returned to be completely flat:

We have met more friends at church and met a family who surfs. Every one of them from the dad to the 4 year old daughter surf (when the waves show up) which is really cool.

We also had our first dinner guest over, Amy (from church) where we got to cook for her and since she’s from Texas and a total country girl we downloaded the CMA’s and watched them together. But it was kind of lame to not recognize as much as there is no country station out here. It’s ok though, we were happy with what we had J

Also, our friend Joe is in town! He is who we visited in Vietnam. We have been enjoying showing him around Dubai and selling him on the city (which it wasn’t too hard to sell)… more on him later.

We are really excited for thanksgiving, even though it’s only the Americans that celebrate it, and we will have to celebrate on Friday since Thursday is a work day. We hope you all enjoy your thanksgiving day feasts & naps & black Friday shopping!

one down, one to go...

I finally got a job! I’m the business development specialist for ENPI Group, one of the Middle East’s largest manufacturers of paper and plastic products. They make everything from plastic grocery bags to visa credit cards and have a contract with all of the McDonalds in the Middle East to make their paper cups (along with other fast food restaurants).  My office is pretty close to our house which is really convenient and it’s a 5 day work week whereas most jobs here are 6 days a week (having only Friday off).  Steven and I are really grateful that God provided this job.  Although this company has been around for about 15 years, the corporate office where I work just opened about a month ago. It’s a little unorganized and there’s a slight lack of communication, but it’s a job none the less. My first week I was able to go on a tour of the factory where they make plastic bags, adhesive films, and shrink wrap, to get a better knowledge of the product.  Steven’s previous job back in the states had him going into factories all the time so he knew exactly what I would see.  It was interesting to see all the machines and conveyer belts producing all these bags from start to finish. I almost felt like I was in an episode of How Its Made.

With this job we have kind of gotten into a more normal schedule and life, although Steven is still looking for work (keep praying for that). We get up by 7 at the latest, Steven makes me a lunch while I get ready and we enjoy breakfast together before he drops me off at work.  Steven then takes on the duties of House Husband: cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, until I’m off work. Last week was Halloween and I was a little bummed that we were not going to be able to do anything as Halloween isn’t celebrated that much. But I came home from work and was surprised by 2 small pumpkins Steven brought home for us to carve! Pumpkins here are crazy expensive. We were at the grocery store and saw an average sized pumpkin for well over $45.00 so I had figured that it was totally out of the question. But Steven was able to find small ones for less than $3.00! It was a nice surprise-pumpkin-carving date night.

We have also been trying to make it a habit to go to the farm (the kids dads house) and hang out with the kids at least once a week (as they are usually at the house while I am at work). The first night we went over there the kids had their servants put up “the small slide” so we could all play on it. The small slide is a blow up/moon bounce style slide that is about the size and height of a bouncy house. We had a lot of fun playing on it and throwing each other down the slide, taking turns climbing back up… all of us trying to pull Steven down. The next week we went over and the kids told us they pulled out “the big slide”. The big slide… this thing is HUGE! At least 2 stories tall, stomach dropping steep, and I’m pretty sure I got a nose bleed making my way to the top. (ok not really, but you get the idea) I was scared out of my mind to go down this thing and here, Stevens siblings and their cousin all younger than 9 are jumping down it without a care in the world. It took some major convincing on Missy’s part (Stevens sister) and maybe some hand holding, but I eventually went down (and stayed there).  We really enjoy the time we get to spend playing with the kids and taking them to park, even though the park has nothing on their back yard. Here are some pictures of the set up of the big slide (sorry they are not the best):

 

This past weekend was the Eid al-Adha Holiday. According to Wikipedia: The Festival of Sacrifice celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice instead. I’m not too sure how you celebrate Eid or what exactly you’re supposed to do, but the holiday gave me a 4 day weekend and Steven and I enjoyed it at the beach! I know back home its crazy cold and raining and snowing, so I’ll post some pictures for your enjoyment and hopefully to warm you up:

Did it work? J

So the other night we went to meet some church friends to play volleyball and on our way there we came across an awesome china cabinet that would fit perfect in our dining room! We had previously checked out Ikea for something similar to buy once we had an income as we need more storage space in our closet-less home. Just another way the Lord provides. And now Steven is excited that he has a project to work on while he continues to look for work. If only I could decide what color I want to paint it….

Also on a side note, we started making a list of things we never thought we’d do, see, or hear until we moved to Dubai:

1.       Wearing jeans and a jacket in 90+ degree weather

2.       Listening to the radio to hear the traffic we are in is caused by a camel crossing

3.       Being too hot to be at the beach, where even the water is too hot to enjoy

4.       Trucks transporting camel on the highway

5.       Stepping outside into 80 degree weather and thinking it’s a bit cold

6.       Saying “a bit cold” instead of “a little cold”

Please keep us in your prayers and that Steven would find work. We love and miss you all and hope you're all enjoying the winter weather.