Moving into the villa was fun... but we didn't have cable, so we couldn't watch TV or communicate with anyone.. but it made playing in the beach a great option!

Isabella excited about her awesome recliner...

Bar Service.. oh yeah!

our  new back yard!

Our first day in Dubai.. lunch down the street at Atlantis..

  Crafts at what I now know is the JBR walk..

Swimming New Years Eve!

Checking on kids from our balcony while we are deciding where to put the furniture..

About to fall asleep...

Wearing my new strapless dress!

Christopher enjoying his business class seat...!

Departure and Arrival to Dubai...

Now that I've downloaded some pictures on my computer I can cover what happened before, during, and after our arrival to Dubai....

Saying good-bye to our friends from Trinity...

Really enjoyed our 5 short months at Trinity.. but we will be back!!!

Then we said good-bye to all of our Dove friends.... that is for a whole other chapter!

I am originally dreading our flight over in coach on a 16 hour flight to Dubai, but as we check-in we decide to pay the extra to upgrade to business class.  And we don't regret it!!

Christopher excited that he found the chair can give you a massage...

Isabella excited the chair leans back all the way into a bed! 

Attentive to the flight instructions..

This is the way to fly!!

We arrive to Dubai at 7 pm, which is 9 am in our internal clocks.. and it's time to check in to hotel and go to bed!!

Isabella trying to make her hotel bed feel at home with her animal farm.. hehe

Christopher falls right to sleep!

The next few days we are adjusting to time differences and seeing the new villa!!

maid in dubai...

So, yesterday our maid started, already used her for babysitting and this morning (this is so cool), I wake up to breakfast on the table and the kids backpacks ready for school... I could really get used to this!  She is on trial basis so I'm sure she's trying to impress but holy cow, I'm impressed!

Of course, finding her was like the handsome prince searching for his princess... I went through a lot of toads (did I just mix disney stories?).  I got about 30 phone calls, not exaggerating, from my ad I posted.  I couldn't even keep up with all of them.. I did about 10-12 phone interviews, that led to about 6 personal interviews.  I was down to a final 2 where one of them was young (30) with young kids and who Isabella took to like flies on rice, the other was 40 but who the kids were wishy washy about.  After consulting with every single person I talked to, about 80% went with the older lady and 20% went with the younger one.  So I book the older one, but then talked myself into thinking the younger one might be better because Isabella loved her (yes, she used the word love).  So I call the younger one and tell her to come the next day so that we can try her out, she agrees and even has the gall to sound enthusiastic.  20 minutes after she's supposed to show up I call and ask her if she's showing up, you know what she says?  She says 'let me finish my lunch and then I will be over'.. I say 'excuse me, did you forget you were coming here at 1?'.. and she starts into this blabbering monologue (much like this one) about how she still has other interviews and how she has a headache from not knowing what to do.  As she is talking I am already PO'd about the whole situation and realize that maybe my original instinct about going with an older, mature (less fertile) lady would work better for our household.  So far so good!

OK, gotta go shower before curtain guy comes to install new curtains... woohoo!

Dubai First Impressions...

So, I was originally going to do a "first impressions" blog about our first impressions of Dubai.. but our shipment (and my computer) got held up at customs due to (get this) MUCINEX in our shipment, so the Dubai customs authorities decided it would be dangerous to bring this in, therefore stopped process completely!!  So now, first impressions is actually 6 weeks old impressions...... ugh

But, happy face now, we have our shipment (sans mucinex), our computer and now we can get up to date with communications and feel like we belong to a world beyond Dubai.  Thank goodness, because my thumbs were rubbed raw from Whatsapping with all my friends back home:)

We ARE getting settled, our place is on the manmade island Palm Jumeirah and it is beautiful.  We have our own beach, our own pool, high ceilings and couldn't ask for a prettier place to live in.  However, and that's a big however, since the house hasn't been lived in for 7 months all the water pipes have seen better days.  I've had to call after hours emergency maintenance twice due to broken water pipes and overflooding toilets.  Isabella didn't sleep in her room for a week because of the torrential leak out of her ceiling, which thankfully leaked right into her bathtub so I didn't have to come home to a flooded house, just to the sound of a rain shower inside of our house.  That, with the added odor emanating from our dear maintenance folks (of course all this happened when Mike was out of town), I was in a serious "what have we done moving here!" mode for a few days... but then things got fixed, I got my curtains ordered, I played tennis, found out I can actually buy liquor without a liquor license and I'm feeling very positive now!  Mike got to hear of all these water problems the day he went back to Houston for 10 days (after making sure we got moved in to our villa (fancy UAE name for house))... the day after he left my toilet overflooded, so I couldn't use my bathroom for 5 days till that got fixed, then my water heater broke so I didn't take a warm shower for 2 days.. during all this Mike is in Houston sleeping in our delicious bed, taking hot showers and using our own toilet, how dare he! :)

We, well I've met a bunch of ladies at the kids at school who are all so nice and always have great tips on where to get curtains, where to buy rugs, where to vacation, where not to vacation... I had to start making notes on my phone as people tell me things because between learning peoples names and kids names, and where to go and not to go, I feel like I'm back in school trying to study and absorb as much as possible.  By the evening when it was time to go to bed I'd be exhausted from information overload!

Today we went to an amazing Thai brunch at Thai Kitchen at the Grand Hyatt and it was amazing.  We sat for about 2.5 hours and were brought about 20 to 30 different small dishes where we got to try all sorts of different food...  Tonight we originally were going to go out with 3rd grade parents (an adult night out!) but it is a dry night so no alcohol is being served so we all decided to cancel haha!  So instead, we are going next door an having our own "wet" night hehehe.. so there!  Ok, have to go and enjoy the Dubai version of First Friday!!

Yes, it looks like we are headed to Dubai...

Yes, if you haven't heard already.. looks like we're moving on temporary assignment to Dubai!