Home Is Where The Plane Lands

A true desert experience

Hello, boys and girls. I hope all is well with all of you who read this. Except for Duke fans. I hope you all have nasty colds.

I’ve been keeping busy since last we spoke. Well, you didn’t speak. You just silently read my blog without commenting. For shame. Anyway, on to the show. Err… blog. Like, I said – busy busy busy. Because of my little infection, I missed two weeks of Drama lessons and my kids were sorely lacking in their Theatrical development. Once I got to feeling better, I treated them to two special weekend workshops – Mask Making and Makeup. We even let other kids who weren’t in my classes come to the workshops for free, which tripled my class sizes for the lessons. Anything that is offered free people just flock to, don’t they? The workshops went really well. Nothing against the good ole’ UAE, but they are lacking in Mask and Makeup supplies. I had to make do with what I could find, but adding the “you can buy this stuff at your local store” ideas to the lessons made the kids excited about trying things on their own. And, of course, all the older kids just had to have some gross cut, gash, bruise, black eye, etc etc etc. Though I am in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM any type of good makeup artist, I do a pretty good job with gross projects. Spring break (for the drama kids) is next week, then we’ll start the final semester of the year. We’re gearing up to go a play in mid June!

Alanna and I have been wanting to go camping since we arrived in the Middle East. We both have quite a bit of camping history in our lives, though we just didn’t find the time to camp in the States in the last couple years. Everyone here kept talking about how cool “desert camping” was, so we finally decided to give it a try. I asked around on some Expat forums where a good spot was, and got tons of ideas. We finally chose a spot about an hour away towards Abu Dhabi, that just happened to have quite a few Geocaches around it. Camping supplies are cheap here too. We got a 3 person tent and two sleeping bags for the equivalent of $40. Firewood though, as you might imagine, is in short supply in the desert. We did find one Souk that sold it in bundles though. So we haggled with the nice man and got 4.

We planned to camp just one night, to give it a good college try, so after Alanna got home from school on Thursday, we packed up the car with supplies and headed West. The spot that was suggested to us was easy enough to find. We got their a couple hours before sunset to give ourselves time to set up and then get a fire going. We drove down a sand road with dunes all around us until the road came to a dead end. We parked the car there out of the way and got out to look for a good spot to pitch our tent. I grabbed two arm full loads of supplies, Alanna grabbed Logan, and we headed off into the dunes. We didn’t want to go too far because, A) we’re lazy and B) we didn’t want to leave the car all alone and too far away from us. So after travelling over a couple of dunes, we found a nice small hollow (Logan) and decided to make it our home for the night. I quickly set up the tent and two chairs. The plan was to have Alanna watch Logan and I would handle all the manual labor. Well, after 4 or 5 trips to and from the car later, I was tired. Walking over sand dunes with bundles of firewood is not easy. Eventually though, I had loaded all the stuff in the tent and we were sitting in… ok… I was sitting in the chairs. Alanna has a thing about bugs though. The flies were bothering her, so she took Logan into the tent (which was MUCH hotter than sitting outside because of the nice breeze) and played with him for awhile. I relaxed and waited for the sun to start slipping down behind the dunes. Once it did, I quickly worked up a lovely fire. One part former Boy Scout, one part dry, easy to light firewood, and soon enough we had a blazing fire just as the sun set. Alanna and Logan joined me beside the fire once it got going. It was quite cozy. The temperature dropped to a nice 70F after the sun went down, so the fire felt great. Not too hot, not too cold. Around 8pm, I made dinner. I chose to go with the classic Hobo Meal for dinner. I’ve known the recipe since I was a wee lad. You basically take your choice of meat, add some veggies and what not, all chopped up and then place them on some heavy aluminum foil. Then you place another bit of foil on top of everything, wrap it up, and throw it on the hot coals of the fire for 20 minutes. Once its done, tug it out of the fire, let it cool off for a few minutes, then cut it open like a baked potato and fork it out for a great meal. I’d even marinated the meat all day to give it some extra taste. My recipe was hamburger meat, chopped carrots, potatoes, onions and corn. It was DELICIOUS.

We all sat around the fire for a few more hours before finally heading into the tent. The night went downhill from there. It wasn’t horrible though, just not the wonderful sleeping experience I was wishing for. I blame the 10 month old baby. I should probably blame his parents for dragging him out to sleep in a tent in the middle of the desert. But since Logan can’t defend himself, he’s easier to blame. The combination of Logan not sleeping at all and the ground not letting either Alanna or I get comfy made for a loooong night. We were very happy to see the sunrise. We peaked our heads out of the tent around 6:30am and there was… fog. It is weird to see a blanket of fog in the desert. We had ourselves a cereal bar and OJ breakfast, then I packed up everything and we made our way back to the car, which was thankfully still there and in one piece.

The rest of the morning we spent Geocaching around the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. We found 4 out of the 5 caches we searched for. The one we didn’t find, beside a giant (think 50 feet tall) birdcage complete with an eagle inside, was probably muggled – someone had removed the object that the cache was attached to. We did make our way up a man made mountain though. Don’t ask, I have no idea why they made a mountain here. But there was a geocache near the top so we grabbed it. We found a few more caches that day – one at a busy camel racetrack, one at the abandoned endurance village, and another out in the middle of nowhere. We finished up the morning and were back in Al Ain about 11am.

Note to self – Camping with a baby is a no go. Drop the little rugrat off with his grandparents next time.

Some new pics… enjoy!

GEDC1493 — They make their own mountains here

The World Is Snot Enough

Sneezing, sniffling, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever – that’s what the Staton Family has been dealing with lately. All three of us have been sick and we’ve done nothing but pass it back and forth between each other. And, of course, with Logan being sick that means he doesn’t sleep well. Which means Mom and Dad don’t sleep well (or sometimes at all) either. Finding the usual medications here in the desert is a little difficult too! You can’t just run down to Walgreens and pick up some Nyquil. If you want anything stronger than a common pain reliever, you have to go to the pharmacy. Luckly, many of the types of medicines you need prescriptions for in the states you can easily get OTC here. That has been helpful with my current prostate infection. Thankfully it’s on the downswing and I’m feeling better. You can’t get the name brand medicines you’re used to in the States here in the desert though. No Tylenol, Nyquil, even the good ole’ Pepto is not found on the UAE’s shelves. So we just have to explain to the pharmacist what our symptoms are and he’ll recommend something for us. Which usually isn’t strong enough to do the trick. Oh well. We’re all feeling a little better this week though so maybe we’re out of the woods. Not that there are woods here. Well, there is an oasis. And it has lots of trees. Just not the same though.

I met up with a fellow Expat from NC through the Geocaching website. He’s planted quite a few caches here in Al Ain, and offered to take me out in his 4×4 to grab some caches we couldn’t get to in the dinky rental car. So we went out last weekend and made a half day of it. We hopped the border and “cached” for awhile in Oman. He even showed me a few wadis that had areas where you could swim. We saw some guys in their undies swimming there. Not a pretty site. All in all, we found 8 caches, which is 4 more than I’ve ever found in one day! My current total is 31.

My baby boy is amazing. Logan is 9 months old now. He has 4 teeth now – two on the top and two on the bottom. He’s eating big people food now and then as well! He wants to walk so badly. He’s in the cruising stage now. He pulls himself up on the couch, table, anything and then sort of walks along, using his hands for support. It won’t be long before he’s running all over the place…. and falling all over the place. At the moment, he’s pushing a chair around the living room. Weight training I guess. He also likes to bang on our laptops a little too much, so yesterday we bought him his own computer keyboard. It was a cheap $10 model and he enjoys banging on it. I’m just getting him prepared for his future life as a rich computer genius… who is a star athlete, and all the women love him. Did I mention he pooped all over the floor last week? The women won’t like that. We didn’t catch it in time. He got it on the carpet, his legs, his hands, his mother and his mother’s cell phone. Luckily, I was out of his poo trajectory. We rushed him off to the bathroom and cleaned up the little mess maker. Just thought I’d throw in a poo story. No stay-at-home-dad blog is complete without it.

Diapering 101

Reflections on the 10 things Rob has learned about diapers in 9 months.

1. Never think you have witnessed the worst.

2. Never put it on too loose.

3. Don’t let them see you take it off.

4. Make sure they are finished before you open it, for the love of God.

5. There is no such thing as too many wipes.

6. Get another one under that butt ASAP.

7. Never ever try save the clothing with an explosive mess. It just spreads the mess in places it shouldn’t.

8. Don’t expect any one color when you open up that diaper. It can be anything from soft light brown to glow in the dark green .

9. Don’t tickle them when the diaper is open. They may not be finished and it might go off.

And 10. The lesson of the day – Don’t under estimate a one year old’s curiosity of the feel of fresh poo between their small fingers.

I have a lot of cache

You might be asking yourself, “What is going on with Rob Staton lately?” If so, then please read on for an update. If not, well why are you on my blog? Bounce.

Alanna had to go back to work last week and I had to… play with Logan. He’s so mobile now though so he keeps me busy. I’ve also been putting as many hat/hat “like” things on his head and taking pictures of him. Why? Well because no matter what the kid is wearing, he is the cutest kid in all the land. Even if he has a pot, plastic wrapper, knit cap, chocolate box or some other random object his Daddy finds to put on his head.

My new obsession that is Geocaching continues to grow by leaps and bounds. I had recently heard about it before I left the States last August, so I’m pretty new at it. But its sooooo much fun. Geeky, but healthy outdoors fun too! So far I have found 22 caches (magic number 23 tomorrow I hope) and I’ve even planted one, which 3 people have already found. It’s just a neat, FREE hobby that gets me outdoors and lets me find places in the area I would have known about.

Today, along with my lovely lady and Logan, I hopped the border and went “caching” in Oman. Nothing too far out – about a 20 minute drive from the border. Out of 6 caches I wanted to search for, we found 4. Two were easy to find, and the other two were…. adventures. Let’s deal with the adventurous ones, shall we?

Adventure 1 – This cache was hidden somewhere at the top of a mountain area. Around the bottom of the mountain was an oasis, an abandoned fort and an OLD graveyard. The clues for the cache said it was easy to find if you went the right way. I didn’t go the right way. First of all, we have a normal 2X4 wheel drive car. Many of the caches are MUCH easier to find here in the desert/mountains if you have a 4X4 vehicle, while some caches you can ONLY find with one. Like I said, I went the wrong way. The wrong way was me climbing up and down, up and down over rocky cliffs. 30 minutes later… I finally found the dang cache. I was so completely worn out that I had to just sit there for a few minutes just so I wouldn’t throw up. I did have a great view of the oasis, fort and graveyard though! Alanna didn’t even yell at me when I got back to the car. I think she could tell I was worn out.

Adventure 2 – This cache seemed pretty easy. You just drive your car down this gravel road and look for a poort. A poort… is a natural split between a mountain where a river probably ran through thousands of years ago. So we spotted the poort and located the cache, but… the… gravel.. was… like sand… and… I got the car stuck. Again. Second time since I’ve been here I’ve done that. And we were in the middle of nowhere again. And our cell phones didn’t work. At least we had water though. After saying I was sorry 10 times to Alanna, I hiked a few kilometers out to the nearest road. After a 20 minute wait, a local guy with a truck came along and a frantically flagged him down. I sort of explained to him the problem (He didn’t speak English and I can’t say much more than Hello in Arabic), making sure he understood I had a wife and baby stuck in the middle of nowhere. I hopped in his truck and we drove back to our car. Well… he didn’t have any kind of rope to pull the car out with. He did however, have the driving skills of Richard Petty. He climbed in my car and did some kind of magical Omani forward/reverse driving thing, and with a little help from me pushing, he got the car unstuck. I paid him some money for his trouble and we were on our way. That was our last cache of the day! I can’t wait to get back to the States to do some homeland caching. There are a bagillion caches in the Concord area!

Everyday is a Vacation in the UAE

The Staton family has been having a great time during Alanna’s two week vacation from work. Last weekend we hopped the border and spent 4 wonderful days in Oman. We left early Saturday morning from Al Ain and had no trouble crossing the border. It was so early, that when I went inside the border post to get our exit stamps for our passports, then one guy on duty was asleep on the couch!

We headed into Oman and drove through the mountains, coming out a few hours later along the coast at the city of Sohar. We turned south and headed towards our final destination – the city of Muscat. It took us another two hours to get there, but what a pretty area! The mountains kind of just slam into the ocean, creating coves here and there. Soooo pretty. Gorgeous place. Can’t stress that enough! We drove out of Muscat about 20 minutes south to the Oman Dive Centre. Alanna is a diver and really wanted to try the Gulf waters, so she booked us a stay at this quaint little place. It’s nestled up in the mountains away from everything else. You follow the mountain road around until it drops you off into a cove that is completely surrounded by mountains, complete with your own beach and blue water. The resort has huts that you stay in. The pictures we took don’t do them justice. While they were rustic, they were still very nice. You have a porch, and then enter into a large bedroom, and then in the back is an open air bathroom. It also had power and A/C so we didn’t suffer. It wasn’t the most ideal conditions for Logan, but we made it work. Day 1 – Saturday.

We got there around 11am and had some lunch at the local spot. Alanna wanted to a take a refresher dive course to get reacquainted with her dive skills, so she left Logan and me in the hut and headed to the pool for the course around 2:30. I decided to take Logan for a walk, but when I got the door I found out that Alanna had… locked it. The door locks from the outside and inside by a slide bar. She didn’t want the wind blowing the door open on us, so she closed the slider as she left. Which meant Logan and I were trapped inside the hut. I called out for a little while to see if anyone could hear me. Either no one was around or I was too embarrassed by the situation to be loud enough. My only other option would have been to climb out the top of the open air bathroom. I didn’t want to do this and leave Logan inside, just in case I couldn’t get in the door for some reason. So I decided to just wait until Alanna got back, figuring she wouldn’t be gone more than an hour. 3 HOURS LATER – Alanna returned. Logan was pretty miserable by then and needed to get some space. So did I. Alanna felt really bad. I let her feel bad for awhile just because it sucked to be stuck in a hut for 3 hours.

That night we had dinner at the local spot. Breakfast and dinners were included with our hotel stay, both were buffets, and both were GREAT. They had plenty of excellent food and we stuffed ourselves whenever we went. We also explored the beach and I climbed up a mountain to take some pictures of the resort and the water below. Then we headed back and called it a night.

Day 2 – Sunday.

We got up – well Logan woke us up and we headed over to breakfast. We ate outside every time by the way, with a lovely view of the water. After breakfast, we headed out to the beach to get some rays. It didn’t go so well. Logan was just grumpy. It’s not like we can let him just play in the sand, because he’ll eat it. So Alanna had bought a beach tent, hoping we could sit inside that with him so he could play. Well first of all, setting up a beach tent while the wind was blowing was not a pleasant experience for either of us. Secondly, Logan didn’t even want to get inside it. He was just in a bad mood and really didn’t want to do anything but be held. Alanna and I were both pretty frustrated. She took Logan back inside and I laid out on the beach for awhile, and then took a swim in the water. Even in late January, the water is nice in Oman.

We headed to lunch around noon and then Alanna checked to see about her dive. She really wanted to do a night dive, but no one else had signed up Sat or Sun night, and it takes two people to do a night dive. I’m not a diver. I took a small course on our honeymoon, but we didn’t have a chance to go in the ocean because of the weather. And, honestly, it freaks me out a little. I get claustrophobic underwater and it feels weird and makes me nervous to breathe in and out of my mouth without being able to use my nose. Call me a sissy, I don’t care. I prefer SKYdiving, thanks. Alanna finally settled on a 2 tank dive the following morning.

Since I wasn’t going diving, I decided to try kayaking instead. It had been about 10 years since I’d been in one, and never in the ocean, but I did just fine. I paddled out into the cove and then out into the ocean. The only thing bad about it was that I was alone and that got a little boring. I wish Alanna could have gone with me, but having a baby makes you adjust as needed. I did have a good time though. I paddled right up against the mountain walls beside the ocean. There was even a little cave I paddled through that brought me out into another cove! The marine life was amazing. I could paddle right over some coral reefs and watch hundreds, yes hundreds of fish swimming below me, not to mention all the crabs running along the walls of the rocks to get away from me. When I had got back in, the tide had gone back out, leaving about 200 yards of water up to my ankles. I had to pull the kayak through to get back to the dive centre. Not a problem, until I slammed my foot into a rock that was underwater. I knew I had jammed or broken my second toe as soon as it happened. Being a man though, I walked it off and returned the kayak to the dive center. Turned outs the toe was just bruised I guess. It turned a few dark shades of purple for awhile, but is healing up fine now.

That afternoon we drove into Old Muscat and a few of the other local tourist areas about 10 minutes north of the dive centre. It was a very historical area, populated since the 1600s by the Omanis, who took it back from the evil Portuguese. There are large towers along the coast which housed cannons to protect the area, built 100s of years ago. We climbed to the top of one and took pictures. We explored a little more and decided we’d come back the next day after Alanna’s dive to visit the local Souq. Dinner was amazing again back at the centre. Then Alanna watched a movie on the laptop and I read a book on the porch for a few hours before turning in for the night.

Day 3 – Monday

Alanna’s dive began at 8:00am, so we got up early, had some breakfast, then Logan and I watched her off as she headed out into the boat with the other brave souls. Logan and I hopped in the car and headed back into town just to kill some time. We walked along the corniche area and just took in the sounds of the harbor in front of us for awhile. A group of female Omani students approached us after a bit and asked us some questions about tourism, how we liked the area, etc. This was surprising because most Muslim women don’t/won’t even talk to men they don’t know. But these teenagers were very nice, spoke great English, and even let me take a picture with them. Over all, it seems like the Omani people are much more welcoming to outsiders than the Emiratis.

Alanna’s dive didn’t go so well. I’m sure you can read about it more detail on her blog (she’s writing it right now), but let’s just say she got a little seasick and tossed her cookies – twice. She was supposed to go on two different dives. The first one went fine, and then between the first and the second she got sick, so she spent the second dive sitting on a little island trying to recover. She got back to the Dive Centre around 1pm, so we ate lunch and then headed back in town to explore the Souq.

Since it was only 3 or 4pm when we got there, the Souq was pretty dead, only half the shops were even open. It was still fun to walk through the area though. Pretty much every single store owner tried to sell us something. We didn’t buy anything though. Then we once again headed back to the dive centre for a wonderful dinner and then spent the rest of the evening relaxing, reading, watching movies.

Day 4 – Tuesday

Tuesday was check out day. We got up and took advantage of the free breakfast, then headed back, packed everything and headed out. We stopped at a local museum on the way out that was closed before. It was pretty boring, but free, so we stopped in for 5 minutes or so. There’s a guard there that stands around… guarding… the place with an M-16. He politely refused my request to take a picture of/with him. The rest of the morning we spent driving home to the UAE. I have to admit that I loved Oman. I found the landscape much more to my liking compared to the UAE, and as I’ve already mentioned, the people were much friendlier. I really wouldn’t mind going back again before we head out for the summer.

Here’s a link to all the photographs from Oman – (You don’t have to be on Facebook to see them.)

Oman Trip Pictures

On Wednesday, we didn’t do much. The maid came that morning and then cleaned our messy house while we went out for lunch. Then I headed to the House of the Arts to teach my drama classes that night. When I got home that night, we watched the season premiere of LOST. Alanna and I are both addicted to the show. We had to download it online, and we had no idea there was a second hour. So we watched the first and thought that was it. Alanna’s Dad started talking about stuff we hadn’t heard of when we Skyped with him the next day, so we figured out our problem and watched the second half on Thursday night. Great show! Also on Thursday we visited the Al Ain Oasis. It’s really the only reason there’s a city here. A BIG source of water in the middle of a dry desert is a perfect spot to build a city around. The oasis is a huge walled in enclosure with thousands and palm trees and ancient irrigation techniques that tap into the water underground. The actual area was just ok. Nothing special to go through, but a must see if you’re coming through Al Ain.

Today we got up early and headed back to the Al Ain zoo, which we first visited in the fall. They have a white lion exhibit and we were excited to go see it. In the fall, we went at night. It was WAY too crowded, and because it was dark, all the animals were hard to see or asleep. Today was perfect though. It was a little overcast, had a nice breeze, and practically no one was there when we arrived at 11am. We got lots of nice pictures of the animals and got a chance to talk to a zoologist from the San Diego zoo. She was sitting in front of the white lion enclosure. She was nice enough to answer all our questions. We found out that the white lions are not albino, but are exactly like normal lions. They have a recessive gene that makes them white. There really aren’t any in the wild, but she did say they were trying to work them back in by breeding them. All in all, a much better visit than last time.

Zoo pics

Alanna has one more week off before she returns to work, so I’m sure we’ll have more adventures next week. Oh, and we might spend a little bit of time in London before we head back to the States this summer. SWEET.

Happy Birthday, Alanna!

It is past midnight here in the UAE, so that means its January 19, or as everyone else calls it… Alanna Staton’s birthday. She’s sleeping now, with Logan tucked in by her side. Tomorrow she’s heading to the spa to get all girlied up. I have no idea what that means, but it involves getting your hair done/cut, manicures, pedicures, massages and whatn0t. The lady deserves more than that, but hopefully she’ll enjoy it. Then we’ll top it off with some dinner. So Happy Birthday to the most special woman in the whole world.

I haven’t blogged much lately. Yes, I’ve had time. Guess I’m just lazy. Not too much going on here in the desert though. We made it through the holidays and now we’re back to the regular routine. Logan and I both got a bad case of the flu a few weeks ago. It lingered for over a week and really had me sidelined for two weekends. Alanna took care of both her babies. And I am really a baby when I’m sick. I guess wives have to be moms to their kids and their hubbys sometimes.

Logan Update – He changes every week. He’s growing up way too fast. He finally has his first tooth poking through. Its the one of the middle bottoms. Let me tell you… it hurts if he bites you. I read you can rub you finger over their gums to help relieve the pain of teething. I was trying that last week and he chomped down on my finger, biting right through my skin and made me bleed! So now I’m a little more careful. Logan is also mobile. When I say mobile.. I mean he’s crawling all over the place. Its not a full crawl all the time though. Sometimes, he just kind of scoot/scrawls, sliding his legs behind him. Very cute I must say. What a blessing this little boy is turning out to be! And I’m so thankful for him.

Let’s see… Entertainment next? Saw Avatar. Liked it, didn’t love the story. Don’t think it deserved a Golden Globe. Saw Sherlock Holmes. I was pleasantly surprised. I really thought. from seeing the trailers, it would be an action yawn, but it was witty, funny and downright enjoyable. In the video game department, I’m playing WoW most nights after the Alanna and Logan go to bed. Its a nice, geeky hobby. My account got hacked last week though. The thieves took all my gear, gold, and even stole stuff from the guild bank. Then they transfered my main to a different server! My good buddy Jeff quickly figured out the problem and let me know, so I changed the password to stop them from doing further damage. After a few emails and in game requests to Blizzard (parent company of WoW), I was able to get all my stuff back within just a few days. So now all is well in the world of Azeroth. Yes, I’m a geek. Hmm… books? Yes. I’ve been reading Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series. Sort of like Dan Brown’s works – good historical based “what if” fiction. I’m on the third of the series. Good stuff. Did that cover all of entertainment? Oh… no it didn’t. Sports – the Superbowl is coming up. I’m picking the Saints vs. Colts, with the Colts winning. I believe the game will start at about 3:30am here. So I’m gonna try to go to bed really early that night, then hopefully get up and watch it. In other TV stuff – LOST and Smallville return in a few more weeks! Ok, enterainment – check.

Alanna’s big break (Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas, so they have a two week break near the end of January for something or other) is coming up soon. We’re gonna spend the first part of it in the neighboring country of Oman. Alanna is gonna do some night scuba diving and I’m gonna… lie around on the beach doing nothing. I’m really good at that you know. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to do some touristy stuff there as well. I enjoy the sightseeing, etc. We may slip into Dubai once over break as well. There’s just so much to do there. If I can just calm Alanna down around all the traffic, then we’ll be just fine. I do so want to go inside the world’s tallest building now that its open.

Ok, short and sweet and I’m out. I’ll let you know how Oman goes next time!

Have Myself a Merry UAE Christmas…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each and everyone of you! The holidays here in the UAE, as you can imagine, are different. First of all, Muslims don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus. Strangely enough, I have noticed that they do celebrate the secular side of the holiday. They love the shopping/presents part and their children absolutely adore Santa Claus. More on Christmas later. Here’s a catch me up…

The family is doing great. Alanna has been working hard and gaining a little bit of ground with her school kids. The language barrier and their total lack of any behavior skills is a tough road for her though. My stay at home Dad job is really easy compared

to what she has to go through every day. But its nice when she comes home and gives me and Logan big kisses. She is very happy to come home to us everyday. Speaking of Logan, he is doing well. Our recent doctor visit has comfirmed that he’s still a healthy baby boy. He’s doubled his birth weight and now sits at about 19lbs. He has such a personality. He’s a charmer with all the ladies. He gets that from me. He is growing by leaps and bounds every week. He sits up so well now, and is trying his best to crawl. He mostly just scoots backards on his stomach, but its progress! I love having a son and I love being a father. It is truly an amazingly rewardable experience.

My job at House of the Arts has been going well. We had 4 youth choir Christmas concerts as well an end of the year performance by my drama classes. They did Casey at the Bat. I basically took a Readers Threatre version of it and added some pantamime. The kids did really well and their parents loved it. The youth choir performances were hectic though. Many of our start times were changed at the last minute due to Muslim tradition and holidays. We never knew when we were starting and most of the time we started an hour late. Our final performance this last Wednesday was a LuLus Supermarket. It’s a big Super Walmart type of store. The whole gig wasn’t planned very well by the store. First of all, they stuck us in a corner where no one could really find us. Next, they didn’t have the sound system or piano set up when we got there, so yes, we started an hour late. They had no microphone stands, so they just… get this… tied microphones to wires and hung them overtop of the kids. They were swinging back and forth. There was also no way to connect the piano to the sound system. So they just taped a microphone under the piano and that … sort… of… worked. Wait, there’s more. LuLus wanted their employees to sing with us, so we let about 15 Filipino guys and girls get up on stage and sing “back up” for us. Since we sang traditional Christmas Carols, we just printed out the lyrics so they could sing along. I never really heard them sing during the performance except during the 12 Days of Christmas. When we got to the 5^th day of Christmas, the LuLus employees shouted 5 GOLDEN RINGS each time that phrase came up. My choir kids turned around and starred at them each time. To top the evening off… about half way through our concert we heard someone banging a drum right in the middle of one of our songs. It was… Santa Claus. Yes, he wanted everyone to come see him. So every single kid, along with their parents who were in the audience turned around and ran towards Santa… again.. right in the middle of one of our songs. We were only about half way through our performance, so we basically just cut it short and sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

LoganAndSanta — Logan and CREEPY SANTA CLAUS

Apparently Santa was part of the LuLus’ staff. Couldn’t they have timed that a LITTLE better? This Santa was scary. He wore a Santa mask! And weird gloves, and well… I made Logan take a picture with him. So Logan’s first ever picture with Santa looks as if a bank robber is holding him.

On to Christmas! Christmas Eve was nice and relaxing. Alanna went out shopping and let me sleep in. She returned with Papa Johns Pizza and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. She sure knows the way to my heart. We also started a nice tradition of reading the Christmas Story (THE Christmas Story… from the Bible) to Logan. Hopefully we can keep that tradition going each year. Alanna and I didn’t really do the whole present swapping thing for each other this year. We basically went out together and just bought ourselves some things we both could use. First and foremost was a new laptop. Our old one was nice, but it really didn’t have any bells and whistles. So now we have one fast enough for me to play some games (meaning WoW) on, which is something I’ve really been missing in my life! It’s a nice break for me! So now we have two laptops and we each can be on one and not have to share back and forth. Secondly, we bought ourselves an exercise machine. It was cheap but does a lot of stuff. Its basically an Elliptical machine with an added stair climber, dumb bells, ab exerciser and a belt massager. We didn’t pay very much for it here, but it does a lot for us and we’re trying to use it every day. We both have lost almost 20lbs a piece since we’ve been here from dieting alone, so hopefully adding in the daily exercise will help even more. Alanna also snuck out an bought me a cheap handheld GPS so I can go geocaching. There are some good caches over here. I’ve just had no way to locate them effectively until now. I love my wife. She’s so thoughtful.

We did buy Logan some gifts, along with the ones our families sent him. So he got to open some presents. For being only 7 months old, he has already mastered the art of ripping open wrapping paper. We Skyped with both of our families so they could watch him unwrap his gifts. Skype is so good for us. It is really nice to be able to see and hear our families and to let them see

Logan as he grows up this year. We also had a big Christmas dinner with a bunch of our expat friends. Like Thanksgiving, everyone (well not everyone. Some were freeloaders) brought some type of dish. So there was plenty of good homecooked food to go around. We had drawn secret santa gift earlier in the month, so we opened those as well. We got a 50dhs gift certificate to Chillis. We went ahead and cashed that sucker in today. Chillis is by far the best place to get American style food here. So we eat there quite often.

We’ll be spending New Years Eve at our Scottish friends’ place. They are serving Haggis and we’re dancing the Gay Gordons. Look it up on Youtube if you’re interested. I do hope all of you had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a very prosperous 2010!

Thanksgiving, Dubai, Logan gets some shots

Here’s an update from Thanksgiving until present. Thanksgiving was absolutely amazing for us this year. We dined with 20 of our closest Expat friends. Everyone made their own dish. There was so much good AMERICAN food. 2 big turkeys as well! I ate my full first plate in about 1 minute. It was so good. I had a total of 3 ½ plates. The food by far was the highlight, but the fun and fellowship was more than worth it as well. All in all, I had a lot of be thankful for this year.

We had another one of those Eid Holidays this year along with UAE National Day, so there was basically a nice 10 day break for us. After Thanksgiving, we rested on that Friday and Saturday. I was very excited that this country has no such thing as Black Friday. I personally think it is moronic for people to camp out in front of a Walmart or get up at 3am to get a good deal at Best Buy. Christmas has become was too materialistic. No one even celebrates the birth of CHRIST anymore. Getting away from my rant, and back to my blog… we decided to spend a few days in Dubai for part of our break. Alanna found us a nice hotel – The Arabian Courtyard. Her main reason for choosing it? Babysitting. Yes, they came to our room and watched little Logan for us so we could have a few romantic dates.

So we drove up early on Sunday afternoon. The drive was pleasant enough. People basically drive as fast as they want on the interstates here, slowing down only when they see Radar Cameras. That’s the only was you get a ticket. There are no actual police patrolling anywhere. You have to call them if you need to see them. We could have taken a bus for cheap there but I just knew I’d have no trouble driving so I insisted. As we got within about 20 minutes of

downtown, you could already see the Burj Dubai rising twice as high as any other building in the skyline. It is now the largest building in the world. What an amazing sight it was indeed. So we got to town and found our way to where I thought the general location of our hotel was. Well then we drove around in circles for 20 minutes and couldn’t find the hotel. We never really got lost, just couldn’t find the dang place. Finally, with Logan crying and my wife begging, we pulled over. Alanna got in a taxi and we followed it to the hotel, about 2 minutes away. We kept taking a right when we should have went left. We would have never found it though without the taxi. We got free valet parking and left the car there until we checked out.

After getting checked in at the hotel, we dropped off our bags, fed Logan, then went outside to explore. Using the famous Angie Triplett Method of Vacationing, we made ourselves a detailed itinerary. Our first stop was the Dubai Museum, which happened to be directly across the street from the hotel. It was a nice place. It basically gave the history of old Dubai and how things were back in the day. I enjoy anything historical so it was a neat time. After that we walked around a little more, taking in the Grand Mosque, stopping at a store that was named after Carolina, and then we were hounded to buy fake watches, fake purses, etc, etc, etc. We went back to the hotel to freshen up for our first well deserved date. The babysitter arrived on time and we decided to do something simple for date night # 1. We stayed in the hotel and went to a restaurant there, the Sherlock Holmes Pub. I’m a big fan of the man myself, although this place only took the name, not much else. I had a steak for the first time since coming to the UAE. It was tasty and my tummy was satisfied. We even got back a little early to the room just cause we missed little Lolo so much.

Day 2 started early for us. On the Angie Triplett itinerary was the Dubai Aquarium, Dubai Mall and the Atlantis Hotel, which is on the Palm Island. Google it. Go to google and type in Palm Island Dubai. Its way cool. The Aquarium was

nice. They had some big sharks in the walkthrough tunnel, some seals and even penguins. After the Aquarium, which was in the mall, we walked around it for awhile. HUGE mall. Three stories of store after store after store. The food court was as big as a typical Walmart. We found Taco Bell there (we hadn’t seen one in the country yet). Taco Bell is just as cheap here as it is in the States. Next, we hopped a bus and headed out to the Palm Island to visit the Atlantis Hotel. As we rushed to get off the bus, we left the video camera on it. After 15 minutes of panicking, we got in touch with the bus people and they said the driver would have it for us we he came back to pick us up. Problem solved. The Atlantis was spectacular. There was a Porsche, two Lamborghinis, a Ferrari and a Roles-Royce parked outside. We toured the inside, which was packed with people, then went outside and took some pictures along the public beach walkway. The Atlantis, as it should, as its own private beach that we couldn’t go see. The bus showed up, with our camera and we hopped back on it and went back to the mall. This just saved us some taxi fares because the bus was free.

We then headed back to the hotel, the babysitter took Logan and we walked down to the old part of Dubai, along the Dubai Creek. We hopped on an abra, which is a water taxi. It’s a wooden motorboat which fits about 20 people on it and takes you to the other side of the river. It was a neat, cultural experience, especially at night. On the other side of the creek is the Old Souk. Its basically a bunch of local merchants crammed into many different alleys. We didn’t really by anything, but it was neat to walk up and down the streets. We couldn’t find anything to eat on that side of the river, so we hopped back on the abra, oh… which cost 1dhs (33 cents) by the way, and headed back in the direction towards our hotel. We found a little pizza place. It was an Italian Pizza place, in the UAE, and we were served by the Asian lady who seemed to be the manager. We ate outside. The pizza was good and we were happy. We headed back, Alanna bought her a cheap fake designer purse, then called it a night.

On our final day, we got up early and headed down to the public beach. Other than the literally ton of cigarette butts

GEDC0979 — Logan's first time on the beach

all over the sand, the beach was nice. Logan got his first ocean experience and we took lots of pictures. We stayed there about 2 hours (that’s about as long as Logan could take), then headed back to the hotel, checked out and came back to Al Ain. I really want to go back to Dubai a few more times at least. There is just so much to see and do there!

The rest of this week we spent relaxing and shopping. We took Logan to the doctor tonight for a scheduled round of shots. What a nightmare. I don’t like hospitals in the first place, and the ones here are a pain in the butt. We went in two days ago and made Logan’s appointment with a doctor we heard good things about. We set an appointment for 7pm. Yeah, they do things late here. We get to the hospital tonight and reception tells us that our doctor is on vacation. No one bothered to tell us that before. He would be gone for a month. We decided, since we were there, to see another doctor. We got to the pediatrics area and found out that not only were we not told about our doctor being on vacation, that they also moved our appointment from 7pm to 8:15pm. We pitched a small fit and the nurse told us she’d get us in next. We didn’t wait too long and they brought us in. The lady doctor was nice enough. We went over what shots we would need and then she examined Logan. She did a pretty thorough examination, except for the small fact that she didn’t bother to take his diaper off. So I hope his penis is ok. She then told us to go with the nurse to the cashier. Apparently we had to pay before we got the shots. So we went to the cashier, paid, and then he told us to go to the pharmacy outside and get the vaccines for the shots. What? We had to go get the stuff? They didn’t have it with the doctor? Well we went outside and into the pharmacy, got the shots, then brought them back. We had to wait for the doctor again, then went back inside. Of course, the nurse forgot to add one of the shots to our bill, so we didn’t get it at the pharmacy. So I got the paperwork, waited in line at the cashier and pharmacy again and finally got back, leaving Alanna to watch little Logan take his shots like a champ. She said he only cried when the doc stuck him and by the time I got back he was smiling. Guess he takes after his Daddy?

Alanna goes back to work tomorrow. She’s not very happy about that. I go back to taking care of the little man and playing video games. Right now… I’m watching through the internet UK beating up on UNC. Boo.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. I do have a lot to be thankful for this year. First and foremost is Alanna and Logan. I can’t remember sometimes what my life like was before them. I can’t imagine how I made it through one single day without them. I am thankful for my family and friends around the world. Most of you are far away, but close still in my heart. I am thankful for my health. My prostate issues have taken a hiatus since I’ve been in the UAE. I can tell they’re still there, but I’ve had no bad flare ups in awhile. Knock on wood!

We ARE having a big family Thanksgiving dinner over here. We’re having dinner with our extended family of friends. There’s going to be a lot of people! I’m bringing my dish – the HBN Potato Casserole. For the unenlightened – thats the Honorable Benjamin Nelson’s Potato Casserole. I’ve been making it for about 6 years now. Like most guys, I used to just show up at family dinners on holidays with nothing but a smile, eat up, and watch football. One year before Thanksgiving while in Myrtle Beach, I decided to try and participate in the cooking process. I googled “Potato Casserole” and got a recipe from Benjamin Nelson – a senator from Nebraska. Turns out the dish is easy to make, taste great and everyone likes it. So now I make it every year for holiday dinners, etc. Here’s the recipe if you’re interested…

HBN Potato Casserole

Ingredients

2 pounds frozen hash brown potatoes

1/2 cup melted butter

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1/2 cup cream of potato soup OR cream of chicken soup

1 pint sour cream with chives

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1/2 cup celery, chopped

Toppings

2 cups crushed potato chips

1/2 cup melted butter

Defrost potatoes. Combine melted butter, salt, pepper, soup and sour cream. Mix hash browns with onion, celery and cheese. Mix in soup mixture. Pour into a greased 9 x 12-inch casserole dish.

For Topping: Mix butter and chips. Sprinkle on top of casserole. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees. This dish can be frozen and heated before serving. Serves 16.

We had a hectic day yesterday. Getting mine and Logan’s residence visa is a pain. I’m sure its a pain for foreigners in any country though. You have to do all kinds of rigamarole here though. You have to go back and forth to different places, paying fees everywhere you go, get things translated in arabic, get a health check up, etc. To top it off, Alanna’s contract says they were going to handle it for us. Well we’ve had to do everything AND pay for most of it. They said they would remburse for some stuff. I won’t hold my breath. Well we were lazy and didn’t get things done on time, so yesterday that wanted us to pay some crazy late fees. Its all just annoyingly stupid.

Logan is doing great, as always. He’s eating baby food every day now. You know, the stuff that looks like vomit in a jar. He seems to like it though. What a mess. I’ll spoon feed it to him and he’ll immediately stick his fingers in his mouth, get some baby food and then smear it on stuff. At this point, its kind of cute so I deal with it. He’s also taking naps in his crib. In fact, he’s napping in his crib right now so please keep it down.

Alanna’s big break is next week, so we’re heading to Dubai. Not sure exactly what we’re gonna do, but we’ll figure it out. She also gets a two week break at the end of January. We thought about a cruise, but its just hard to do with a baby. We may be going to Rome for a week though. So that we’ll be a blast! It wasn’t built in a day you know.

MagicJack – if you don’t have it, get one. MagicJack is this neat little device that plugs into your usb port. Once your register it, you can have a free US number. You pick the area code, and even the whole number if you pay like $10 or something. With MagicJack, you can make FREE local and long distance calls. You can use the mic in your computer or plug a phone into it. It REALLY helps over here in the middle east. I have a “charlotte number”, and can call everyone in the states from it for free. They can also call me (if I have it running on my computer at the time), or they can always leave a free voicemail. The whole thing cost $20 or so. You can pick it up at CVS, RiteAid,etc. Great deal, saves a ton of phone charge money.

OK, enjoy your holiday!

Pics…

Logan’s First Halloween – Video

Here’s a video of Logan’s first Halloween!