I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about house hunting. Frankly, I’m sick of talking about it, but it’s either that or a story about how the kids (Carter, really) blew up the Wii by plugging it into the wall here at the hotel. 220v strikes again. And since I just told you that story, all that’s left is the house . . .
As we were driving away from the villa last time, a red slide caught my eye as I looked down one of the alleyways. “Is that a park?” In all our driving around the island, I haven’t seen any neighborhood parks, so I was afraid it might be part of a school or private club. We arrived a few minutes early this morning to check it out. Oh it’s a park. A good one with lots of space to run, soccer goals, a basketball court — the kids liked our house choice before they even saw the house.
She’s mad. Camille wants to go swing and Caleb is blocking her progress because we have to head the opposite direction to go to our meeting. Don’t worry, little girl. You’ll have plenty of time to play at the park.
Inside the front gate: date palms
Not much outdoor space, but at least it is green. And with the park within walking distance, the need for outdoor play space becomes much less important.
living room — Josh and the landlord chatting it up in Arabic.
It’s a big space — not pretty, but lots of room for their indoor soccer games.
The entire downstairs is open
The kitchen looks out on the living room — the glass door behind the stairs leads to the pool
Again, not pretty, but tons of storage space. It looks better in the photos than in real life. It’s pretty dated, but at least it has a gas stove.
Those of you who visited in Oman remember how big our bedroom was there — this one is just as big. I think I’m going to put a sewing/craft table in here, but haven’t told Josh that yet. :waving: Great idea, right? There’s plenty of room for it, Josh’s treadmill, our bed, a home theater, an amusement park . . . it’s a wonderland of emptiness at the moment.
Second living area upstairs. This is where Carter is finagling to put an X-box. The kid blows up the Wii and sees it as an opportunity to upgrade his gaming system. I told him I thought we should turn it into a library with lots of books. He wasn’t impressed. Oh, and we decided we actually like the carpet. It’s a lot nicer than what we remembered (we saw a lot of icky carpet in our housing tours) and I’m not asking someone to tear up perfectly good carpet. They’ll probably have to tear it up when my kids get through with it anyway . . .
There’s also a rooftop “patio” that doesn’t look like much at the moment, but it does have one of those great big shade awnings (like they put over pools) so we could easily turn it into a nice outdoor space. We’re moving ahead to finalize things with this place — there’s also a guest bedroom downstairs that will be ready for visitors as soon as we move in. Book your dates now!