The Best 5 Beaches in Dubai: Almost there ..

The IKEA delivery/installation team was here for 5 hours yesterday .. they put together 3 dressers, 2 night stands, a couch, a chair, a kitchen butcher block thing, a kids' play table, 4 sets of shelves and I think that does it.

whew!

Last night Mark said, "I really like how our house is coming together" .. I do TOO! I'll take some pictures this week and post asap!

Sooo .. let's see .. in my last blog I mentioned my dream .. the one before was when my homesickness started setting in .. I'm doing much better now, but still have my moments. I'm expecting those moments to come and go as they please .. gonna let them.

Life is definitely settling into a routine .. Brooke is going to start her first gymnastics class this Tuesday. On Thursday, we're going to take Paige to the horse stables to inquire about riding lessons. She also wants to play soccer. Swimming lessons start at school this week (they take swimming as part of their PE curriculum out here). Max is in Little Gym and I'm considering doing a "mommy and me" swimming class, but he's two, and doesn't like to be held in the pool, and the thought of doing a "mommy and me" class with him feels like torture .. but he needs to learn to swim too .. the kid will drown .. so I'm considering. I'm trying to figure out exercise classes for myself so I can work off some of this "moving to Dubai" weight (packed on top of the "Mark broke his leg and had 3 surgeries to fix it" weight .. which is another blog entry I've started writing).. I think in about 2 more weeks, it will start feeling like, "real life." We've been here 7 weeks .. I'd say we're doing pretty good!

On top of all of those routine things, we still have more to do as far as furnishing the house goes. The big thing is rugs .. we need several. After that, it's just the things that will make life more functional and then the fun decorative stuff. We do have one room that is not furnished .. but it's not a room we use, so I'm good with that for now ..

I had flowers planted in the front and back yard .. I have pictures of those .. here ya go:

backyard "before"

The flowers getting ready to be planted

the backyard after .

Here's a little closer look. Those tall ones will grow and cover the wall, Insha'Allah. :) The middle ones are petunias that I'm hoping will billow out and fill up all of that dirt.