All packed up

A few shots from this past week... Our stuff is all packed up and in a container at the port somewhere since Monday. The packers were speed demons, they started at 9AM Sunday morning and were done by 3PM, with an hour lunch break! The next day they came and loaded it all into the container, we had a 20 footer and it was only about 2/3 full. I guess I could have done A LOT MORE shopping! So, it doesn't feel like home here anymore, tonight is our last sleep in an empty house, tomorrow we go to the Ramada until Tues. when we fly out! The last few days have been clean-up, today our appliances will go, so just have the fridge left to clean and the food cupboards. Will go to Qtel this afternoon and shut off the phone/internet. Can hardly beleive we're almost there, I hope once we get into our own house in Rocanville, we never move again.


Our friend Hilda, fromBurma. I gave her my sewing machine, so this is the lesson that followed :0) She's never used one before.

The beginning of the packing, they sure do a nice job.

Another helper

The kid zone after awhile, once their room was all boxed up we just put them in there with some stories and a few toys and snacks and they were good.

Playing in their closet

The garage, I had a few doubts about this ever being empty, but you should see it now, NOTHING in there! Notice how the packing guy is blurry, speedy!

Out the door it all goes.

The truck with the container on it couldn't back into our compound as the gate is a little narrow, so the movers had to load everything in this little truck and take it out to the road, then load it into the container from there.

And here it all is, not even clost to full!

Goodbye #4 Bilal Gardens.

Look out Grandma, here we come!

This post is mostly a warning, for Grandma and Grandpa Olsen, we've kind of left it until the last minute so it too late to change their minds about us coming to live with them :0) You will be thrilled when our own house is ready to move into!

We have come to the conclusion that Adair was actually born a 'farm girl' even though she doesn't know what one is. She is happiest when she's getting as dirty as possible and chewing on grass...or other plant life.

See what I mean, in this picture she's making sure that every inch of her arm is covered with wet sand.

Oh yea, and Daudi has taught her the finer points of sword fighting. They love to play Cpt. Hook and Peter Pan.

And this last one, is just a small fraction of the messes that they can make together. Do you still want to get to know these grandkids better, Grandma O.? We will try to make it as enjoyable as possible :0)

Road trip to Dubai

I figured I better get this post up because I'm running out of opportunities now. Anyway, our little 'goodbye trip' to Dubai a couple weeks ago went well. I think it might have been the longest road trip our kids have ever been so far, at 6.5 hours. A good prep for living in Canada :0) They did pretty good, that rating is based on them not having any major melt downs. A bit of whining and fussing, but nothing that games, books, singing, or food couldn't fix.

We had to drive through Saudi on the way there, which is actually the main reason we've never done this drive before, funny how rumors create ideas and fears of things that are not likely to happen. Anyway, it was just over an hours drive in 'The Kingdom' and very uneventful and boring. The first 2 pics are what we saw there, pretty much the whole way. Hardly even any other vehicles and certainly NO scenery :0) I did take my abbaya and wore it to go through the Saudi border, but only because it was Ramadan. I don't think it was really necessary. I had to get out and go into a little hut to get fingerprinted, then got back in the car and didn't get out again until the UAE border, when we all got out to stretch our legs while Jarv got our passports stamped.

Anyway, we had a really nice time in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Said goodbye to our old friends there, and met some new ones - Chris and Jennifer Uzzell (from Oklahoma) and their 5 children plus one of their newborn twins, the other was still in hospital (the twins make their child count 7)! A great family, too bad they just moved to Dubai when we are leaving Doha, but that's how it goes.

Our car did well too, except for the first morning when we went to leave the hotel and the valet came to tell us that the shifter would not move into gear! And it was the first day of the Eid holiday, so good luck getting it fixed. Anyhow, I have to say that I was very proud of Jarv, as his recent car re-building has given him some invaluable skills in vehicle fixing. One of our friends, Shane Hall, came to the hotel with a flashlight and tool kit and he and Jarv jacked up the car and did a little repair job to the shift linkage. Fixed in no time flat, and never had any issues after that.

I forgot to get out and take a picture at the 'Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia' sign in my abbaya, but it was 40 degrees C, might have had something to do with it slipping my mind. Anyway, this sign has a few Saudi city names in it :0)

View in Saudi, basically unchanging the whole way.

The road view in UAE, between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, a little more busy and interesting.

Adair playing 'boo'

and dancing in her car seat!

Our hotel view in Abu Dhabi, the first night on the way in.

Our hotel view in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world.

View from the top of the Burj. It was kind of neat at the top they has these viewing gun things, kind of like binoculars, but they also had settings you could put it on from previous years and see what used to be there. Which in the last 10 years was NOTHING!

Jarv and Daudi were impressed...

Adair was also thrilled to be on top of the world, she just ran all around the viewing floor yelling at the top of her voice.

Then we went to the Dinosaur Show - Daudi's request. They had tons of life-sized dinosaurs that moved and roared. As soon as we were done walking through it Daudi wanted to do it again. However, the a/c in the tents were not working well at all and WE did NOT want to do it again!

Jerusha, Charles and Hannah's little girl, came with us. She's 9, and does not really like dinosaurs, but she liked baby sitting Adair :0)

Patiently waiting to go somewhere

We had a big lunch party at the Rain Forest Cafe one day. This was the kids table 5 Uzzell kids, 2 Olsen kids, 1 Kadir kid and the beautiful, sweet Jerusha.

Daudi and Matthew Uzzell in deep discussion about what kind of trouble they are going to get into after they finish their lunch.

And, last but not least Daudi's little 'kiwi girlfriend', Coco Bella Duncan. We stayed with Scott and Deb in Abu Dhabi the last night, on our way home. They themselves had just gotten home from Switzerland so we were lucky to catch them. Good times! Hope they come ad visit us in Rocanville someday :0)

A new niece for us and cousin for the kids!

We are very excited about our new niece, Dalys Rayne, #4 born to Kelty and Ashley on Sept. 18th. So exciting to have another little girl in the family. This is the link to their blog if you would like to see pics. http://www.ashandkelty.blogspot.com

We can't wait to hold her VERY SOON!

Celebrating Adair! :0)

I am supposed to be getting ready for our road trip to Dubai tomorrow, but I thought I'd better do a post on Adair before I forget. It seems that she has had a communication break through this last week and we are rather excited! Last week she learned how to blow kisses and this week she learned how to sign both 'please' and 'thank you'. The other night we were sitting at the supper table and she wanted her drink, so Jarv said to her 'say please' (while signing 'please', open palm making a circle on your chest) and she DID IT! The next day I gave her something and said 'say thank you' (while signing 'thank you', open hand moving away from your chin) and she DID THAT TOO! Since then she has repeated both signs many times :0)

I am especially excited about this as I had kind of given up on trying very hard to teach her to sign since before this week it didn't seem like she was getting it. I was WRONG, how happy to I am to say those words! :0) Anyway, she is slowly slowly learning to speak as well, but I think having the signs will allow her a much broader communication base until she learns to talk. She has learned to point and yell very well whenever she wants something, so this will certainly be a welcome skill!

Her spoken words at this time consist of:

1) Mama

2) Dada

3) Dauda (very excitedly, for Daudi)

4)Ba ba (for bye bye, with waving)

5) and a perfect 'Boo' when playing peek

6) And my very personal favorite...(this may sound like a stretch, but I'm the biased mother) last night, before bed, I picked her up to give her a hug and said to her 'I love you'. And she hugged me back, did her little pat-pat on my shoulder and said 'AHH-OOO'. So, I think I will count that as her 'I love you' :0)

Anyway, I know they are small things but they feel big to us! :0)

Blowing a kiss, had to catch it in 2 shots :0)