Bountiful Lessons (from a 10-year-old shirt)

Well, I suppose it's beyond official now...I am an absolutely terrible blogger...it's August already and this is my first post of the year! And I can say with some certainty that it's likely to be my only post this year. In fact, the only reason I'm posting this here and now is because I thought there could likely be more than the solitary reader of my journal who might benefit from the following.

This niggling thought-turned-to-mental-rant actually started back in February or March of this year. A friend of mine was wearing a shirt that he'd had for 10+ years and discovered a hole near the front pocket. I attempted to hush his lamenting the imminent loss of this favored article of clothing by offering to patch the hole. (I did warn him that my skills as a seamstress are nothing to boast about, but since the shirt could hardly be ruined more, I would do my best.) So, he brought the shirt by the next day for me to fix up as much as I could. I was somewhat pleased with the results (only a slight pucker)...although now that I think about it, I never saw him wear the shirt again.... Oh well, perhaps the poor thing finally earned it's retirement. :)

However, the point of this story is not the shirt! It is, in fact, a comment that this friend made to me as I settled down on the couch to attempt to reunite the two edges of worn fabric...he said, "I guess this is good practice for you!" That's it! Just a simple, mildly flippant little comment...but it took me so by surprise and set the wheels in my mind turning furiously (perhaps the pucker in the mended shirt was not only due to my poor seamstress skills).

Here is the path my mind traveled in the 30 minutes following his comment...and has revisted on many, many occasions over the past 6 months: Practice for what, exactly?!? Practice for marriage? Practice for when I have children? Why should I practice these skills for then...as if having a man and a gaggle of little ones with constant supplies of hole-y clothes will suddenly make this skill-set complete or worthwhile!

Please don't get me wrong...I really am not bitter about this (although even reading back over it, I know it might sound like I am). His statement was just very eye-opening to me. I realized that I tell myself that same thing all the time: Cook new things every chance you get...it's good practice! Babysit/work with kiddos every chance you get...not only is it super fun, but it's excellent practice! Clean and decorate whatever space you are given...it's good practice! etc, etc, etc!!! I have spent my whole life thus far "practicing for" and "honing skills for" something...but what?!?!?

At what point can I stop "practicing" and start DOING! Why must I wait until I'm in a relationship or married to stop practicing and start cooking for another person (or people)? Why must I wait until my hubby and I have our place all set up to stop practicing and start having dinner and game nights with friends (especially married couples)? Why must I wait until I have children of my own to stop practicing and start loving on, training, and sharing whimsical moments with kiddos? Why must I wait until I'm in the hustle and bustle of family life to stop practicing and start patching clothes like a pro?

I realize this is definitely WAY deeper than anything my poor friend intended to push me off into...but I'm so glad it happened! There are so many simple, everyday needs around me all the time that, yes, might prepare me for something I might encounter in married life somewhere down the road--but should I really be meeting those needs as if they are "practice" for whatever the next (or final) step might be?!? How absurd! These are real needs that I can meet now--many of them are needs I am well-prepared to meet thanks to prior experiences! It seems so silly to me to label them as "practice" for something down the road...like marriage and family are the final rehearsal or something!

This is life...right now...stop practicing...start doing! Use those crazy-awesome kiddo skills you've been honing your whole life to babysit for your friend while she runs to the grocery store or goes on a date with her hubby. Find a group of college students (or high school students...or guys who are bach-ing it and won't be picky) and try that ginormous chicken spaghetti recipe you found on Pinterest. Let your nieces and nephews come spend the afternoon with you baking cookies to take to their teachers! Mend a shirt for a friend. Cook Easter lunch for your singles small group. Be a blessing, not for the sake of what you're getting out of it, but because God has given you gifts and experiences (which hone skills) and you should be using those to build up the Body of Christ and bring glory to HIM!

So, anyways, there's my rant/plaguing thought for the year. I hope it helps inspire you as you bid farewell to the "practice" mentality or that it at least plants a niggling thought which will take root in your mind and heart.



P.S. This is obviously written from a single girl/woman's perspective...however, the concept is definitely applicable regardless of your gender or "status" in life.


P.P.S. I'd love to hear your additional suggestions for how to stop practicing and start doing (because I know there are TONS more)...leave a comment below!

Bountiful Holidays

As I sit here in my old room at my parents house in Texas at 5 in the morning (wide awake since it feels like 3 in the afternoon in Dubai), I've decided it's high time I broke the blog silence and wrote at least a little something here! This December will mark my one-year "anniversary" of living in Dubai--can you believe it!?!? It still blows my mind a little bit! It has been such a great year of gaining friends and family and all kinds of amazing experiences that have changed me forever. I can't believe the blessing this time has been!!! In honor of this (and since I've spent the last hour pondering this while trying to go back to sleep since no self-respecting 25-year old gives up on sleep at 4:30am), I'm going to use this blog to share with you some more of the differences I see between Dubai and the US, specifically related to holidays. It's kinda weird this time because when I did a comparison like this last year, everything in the UAE was such a novelty to me--this year it's a bit different since, especially at Christmastime, things in the US seem much more novel!

The first sight that brought a huge smile to my face (other than seeing my family waiting eagerly for me at the airport) was the huge Christmas tree right outside the "Welcome to Houston" airport doors. Dubai, as a Muslim country, does not celebrate Christmas. There are still Christmas trees and various decor items (including nativity scenes!) at most of the big supermarkets, but it's not the same as here where all the malls and almost every store and business establishment is decorated and playing Christmas music.

The next big smile was brought by Christmas lights decorating so many houses!!! I'd forgotten I'd even missed those! In Dubai, there are two cultures that I can think of right now who display lights on their homes--Indians and Arabs. The Indians (especially Hindus) celebrated Diwali, or the Festival of Lights, around mid-October and I don't remember how long it lasted, but it seemed like maybe a month or so! At any rate, the big supermarkets had a lot of Diwali foods and decorations out at that time also, and you would see mulit-colored lights displayed in windows or on apartment balcony/porches. It was fun to see! The Arabs, on the other hand, will deck out their houses in hundreds of strands of white lights for weddings. This is really a fun sight to see as it will just be one random house in a neighborhood that is glowing from all the lights draped all over their house and swooping from their rooftop to the villa wall (not really sure how they sleep)! These lights stay up for about a week and add to the festivity of the whole event (I don't know if that's the real reason they're up or not, but they're definitely beautiful and fun!).

One of the cool things about living in a different country is that you get to celebrate (or at least experience) their holidays--one of the cool things about living in Dubai is that you get to celebrate (or at least experience) the holidays of a LOT of cultures!!! I've already mentioned Diwali, which obviously isn't a UAE-observed holiday*, but it is on the list of interesting experiences. Two of the big UAE holidays that have happened this fall are Eid (a Muslim holiday) and National Day (a UAE holiday). Eid was at the beginning of November this year (Muslims follow the lunar calendar so the date changes some each year). This holiday commemorates Abraham offering his son Ishmael as a sacrifice to God out of obedience to Him (yes, this differs from the Biblical account in one major detail). This was still a very fun holiday for us as many of the labor workers had off that day and we had a barbecue and various other fun things going on that day (sorta like a Labor Day party in the States). National Day (or UAE Day), on December 2, was also quite festive, not so much for us, but it's always fun to see how other people celebrate! This year was even more fun since it marked 40 years of the UAE being a nation! Villas were draped with ginormous UAE flags; cars were decked out with pictures of the sheiks and smaller flags; the fire department on the main road had a huge flag-banner hung up for 2 weeks; large buildings had flag-lights displayed at nighttime; red, green, black and white could be seen EVERYWHERE!!! People started putting up decorations a week or so ahead of time and a few houses still had their flags up when I left a couple days ago! During the days surrounding UAE Day the residential streets were littered with confetti and streamers. Congrats, UAE!!!

Okay, well, that's all the comparisons I think I'll make right now. I'm sure there are other holidays that I'm missing including here (3 doesn't seem like very many), but it's now 6am and I can hear my mom stirring about the house, so I guess I'll get started on my day here (plus then I'll be able to make "up at the crack of noon" jokes on my sisters when they get up in an hour--and before you feel bad for them, just know that I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually gotten up before them in the past 10 years).

Merry Christmas!!!


*I guess I would be remiss in my account if I didn't mention my favorite holiday--Thanksgiving. This is another non-UAE-observed holiday, which was kinda weird for us Americans. The kids that I work with all go to American schools which were closed that day, so they didn't have to skip school, but for all non-Americans, it was just a normal workday! Turkeys were available in some stores as were cranberries and cranberry sauce and some other traditional Thanksgiving foods, but there were no big signs or decorations up for this holiday.

Bountiful Re-Beginnings!

Alrighty, I'm back in Dubai now. I've been back for about 3 weeks now, which has been enough time to get unpacked, settled, and curious about why jet lag seems to just now be hitting! It's been a very busy and fun three weeks--car shopping, grocery shopping, getting personal touches put up in the apartment (that will be an on-going project, I'm sure), and getting re-familiarized with life in a foreign country. It's been a much smoother transition this time--which isn't really much of a surprise--and I definitely feel like I've gone from living with family in the States to living with another branch of my family in Dubai! I'm excited to report that grocery shopping has been no big deal, although I could tell that the "Americans" have been gone for a while when I went to our little neighborhood grocery stor. I'm pretty sure they stock items a few at a time and then re-stock more based on demand (i.e. They stock six cans of Dr. Pepper and if they're all gone by the end of the week--or the same day, if Katy happens to stop in that day--then they stock 12, etc.). Well, there was no Dr. Pepper and only a very limited range of the juices we typically get...hmm, oh well.

Now, I'm not too sure how I'm going to top that riveting opener <eye roll>, but let's see if I can come up with something.... Hmm...car shopping, perhaps.... There is a website here called Dubizzle (it's like the Craigslist or Southeast Texas Classifieds websites back in the US) where people can post items for sale, or even ads requesting certain items, and it's where most people I know here look for cars (and appliances and big furniture, etc.). Well, being true to the stereotype of my gender, and having no previous experience in car shopping, I was not at all looking forward to buying a car...my main questions (in order of importance) were: "Does it have A/C?", "Does it have a working sound system?", and "Does it make weird sounds?"..."Oh, and it IS automatic right?"...and "How much does it cost again?" (I am fairly certain that my dad has now rolled his eyes 4.5 times while reading this). All that to say, I wasn't feeling very qualified to wade through the hundreds of cars within my price range on Dubizzle, especially since there aren't always the most truthful descriptions listed (i.e. One car was described as having "no history of accidents, very few scratches or flaws" and the pictures showed huge scrapes and dents on the bumper...with the front bumper looking like a few good speed bumps might give it a whole new feeling of independence...yeesh!), then pick a few hopefuls, contact the owners (who may or may not be easy to communicate with), set up a meeting (hopefully in an easy-to-locate/easy-to-access area), test drive, pray they're being truthful about the history of the car, and continue from there! Well, God blessed this whole situation! We had a friend/acquaintance who was selling a few cars and had one come in that was just PERFECT for me...a 2001 Daihatsu YRV with a working A/C, within my price range, and with very few weird sounds (all were explainable and no big deal)...the tape deck is broken, so I'm out of luck with an iPod/tape adapter...but the radio works, so I get to choose between an English station I don't like, two Arabic stations I can't understand, and a classical station which is in the lead for favorite at the moment.... :) I also made a great discovery a few days ago...the owner's manual (separate English and Arabic editions)!!! I found out all sorts of fun things...like how to get the back seat to lay down flat (the Japanese engineer things a little differently than Americans)!

I know from the picture, the car looks blue, but one of the big selling points for Evan was that it looked purple when we went to see it at night. I think it's earned a Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde-type name...Blueberry (by day)-Purple-People-Eater (by night).... Anyways, this little BPPE (Beepy) is super fun to drive and I can tell we're going to have quite the fun little adventures together! Our first road-trip was this past weekend (a 2-hour drive to Al Ain and back), and she did great! Unfortunately, she's living up to her name a little better than I'd hoped. The speedometers in almost all cars in this area are fitted with a beeper that goes off when you hit 120 km/h (that's the maximum speed limit for the most part)--very similar to the dinger that goes off when you've got about 5 miles left before you run out of gas (I've panicked in traffic more than once and started looking around wildly for a petrol station thanks to that particular little idiosyncrasy before realizing I was just being notified of my speed). Anyways, most of the cars I've ridden in here only beep about 10 times (maximum) and then they just give up and leave you to travel at your chosen speed in peace...not so with Beepy!!! The durn car beeps CONSTANTLY if you're going over 120 km/h!!! My typical fix for this issue is obvious...turn up the radio! BUT...classical music just don't cover many annoying sounds like that (by now, I'm sure my mom has rolled her eyes 2.75 times...at least!...and only 1 was because of the grammatical error). Anyways, it should come as a great comfort to you all that I will be traveling the speed limit (or slightly under) at all times now...thanks to Beepy and her annoying glitch...er...extensive attention to cautious driving.... :) (I suppose this is all very good evidence that my parents are really great prayer warriors!)

In other exciting news, I now have my resident's visa (no more monthly trips to Oman...yay!!!) and my UAE driver's license!!! I feel so official now!!! :) I might be persuaded to devote a blog entry to that "little" process if enough people are interested...although in all fairness I was hugely blessed to have an "employer" (Kevin) who very graciously shielded me from most of the rigors and frustrations of the process.

I guess that's enough random tid-bits for now. I'm not sure if it's at all obvious, but I'm thrilled to be back--from the people to the food and sights and sounds (and even a few of the smells)--I've missed life in this busy city and am thoroughly looking forward to the experiences to be shared, memories to be made, and life-change that will occur in the next nine months!

Bountiful Hiking

Hello there. Sorry I've been absent for a week or so now. I've been out having more adventures to tell you about. As you'll recall, the last post was about my intense longing for some storms...some storms with moisture, but alas, there are few to be had. However! Jerri K and I were able to experience the next best thing earlier this week. We took a two-and-a-half day mini-cation to Al Ain, the "oasis" of the UAE, to visit some "relatives" of mine. Jeff and Treva are my dad's cousin's wife's uncle and aunt (so calling them relatives might be a stretch, but they're the closest relations I have on this side of the world, so I'm sticking with it!). I'd been pretty sick for the whole week before we went to visit, so Treva did a great job of cooking some "mom food" and mothering me a lot! We had several little adventures while we were there, including hiking, visiting an old souk, driving around, and going to a BEAUTIFUL garden...twice!
First a bit of background. Al Ain is the fourth largest city in the UAE and is located in the Abu Dhabi emirate*. Dubai is the largest city in the UAE, so in comparison, Al Ain has less of a "big city" feel and is much, much greener. Al Ain is the home of Jebel Hafeet, the tallest mountain peak in the UAE (1,249 meters, 4,068 feet), where we spent the night after my first full day in the UAE (in other words, it's a memory I only recall in small patches thanks to jet lag!). During this visit to Al Ain, we did not actually go up on the mountain, but instead explored a wadi (dried up creek bed) at the base of Jebel Hafeet. It was particularly interesting because Treva knows plants really well and Jeff knows rocks really well, so we had our own personal tour guides! Both Jerri K and I being the "country girls" that we are (and me being a "biologist" of sorts ;), we were thrilled to get to finally see nature up close, to walk around somewhere that wasn't a mall--somewhere where you had to watch your footing because the rocks were loose, not because you might run into another person;

 

(Jeff leap-frogged with us a bit...I think he got tired of our slow pace)

somewhere where you looked up and admired God's creation, not window displays;

(we found calcite veins in the rocks all over the place...and found lots of calcite crystals as souvenirs!)

somewhere where the bits of green stood out against the dusty rocks, not blending in with the other flashy colors;

(Sodom's apple, Calotropis procera)

somewhere where a closer look revealed little treasures (gems, minerals, fossils, flower buds, bird nests), not an exorbitant price tag;

(another calcite vein, and Treva and Jerri K taking a break; and no human painted this rock on the right)

(Sand dollar and some other shellfish fossil...I think)

(bird nest in a rock crevice)

somewhere where you could feel small and insignificant, but know that it had nothing to do with your culture or the number of dirhams in your wallet.

(same rock in both pictures)

(peek-a-boo!)

(Obviously, I'm a fan of this place...not that I dislike malls tremendously, this was just a VERY welcome break from city life!) We probably hiked for an hour and a half to two hours, stopping frequently to admire plants and rocks and take plenty of pictures. We hiked along the wadi (I have no idea how far) down to it's "origin" at a dry waterfall (pictured below...pretty neato)!

Once we were finished hiking, we stopped off at a falaj (part of an irrigation system; I think that's what it was) to soak our feet for a bit. The water was coming straight from its source in the earth and was surprisingly warm. (The green stuff in the picture is algae growing along the falaj walls.)

*The United Arab Emirates is composed of seven emirates (political territories): Abu Dhabi (the capital and largest emirate),  Dubai, Sharjah, Fujairah, Ajman, Ras al-Khaimah, and Umm al-Quwain. 

Bountiful Sandstorms

One of the things that I've missed the most since I have been here (you know...other than the obvious things like friends and family and sonic) is thunderstorms...and rain in general I suppose...but I really miss thunderstorms. We've had one week of rain since I got here (the kind of rain that actually forms a few puddles that last more than five minutes), including one or two "torrential downpours" (the kind of downpour that we would actually call a pretty good rain back home), and then a few other random spurts of "sprinkles" (the kind of sprinkles that leave just enough proof in the dust caked on car windows to keep people from thinking you've been smoking "too much shisha*" and are telling crazy stories...I'm not kidding...about 15 minutes passed from the first few tiny drops until all signs of moisture had completely evaporated!!!) Also, the closest thing we have to thunder over here is the occasional round of fireworks that someone sets off near one of the big buildings in town (hmm...that was a very southern country-girl way to word that...too tired to "citify" it, though...), or when the dump trucks rumble past our house. :( 

So that's the rain/thunderstorm situation. For any of you who have lived anywhere in east Texas (which is where I've been for the past five and a half years), you know how much rain falls there...we get a good storm about every week or two (on average)...sometimes a whole week of storms!!!...and I dearly love storms. We are not, however, completely without storms on this side of the world. In east Texas, there is an abundance of moisture (therefore, we have rainstorms); in Dubai...there is an abundance of sand...so we have sandstorms! Since I have been here, there have been several standstorms...a few of them lasting a couple of days. Usually they bring in cooler weather with them, although one of them blew in on some very hot winds (that was dismal!). 

The closest thing I can relate a sandstorm to (at least with what I have experienced in the states), is probably a pretty thick fog. However, instead of your hair curling as soon as you step into the drenched air...you feel like you've been standing too close to the fire for a few months in the winter (that is, the air sucks the moisture right out of you! or at least that's what it feels like). Just like a thick fog, though, sandstorms create an atmosphere of solitude...landmarks are blocked out, even neighbors houses down the road are barely perceivable. (Please note: the pictures really don't do it justice.)

View of the front gate from inside the villa wall...sandy sky on the top, clear sky on the bottom.

View from our "apartment"...sandy sky on the top, clear sky on the bottom.

The wind is usually very gusty during sandstorms (which I do like), but it blows the sand EVERYWHERE (go figure...)! During my first ever sandstorm (before the sand had really taken over the sky), I had the windows open to let in the lovely wind and glorious cool air, but I kept noticing that dust was building up on things a lot faster than usual. When I went outside a while later I realized we couldn't see any of our usual skyscraper landmarks!!! Holy cow! During our second lengthy sandstorm, I really should have known better, but the cool air was just a little too tempting, so after a few hours of having the window open, our kitchen countertop yielded a pile of sand comparable to the pile on the floor! Sheesh! The most amazing sandstorm, in my opinion, was the one that blew in SUPER fast (in February I think), and we were sitting outside and got to see it coming! It looked like a couple of the skyscrapers near us were on fire with smoke billowing out the top (it was just sand blowing off their roofs!)...about the time the wind hit us (blowing things off the outside tables where we were eating), we realized what was going on...kinda. I thought it was a rain storm and got REALLY excited. Only after things had died down a bit and we drove home did I realize that there was no hint of moisture anywhere. Then when we got home and I found little piles of sand on our porch and blown in under the door did reality fully sink in. Fortunately, we haven't had any other storms blow in with quite that much vehemence!

View of our front porch...post-sandstorm on the top, freshly swept on the bottom.

 

View of back steps...post-sandstorm on the left, freshly swept on the right.

So there you have it...the storms of the desert...not as near and dear to my heart as the Texas storms I grew up with...but still quite impressive in their own right! :)

*Shisha--refers to fruit-flavored tobacco smoked in a hookah and very common here in the UAE. Please note that this is a joking reference...I have not, nor do I intend to ever try shisha. 

Bountiful Baking

Well, today was my roommate, Jerri K's, 25th birthday. To help her celebrate, I decided to make a home-made (from scratch) red velvet cake with buttercream icing (a Gifford family birthday tradition). It is this endeavor which provided the inspiration for today's blog....

I have determined that it is very, very difficult to appreciate cooking in one's native country until one attempts to cook in a non-native country! That being said, I would also like to make the disclaimer that I do realize how very fortunate I am to be in a country that hosts so many different cultures--I am sure it is EXPONENTIALLY easier to find American staples here than it would be in many places, so please do not consider any of this a complaint...just a comparison of what I've been accustomed to with what I'm growing accustomed to!

I'm sure that I have already mentioned that grocery shopping here is always an adventure because you never know what you will find (if I haven't mentioned it, my apologies...grocery shopping here is always an adventure because you never know what you will find...there, now you know*.)! Also, you never know what kinds of products you will find at the different stores...even stores in the same chain may not (and probably don't) carry all the same things. It is always somewhat of a gamble trying to find specific things that may or may not be "uncommon" items. Root beer is an excellent example of this! Jerri K once went to 3 or 4 different grocery stores looking for it, and we ended up finding at a small corner grocery store--she hopped out of the car at the red light to run into the store and get some (then walked down the street half a block to where we were rendezvousing with some friends). Anyways, I digress....

The point is that I was a bit concerned about finding all the ingredients for the cake...flour, sugar, baking soda, milk, eggs, salt...these are all easy to come by (although the sugar granules are HUGE!)...cocoa powder wasn't a problem (yay!), vanilla I had found at another grocery store a few weeks ago, stick butter we had (although the "sticks" are shaped differently than they are in America...more like blocks) which was good, because I couldn't find it today (probably wasn't looking in the right place, the organization in this store [Carrefour...one of the three grocery stores we frequent...and my least favorite by far!] makes very little sense to me), vinegar** and Crisco I had borrowed from Brooke (no idea where she got those from!), and I finally gave up on buttermilk and opted to make my own substitute (milk plus lemon juice or white vinegar). 

So, by the time I had all the ingredients together, the most difficult part was over...I could turn my music on in the kitchen and bake my merry little heart out...it was GLORIOUS!...until I actually went to bake the cakes...two 9-inch cake pans will not both fit into our oven...sigh. I ended up baking one in our oven and the other in Brooke's oven (yes, I do realize that I could have baked them one at a time, but I wasn't really prepared to devote that kind of time to this project...even though that's about what ended up happening!). Our oven also does not come with a temperature regulator...so it's really a bit of trial and error to bake anything in it. The cake in Brooke's oven (temperature regulated) turned out picture perfect...the cake in our oven...well...it tasted good, but was rather tough and dark on the bottom (like cake jerky!). However, this is not a sad story...the four-layer cake very quickly became a three-layer cake with artistic cake crumbles placed on the sides to decorate the icing! The extra icing was combined with some more red food coloring and used to decorate the top of the cake!

I'm happy to report that the cake was a success (Alex was kind enough to find some candles for us in the "gift drawer")--it was happily complemented by some Blue Bell ice cream (Jerri K is a HUGE fan and Carrefour had several flavors to choose from...including two of her favorites: Strawberry and Mint Chocolate Chip!)--and the birthday was a good one!

*So, for any of you reading these blogs, you will likely have noticed that I'm rather easily side-tracked and extremely fond of including all my asides in the narrative, however, I decided this particular side-track was just a bit too long to include above (but was, of course, certain I would forget it if I did not include it here...so here it is!)...a few examples of the "randomness" one can find at the local grocery (and by "randomness", I, of course, mean "strange things to find in America, normal things to find not in America")....

Found these a month or so ago..."Lamb Franks"...I have not yet worked up the courage to try these...don't know if I ever will...I'm just now deciding that I like lamb shawarmas and lamb kebabs...lamb franks is a bit of a stretch, I think....

Today's discovery..."Coffee Whitener"...right next to all the coffee creamers. I'm a tad curious if this actually does anything to the flavor or truly just changes the shade of the coffee. On my list of things to try someday....

**Semi-funny story: Brooke found the apple cider vinegar for me in her pantry, no problem. She then proceeded to offer me the other types of vinegar she had on hand...malt vinegar and fig vinegar. When I went back later to see if she had some white vinegar (so I could make the buttermilk), she didn't have any...! The moral of the story? You know you live in a foreign country when you can find FIG vinegar in the pantry, but not white vinegar!!!

Bountiful Surprises (2nd edition)

My apologies for not staying more consistent with these blogs. Thank you all so much for your positive feedback. Once again, I've been very busy the past few weeks...which means I now have plenty more to blog about (still struggling a bit to find sufficient time...I apologize in advance if this is not tremendously coherent). 

Alright...to properly explain my latest excuse for busy-ness, I must transport you back in time to last Thursday evening (March 3rd). Brooke had asked us (Jerri K and I) if we would accompany her to the airport to pick up a person as a favor for a friend. She sounded a bit reluctant to do it, and explained that it would just be really nice to not have to do it alone. I thought this a little strange since the person she was picking up was a female and Brooke was going to be taking her daughters with her (and she doesn't usually have much problem chatting with people she doesn't really know), but flexibility is key here (and we were getting dinner out of the deal... :) ...yeah, I'm still in college student mode!). Anyways, as we were driving to the airport, the girl called Brooke to let us know that her plane had landed and she would be sitting in the lobby waiting for us. Brooke told the girl that she was going to send two young ladies in to collect her and gave her Jerri K's description so she would know who to look for. When we got to the airport, Jerri K and I hopped out of the car and went in to look for this girl...only then realizing that we had no idea who to look for...good grief. 

I wish now that I would have had my camera with me to take a picture of what we found in that lobby.... We had looked through one mostly empty seating area and moved on to the next when I saw (from the side) a young lady sitting towards the front staring at the lobby doors. From her body language, I thought she could very well be our fare...then as we walked a little closer I realized that she looked very similar to our good friend Filicia from Beaumont...she actually looked a LOT like Filicia...enough to actually be Filicia...what were the odds?!?!? Sure enough, about that time, she turned and saw us and had just enough time to smile and stomp her foot that we had "snuck up" on her before Jerri K was squeezing her tight and repeatedly touching her face to be sure she was really there!!! A few tears were shed...a few more threatened...and after about 5 minutes of hugging and pinching and face-touching, we determined that we did indeed have a huge blessing standing in front of us...one we would enjoy for an entire week! :)

When we finally escorted her out to the car, Brooke was absolutely beaming and when I turned to the little girls (Bella and Alex) in the back seat to explain who this "new girl" was, they were both mirroring their mother's face...they'd been in on it, too!!! (At least for a few hours!!!). I found out later that day that Leslie and the boys (and I'm sure John, too) had known about it for several days as well!!! We live with a bunch of REALLY good secret-keepers!!! I couldn't believe it! (I'm definitely going to be the weak link around here next Christmas...I can tell already!)

Anyways, we had a wonderful week with Ms. Filicia...she was such a huge encouragement to us both (and we did lots of "touristy" things with her...so those will be some of the blog subjects later this week, hopefully).

Here's a picture of Jerri K and Filicia with one of our new friends in Dubai...this was taken at Safa Park (one of the greenest places I've seen in Dubai) and shows a lovely portion of the Dubai skyline (that's the Burj Khalifa on the far left...the tallest building in the world!...and we went up to the 124th floor!!!...but more about that later....)

P.S. I told you I'd keep you updated on interesting drinks/foods I've tried...I've discovered some relatively inexpensive juices that I've been experimenting with. So far...Strawberry is good, Mango is good, (strawberry and mango mixed is good), Orange Carrot juice is good (as in, the fruit orange, not the color), Guava juice is not so good (unless it's mixed with the orange carrot and some lemonade...then it's not too bad...just adds some texture to the drink!). Also, the Fruit punch I tried was pretty good...but Mango and Strawberry (and of course, Red Orange) are my favorites. :)