I'll have a large soup sandwich, please...

OK, so I know some of you are anxiously (really?) awaiting part 2 of "Leaving on a jet plane," but I really have to get this all down while it's fresh in my mind. So I posted on my facebook page yesterday that we're supposed to be having our container delivered today. So exciting. I realized about 14 hours too late that I got a little bit excited about something that should be pretty straightforward... container arrives in port, clears customs, gets loaded on truck, truck drives to our building, truck gets unloaded, and stuff is delivered to our apartment. I may have missed a few things in between arriving in port and getting loaded on truck, but I'm not going to worry too much about it, because where I come into this story, the container has already cleared customs.

This is probably a good place to interject what some of you may have already deduced. I'm a little wordy. I don't really tell short stories. I kind of feel like the best parts of stories are in the details. I drive Caleb nuts because he'll tell me something in two sentences, and I'll ask him seventeen detail-oriented questions... none of which he can answer. So, feel free to stop reading at any time... it's just kind of the details in all of this that make it the soup sandwich that it is.

Anyway, that brings me to now. Here's how this morning has gone down: I had to tell Abdul (our awesome driver who takes the kids to and from school because I can't get my driver's license yet) that we gave the truck driver his name and phone number because the driver only speaks Hindi. Abdul is one of a very short list of people in Abu Dhabi whom I know well enough to ask a favor involving speaking Hindi. Abdul says he'll talk to him when he calls. Fast forward to 45 minutes ago. Abdul calls me to tell me Yousef, the driver, is almost at the security gate. I have already talked to the security guard to let him know we have a big delivery coming. As I go downstairs and walk outside, I see the truck with the container on it heading away from security. I'll give you a moment to picture the awesomeness of watching the truck with your container holding all of your belongings on it driving away.
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Did you picture it? Great! So I call Abdul back. He tells me he's not sure where the guy's going... maybe to the other gate? So I hightail it to the other security gate on the other side of the complex. It's about a 5 minute walk... not far. Only it's 95 degrees outside with a "feels like" temp of 115. And 67% humidity. At NINE in the morning. So imagine my surprise, when I arrive dripping with sweat (imagine how glamorous I felt!) only to see... you guessed it... NO TRUCK! I proceed to tell that security guard that a truck is coming for us and please let him in. Then I head back to my building and come upstairs. I change my shirt, because, no lie, I am sweating more than I did in some basketball practices I've been through.

This is when I call Caleb and ask him to call the "Boss Man" to figure out what's going on. Caleb calls me back in a few short minutes to tell me the truck is at security again, and they won't let him in. Only this time, I grow a brain and decide to look off the balcony to check. I'm sure you'll be as surprised as I was to find that there wasn't a truck at the security gate I could see. Nor was there a truck waiting at the two security gates to the island, nor was there one waiting at the gate at the island next to us. There was one gate that I couldn't see, the one I had to walk to before, but there was no way I was going to walk to that one and have to change my shirt yet again. I probably would have redlined the stinkometer after that.  Instead, I decided to go downstairs and talk to my friend Fez Ali. He's the concierge guy at another building. I mentioned him on facebook one time. He saved our beach towels from almost certain demise. But that's another story for another day. I am happier than a pig in poop to announce that I now know not one, but TWO people in Abu Dhabi who speak Hindi and will translate for me. The bonus is that I can understand Fez Ali way better. He called the driver and got the scoop. The driver is parked somewhere in a "good location." I honestly have no idea what "good location" in this situation even means, but I nod my head anyway. Apparently, security won't allow a big truck with a container loaded on it to deliver to our buildings because the roads are too narrow and too hard to maneuver. So now, Yousef is waiting in that "good location" for a smaller truck. They will then offload a small truckoad of stuff at a time, drive it through security, unload it for several trips in the elevator, and deliver it to our apartment on the 9th floor. After Fez Ali passes on all this information to me, I get a call from Abdul. He tells me to come outside, as he's in front of our building. Keep in mind that I only ever asked him to give Yousef directions if he got lost. Abdul had gone way above and beyond. Anyway, I walk over to his van, and he's got two guys from the delivery company with him, only he didn't really tell me who they were, so after a few awkward "Will you please speak slowers" on my part, I found out they were with the delivery company. In a nutshell, they tell me the same thing Fez Ali just told me.  

Since there's nothing more I can do, I give one of the delivery company guys my phone number and tell him to call me when they need me to come downstairs.

A few hours pass, and I get a phone call. I come downstairs and see this, in all its glory:

And then I see things like this:

While this might not seem like a big deal, it is. That box is supposed to be not only closed, but taped shut. And see that greasy stain down the side? Yeah, not supposed to be there. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of boxes with greasy stains on them, some much worse than this one. Seriously, after I started wondering/worrying what had been ruined, I reminded myself that this was all just stuff. I was just hoping it wasn't a box of scrapbooks or photo albums with greasy stains on it.

There were about six guys helping altogether. About four of them were helping unload the truck. Someone was also loading the elevator and bringing the stuff up so he could unload it on our floor, and there was one guy upstairs with me... he was going back and forth from the elevator landing, where an elevator load of stuff was sitting unloaded for him to move into my apartment. Overall, it was a more efficient process than I ever expected given the fiasco earlier in the day. He was pretty good about delivering stuff to the proper rooms, and he was very nice and polite. The only problem is, THIS is how most of our stuff looked once it was sitting inside our apartment:

And this is only a small sample of photos. I decided to just stop taking them... it was too depressing. It looks as if someone played a game of hopscotch across the tops of the boxes. Or maybe it was just more fun to see how far they could be thrown from four feet up in the container straight down to the ground. Any box that you see in the photos that has tan-colored shipping tape on it has been opened by customs. I have no problems with customs doing their jobs. Trust me. The only thing is that they opened almost every single box they inspected FROM THE BOTTOM. So my boxes that were labeled on top and were haphazardly taped back together had to be turned over again to figure out where they went. Not to mention, things that were in one box when they left my house were in completely different boxes when they got here. Believe it or not, in the 30 or so boxes I've unpacked, there have only been a handful of broken things. Some of you will mourn these with me: my neti-pot (also known as my self-waterboarding device), my DARK BROWN because it's been used so much Pampered Chef stone, a bowl that was part of a set of china I got from my mom (replaceable). There is also a small, broken piece of wood on the hutch that my great-grandfather made, but I think it could be repaired. The one thing I thought I had gotten a photo of but didn't: our fireproof safe. They ripped the hinges off of it to make sure there was nothing inside that shouldn't be, although now, as I'm sure you can guess, it's worthless. All I could think of as a caption to a photo of a safe with the hinges broken off is from lolcatz: "Ur doin' it wrong!"

I am interested to see what other little surprises I discover as I continue to unpack. The most exciting part of the whole process, though, is that we can now start to make this apartment look more like our home instead of this:

 

It looks like a sad little bachelor pad with the soccer mom chair and the inflatable chair and ottoman, doesn't it?

Leaving on a jet plane (part 1)...

So I started this post about 9 days ago, but never quite finished it.  It's actually not the most pleasant thing to try to use your laptop on a plane when you're 6'2" and have pretty much zero leg room to begin with.  I finished the post after we actually arrived in the UAE.  This is a pretty long one, so be warned.  Without further ado...

Today's the day.  The one for which we've been waiting for MONTHS.  We are leaving Seattle and flying to Abu Dhabi via Chicago.  Today is going to be a long day.  And when I say long, please know that I mean LONG... four hour flight to Chicago, three hour layover, 14 (yes, I just said FOURTEEN) hour flight to Abu Dhabi, UAE.  I don't like to do anything for fourteen hours.  Not even sleep (unless I'm really tired) so today is going to be a challenge, not only for me, but for the girls.  I guess the good thing about all of this is that I won't be driving 14 hours, which is most definitely worse.  Add to those fourteen hours an 11 hour time difference, and we're just begging for chaos.  Anyway, you get the point.

So here's what it looks like in our hotel room right before we get ready to take the shuttle to the airport:

I realize this photo is small and of extremely poor quality, but it was taken by my phone camera in a poorly lit room at 7 in the morning.  Cut me some slack.

While I love my husband dearly, it was probably a good thing he wasn't in my physical presence while I was packing.  I probably would have punched him in the face if he had been at all near me. (All said with MUCH LOVE, honey!)  He kept telling me from halfway around the world that I needed to pack lightly, and that I didn't need to bring much with us.  How do you pack "lightly" when you're moving to the other side of the earth with your four kids?  In all, we managed to get all of our stuff in 7 120 liter bags and 5 backpacks.  I, myself, am pretty impressed with that feat. 

Fast forward to the first four-hour flight.  It was pretty uneventful.  The whole flying thing was fresh and new, nobody complained.  I was pretty happy about the Sprite served to my girls in those awesome little plastic airplane cups... no lids, of course... perched precariously on slippery tray tables ready to douse the nearest little lap with sticky goodness at any moment.  I actually asked the flight attendant if we could just have 1 whole bottle of water that we could share between the five of us.  She looked at me like I had 12 heads.  Apparently, the water bottle police don't allow a whole water bottle (with a LID) to be handed over on an aircraft.  Or maybe they do and I just asked someone who was having a bad day.  Either way, I'm so happy to announce that there were no spills of liquids on the flight to Chicago, and we arrived safely and on time.

I don't know if you've ever flown through O'Hare before, but the international terminal is a separate entity there.  Meaning, you have to take an elevated train to get to that terminal.  That was fun for the girls.  It accelerated at neck-snapping speeds, all while I am nagging the girls to hold on to the pole so they don't go flying to the back of the train car.  That very well could be the only time I remind my girls to hold onto a vertical pole.

We arrived at the international terminal and the girls are starving.  We have to check in with the airline flying us to Abu Dhabi before we can go through security, again.  Yep, you read that right, we got to go through security TWICE on this super awesome long day of travel.  I digress, though.  When we go to check in, they are weighing all of the carry-on luggage.  The girls are all okay, my backpack, however, is jammed with my laptop, an external hard drive, my camera and a couple of lenses, medical records that we're hand-carrying over, and miscellaneous other heavy things... none of which I wanted to place in my checked bags.  I'm proud to announce my carry-on bag weighed twice the legal limit.  Fortunately, I met an awesome supervisor named Mike who, after asking enough questions, concurred that none of the stuff in my bag should be checked, either.  He graciously allowed me to place a few of the things in my bag into my girls' bags, which were all underweight, and that brought my carry-on to only 10 kg instead of 14.  And he signed a special little tag saying I could bring it on the plane.  My personal, heartfelt thanks to Mike, again, even though I'm quite sure he'll never see this blog. 

Next step... security... again.  I will say that although the line was long, it went pretty smoothly.  Except Hannah had water in her brand new water bottle, I didn't take my external hard drive out of my bag (I didn't know I had to!) and my hands had to be swabbed, I'm guessing to check for residue of some sort?  I don't really know... I just kind of try to keep my mouth shut and do what they tell me to avoid any long delays.  I thought for sure the water bottle was going to have to be thrown away, because there was no way I was going to go empty it myself and go to the back of the security line.  This has happened to me before, and those were my options... throw it away or leave security, dump it out, and go back through the line.  Well, surprise of all surprises... the TSA agent dumped it out herself and ran it through the screener again, and let us take it.  Another big deal seeing as how that was the FIRST time that bottle had ever held water.  Thank you, TSA lady with common sense!

I mentioned before that my kids were starving, so after I get my shoes on, we decide to go eat.  Except there don't appear to be any restaurants after security.  Seriously, I about lost my mind.  Of course, there were the standard little stores/kiosks that had snacks and bags of chips and candy bars and stuff.  Not a single solitary restaurant.  There was, however, a sandwich stand right by our gate.  They also had cups of not 100% fresh (one or possibly two day-old) fruit and yogurt with fruit and granola.  Five little meals, five bottles of water, and $100 less in my wallet later, we were snacking on the floor by the window by our gate.  It was awesome.  I had to keep reminding Hannah to have a positive attitude because I was kind of reminding myself as well.  After we finished eating, we had just enough time to run to the bathroom in two different shifts so we don't have to take all of our crap with us.  Then it's time for the real fun to begin... it's time to board.  I'll continue that part of the story in part 2.  If you made it this far... thanks for reading!

 

This just hurts my heart so much...

Ally and Rufus

First of all, it breaks my heart to write this.  We need to give away our dogs.  We're moving this summer, and where we're going (I'll discuss in a future blog post) just won't be a great place for them.  We REALLY, REALLY, REALLY would like to keep them together if at all possible. I can't even emphasize enough how awesome they are together.  Here's a little bit about them:

Rufus is the brown one.  He's a Dogue de Bordeaux (a French Mastiff)  He's like the dog in Turner and Hooch, only he isn't quite as bad with the drooling.  We do keep the water bowls outside, though, just to keep things a little neater.  Rufus just turned 8 years old on April 23rd.  He was neutered young, so the vet seems to think he will live a longer life than if he hadn't been.  He weighs about 100 lbs.  He is really smart, and so sweet with kids. Just a little funny fact... when Gabby was younger she couldn't say Rufus, so she called him FooFoo.  He totally looks like a FooFoo, doesn't he?

Rufus

Ally (the black one) is a Neapolitan (Italian) Mastiff.  She will be four years old this summer.  She weighs 135 lbs.  She, too, is smart, and she is excellent with kids as well.  I remember when our youngest was a toddler, Ally would be laying (or is it lying... I can't ever remember that grammar rule) in front of the sofa.  Gabby would literally step onto Ally's side to help her climb up on the couch.  And Ally would never even flinch.  She does have a bit of an anxiety problem, though.  She has gotten so much better, but that's part of the reason I would like for her to stay with Rufus.  She has been known to chew things if they're left on the floor.  She does not chew things if we are home, it's only when her family is gone. I must say she has gotten so much better as she's gotten older.  However, I know the stress of not being with Rufus (and us) could make her regress. We have a giant crate for her for when we have to leave the house and it's really hot or cold outside, but for the most part, we just leave the dogs outside when we are going to be gone.  We also have a wireless pet fence because we don't have a physical fence in our yard... it's a transmitter about 10x10x8 that sits in our house.  It sends out a wireless signal in a giant circle around our house and yard, and when the dogs approach the boundaries, their collars beep.  If they don't turn around, they get a shock.  The beeping is almost always enough to tell them they're too close to the edge of their circle.  Rarely if ever do they require the shock.  Anyway, the wireless transmitter and collars come with them, as does the XL crate and any other dog supplies we have. 

Ally

They are huge, I know, but they are truly gentle giants.  They are fabulous with children. In fact, I don't know if we'd want to give them to someone unless they had children... they are that loving and sweet.  They are so used to being surrounded by kids I don't know how they'd do without them.  The children in my neighborhood love them, even though their parents might be scared stiff.  It's not unusual to see three or more kids at the bus stop hugging on Rufus or Ally.  In addition, they are excellent guard dogs.  I'm sure it comes as no surprise, but when people see them in our yard, they usually don't give a second thought to approaching our house.  Caleb jokes that we don't need an alarm system because we have them.  He always says he has felt way better leaving for a year at a time knowing our two dogs were around to protect his girls.

This is why we don't want to separate them...

Apparently they like to snuggle a lot!  That gray thing next to the basket is the wireless transmitter I was talking about earlier.

If you can't tell by the above photos, they like to sleep.  A lot.  They actually sleep about 16 hours a day.

They have been continually socialized with other dogs.  French and Neapolitan mastiffs are fighting breeds, so it's very important to socialize them early and often so they don't have power struggles with other dogs. 

Rufus can be walked with a leash, but he is pretty much completely voice-trained and will do whatever I tell him to even when not on a leash.  Ally is also getting way better at the voice command thing, although when I walk her outside my neighborhood I still use her leash.  I have definitely noticed that Ally's anxiety lessens when I walk her one or two times a day.  Their favorite thing to do is walk with us to and from the bus stop in the morning and afternoon.  I think they secretly love the extra attention and affection they get from the other kids in the neighborhood.

OK, so now the bad...

• They are big, and sometimes clumsy in that they can knock a child over accidentally.  Our girls took some knockdowns when they were younger, but nothing serious, and nothing lately.
• They have really bad breath, Rufus especially.  
• If you give Ally a lot of table scraps she will stink up the house with, for lack of a better term, her silent-but-deadly dog farts.  I don't buy cheap dog food, partly for this reason, but also because they seem to have such shiny coats with the high-protein, no-grain food I get for them.  Obviously, whoever takes them can feed them whatever they feel comfortable with.  Your house might stink for a little while, though.  =)  
• The low windows in the front of our house never stay clean for longer than 2 or 3 days.  There are just a lot of nose marks and slobber on them.  That's an easy fix, though.  I just clean them more often.
• They like to play fight outside occasionally, and it scares the dickens out of anyone passing by.  It's funny to watch, though. 
• They snore sometimes.  In and of itself, that's not such a terrible thing.  I must say, though, that they prefer to sleep in our room.  They are, after all, pack animals, and since my husband and I (when he's not here) are the pack leaders, they like to be around us.  They do, very often, though, sleep in any of the girls' rooms.  And they still snore.

Fighting...

Ally

Rufus

If you'd like to view an excessive number of rather cute photos of Rufus and Ally, click here.

Oh, and I completely forgot to mention that they are housebroken.  I don't think they would have been members of our family for very long had they not been.

I'm sure I'll have to add to this post as I think of new things.  If you think you or someone you know might be interested, please let me know.  I am so worried about them having a good and loving home.

Why my Easter was EXTRA special...

Well, I know it's several weeks after Easter Sunday, but I just got these photos from the wonderful friend who took them.  I wanted to make sure to post them.  My Easter was even more awesome and wonderful because two of my babies were baptized.

First was my sweet eight year-old Taylor... I adore the way she's looking at our good friend and pastor, Chad.  

and coming up out of the water...

This one very well could be my favorite.  I love the joy and excitement on her face. 

Next came Lexi.  She's six, and I have to admit, I wasn't exactly sure if she "got" why she would want to be baptized, but she does.  She's told me several times since then why she chose to be.  If anyone in my family has a heart for Jesus, it's her. 

Coming out of the water...

And here she is when she got out of the water.  I forgot to mention that it was about 20 degrees colder on this day than it had been for the last several days.  We were all colder in our short sleeves than we thought we'd be.  I think she's racing for the towel!

 

And just because I never post photos of myself... here's one of me.  And I must admit I'm so glad I don't have the really ugly cry going on.  I will say that I'm crying because I'm so proud of them, but it should be known that I also cry whenever I see people I don't even know get baptized. 

So that's why Easter was especially awesome in 2012.  I can't think of a better way to celebrate than to have two new sisters in Christ.

Let's get it started (again!)...

So here it is, April of 2012.  The last time I blogged was December of 2009.  Nice.  I can't make any promises to myself that I'll write here regularly.  Obviously that doesn't happen.  There are going to be a lot of changes in our lives over the next few months, and I kind of want to document them.  You know, so I don't forget. 

I ♥ Faces Photo Challenge: Pets Only

Behind this adorable underbite lurks the most atrocious dog breath ever...

This is Rufus. He's a 100 lb. Dogue de Bordeaux. We love him lots... just not his breath.

Drive-by layout posting...

Just a quick post to show off one of my most recent layouts:

Click here for credits.

OK, now I'm off to bed so I don't fall asleep in church tomorrow! LOL!

A brief but powerful lesson in government...

While I don't like to dwell on politics too much, this is, in my opinion, too powerful to not share.

“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” - Edmund Burke

8:47 am...

So it's 8:47 am (obviously, since that's my post title.) We just got back from walking the girls to the bus stop. This is their first time riding the bus this year. Hannah was sort of "meh" about riding... she rode the bus to school before we moved here. Taylor, on the other hand... QUITE excited. Hopefully it goes well and she remains as enthusiastic about it as she is now. Anytime I can save myself the effort of strapping the two littlest girls into car seats, I'm happy!

Anyway, I digress. We're back home, and I ask Lexi what she wants to do. I'm expecting a "play dolls" or "play on the computer" type of answer. Instead, what I get is "make lunch." Seriously... these girls are bottomless pits!

Momnesia...

I miss my blog. I really do. I think I'm going to have to rejoin the blogging world. Mainly because I forget so much about the things that happen daily with my little girls. I'm going to have to start writing everything down because I swear I don't remember what happened last week. uggh. I have momnesia.

While I try to remember what happened yesterday, I'll post a few of my most recent layouts:

This one (about my bathtub... yes, I actually made a scrapbook page about my bathtub!) was made with Sharon's most recent kit, Serenity. LOVE the colors in this kit.

Credits here.

This one is of Gabby with her cool shades on. She loves her sunglasses. She calls them her eyes. She will actually say things like "Need eyes, Mommy" to me. Cute. This layout is using Joana's Simply Girly kit.

Credits here.

A big thanks to Carol and Cheryl, for the encouragement a while back to come back to my blog. Thanks, girls... even though I'm a little late getting started again!