Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was AMAZING!   I think it was so similiar to the first Thanksgiving dinner! People coming together in a strange land.  People from many different places.  People sharing food and fellowship.  People feeling thankful that in a place so far from home they could carry on traditions that are so important!  Children running around in feathers and tall, wide-rimmed black hats...I am telling you, all that was missing was the Mayflower! hahahaha!

 I had SO MUCH fun decorating my tables!  Remember that ribbon I wanted in Satwa?  I went back and got it.  It was my inspiration for the table.  I wrapped it around 4 large candles and then built the table around them.  I bought cheap brown fabric and used it as the tablecloths.  I LOVE SATWA!  A few minutes before the guests arrived I whipped up the wreath for the front door.  Two pilgrims I stole from my mom years ago and some Satwa fabric!

 I LOVE these people! From left to right..Emily, Carol, Natalie, Pattie, Cathy and Elan.  Carol's husband works for Nalco and they actually used to live in Friendswood!  Her daughter Sarah has been sitting for us and the kids love her!  Natalie is my hilarious Australian neighbor who calls me "darling" and let me borrow her chairs for the event.  She was in AWE of the food. Especially the stuffing. She could not get over all we Americans can do with a marshmallow.  Pattie and I met at ASD.  She has 4 kids our kids EXACT ages!  They are our mirror family.  Three boys and 1 girl.  Her son Karston is Lilly's buddy.  She used to live in Pearland and Chicago! Cathy is from Houston and we met through a mutual friend before we came.  She is the art teacher at ASD and is so creative!  We are decorating the school together for Breakfast with Santa.  She always brings me festive party napkins that she brought from home!  Funny party napkins are hard to find here.  And lastly, if you follow the blog regularly you know Elan!   Elan helped me so much with gathering everything for the feast.  She brought the cute pilgrim hats and feathers for the kids!  Elan's friendship makes Dubai FUN!

 The food was AMAZING!  Let me run down what we had.  The turkey was perfect!  Sassos brought 2 turkeys.  They ordered them from the Sheraton hotel.  It came with all kinds of interesting sides.  The "gravy" was the funniest party.  It was similiar to a tomato-like-meat-sauce.  PANIC!  Must have good gravy!  I made some from the turkey juice and we added some jarred gravy.  It turned out perfect!  I made 2 kinds of stuffing.  Mcknight stuffing and Bryant Stuffing.  Both were a hit!  We had green bean casserole, corn casserole, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes that Latha made.  I made pimento cheese and celery..a must have for me.  The rest was brought by everyone...fruit kabobs, broccoli-rice-cheese casserole, green salad, pies, pies, pies, chocolate cake, turkey-shaped homemade sugar cookies, homemade rolls by Pattie's husband, 2 marshmallowy jello salads....I am sure I am leaving something out.  It was all so good and we are still eating it!

Kid tables were outside...

This was the baby table.  They were so cute!

These are my sweet "Nalco-Wife" friends Carol and Trinka.
They mean so much to me!

This would be "round 2" of eating!  You know it's a good party when everyone

stays late and gets the food out again!  LOVE IT!

Texas Turkey and Thanksgiving Prep

Olivia's class had to "disguise" a turkey for Thanksgiving.  Of course we chose to disguise hers as a Texan!  It turned out so cute and was a team effort to get done.  We did a mosaic flag out of magazine paper which Blake helped me cut and glue the little pieces, Liv did the coloring and much of the gluing and I last minute velcro-ed the American Girl boots to the bird!  Liv was so proud!

If you have been wondering what I have been doing the past few days I will tell you.  I HAVE BEEN DRIVING ALL OVER TO EVERY GROCERY STORE IN TOWN LOOKING FOR MY THANKSGIVING GROCERIES!  Thanksgiving is a non-existent holiday here. People have no clue what you are talking about when you mention it.  Latha looks at me like I a little crazy when I try to explain "turkey, stuffing, cranberry?" This all makes sense being that it is a true American holiday!  

These ESSENTIALS were found on my third try..Up on a high shelf...
I cheered when I found them!  What is Thanksgiving without GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE!

I am very excited to be hosting Thanksgiving for so many new friends.  We are going to have 14 adults and 17 kids!  With no Hobby Lobby around I am having to get really crafty.  Thanks Molly for the pumpkin idea!  Found some Dubai-weird-ugly-peach-pumpkins in Satwa..Spray paint and glitter!  Pictures coming soon of my tables!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Muscat

Muslim Holiday= American Roadtrip!

Last week we had a total of 10 days off from school due to yet another Muslim holiday.  We are racking up the no-school days lately between American and Muslim holidays!  In fact between now and Christmas we are only in school 12 days!  I sometimes think I might need to do some homeschoolin'!  Not really...
So... 10 days off means we need to hit the road with our travel buddies the Sassos!  This time we headed to Muscat, the capital city of Oman.  This was a about a 6 hour adventure that included some serious border crossings.  This is how it went....Load 4 kids into mini van with too much stuff, snacks, plastic emergency barf bags, movies and hidden booze in the secret floor-board compartment.  Stop at the grocery store on the way out for cash and breakfast snacks.  Spit out in my hand the bite of the so called "kolache" made with chicken sausage. Drive and drive to first check point where we were just asked to show passports and guard with machine gun asked me not to take his picture....After I took it.  Ooops...

Keep driving and pass a building with many people in a line that DO NOT look like locals.  They look like holidaying expats...Hmmmm?  Should we stop?  Nahhhhhh..keep driving.  

Stop and potty and take these pictures!

Get to Omani border and walk in to very large passport/border facility.  Wait in line with Sassos which means 6 car-stir-crazy-kids including one toddling-don't-hold-me-monkey-baby.  Get stared at by many Non-Americans.  Potty in FILTHY bathroom with no toilet paper.  This is a common theme in the Middle East.  NO toilet paper.  Finally get to window only to be told that we need to go back to last passport checkpoint about 10 miles back and get a stamp.  The place with the lines of holidaying-looking-expats.  The place we whizzed by-

Omani Border Passport Facility

LOAD UP!  BACKTRACK!  Drive...Drive...See this....A mosque in the middle of the dessert..Check out all the men outside praying. Arrive at the location where all the holidaying expats were standing in a line and join them.  Make jokes about how we flew past it and just assumed that we Americans were exempt from that step.  I mean surely someone would have explained these steps to us from our hotel?  NO..It is every man for himself in this part of the world----Get something done to passports...not sure what.  Drive....Drive.....Drive......

Get back to large passport/border facility and repeat line waiting.  Passports stamped yet again!  On the road to Muscat!  See this....

Keep  driving and driving and driving....Are we there yet?

                                        When you get to the gold horses you are almost there!  Seriously, when you get directions anywhere in this part of the world you are given them with landmarks NOT street names.  Drive past the Sheraton, turn left by the large incense burner statue, keep going through the gold horses...Not kidding!  These were the directions to the hotel!

We made it!  

Oh wait!  Must drive through large hole cut out in the mountain!

Let this girl roam and check out the hotel!

Splash around....

Catch a crab...

Have a little beach time before bed...

Clean up after a long day of driving!  Ready for day 2!

So this is how day 2 in Muscat went!  

Do some lazy river floating...

Chase this monkey around...

Eat!  Lots of eating!

Do a little snorkeling..

Play in the pool...

Take some glamour shots...

Investigate the really course, weird, dark sand-

More monkey chasing...

Do a little snoozing.....

Bury some kids!

Snuggle with my man

Play "kiss the ouchie" game over and over

Play with some coolers..

Check out some camels roaming through..

Touch the camel...

Chill out after a fun long day and watch some Star Wars!

Get a sitter and have a fun night out!

Bring on Day 3!  We went into town and saw some sights of Muscat.  Muscat is the capital city of Oman and served as one of the most important trading posts between the east and the west in the first century.  Hence the many original forts that are scattered all along the mountainous coastline to protect the goods!  I loved seeing this little town that has worked so hard to preserve their history...We went to the Muttrah Souk which is a very old shopping district in Oman. Souk means market.  It was composed of crowded little passageways with a really beautiful wood ceiling.  The kids loved searching for a perfect treasure...Omanis are famous for their silver which I found fun!.... The pictures show the details best!  After we left we drove through the town looking at the sights and of course saw many, many goats.  

I thought this was really pretty..no clue what it was though

Even Lilly found it all amazing!

Lilly was done with us this day!  She needed her 3 B's!!!

Time to go home!

Views on our way out...

I almost titled this blog post "Animals in the Back of Small Trucks"

Back across the border...Back to Dubai...I won't go into the details of our LONG journey home.  It involved sitting in a border line in our car for over an hour, people cutting in line (a common thing here!), Olivia crying and crying "I want to go home!"...Let's just say it was a moment when I had never been happier to see Villa 5!


Someone told me that a vacation with 4 kids is not a vacation.  It is just a change of scenery. So true!  It was a great time but Mama was glad to be home!