Roomy...

Finally - we have more room!  Luckily some of the families from Group 1 have moved out and left some of the two bedrooms hotel apartments available for us who have been in a one bedroom!  Last night when we got home after taking our kids to play with some new friends - we checked and our new place was cleaned and ready.  So we rushed up and within 15 minutes had packed all of our stuff and it was in the hall ready to move!  So finally around 10:30 p.m. we finished putting things away and headed off to bed.

Pics taken at breakfast this morning:

The new hotel apartment has two bedrooms with full bathrooms, a half bathroom in the living room, and a full kitchen area with an almost full size fridge. It'll be nice to have a stove and oven to cook with.  And plenty of room or groceries! 

This morning we went to church.  We do enjoy going there but it's nothing like Grandparkway.  We're curious to explore a few others in Al Ain - assuming there are a few to choose from!  Getting to the church was hilarious. There were 5 families that al walked out to get a taxi at the same time.  This 12 passenger van pulls up and I asked him "how much to church". He said it was 10 AED.  So we piled in.  ALL 5 FAMILIES!  There were 21 people (includin kids too) piled in.  We were like the clowns at the circus getting out. I'm sure people were laughing when we just kept getting out! 

Once we made it back home and starting thinking about grocery shopping for the week since we'll be here hanging out and we heard the "call" today. I jumped up to grab my video camera so you could see/hear it all.  It was funny to hear Cole say, "oh - that's the Imam talking".  He obviously had paid more attention than I relalized.  

We deided to explore a little more today with groceries.  We went to Spinney's.  You can go to the "back room" there and gets lots of pork items!  Jennifer picked up some bacon, pop tarts (not sure why they were back there", and some ham.  It was interesting to see the doors which said "Non-Muslims".  There were plenty of people back there too.  Spinney's had quite a selection of various things.  The store was packed.  Then we headed to LuLu at Mushriff Mall.  This mall is new.  LuLu has a huge store with quite a selection.  It was like the Rice Epicurean of LuLu's. So we spent $612 AED which is about $164 USD.  So considering we got food for 5 days, it's not really that bad!  And we got quite a few "western" brands too!  Since today is the holy day the store was packed!  Lines, lines, and more lines.  We even bought more Nutella.  Caralyn and I love nutella!  Especially on crackers!   

Spinneys in Arabic

I love it - I love it - I love it!

Tomorrow we're heading out to Al Ain to get all of the water and electricity turned on at our villa.  There are quite a few folks heading out there with us.  We're taking the city bus from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain.  Should be an event.  Good thing the buses are like the luxury charter buses.  The kids are excited to see camels on the way and the sand dunes! 

As it stands now we're just hanging out here until September 4th.  We haven't received any of our furniture allowance yet and the holiday, Eid, is starting I think on Monday.  So the governement offices are closed.  Our "school district" is closed until September 4th.  Inshallah - we'll end up at the villa sometime.

So we'll sit back and enjoy the city and maybe even actually go to the beach if we can stand the heat!

Stay Tuned...