Yellow dog....

The kids will all be attending the same school here in Abu Dhabi. 

It's a pretty big deal as schools here are private & have an application process.... for each kid, individually.  It's not uncommon to have a family with kids split over two schools because space was an issue at their first choice. 

We were fortunate. GEMS American Academy had available space in all 3 of the grades our children will attend.  Whew! So today, we took the official school tour. 

The guide walked us through the lower floor where Olivia will spend the majority of her time. It also contains the indoor swimming pool, indoor gyms, clinic, auditorium, & cafeteria. The upper floors (there are 2) support the middle school & high school classrooms along with all the music/dance/theater stages. There is also a green screen production room, a library, & a 3D planetarium! 

I was impressed. 

Devin & Madeline really liked the black box theater (it's like a theater in the round.... but square), but Olivia said she's really looking forward to time in the planetarium. 

The school follows the international baccalaureate plan. I don't think it will be much of a factor in my kids' current class schedules as IB truly affects the high schoolers (which I don't have yet).  But, it will be very interesting to see how it plays out over here. Rockwall is starting their IB  program this year; I have several teacher friends who are involved. 

Since we only have the one car, we will be making use of the school's door-to-door bussing service. We happened to see the busses today, although we did not go inside one. 

I guess they were doing maintenance & driver checks ... Or perhaps the yellow dogs were the transportation for staff. Apparently, new teacher orientation started today. Our guide told us that they had 50 new teachers on campus!