First and foremost, it has been one year since the birth of my baby boy Logan. He was born one year ago on May 26th, 2009! Time really does fly when you have children. I took the little guy over to have a few hour’s play time with some of the other babies in our complex. He had such a great time and it was so fun to watch him interact with people his size for a change. It honestly feels like yesterday that we took him home from the hospital. That little guy amazes me every day. He is truly a blessing from God.
I talk about the heat here a LOT, I know, but it keeps getting hotter. It now averages about 111 degrees here each day. At night, it’s still in the 90s. That makes us not want to do anything outside. I can see why the malls are so busy here all the time. People leave their houses and the malls are the only cool place to go hang out. We’ve been hanging out in the malls a lot too. We don’t really buy much other than groceries, but just getting out and walking helps to relieve the boredom. Of course, with the heat, I’ve had to be very selective about which Geocaches I go after. The ones in the desert will just have to stay hidden! I’m at 57 (as of tonight) caches found and I want to be at 75 before I leave on July 8th. Should be doable.
Speaking of malls, we hit up the two biggest ones in Dubai in the last few weeks. The newest one, the Dubai mall, the world’s largest
mall, opened last year and sits at the bottom of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. We’ve been to this mall before but never to the Dubai Fountain. Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 25 colored projectors, it is 275 m (902 ft) long and shoots water 150 m (490 ft) into the air, accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and world music. It was built at a cost of AED 800 million (USD 218 million). Yeah, I totally copied and pasted that last line from Wikipedia. It is a really neat fountain though and was fun to watch. 218 Million for a fountain though? Sheesh! Last week we went to the Mall of the Emirates. This mall is about 5 years old, but it’s the famous one with the indoor sky slope inside it. Yeah, they built a ski slope inside a mall. It’s a great idea for people over here I guess. But being an American, I know back home I can drive a few hours and ski on a real mountain. It’s still pretty darn impressive here though.
So here’s a little info about our London trip coming up. The Staton family originally came over to England from Normandy in 1066 with William the Conqueror. Back then we were the “Stauntons”. While in England, we were guardians of a tower (which is now named Staunton Tower) in the famous Belvoir Castle. Some of my relatives seem to think we were royalty and owned the castle. While that certainly isn’t true, it’s always been a HUGE goal of mine to go visit “my castle”. With the vacation to London in July coming up, a side trip of an hour and half north to see the castle was a must. Trouble is, the castle is closed to tourist in July. No idea why, but it is. So I did some emailing. The castle is also the residence of the Duke of Rutland. He and his fmaily live in part of the castle; the rest of it and the gardens outside are for tourist. So I
emailed the staff and asked if there was ANY way I could come have a tour since I would only be in England for a short time. A very nice lady named SallyAnn emailed me back a few days later and said that she wasn’t sure, but she would ask His Grace if it would be possible. Yeah, I had to get permission from the freggin’ Duke of Rutland. I thanked her over and over and last week she emailed me again and said that His Grace, the Duke of Rutland, would be happy for me to come to my… err… his castle. In fact, they’re giving us a private one and half hour tour of it, and then we’re free to wander the gardens as much as we like. How cool is that? Should I mention that it’s technically my castle and that I’m staying? Probably not.
Play rehearsals are in full swing for my upcoming production of Hansel and Gretel. Directing children can sure be a challenge though. Unlike a classroom environment, I have to work with small groups one at a time, leaving the other kids unsupervised. Thankfully the room is small and I find ample things for the other kids to do – like LEARN THEIR LINES. Get this – I’m the writer, director and narrator of the play. The director part is a given since I’m the teacher. I had to rewrite the play though so it fit with the number of kids I had. And I really didn’t have enough kids to fill the role of narrator, and Alanna said no, so I’m doing that as well. Our performance is June 11th so let’s hope it all comes together!
Now I know I said it’s really too hot to Geocache, but this weekend a group of us are heading to Oman to do just that. There is a cache there that was placed in 2002, and it’s the oldest cache in the area. I wanted to get it before we left for the summer. So a small group of us are heading out bright and early Saturday morning to get it. Yeah, it will be 100 degrees before 10am, but who cares right???
Alrighty folks, I’ll wrap it up here. Take care!
More pics –
