When the new year is changed.

I got an email from the school informing us that the government was moving the Islamic New Year from a Tuesday to a Thursday.  This was pretty awesome.  In my dream world, I would like to be the one who decides when a holiday should happen...I'm fairly certain that I would often change things up because it would be so fun to constantly be giving people happy surprises of unexpected long weekends! (In my dream world, I would also like to be the person who delivers flowers because that is another happy-feelings job.  But that is irrelevant.)  

Suffice it to say, we got a long weekend; Thursday off of school, Friday church, Saturday play day.

Sunday was food experiment day.  I tried a really yummy dish called Balaleet when we were still in the hotel.  It's a sweet and spicy fried/baked Vermicelli noodle concoction usually served with some sort of omelet.  We made it and I learned two things.  1. A pound of Vermicelli noodles is WAY too much for a family of eight.  2. Everyone, including Reuben who is known for snubbing any unknown food item, liked it.  We also tried making another piece of deliciousness called Fried Halloumi.  I think Mateo thought he had died and gone to heaven when he took his first bite.  So, yeah.  That little side was a huge success.  It's fun to try new foodie things.

Talis "stuffed" himself.  (Also, why in the world did he bring FLEECE tiger onesie pajamas to Abu Dhabi?  Someone should have told this kid that The Villa never gets below 80℉!)

It is starting--VERY SLOWLY--to cool off somewhat.  Ethan and I took a walk to a nearby park on Tuesday to try and explore some outdoor places that would be fun for the kids.  It was only 105℉ with 60% humidity at 8pm so we thought it was reasonable walking weather.

This park is called Khalidiya Park.  Besides a huge green space, a few different playgrounds, a bunch of fountains, a running path, and a grocery store, it also has a bounce house area with miniature motorized swings!  It's just a short jaunt away from home so I'm sure when it gets cooler in the day, our kids will really enjoy time here.  

Shifting topics now: One thing that has really surprised me about education, is the amount of meetings, emails, and text messages I get from the school.  I opened my "parent portal" on the school system to check my messages the other day (I hadn't looked at it for a week) and I had 94 email messages--all from the school!  There is a "parent coffee" almost weekly (sometimes more than weekly) where the principal presents on some new initiative or program or child-development plan they are working on.  And, there are homeroom parents in every elementary school classroom and parent groups organized for every single grade. K1-12 with accompanying Whatsapp groups.  I tell you, it's been overwhelming sifting through all of the information and deciding on what is important and what to delete forever.  I'm reading and then deleting a lot.  Deleting is very gratifying.  Because of the influx of information, I still haven't decided where to spend my time.  I have met with a couple of the principals already to advocate for gifted kids' needs, and I've already had a parent/teacher meeting with a couple of math teachers, but I've yet to find my niche.  And, quite frankly, that is totally fine right now.  

Wednesday was the high school open house.  Ethan and I took Chloe and Jamila's schedules and spent 10 minutes per class going through their school days via teacher presentations.  My kids have so much on their plates!  I am impressed with how they handle it all.  To celebrate our stellar teens, Ethan and I left them home with Netflix while we went to the HS open house/let's make this a date-night.  We finished off the open house/date night with some food at a local shop.  Dr. Shawarma was a new food chain for me.  I think almost everywhere in the world there is some form of shawarma.  In Greece, it's called a gyro.  In Mexico it's called a burrito.  In Japan it's called a nigiri.  In Hawaii, it could be a spam musubi.  In the Middle East, it's called a Shawarma.  The Middle East Shawarma is filled with either shaved chicken or shaved beef (cut off a long roasting pole), tomatoes, onions, pickles, etc., a yummy sauce, and unseasoned french fries.  Yep.  Fries. If I try to replicate this at home, I'll probably leave out the fries. 

Thursday was no school because of the unexpected holiday.  Yay for long weekends.  We decided to try out someplace new...actually, everything is new so our options were wide open. A friend recommended going to Manarat Al Saadiyat.    Picture a crazy big location where you pay $8/person to free-play create/paint/sculpt/glue/cut/tape/photograph and more without buying all the materials at home or cleaning up a super messy house when you're done.  This was the BEST!!

Manarat Al Saadiyat had three different levels of the room which separated the space for different age and abilities.  Each space then had tables everywhere with different creative ideas and instructions available should you choose to do one of the many the suggested projects.  (You didn't have to do their projects though and you weren't limited to how many projects you could work on.)  There was an art library, two different photo-booths where you could play with light and print out your pictures when you were done, computers for digital art, and so many supplies and ideas that we could have spent way more than the 3 hours we were there without a problem.  Kanani helped me with the wire lady.  We laughed a lot.

After Manarat Al Saadiyat, we went to the Al Wahda Mall.  Talis and Reuben went in these completely claustrophobic water balls.  They loved it.  I laughed at their antics and was glad when their 10 minutes were up and they got out.

Friday we went to church and enjoyed a relatively restful sabbath.

Reuben wrote me a little note during sacrament meeting when I asked him if he was going to be reverent in primary:

And then Saturday, we headed to Al Hudayriat Beach.  When we came on our recci trip in May, we drove on a bridge that literally led to no where.  The bridge ended on a completely empty manmade island.  The bridge NOW leads to a still relatively empty manmade island with a really nice beach complete with showers and commodes.  We went at 7am so we wouldn't be too hot and left by 9am.  It was a great morning of shell collecting, swimming, building sand faces, and just being together.  Jamila said, "Mom, we've lived here for a month. Why is this the first time we have been to the beach?!"  We actually played at the beach when we were in the hotel...but the water was too hot and the sand burned our feet.   I think we will have to head back to this one where the water is a little cooler and the sand is swept and clean and not quite so scalding...at least at 7am.  

We are doing well.  We are grateful for long weekends and for the time to try new things. We count our blessings that we have such good friends and family at home who we know think about us sometimes while we think about them always.  Enjoy a beautiful AUTUMN for us!!!