It may be 110 outside, but there's some "Frozen" in here!

Lindsey is still working on his dissertation. So, just to get out of the 600 sq ft of shared space we call home, he sometimes goes down & works from the "business area". I usually accompany him; I need a break from the kids too!

The business room of the hotel also serves as a library & "quiet" (ie board) games room. Access to the hotel desktops & printers is just on the other side of a half wall divider. Since Lindsey uses a laptop, we just sit at one of the tables near the windows. 

Lindsey & I were the sole occupants for almost an hour... the clicking of his laptop keys a nice backdrop to my manual reading. (I got a local phone; I always read the instruction booklet. Nerdy, I know...) Suddenly, we both hear...

"Let it go!!!! Let it go!!!!", sung in a tiny little, but surprisingly loud, voice. 

A slip of a girl no bigger than 4, it seemed, had found the computer & loaded a YouTube video. It was a Frozen sing-a along & she was belting out the parts she knew.... with a slight accent I couldn't identify. Lindsey & I both burst out laughing. We were so startled. 

Just as we were deciding to pack up, Olivia showed up looking for us. Seems I was distracted by my new local phone & missed the SOS texts from her & Madeline. 

From Maddie: "Mom can u come back Devin is wrestling us and we can't do anything about it. He's pulling our hair, body slamming us against the bed and so on I'm hiding in the bathroom now and Olivia is going to lose it soon."

(Sigh). The joys of close quarters... & brothers. 

By the way, (not that I'm giving y'all the number) here's my new local phone....

Isn't it cute.... & tiny! If you look really close, you can make out the Arabic on the buttons for texting...

Devin told me that I'm going to have a hard time texting on this thing.  Yeah, it's OLD school! But hey, that's how I roll.....

Parking, Moroccan food, & British airplanes....

The last few days have been a crazy combination of odds & ends. The kids are just about adjusted to the time change... & we ALL are just about done with hotel food. 

I can't wait to get into the apartment full time. The only down side will be our assigned parking places. We have two spaces, but they are tamdum... as in, pull-thru-the-first-to-get-to-the-second...  but then you hit the wall. Ug. And it's that straight type of parking. 

Personally, I'm done with parking. Everything is straight-on parking. It's bad enough that I'm resorting to pictures in order to keep track of my parked car, but these straight parking spots next to huge SUVs in tiny spaces is about to do me in!!!

I will purposely pick a further out spot just so I can manuver into a spot without taking off the fender of the next car over. To be honest, most people back into these parking slots... I'm beginning to wonder if it's just easier to park that way. 

The only place I've found angled parking this the underground car park at IKEA. <sigh>

So last night, we branched out from the hotel standard dinner fare. Several of Lindsey's co-workers planned a dinner out at The Galleria for Moroccan food. Wow! What an experience! The food was tasty & (fairly) kid-friendly. The live band & DJ were very entertaining. 

Lindsey & I tried the traditional tasting dinner for two (a 4 course affair) while the kids had a whole roasted chicken (w/ roasted veggies) & "hamburger". I honestly couldn't tell you the names of anything. The soup was a kind of tomato based veggie w/ beans & unidentifiable meat bits. (Seriously, I don't want to know...) I had the chicken while Lindsey had the lamb dish. It was all served with lots of couscous. LOTS of couscous!

My favorite part, however, was the after dinner tea & assorted Moroccan pastries. Yummy!!! Tea must be a big deal for the culture because the servers made a big production of the pouring. It was definitely an experience. 

After all that good food, we slept in a bit this morning. 

However, Lindsey did promise Devin a little time together bonding today over some War Thunder.

Apparently, it's a WW2 airplane game. I've been hearing a lot of talk about British vs Russian vs American planes. It sounds like Devin & Jackson (also playing online back in the states) are better than Lindsey.... for the time being. There is a fair amount of smack talking. 

Boys. LOL! 

Uniform shopping....

The kids will be attending GEMS American Academy here in Abu Dhabi. They are required to wear uniforms. 

We followed the instructions in the school email to a uniform shop in a very tiny local mall: Al Raha Mall. It has no covered parking & the food court only takes cash. It's a VERY tiny, not very crowded, mall. So it was really easy to find Zaks, the school uniform Mecca. 

The store is divided up by the various schools. We quickly caught the eye of a young lady in a Zaks T-Shirt that said, "Did you find everything?" & she became our personal shopper. Her name was Leigh. 

Leigh really knew her stuff, thank goodness! The sizes are pretty much by age for the shirts, but by waist (in inches) for the trousers/skirts. She was able to size up the kids pretty quickly. 

Devin's trousers have to be altered, & he's missing the striped tie & black shoes in this picture.... But you get the idea. 

Madeline liked the skirts over the trousers, but even the smallest skirt was too big. Leigh is on the right. She's measuring how much to both shorten & take up the waist to make this the correct size. Madeline will also wear a neck tie & black shoes to complete the uniform. 

Olivia gets to wear skorts. (Aren't those chicken legs cute?!) And instead of a neck tie, she'll have a bow tie. Add in little black Lady Lanes & that completes her uniform. 

I bought 3 full uniforms for each child. In addition, each kid had to have a physical fitness uniform (t-shirt & shorts w/ the school logo) & a PE bag. 

By time we had all the bits & pieces... right down to the correct shades of approved socks... Well, let's just say my CC flexed it's muscles today. Yikes!!!

When all the alterations come back (my kids are just too short & too skinny to buy off the rack), I'll take a fully decked out group photo. This might just give Devin the time he needs to have his daddy teach him how to tie a necktie. Madeline can wear a clip on, but Devin's not going to get to cheat! 

Thank goodness for Haagen-Dazs

After the laundry fiasco of last night... Oh, maybe you don't know about the laundry fiasco... Let me catch you up. 

The washer/dryer combo thing in our room ran ONE load for 4 hours & the clothes were still wet. I had 5 more loads to go. Yeah, not happening. So I dragged everything down to the hotel laundry where I found someone had left their 3 loads in the washers. Since I had checked before lunch, I knew these same 3 loads had pretty much been there all day.... It was now going on 8 pm. 

I hate touching other peoples clothes. Especially wet I-don't-know-these-people clothes. But, desperate times... I moved them to the driers & put my stuff in the washers. 

In the end, I had to babysit the "stranger clothes" until they were dry enough to dump into the folding bin. (I draw the line at folding your unmentionables, people.) 

Even with 3 washing machines & 4 dryers, it still took hours to get it all done. Each washer can only hold about 3 kg (which is not very much, for those of you trying to do the conversion) worth of clothes. The dryers aren't the most efficient, either. I stayed with my laundry until it was done which means I ran my Nook out of battery. No one ever showed up for the dry, but now wrinkled, mess of "stranger clothes". 

Needless to say, I was beat by time I made it back upstairs. Which explains why I overslept this morning. 

The kids begged for a day of NOT going to IKEA, or the empty apartment, or hanging curtains, or putting together furniture. So, we had a "down day"; we did.... nothing. 

Well, we all know that a kid "nothing" & a mom "nothing" are... well, nothing alike. 

I still insisted that the kids bathe, get dressed, & brush their teeth. Madeline somehow managed to use so much shampoo that we had a giant bubble mess oozing out of the drain in the bathroom floor.

I should have known then this was going to be one of THOSE days...

The temps today were up... like WAY up. The high was expected at over 115 degrees so eventhough the kids wanted to go to the beach, there was no way I was going to brave those kinds of temperatures.  Nope, we stayed in the hotel room. 

But, by noon everyone was hungry for lunch (remember we missed breakfast....again). Lindsey was working from the hotel today, so I left him with the kids & I ran over to Waitross for some lunch fixings. 

Waitross is a grocery store. The one at the bottom of Bldg D in our apartment complex is kinda like "small-mart" in Rockwall. It's got the essentials, but selection is limited. Still, all I really wanted was fixings for a simple meal. 

Spaghetti it is! 

I mean, seriously, that's about all you can make in this hotel kitchen. The stove only has 2 burners!

The beef is from New Zealand & is actually pretty good. A package (I have no idea if it's a full pound of meat or not) was about 16 dirhams ... around $4.34. Spaghetti sauce was $2, but it's a brand I've never seen. I had no other spices to work with, not even salt. The kids ate it, but said I've made better (little food critics, they are!)

The afternoon was spent napping, gaming, creating with PlayDoh, & generally being lazy. For my Type A personality, this is like torture. 

I did organize my apps, download GoodReads, mark several books for future reading, check my email, & catch up on FB.... 

Then there was dinner. The hotel serves dinner 4 nights a week. It's always a little scary as you never quite know what they are going to serve. The kids (& I) have so far managed to find at least one thing we can identify enough that we are willing to eat. I wouldn't say it's bad, per se, just that it's not really ... tasty.

Not tonight, however. Tonight they had some kind of cinnamon rice with beans(?), a creamed spinach with unidentified meat, & what looked like chicken & dumplings but was actually shredded chicken with boiled potatoes & chickpeas in a not-familiar-with-this-flavor broth. The kids did try a bite of each, so I'm proud of them for being adventurous. The only thing they would eat, however, was the little chocolate brownies & tiny cups of chocolate mousse.  Sigh. Whatever, we have PB in the room. 

Bedtime cannot come soon enough. 

My only consolation was that I was not alone in suffering today.  There is a family from Germany here at the hotel with an infant, Henry. They've been here 5 weeks. Everyone knows Henry; he learned to walk 2 weeks ago. His mom said she had a similar day today. Their villa is ready, their goods shipment has arrived, but their "papers" are not yet in order. She is sooooo ready to be out of the one bedroom hotel room! I can't even imagine. She's been here all this time with no family (other than her husband). 

She said she took a taxi to the villa today just to stand in it & breathe deeply. Of course when she got there (with Henry on her hip, of course), the keys wouldn't work, there was no AC, no electricity, & no water. None of the utilities were on yet (but she was told they were) & she had to go to the leasing office twice before they finally found someone to rekey the entire villa. 

Okay, she wins. Her day -- out & about in this heat with an infant on the hip -- was WAY worse. 

She & I both could use a good glass of red.  Unfortunately, the hotel doesn't serve alcohol. 

They do sell Haagen-Dazs by the pint...

Is it a washer... Or dryer? Or both?

Long story short, today did not go according go to plan. 

Whatever. 

I'm certainly not stressing about it. But I do still need to wash some clothes. Luckily, our hotel room comes equipped with a washer/dryer combo under the counter.... In the kitchen! 

Yup, you read that right... A CLOTHES washing machine. Makes perfect sense, right?! There's no dishwasher, but you can wash a few clothes...

Well, I'm trying it out. The washing part was easy... But it did take 1 hour 45 minutes for one load. Now it's time to dry & there are two settings....

I'm thinking....the Gentle dry. The timer says 2 hours. Wait! What? 

Oh geeze... At this rate, it's going to take days. 

I'm so glad I didn't get the combo unit for the apartment...

Disaster!!!

We overslept this morning & missed the hotel breakfast.  No big deal... Lindsey's office is connected to a shopping mall, so we'd just eat at the food court.

Devin knew there was a McDonald's there so the kids decided that's where we'd have our breakfast. They planned their orders on the drive over:

Madeline wanted pancakes & sausage with an extra sausage...

Olivia just wanted sausage ... And maybe some scrambled eggs...

Devin wanted a sausage biscuit. Maybe two.

Hmmmm... There's a theme here. What I'm not completely certain is IF sausage (at least what we're used to) is even served in an Abu Dhabi McDonald's. We are in a country that, generally speaking, doesn't eat pork. Isn't that the supposed basis for McDonald's breakfast sausage?

I said as much in the car on the drive over. 

It sparked a debate as to whether USA McDonald's uses pork in their breakfast sausage patties (versus chicken or beef) & if there might be a reasonable substitute here. The kids' thoughts were, "how can you have a McDonald's in ANY country without a sausage biscuit?!"

Devin, especially, was adamant that there MUST be a sausage biscuit. It just couldn't be a McDonald's without it! He even said, "I just don't think I can live 15 months without a sausage biscuit. It just HAS to be there!" 

So... We dropped Lindsey at the front of his building & then drove down to the underground car park. 

There was still much discussion on the escalator ride up to the third floor. They all rushed to the counter where they smiled in triumph: sausage was on the menu! 

Wait, .... There were no biscuits! Only English muffins. 

Disaster!

LOL! Devin did give it a try, but he says it's just not the same. He's going to miss his new favorite: the sausage biscuit. The poor thing looked so dejected sitting there eating only his sausage patty. 

I asked him & the girls if the patties tasted the same as in the states & after a little debate, they think it's pretty close. We figure it's a different meat since it's lighter in color than we're used to, but a really close match on flavor. 

The bread is a different matter; none of them think the English muffin is a fair stand in for a buttermilk biscuit. 

Frankly, I agree with them. 

We couldn't even get buttermilk biscuits at KFC either. The meal comes with a "roll" which is actually an uncut hamburger bun. Sigh....

I guess I'm going to be making old fashioned buttermilk biscuits from scratch. You just can't find them here. So, if you have a really great recipe for fluffy biscuits, email or PM me. My kids will be eternally greatful... especially Devin. 

Cheap labor!

Since we were pretty much stuck at the apartment waiting for our white goods deliveries, I put the kids to work. We had been to IKEA & Ace Hardware the day before so there was plenty to assemble. 

I put the kids on the table & chairs...

I worked on cutting down some tension rods to fit our windows for the curtains. (Sorry, no pics of me!) But the kids worked really hard & finished in no time. 

Then our fridge arrived....

It looks so tiny... But it's all we need. 

By comparison, the dishwasher looks a bit too big for it's new home. 

But the dryer just looks lonely.... 

The washer arrived later; I just forgot to take a picture. Both of them are pretty small (nothing is very big here anyway) with a 7 kg capacity. 

Tomorrow, we wash!!! 

... Well, after a little trip to LuLu's for some much deserved reward. The girls want playdoh & Devin wants Legos (I think...)