A room with a view

"Such a feelin's comin' over me
There is wonder in 'most ev'ry thing I see
Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes
And I won't be surprised if it's a dream" - The Carpenters

This last week I took Yvonne's parents to the Burj Khalifa (aka: The Tallest Building in the World).  They don't let you go all the way to the top.  In fact, are only able to go up about 2/3rds of the way... but it was still a lot of fun and quite impressive (and still the highest public observation point in the world).



I won't bore you with all the facts, but here are a couple of pics of our adventures on the tower of babel.

A cool scale model at the base of the tower

Directly beneath the tallest building is.... the largest mall in the world

With Yvonne's mom at the lookout point  She is normally scared to death of heights.  I think her fascination won out over her fears (and the glass enclosure helped:) 

We could see the man made world islands from the lookout.

Overlooking normal sized skyscrapers (still very tall) on Sheikh Zayed Road.

We could also see the man-made Palm Islands in the distance

They love their Sheikhs here

Does this even look real?  Overlooking the largest water fountain area.

They had a gold vending machine at the top.  The least expensive amount of gold you could purchase was about $250.  

Sunset over the Atlantis Resort on the Palm Islands

View at night

Born in a Foreign Land

"And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding..." - Elton John

Announcing the birth of our brand new baby boy!

Here are the specs...

• Born: Jan 3, 2012 8:43am
• Weight: 3.555 kilos
• Length: 47.5 cm
• Hair color: Brown
• Gender: Boy
• Name: Rigdon Zayed Anderson

Yvonne and Rigdon are healthy and doing well. They came home from the hospital on Saturday. Little Rigg is eating, sleeping, and pooping just like a newborn champ and Yvonne is recovering right on schedule.


It was an interesting adventure to have a new baby in a different country.  Some things are a bit different (I'll let you covert the baby specs on your own ;).  Things are still pretty chaotic, so I will save the details for another post.  In the meantime, here is a pic of the view from Yvonne's hospital room:

We feel blessed that everything went smoothly and Talon and I are happy that we are no longer outnumbered.  The new little guy may look like an wrinkled, angry old man (don't all newborns?), but the other kids keep telling me he sure is cute.

If you are interested, you can view more photos of the new kid here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/111736034436504926035/albums/5693824939963064289?authkey=CM3JqMPou6_gCQ

Princess Fashion

"Now this did happen once upon a time
When things were not so complex.
And how he worshipped the ground she walked on.
When he looked in her eyes, he became obsessed" - Mark Knopfler

A gift was given over the holidays in a gift bag with the theme of Disney's famous princesses.  Apparently over here in the Middle East, they are not exactly the same.  Can you tell what is different about these princesses?

Need a closer look?

Maybe the other side of the gift bag will help...

I guess Princesses are just more modest in this part of the world.

Modern Miracles

"But I'm just talking to a satellite
Twenty thousand miles up in the sky each night
Yeah, we're living in,
In a modern world." - Electric Light Orchestra

About a week ago I helped organize something I think was pretty amazing.  We had a youth fireside for church and about 80 kids showed up.  That is pretty cool because we are in the middle of an Islamic country where not too long ago it could have been dangerous to admit you were Christian.  Plus, we had youth traveling hours from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, and all over the UAE to participate.  The youth here are impressive.

But, that is not the amazing part.  What I thought was incredible, was the fact that the fireside was web-conferenced (is that a term?) to youth in the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar!  It was not just broadcast, but the other youth were actually able to participate, comment, and share musical numbers with each other.  The youth in all of these countries could see and communicate with each other.  It was fun to watch.  I mean, we thought it was cool growing up when we had a youth fireside where we got to meet some of the youth from Sugar City instead of just Rexburg.  Here we had youth from 4 different countries!  All of which are Islamic and 10-15 years ago probably had laws against Mormon firesides (ok, probably not specifically Mormon... but you get the idea).  It was cool.

Another small miracle was the refreshments served.  I asked the youth in our ward (we were in charge of hosting this fireside) what they wanted and the vote was unanimous for Root Beer Floats.  I didn't think much of it until I started to try and track down some root beer.  You can find most things in this country, but apparently, root beer is a rare commodity.  Fortunately, the Spinney's in Mirdif had some.  I had to buy all the root beer in the entire store, but it was just enough to feed our 80 youth.  Success!

25 Years

"Love is much better than cable,
Staying with the station I found" - Mason Jennings

A little over 25 years ago, I was the new kid in algebra class and Yvonne was the cute cheerleader sitting next to me.  She had some questions about her homework, and I was happy to help. We both had no idea that two and half decades later we'd be celebrating our 12th anniversary.  Now we do all our homework together.

Its been a good 25 years.... really good!

'Tis the Season

"Cause you make it feel like Christmas
Even when things go wrong" - Neil Diamond

Sometimes kids experience a level of excitement that is almost uncontainable.   The energy inside them can not stay inside any longer and spontaneously erupts in squeals of delight, fits of excited jumping, super-fast talking, or just running around as fast as possible.  Recently, we let the kids "help us" set up the Christmas tree and do a little decorating.  Let's just say that excitement was in the air.... so thick you could almost breath it.

It is nice they were having so much fun, because two 3 year old girls and a 2 year old boy "helping" with all the Christmas decorations can be a lot more work than normal.  In the end, we had to split the excitement into two days because of all the fun we were having.  ...sometimes that much fun requires a break for things to calm down a bit ;)

A few pics of the excitement:

Kids bring a whole new perspective to Christmas.  I get a kick out of the funny things they say as their understanding about this holiday grows.  They are still figuring out how things work and separating the true meaning of Christmas with all the commercial fantasies.  I wouldn't be surprised if they imagined the Christ-child born in a manger, surrounded by shepherds, wise men, the grinch, frosty, and elves.  It is fun to see it through their eyes.

If you've never seen any of the "Kid History" videos before, this is a good place to start.  These guys take a look a the their traditional family Christmas memories as explained by the kids... but acted out by the adults. Hilarious!

A King's Castle?

"If I was king for just one day
I would give it all away..." - Thompson Twins

Last weekend we went with some good friends to explore a little more of the UAE.  This time we headed toward the East Coast and the Indian Ocean.  We left the sandy dessert and entered the rocky mountainous areas on our way to Fujairah.

Our first stop, just outside of Fujairah, was up a scenic wadi that ended at the Al-Hayl Castle.  I'm not so sure that the word Castle is the best description... maybe the word Fort would have been more applicable.  I guess at one point the castle/fort was home to the local ruling leader/king... hence it was a "castle"

When we arrived, we were dismayed to read a sign indicating that we had just missed the hours that the fort was open to the public.  Fortunately, one of the catetakers/guides/locals offered to let us in the back door.... I'm sure anticipating a tip that we did indeed give him.  It was great.  We had the whole place to ourselves, a personal guide, and the kids could have free reign.  And boy did the kids take advantage.  They were loving all the cool places to hide and explore.  Talon was the king and none of us could slow him down.  The girls kept excitedly asking if we would see princesses in the castle.  We finally helped them realize that the princesses were long gone, so they spent the rest of their time pretending to be a princess, or that they were Rapunzel locked in the tower and asked to "let down your hair"

After we visited the castle/fort, we drove to the coast to take a swim in the Indian Ocean.... I guess more specifically the Gulf of Oman.  The sand was dark.  There were tons of seashells. The kids dug a lot of holes.  The water was refreshing.  We had a good day.