The Homestretch

We're almost there!  Only 1 more week and school will officially be over for me and we will be headed back to the U.S. for a visit!  We are so excited to see our friends and family and eat some real American food (well, Mexican is what I'm really craving!)

My boys at school pretty much stopped showing up at the end of May even though the last day wasn't supposed to be until June 13th (it's quite a phenomenon how they just disappear- there are no attendance rules) but I'm not complaining!  This whole month has been full of meetings, organizing my classroom, and pretty much wasting time.

I found out that I will be transferring to middle school next year where I will be teaching 6th grade girls!  I am hoping this will be an improvement since I actually have experience with this age.  I also hear that girls here are much easier to handle.  I will hopefully find out the school and subject (English, math, or science) I will be teaching in the next few weeks.

The weather has really been heating up; summer is officially here along with the oppressive temperatures that come with living in the desert.  Temperatures range from 110-120 daily and will only get hotter.  We beat the heat by joining the Rugby Club for a month and spending nearly every day swimming in the refrigerated swimming pool!

The kids have been busy playing with friends and attending birthday parties galore!  Olivia graduated from kindergarten and has started reading (which is amazing, since she's not yet 5 years old) and Griffen finished his exams and did great!  He read his first chapter book recently with a little bit of help- we're so proud of him!

Mark has been busy working on getting sponsorships for next year for the American Football team he helps coach.  He's made lots of new contacts and we are praying a job will come out of this for him.

It's bittersweet to think that our first year is ending and we will be reunited with our loved ones in South Carolina in such a short time.  There were moments when I really did not know if I would make it through the year and I feel sometimes that I deserve a medal (or a parade!) for surviving.  We've got a great group of friends that have made the year so much easier!

Kindergarten Graduation!

The VERY detailed program for the night!

Receiving her diploma and gifts!

For my birthday we went up the mountain and enjoyed a lovely seafood buffet at the Mercure Hotel.

We also went to Green Mubazzarah at the base of the mountain.  It's a huge park with hot springs running throughout.

Green grass!

The water looked so refreshing in the intense heat but it was scalding hot!

 Beautiful scenery

Inside are hot pools that you can swim in but we will have to save this for wintertime.  Too hot!

We are so looking forward to being back in The States and seeing YOU!  Go ahead and mark your calendars- July 4th!!!     

The Nine Month Mark (a reflection)

Nine months ago today we said goodbye to our family and friends and boarded an airplane to start our new life here in the United Arab Emirates.  In some ways it seems like just yesterday, and others it seems like ages ago.  We knew it would not be easy, we knew there would be challenges, but we knew deep down that it was the best move for our family.

I'm lucky because this is not my first time living abroad.  In college I was able to live and study in England for a semester and got a taste of the world by exploring Western Europe.  I guess I caught the travel bug then.  In the back of my mind, I always hoped I'd be able to see more of the world, but until I ran into this job opportunity on a whim, I never dreamed I'd live abroad again, especially not with two young children in tow.  

In the fall of 2011, Mark and I knew it was time for a change.  We were working opposite shifts (he worked nights, I worked days) and never saw each other or our children it seemed.  He worked overtime whenever he could and I took on a second job waiting tables a few nights a week, in addition to my demanding teaching job, which included sponsoring several after school clubs and serving on leadership teams.  This, combined with financial problems due to the fallen housing market, and the guilt I always felt that there wasn't enough time in the day for all of the responsibilities I had taken on, made me long for something better.  It felt like life was passing us by.

So, I began looking for jobs and somehow happened to find a website for an international teaching recruiting agency called Teachaway.  They had many different placements, but the more I read about Abu Dhabi, the more intrigued I was.  Mark and I discussed this as a possibility and he encouraged me to apply and see what happened.  We researched the history, economy, culture, and religion and were connected to several ex-pat sites, message boards, and blogs to learn more.

Over the next few months, my faith was tested many times.  I knew this opportunity was where God wanted us, but I had no idea how to give up my teaching job I loved and move 7000 miles away from the security of family and long-time friends.  After accepting the job, I kept expecting for something to go wrong and waiting for a sign to appear saying we shouldn't go.  But summer vacation came and went.  We packed our house, packed our bags, resigned from our jobs, got our affairs in order, and said our goodbyes.  It almost didn't seem real.  

And here we are nine months later...there are so many different words that come to mind when I reflect on this time in our new country: I'm thankful, definitely more resilient, more patient, a better teacher, more tolerant, in awe of the world, more aware, more understanding, and absolutely changed by this experience.  Even on my worst days (and they've been bad,) this experience has been worth it for me and for my family.  Our lives are so much simpler; there is no stress, no guilt, and very little worry in our lives here.  If I could do it all over again, I would in a second, and I am a better person for this wonderful, life-changing, amazing nine months!

Sri Lanka

Wow!  What a trip!  There's so much to say, it's hard to know where to begin...

It was an exhausting journey getting there, which included: a mishap with our lost driver to the airport (he was supposed to pick us - 3 families- up in Al Ain and he was in Abu Dhabi instead); a 3 hour plane delay; a 4 and 1/2 hour flight; too much time spent waiting in check-in lines, McDonald's, customs, and immigration; and a 5 hour drive from the airport to hotel (traffic is bad!)  After spending all night and most of a day travelling, we were cranky, hungry, and tired!

But once we arrived at our quaint hotel on the beach, which had 3 rooms set up side by side with huge attached terraces outside, enjoyed some delicious sea food for dinner, indulged in Sri Lanka's national beer, 'Lion,' and cooled down in the swimming pool conveniently located right outside our rooms, we were officially chilled out and on vacation!

We tried to make the most of our days but quickly realized that driving anywhere in Sri Lanka takes FOREVER!  The infrastructure is not set up to accommodate the traffic and the driver that we had (bless his heart!) didn't seem to know where he was going half the time.  We would ask him how much further it was to our destination and he almost always told us 1 hour, even after we had asked him the same question an hour ago.  I hate to think how much of our trip was wasted sitting in a van!

We spent a couple of days lounging around the beach and pool and the other days sightseeing.  We went to see a waterfall in the mountains, a Medieval Fort in Galle, and went on a safari in Udawalawe National Park.   The kids of course had a wonderful time since they had friends to play with at all times, we were able to  relax and enjoy each other's company, and amazingly all 13 of us made it back in one piece- and are still friends!  Lol!

There were literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures taken between all of us so it's hard to just pick the best ones but here you go:

Our beautiful hotel

Restaurant and bar

The walkway down to the mostly deserted beach

Swings!

Every morning we were served fresh local fruit, fresh squeezed juice, eggs, bacon, sausage, (pork, yay!) toast, and tea/coffee.  We could get up whatever time we wanted for breakfast and they cooked it for us fresh!

Here's a good example of driving in Sri Lanka where drive on the left side of the road... in this picture it looks like us and another tuc-tuc (taxi) were passing someone.  See those motorcycles coming toward us?  They should have been on the right hand side of us, not the left.  Terrifying!  But we never saw a single wreck, somehow!

The waterfall was like something out of a movie!

Our brave friend, Lee, jumped off the top!

The kids jumped off smaller rocks

The Galle Fort was built originally by the Portuguese in 1588. 

The view from the fort

A guy at the fort had some charmed cobras

and monkeys to entertain the kids

And on our safari we saw...

Many, many elephants in the wild...even a 3 week old baby!

Monkeys!

Water buffalo

Spotted deer

And lots of cool birds

Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians all coexist peacefully in Sri Lanka.  There were tons of Buddhist and Hindu shrines and temples.

You had to take a boat out to visit this Hindu temple

Sri Lanka lost 35,000 victims in the 2004 Tsunami.  Up and down the coast, every few feet sometimes, there were gravestones to mark the deaths.  This was a memorial erected to honor the lives lost.

Here is a picture of our driver for the week (Daniel, maybe?  His English wasn't great)

Lion- the beer of champion!

One night after dinner, some of the hotel workers played bongos and sang in traditional Sri Lankan style.

Our hotel had a sea turtle sanctuary, where they rescued and incubated eggs to be hatched and returned to the sea when they were strong enough.  They also treated injured adults. 

Here are the babies we were able to release one night

Very cool experience!

Here we all are before leaving beautiful Sri Lanka...great vacation, great friends, and memories to last a life time!