A New Plan for Tuesdays

Tuesday afternoons have become complicated.  Isaac has kickboxing at the same time as the girls have gymnastics, but the girls' class 30 minutes longer.  They are also several miles apart.  Two weeks ago, I dropped Isaac off early, raced to get to gymnastics on time.  Watched the girls for 40 minutes, then drove to pick up Isaac, drove back to pick up the girls, then raced back home to drop off the girls (they were on their own for dinner) and pick up a teenage girl in our ward who lives in the neighborhood before driving to church for mutual.  Highly inefficient.

Last week I had a brilliant idea.  Isaac would take care of dinner for us and get picked up after the girls were done.  I didn't have anyone extra to pick up for church, which helped too.  We all left a little before 4 o'clock with the car packed with stuff for church activities.  I was helping run activity days (still no one called for the boys) so I was bringing all sorts of crafty things to decorate pumpkins and make sucker/kleenex ghosties.  Isaac had an assortment of kitchen knives packed to carve pumpkins with the youth.  I dropped Isaac off for kickboxing with money and a list.  After he was done, he changed clothes, bought some extra suckers for me at the little grocery store, and then walked to the next building where there is a Subway.  He ordered sandwiches for all of us and was just coming out the door when we pulled up after gymnastics.  We started driving to church with plenty of time, but thanks to rotten traffic, got there 5 minutes late.  After we activities were all over and we cleaned up and drove home, it was about 9:30.  These are the girls' pumpkins.  Pictures taken at the church.  Makenna's is double sided.

I can't use my new plan this Tuesday though because Isaac is babysitting in the early afternoon.  I can't count on him being done it time to leave together, so I have had to arrange to drop the girls with a friend to catch a ride to gym and I'll either take Isaac to kickboxing late or he'll skip it and we'll just go get the girls when they are done and then take Isaac to the church by 7.  Carpooling can help, but my best carpool buddy moved and yesterday someone in our neighborhood who was also served in YM, got called to the Stake, so Isaac's days of catching rides home might be over.  Sigh.

Isaac has been babysitting a lot more.  Word is getting out and he has been getting more calls.    He has sat for 4 families now.  Three have had kids in diapers, but he still hasn't had to change a messy one, much to the girls' disappointment.

We were all delighted lat week to have the windows darken during the morning.  It immediately caught our attention.  There were clouds outside!  Big fluffy white clouds against a blue sky.  The sky is sometimes blue, without the dust, but we very rarely have clouds.  They were so pretty.

I have gotten to know another mom better over the past couple weeks.  Rayyan is a 10 year old girl we met while iceskating with our homeschool group.  She has since joined our informal swim team on Sunday mornings and also does gymnastics with the girls.  Her mom is Syrian.  So is her dad, but they met in the US.  The daughter looks like she could have modeled for the child princess from the movie Brave.  Her hair is that red and skin that fair.  As moms we have enjoyed chatting about lots of things, but I thought I would share a couple that made me stop and think and mourn with her a bit.  First, being from Syria, I asked if she had any family still there.  Yes, she does and they are in one of the worst areas right now.  I also asked if she had had to deal with any rude/ignorant behavior in the States.  Yes.  Some minor stuff, but the one that really shook her was after stopping in a small town in Illinois to take her daughter to the bathroom at a gas station, a lady called the police to report a Muslim lady was kidnapping a little girl.  The policeman that later stopped them was nice and apologetic after checking, but it still brought her to tears.  This was based solely on appearances.  Mom wears a black abaya and a pretty scarf over her hair.  Her face is fair and she sounds like an American, because she was raised there.  If that lady had said hello, she could have saved a lot of heartache and maybe gotten a little wiser herself.

I LOVE this quote I ran into recently by Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."  I will forever be grateful to my parents for dragging me to Germany when I was 15 and then letting me go off to Russia a year later.  Matt and I are hoping to pass this on to our kids.

We had stake conference yesterday.  It was held in a big fancy ballroom inside a Ritz-Carlton in the financial district.  I feel very blessed to be in Dubai, which in the center of the stake and enjoy the blessing of not driving an extra hour.  People are driving south from Sharjah, north from Abu Dhabi, and west from Al Ain.  It is broadcast to the folks in Kuwait, Oman, and Doha.  I met up with another mom that I met after last conference  She is the one person I know here who is using the BYU independent study for high school.  We exchanged info.  She wants to come join our monthly book group.  The speakers were good.  The kids liked the talk about putting on the Armor of God best.  Last week the kids stayed home and watched a couple sessions of conference while I was at the leadership training meeting.  It's only once a year, but it was close to 5 hours long, including a lunch break.  I met the primary presidents from 4 countries!  The quilt that I helped a little with during a stake RS activity is finished.  It was displayed in the lobby.  It will be hung in the chapel that is being built in Abu Dhabi--a real church, not converted Villa.  Pretty cool, eh?

Several tables were set up along the sides of the room.  I guess it's just part of the package deal of renting the room.  I have to wonder what the ushers who man the doors think, listening to the talks and testimonies.   

Close up of the quilt.  We are the Dubai 2 flower.  Dubai and Doha both have 2 wards.  

The girls had a cake decorating class on Thursday.  Jess was in the younger group.  I snuck into her room to wake her up.  She got dressed and ate a quick breakfast.  I dropped her off at the class (luckily only a 6 minute drive) then came back home to make breakfast cake and smoothies for everyone else--our traditional breakfast for one of Matt's days off.  Then I drove Makenna to the class and picked Jess up.  When I got home with Jess, Matt took her and Isaac to the dentist.  Isaac had to get braces tightened and Jess had to have her reconstructed teeth checked for vitality.  After Makenna's class, we all met up at the Dubai Mall for lunch.  I stayed a little longer to kill time before picking up Isaac's passport with his new Nepal visa inside.  Matt took Isaac to kickboxing, then he went babysitting that night.  Just another day.  But I think I meant to share about the cake decorating.  Jess decorated cupcakes.  They made their own sprinkles by using straws and rolled out fondant.  They also learned to color sugar.  Makenna's group had little square cakes.  They learned to frost a first and second layer.  They cut out lots of different fondant shapes--using the straws was fun for the big kids too.  She would like to report that it was taught by an expert.  Also, she had lots of fun with her friends as they traded tools, colors, and compliments.

We laughed and laughed at this house under construction.  Only Dubai.  They are seriously modeling their house after the Colosseum.

Jess made a Lego General Conference.  Speaker is at the podium on the right.  The choir conductor has his back to you, leading the choir.  C3P0 is playing the organ.  The box in the back right is full of extra heads for different speakers.  

I hung up the girls' ghosts from the lights and that inspired them to do more.  We have pumpkins, witches, spiders, and ghosts added to the decor.