November 2015

The month of November

I took this to show my mom the different kinds of mangos we get here.  Now that I am doing this, I realized I never took anymore to add to the mango photo collection.  There are actually so many kinds, shapes, colors, sweet, tangy, sour.....

Date night gone wrong.  We actually dropped all the kids at Allam's house, but then the washing machine starting leaking out lots of water.  Hours later, Matt and I had spent a quality evening working together fixing our crappy appliance.  

A call came from the Embassy looking for Eagle Scouts willing to help take tickets for the annual Marine Ball.  It was held in the fancy Grand Hyatt downtown.  The boys worked for awhile, but then got to eat all the great food and meet a lot of interesting people.  It was a really good night for Isaac.  

The inside is really pretty.  Michele came with me to drop him off, then she and I went else where for dinner.  

Michele said get THIS in Paris.  They are the best.  We forgot to look.

My last shot of the boys before leaving.  

Isaac brought this selfie home.  It's the US Ambassador, Barbara Leaf, up from Abu Dhabi.

These are the "tickets".  They gave the scouts one each.  

Isaac's swim coach gave out free tickets to this FINA swim meet.  It was our first time in the Hamdan Sports Complex.  It's beautiful.  We watched a bunch of races. Isaac will be competing here soon.  

The races run like clock work.  All the volunteers escort the swimmers, carry their kit out after each start.... It's a well oiled machine.  The most bizarre thing we saw was this South African swimmer, Chad le Clos, who kept winning gold and throwing his medals to the crowd.  Isaac asked his coach about him later (they swam together) and Troy said once you have swum in dozens of meets and won dozens of medals, they lose a bit of something special.  He is the one who beat Phelps by a tiny amount in London.  

You can see the high dive platforms in the back.  

There's the USA team signing some autographs.  

Isaac's new goggles.  He loves them.  edit: They broke. 

New cameras are all over the parking lot at Mirdiff City Center.  You can type in your license plate and it will help you find your car.  That's our jeep on the left. 

The long awaited girls' night!  I left the kids at Michele's and we went to the Marriott for dinner. 

Another in-house meet.  They have one a few weeks before each multi-gym meet to see who qualifies.  

I feel like I'm playing 'Where's Waldo' trying to find Jess in the sea of red leotards.  

Did you know this is how brussel sprouts grow?!  I didn't. 

Isaac's new racing suit.  It takes awhile to inch up his legs without ripping.  After he got it on the first time and his coach saw it, he said we should have gotten one size SMALLER!

This is where Isaac swims, 6 days a week.  This was taken at an in-house meet. 

My recent sewing project.  These are a set of tea-towels for Stephanie and Michele, my scout mom friends.  The bananas in the camel's mouth is a reference to the camping trip where we first bonded.  

Kim sent a picture of her in the snow.  Jess and I sent one of what we did.  The water helped wash off all the sweat.  

1st Thanksgiving.  We had a family Thanksgiving on Wednesday with Matt.  It was the best turkey I have ever made.  Not that I have done too many over the years, but this one was REALLY good.  We also had the standard peas, potatoes, corn, and rolls.  We added rot kohl that was fantastic. 

I made this recipe for 2nd Thanksgiving at Michele's house.  We also introduced them to Old Fashioned Frog Eye Salad.  Everyone kept teasing me for calling it "salad" as they saw all the ingredients.  Grace kept forgetting the weird name and asked if she could have some more "Candy Salad".  I almost fell out of my chair laughing so hard. 

Friends and cameras...

Isaac's first meet at Hamdan was held in the practice/warm-up pool.  Good thing swim meets always start early in the a.m. 

Jess had another meet later in the day. 

She got 2nd all-around for level 4. 

And meanwhile, Makenna is making amazing food art.  Good thing I took these, because Isaac soon nibbled them all up.  

Day 2 of the meet.  It was really big with swim clubs from multiple countries.  He now hates the question "Did you win?" just like me.  Because he is older, he is literally racing against olympians for their respective countries.  However he is enjoying the competition and continues to get faster.  It's amazing how good he has gotten in his short swim career.  

Won his heat.  Lane 3.  He is still in the water, but you can see his name on the board. 

We decorated the tree at the end of November.  This year, the girls did most of the work.  Sigh.  It's gone so fast since they hung all their ornaments in a 2 foot square area.  They made it beautiful.  This old tree has hung on longer than I thought it would.  

There is a Joe's Crab Shack in Dubai now.  Isaac and Makenna recreated a picture from their first time eating there.