Another day, another Dirham...

Good morning (or middle of the night for those across the world)!


The past few weeks have been packed full of Abu Dhabi adventures, and I am just now getting around to posting some updates.  Warning: this could be a long one, so bear with me. A couple of monumental announcements before I continue:


1)  I am officially legal! After weeks of bureaucracy and permission from my husband (haha, no seriously), I finally received my residence visa and UAE driver's license.  
2)  Our shipping container has arrived and cleared customs! Today, we will have a couch to sit on in lieu of our comfy plastic lawn chairs!  Truth be told, we haven't really missed our belongings much, and TV watching has been replaced with vacation planning.


It seems like days go by much faster over here.  I start to giggle when I think back at how I thought I would have SO much free time, when in reality, everything takes 2 or 3 times longer than you would imagine--like going to the grocery store or doing laundry.  Since we have one car now, I take Jesse to work at 6:30am and pick him up in the evenings. In between trips to the grocery store, I meet with the curtain guy, the landscaping guy, the AC repairman, and the maid. It's not as glamourous as it sounds.  Honestly, there are just too many anecdotal moments when I wish I could call up my girlfriends and family members and laugh out loud, saying "you would not believe how they do this and that here!". I'll try to write more down as I think of them! 


This time of year is actually fantastic (before the huge heatwave hits in June), so Jesse and I have enjoyed spending time outdoors.  He has already participated in two golf tournaments at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club--where Tiger Woods played a couple months ago, and I have been taking golf lessons with some of the wives at Saadiyat Beach Golf Club.  The lessons are insanely inexpensive, and even though I am terrible at golf right now, I still get to enjoy the amazing scenery!  


As soon as we got here, one of the other wives helped me get plugged into a Bible study that meets every Monday.  Most of the women in it are older, but about 70% of us are from Texas, which I find rather ironic. We are doing a Beth Moore study on Psalms that is awesome and so relevant to living over here.  Jesse and I attend church on Friday mornings with people of all nationalities and cultures and backgrounds.  Praise God, that He is Lord of all the earth!


Jesse's co-workers and their families are so lovely and so helpful. The wives are welcoming and have been a tremendous support for me.  One of the other engineers came to Abu Dhabi at roughly the same time we did, but his wife and two little girls just arrived a couple of weeks ago.  It is a tremendous blessing to have another young couple here, and their girls are simply adorable!  Since we are all in the same boat, so to speak, it's nice being able to call each other if we need help finding something or when we just need a healthy dose of tex-mex!


I look forward to the movers coming in a few hours with our furniture and pictures and the familiarity of home, and Jesse will be ecstatic to sleep in a real bed since the Ikea mattress just isn't cutting it!  Yesterday, I was going through the wedding recipe book that my friends put together for my bridal shower.  As I tried to convert the standard measurements to metric units for a batch of rosemary scones, I read through some of the sweet notes on the pages.  Jesse and I have had these moments recently where we just REALLY miss our people.  We don't necessarily miss our cars or conveniences or even Houston for that matter (okay, I do miss HEB and Target and having electrical outlets in the bathroom), but we most definitely miss our friends and family :-(


The good news is that we have scheduled a trip back to Houston this summer.  I'll be in town for three weeks during Ramadan (July/August), and Jesse will meet up with me for a week at the end of July. We so look forward to catching up with everyone!  Until then, please keep us updated on your lives and God bless! More pictures coming soon...


Cheers!
Allison & Jesse