Little Mer-people

"And what if there were two, Side by side in orbit" - R.E.M.

The weather is finally starting to cool down a bit.  By cool down, I mean we've had a few days with highs near 100 degrees instead of 110.  Needless to say, we've been having a lot of fun in the pool lately.  The water is as warm as a bathtub, but it is still refreshing.

The fun part is watching the kids get more comfortable and independent in the water.  We haven't really pushed them to start swimming without arm-floaties yet, but they love to think they are swimming professionals.  Even Talon demands to be allowed to cruise around unassisted... because he can "do it by myself."  One of these days well take those yellow things off his arms and he'll realize he what the phrase "by myself" means ;)

Here a few pics and videos of the fun times:

New Views

"You give us those nice bright colors, You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah!" - Simon & Garfunkel

Blogger has just introduced a bunch of new views.  They can be a fun way to visualize all the posts in a blog.  You can also use the new views to just look at all the photos on a blog.  This can be handy if a blogger writes too much and all you want to do is look at the pics.  So, if you just want to see the photos from this blog, you can check out the new view by clicking the photo below.

http://arabianandersons.blogspot.com/view/snapshot

You can see that there are several other views available.  Feel free to experiment and choose a view that you like.

Note:  You can view any blogger/blogspot blog using these views by simply adding "/view" to the end of the blog URL. It can be helpful if you are trying to find information on a blog, but are not sure of the date/title/etc of the post.  Currently, it will only work with public blogs.  I'm pretty sure they are just using the RSS feed of the blog to create the dynamic views.  Private blogs do not have an RSS feed, therefore, the views are not available.

Summer Recap

"summer, summer, summertime
time to sit back and unwind" - DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince

You may have noticed that we took a blogging break over the summer.  I'm not someone who feels like I need to go back and blog about every event.  It gets a little burdensome if I start thinking we have to blog about everything or go back and "catch up" with blog entries.  So, I just blog when I feel like it. This summer we were traveling and it was nice to enjoy family, friends, and things other than the computer.

That being said, it seems like it would be nice to give a quick recap of the highlights of the summer.  We decided last minute to pack up the kids and head to the U.S.  The idea was a little daunting with a pregnant, nauseous, and gimped (in crutches) Yvonne and 30+ hours of travel with 3 kids 3 years old and under.  But, we decided to do it anyway.  Yvonne was a superstar and the kids did... well better than you would normally expect.  The long going/coming and jetlag was still exhausting, but overall the summer trip was a success.

I would like to apologize to all the friends and family we didn't see.  Some we promised to see, some we had hoped to see, and some we didn't even tell we were in the neighborhood.  With the immobile state of the family and all the commitments we already had planned, we ended up missing some of you.  We will try and catch you on the next trip.  Thanks for understanding... we really did want to see you.

The highlights:

JaNae's Wedding

The Trampoline

Hanging with Grandma Price

Porter Park Carousel

 Lots of Cousins

Splash Park

Sand Dunes

As if we don't live by enough sand already ;)

Fishing the Teton River

Extreme Mud Run

Go Carts

Camping

Hot Dogs with Pork

Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream

Sleeping Bags

Tents are fun

Bubbles

Great Business Partners

Boating

Kites

Family Reunions

Hot Air Balloon Ride

Ok, this concludes some of the highlights.  There were many more, but it is a good recap.  A big THANK YOU! goes out to all the family and friends that let us crash their house, cabin, hangar, boat, or party.  We had fun.

Announcing #4!

"There's bedtime prayers to pray, Sleep tights and I love you's
And then there's a pair of eyes, I get to lose myself into" - Craig Campbell

So, Number 4 is on the way.

Answers to the questions:

• The due date is around the 15th of January.
• We do not plan on on finding out the gender (Don't judge, we are brave enough to enjoy the surprise ;)
• No, Yvonne hasn't really felt that great, but she is a trooper.
• The girls have decided the name will be Nemo... independent of, well anything.
• Ask us the end of January how having babies in a foreign country is.  So far, so good.
• The photos above make it hard to tell if the kid will look more like Yvonne or me.  I think it will actually be an alien like most newborns (see below) or look like an angry old man (also like most newborns;)

UltraSound Pic #3

Do twins have different personalities?

"Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum,
What might be right for you, may not be right for some." - Different Strokes Theme

Recently, we went to a friends house for a birthday party.  One of the attractions was that they had someone there who was giving henna tattoos to those that wanted one. (Henna is a traditional middle-eastern temporary body-art.) It is often done to the fingers and hands and is mostly worn by women.  Yvonne got a floral design on her hand.  Abigail got to choose what she wanted.  I think it came down to a floral design or a butterfly.... this is what she ended up asking for:

Next, it was Saylor's turn to decide what she wanted.  I think her first response was... a dragon!  After some contemplation, she decided that instead of a dragon, she wanted a BIG BAD WOLF.  I'm guessing that henna artists don't do a lot of those, but here it is:

They are starting to wear off now, but for the last few days, the girl's hands have become more like pets.  We were in the swimming pool and "my wolf" or "my butterfly" were "swimming too".  Or, some food has to be shared with them at mealtimes.  Anyway, sometimes people ask us if our twins have different personalities this young.  You tell me.

Hot Tub

"I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire
The ring of fire" - Johnny Cash

We went to the beach today to go swimming with some friends. Work is finished for the summer... Woot Woot! and we thought it would be great to take the kids and go relax at the beach and cool off in the ocean.

Well.... we left a little after 8:00am to beat the heat. ... and here are the stats:

• air temp = 43-44 degrees
• water temp = 33-35 degrees
• humidity = lots of sweat

In American terms:

• air temp = 110-112 degrees
• water temp = 91-95 degrees
• humidity = sweating like dogs

You can imagine how refreshing the water was... it wasn't. But somehow we still had fun.


Oh, and I forgot to mention that Yvonne has her cast off now (YIPEE!), but still can't really put any weight on that foot (booo hisss) and hence can't walk. So, I got to give her a piggy back ride for about 200 yards across the sand that might have actually been hot coals.


But somehow, we still had fun :)

The Grim Doctor

"Oh, Doctor, doctor, can't you see I'm burning, burning" - Thompson Twins

The last few days the kids have not been feeling well.  Fevers, sore throats, runny noses, coughs, tugging at ears, and all-around grumpiness.  They didn't seem to be getting better, so we finally decided to take them all in the the Dr's office to get a diagnosis.  Now, this may seem like no big deal, but let me remind you...

• 3 kids 3 years old and under
• All are sick and grumpy
• Foreign country
• Yvonne is in a cast and on crutches
• 106+ degrees of sweltering heat outside

Fortunately, there are some benefits to the healthcare in the UAE.  Most helpful in this case was that the hours for the Dr's Office and medical clinics in general here are WAY more convenient.  Yvonne called mid-day on Thursday, and we were scheduled for an appointment that evening at 6:00.  This is not an emergency room visit, or and extra urgent care visit by the Dr.  It was just a regular appointment at 6:00pm.  Convenient. 

So we tried to prep the kids... but they were all a little scared.  I wasn't sure why because they really haven't had a lot of "doctor" experiences and even those haven't really been anything major.  But, things got started off with some resistance.  

Things went pretty well at first, the waiting room was clean, practically empty, and had some toys to keep the kids occupied.  There were a few challenges with the nurse and the initial weigh in/vitals/height check... but most of that was doing in-the-head math when you get measurements like "Her height is 89 centimeters" or "her weight is 11.1 kilograms"

After another short wait, we went into the Dr's office.  She was a friendly local lady with a box of toys.  Talon immediately smiled and went to the toy box and started playing as we discussed the symptoms.  I thought to myself... "so far, so good.  the toys are going to help".  Well, lets just say that toys can only help so much.  We left her office 10 minutes later with kids with tear-stained cheeks, and embarrassed looks hoping that not too many people had heard all the crying that happened inside.  The kids mostly did alright, but the part where she wanted to put the big stick in their mouth and have them say ahhh just didn't go over well.

In the end, we were piled up with enough drugs to start a side-business,  the kids were finally smiling because they had an advil-sponsored picture of a teddy bear to take home and color.  And, we got to escape the understanding looks of the other parents and go back home where we can pretend that our kids are braver and more well behaved than average (yeah right).

Later that night I was thinking and it dawned on me.... Of course the kids where a little scared.  I'm meeting and talking to a nice, friendly, local Muslim female doctor.  She is dressed in a traditional black abaya and head scarf, but has a smile and seems to know what she is talking about.  On the other hand, what my kids are seeing is probably closer to the following images... Of course they were a little scared ;)