This week passed quickly, relatively speaking. I guess when you sleep in until 10 or 11am there’s not a lot of time left in each day. We have blackout shades in all the bedrooms and they work a little too well. Poor Nanny gets up at whatever time and cleans the downstairs and then waits for us all to wake up so she can straighten up our bedrooms. (*** Josh is not on the lazy family summer schedule. He gets up and out around 6am or something like that. I’m not sure since I’m always sound asleep.) Not like there’s a lot for her to do these days. It’s pretty empty in here aside from a few pieces of furniture in each room. No explosion of toys and clothes to manage yet.
We are hitting our stride in these days of limbo. Wake up, eat brunch, watch Olympics — we have amazing coverage, and hang out inside the house (because it’s blistering outside) until Josh gets home. Then Josh and I go to the gym together, come home, eat dinner and more Olympics until we make the kids go to bed sometime before 11pm.
Add in some yelling to get off the computers, and some yelling to go to bed, and a million requests for junk food snacks from the mini-mart/cold store that is in our compound and that about sums up our days.
Thank God for IKEA. It’s been my only real entertainment outside of the Olympics. Yes, it’s money spent, but killing several hours trying out different pieces of furniture and picking up a few things for the house is priceless. We’ve been 3 times already. The key to success is only taking one child along instead of all 4.
The face painting in the IKEA photo is because we went to a Lebanese restaurant for lunch last weekend and the sweet Filipina face painting lady was happy to decorate Camille. She tried to keep it on her body as long as possible.
Solving the problem of my kitchen with no counterspace. Thanks IKEA! Now when Nanny wants to help me cook I shouldn’t feel like we’re fighting over the same few inches of cutting board. I’m hoping that it makes it easier for me to have someone else in the kitchen.
What I’d like her to do all day
versus what she actually does.
(Pringles and lollipop from our neighborhood cold store that she bought with her Tooth Fairy money)
This is our Abu Dhabi. The walk around the corner to our mall and grocery store. So thankful that we can walk to resupply our perpetually empty refrigerator or I really would go crazy.
Josh and I drive past the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque on our way to work out every day.
It is a huge, gorgeous building that is even more impressive in person. It reminds me of the Mormon Temple in Oakland, our own Disneyland castle (just bigger).
Yesterday we went for our first set of meetings at the kids’ new school. Camille was in tears and didn’t want to go (even though the appointments were just for the boys) and we couldn’t figure out why (except that she always cries about new things). We finally understood when she whispered 10 minutes into the tour, “There aren’t any snakes here.” Poor girl thought because the school mascot is a sand viper that there’d be snakes and pictures of snakes all over the place and her snake phobia was on high alert.
One of the very nice counselors gave her a coloring sheet which kept her occupied the rest of the morning while we talked about class schedules, sports and high school senior stuff. Only 10 days until Calvin starts his last year of High School.
My car supposedly left Bahrain yesterday and should be here in a few days. That doesn’t mean that I’ll get it in a few days, but at least we’re one step closer.
