Our little sand piper

I have really enjoyed getting to know our newest little addition. Pyper Maeve is about two and a half months old now and such a sweet ball of sunshine. She has a beautiful head of brownish red hair and little eyes just like her Grandpa. I'm convinced he sprinkled his happy personality on her before she left him in Heaven. I miss him.

Rory and City enjoy playing with Pyper as soon as they get home from school each day, helping to get her jammies on and snuggling with her before bed. She is cooing and sucking on her fingers all the time now. I cant believe she is already growing so fast. It seems faster for Rich because he has only been able to come home every few weeks or so. I know its been real hard for him so I try to keep pics updated on the web for him to see, and of course web camming when we can.

I am happy to have my body back to normal, now my battles are just making sure I keep a full supply of milk and washing bright yellow poopy diapers. I am so lucky to be able to stay home and be with my children, whom I enjoy every second with. They are definitely the best girls in the world (sorry to be byest). I guess I'm pretty much saying I have it good, no Great! Thanks for spoiling me Rich, I love you.

Getting ready for Baby

Well we are super excited for this next adventure, especially Rory and City. They cant believe they're going to be a big sister soon. They have been playing soccer all week, and the people teaching them are high school girls. I told Rory that maybe when she's in high school she can teach her baby sister soccer too. She grinned from ear to ear.

We are all on track at this point, car seats, stroller, crib etc, Only thing left is Daddy. Hopefully he comes home next Wednesday. I came home with reusable diapers and showed Rory how to use them. She got so excited about this amazing process, and immediately declared that she would be the first to change the baby! Sweet, if I can keep that enthusiasm for a couple months I will have really accomplished a miracle. Now we just need to spread it to daddy.

Anniversary getaway

Ok my mom would be in Heaven! It is date season right now and every palm tree is full of berries. I feel a bit homesick thinking of mom all the time, I'm even craving dates. Me and the girls got to pick some, Rich thinks this baby is going to be made of dates because I've eaten so many.

Last weekend we decided to grab the girls and go snorkeling for our 11th Anniversary. Fujairah is the Eastern most Emerate of the UAE and is renowned for its beautiful mountain scapes and snorkeling. I got to see two sea turtles the size of Felicity, WOW! It was really an amazing experience swimming with the first one for about fifteen minutes before I had to come back to shore. The fish were beautiful, Rich saw a huge school of sardenes that circled around us forever. The girls really enjoyed seeing so many salt creatures and fish. I noticed these fish were not like the onse Rich and I saw in Puerto rico, which were the same kind from the Fish store.

On our way home we stopped at a market, we couldn't turn down a beautiful persian silk rug. Even the girls had to each buy one.

Jumeirah Mosque

We went to the Jumeirah Mosque today. The government has set this mosque aside to give tours to the public during off hours. It was such a wonderful experience for all of us. Almost more of a question and answer session which was even cooler. The women were very thoughtful about their answers and I think Rory and City really understood and respected the importance the muslims place on prayer. It makes me look inward to really ask myself about my own relationship with god too. The building was basically just one big room that everyone squishes into to pray 5 times a day, and they even let a gentleman demonstrate how he prays standing then kneeling and touching the ground with his forehead. I was happy that they let us take some photos too. The building has a couple of minarets for the call to prayer and a large dome above the central room, all of which have beautiful detailed pattern work on the outside and painted patterns inside. Most of the mosques that are here in Dubai have very light coloring as well, beautiful.

Dessert Safari

Getting ready to ride the camel.

Rory and Felicity came into our bedroom this morning all inspired and dressed up in their little belly dancing gypsy outfits. They are going to plan a show for us. Last night they got to see a real belly dancer when we went on a Dessert Safari with them. We started out Dune Bashing with an Iranian family, all of us squished into a Landcruiser. The driver Mohammed Ali let the air out of the tires and headed out on the dessert sand, up and down like a roller coaster all over the dunes. Reminds me of diggin up scout mountain with John when I was little. It was "a bit freaky" (as Rory puts it) at moments but of course I wasn't scared. We then got to the camp area where there were camel rides, four wheeling, henna tattoos etc. The girls got really worried when the camel got up to go for a walk, but even more so when he stopped and sat back down. He basically jutted forward to kneel his front legs down and then back for his hind legs to kneel. I think they were happy to be back on the ground. The camels stand about twice as high as a horse, talk about damage if you fall off. Dinner was delicious, dad's favorite Shawarma to start with and barbeque along with other traditional sides. Needless to say it was a very fun night and the girls slept on the way home.

Belly Dancer

Rory rolling down a sand dune

Dune Bashing

Free range Camels

Getting ready to go

Tra la la

A bit about Arabian culture

Here is a little bit about our trip to Dubai.

A stuffed camel at the Museum.

City girl dressed as a gypsy.

Spice Souq, lots of yummy smells here! Saffron is the native favorite.

This is an Abra, a typical taxi boat used to get accross the creek.

The way that Rich explained Dubai in a nut shell is that it's Mormon paradise. He's totally right. Everyone dressess very modestly and there are no advertisements at all. Even the television has hardly any swearing and absolutely no kissing or intemacy (its all edited out of the movies.) The men who are muslim Emerates wear long white dresses called Dishdashas and headscarfs called The women have Abeyyas, long black robe/dresses and burkas that cover their face and hair also black.

We had a great trip to the Souqs (markets) and wandered around looking at lots of fun stuff. There were textile souqs, Spice souqs, and the biggest one was the Gold souq. Lots of gold jewelry everywhere, bling city. I think my favorite was the spice souqs though.

Rory and City swim in the hotel pool every day, so they have turned right back into fish. Pretty much all they had learned in the Philippines came right back to them. We have gone to the beach only once so far, the girls were on a search for Sponge Bob square pants and the othe characters too. They only found Patrick the starfish, mr. crabs and a couple of Jelly fish. They were so cute playing with another couple of filipino kids.

Brother Lee visits

Janae and I have had a blast this past month, we got so spoiled when John and Elisha came out to visit us with their family. Its been an action-packed week visiting the beach, seeing Historic Kirtland Sites, visiting the Botanical gardens etc. John's boyhood dream job has finally come to pass, he is part owner of a Hot-Rod dealership (how cool is that?) Our visit was supplimented by auctioning off one of his hot rods in Indianapolis. He called me up and asks how far away is Indianapolis from Cleveland? The next thing you know they were here (he must be a Lee, so spontaneous.)

Dubai, where's that?

City Rory and her best friend Talia dipping.

So it was very last minute but the girls and I decided to leave Ohio two weeks before school was out to go out and stay with daddy. He has been on a project in Yemin, a country near the United Arab Emerates where the bustling huge city of Dubai lies. Yemin isnt terribly stable so he is stationed at his office in Dubai and flys in and out each week to Sana Yemin. Me and the girls hadnt seen daddy for a few weeks at that point so instead of him flying home we just flew out there to him. Wow it is so amazing having children old enough to really enjoy trips like this, they are such great little travelling companions. The time difference is 8 hours ahead of the US so it took us about 5 days to really get over jet lag. We've been here now for 1 and a half weeks and have already made quite a few friends.

Just hangin out with Jesus

Man! Can you tell these kids are cousins or What!

So we up and left to Florida at Christmas time this year. What a strange experience it was waking up in someone else's bed Christmas morning. The girls were so worried that santa may not find us, but we reassured them that Santa would be informed.

We started out at the Holy Land, its basically a Christian amusement park. There are shows that go on periodically with talented singers and actors. The shows range from spiritual to kidsie. There is also a mini model of old Jerusalem which was really cool to see. The strangest thing was walking around seeing Jesus all the time. I think it even confused the girls a bit. The kids got to go inside Jonah's whale, and even pretend to be Samson and Delilah.

On Christmas eve we went to the beach, it was quite chilly but the girls got in with the Hatchlings and Dads too.

Shauna has a fun tradition with the kids, a little elf visits them every day. They each have a small elf outfit (that acts as a stocking) and the elf comes each night to leave the kids a toy or treat. The foot prints are even left behind too.

Nicole soaking up the sun.

After Christmas we headed back up North toward Jenny and Jason's. It was so nice to see them, honestly the kids hardly know each other, but you'd never know it. They all hit it off right away. Kaden is such a charming gentleman and growing up so much. He is a spitting image of his dad. We found a game place where we all waisted lots of quarters and brain cells, buts its ok because we won tons of tokens for prizes.

Later we went back to the Womack residence where dads and kids played War with nurf guns in the dark. Jenny and I chit chatted and played speed with Uno cards. We are both still really good. It was more of a challenge than either of us expected. ha ha.

Ashlyn and Rory, What a pair.
Kianna, Felicity, Abigail, Ashlyn, and Rory all comfy on the Hotel bed.

What a fort.