Night in Dubai

Well Jordana says I never post anything so I figured I would make a short post to keep her happy. We went out last night and took some pictures. It was pretty fun playing with the camera trying to get just the right exposure. We ended up getting some nice ones.

We went to a couple of local mosque's

 

Then to the beach. Burj al arab was lit up beautifully. We only had one problem, trying to keep still for the 3-5 second exposures... Kyle, any secrets??

Christmas Dress

Today we tried to take pictures of Jayna in her Christmas dress. The problem was that we waited until after church when she was way overdue for her nap. But I figured if we didn't do it then we'd never get her all dressed up in it again, so we just went for it. This is pretty much how all the shots were turning out...

Until Grandpa finally took pity on her and stopped the cruelty

and even got her smiling again!

So we managed to get a couple decent shots, which considering the circumstances we'll have to be happy with. Poor little sweetie!!

Fun in the Sun

We're having so much fun here already. We've pretty much been doing the usual for Dubai, which includes lots of shopping, going to the beach, and eating tons of good food! Jayna is warming up to everyone slowly but surely. She's grandma's little buddy and calls her "ma", she alternates between being scared of grandpa and thinking he's a funny guy, and is still a little scared of Uncle Sami. She has been more spoiled here in the last 6 days than she ever has, if that's possible, and I'm sure we'll be doing damage control for months after this! But that's what grandparents are for, right?

Jayna bonding with Grandpa

We had a fun day at the beach. Jayna liked playing in the sand, but was terrified of the water. She wouldn't even let us go that close to it without clinging to us for dear life.

Gibb and Sami dug a 6 foot hole with Jayna's beach toy (don't ask me why they thought that was so fun).

We drove out to the desert one day and took some pictures in the sand dunes

Jayna saw her first camel

We bought Jayna her own little pool to go swimming in, since she won't swim in the ocean

My Mom and Dad

All these pictures were taken at a hotel (if you can cal it that), it's more like a huge complex with hotels and stores and restaurants and there's water all around it, so if you're staying at the hotel you can take these little boats to get to the pools and to your room and stuff.

We made it...

Gibb and I were already dreading the plane rides to Dubai. The longest flight was going to be 12 hours, and we were just hoping that Jayna might sleep for an hour or two of that. But we knew it was going to be even worse than we thought when we boarded our plane in Cleveland and had to wait almost 90 minutes before we took off. Of course we were one of the unlucky ones who boarded the plane first and had to wait all that time on the aircraft. All flights taking off and landing in Washington D.C. were grounded because of fog. We thought we might still be okay, even though we only had an hour to catch our next flight, because that flight would probably be delayed too. No such luck, we missed our flight by 5 minutes! Of course by now it's 10:30 pm, we're stuck in the Dulles airport and waiting in a huge line for customer service. Finally at this point at our luck turned and we got the nicest lady who helped us re-route our tickets, hooked us up with a great hotel, taxi vouchers, and even a little upgrade. So we stayed overnight in Washington and then flew to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and finally arrived in Dubai, only 48 hours after we left Cleveland. We must have been a sight for sore eyes. We were all so exhausted and totally jet lagged, the first couple days really feel like a blur. Poor Jayna only slept 6 hours total from the time we left Washington until we got to Dubai, and on our last flight I noticed she was cutting a tooth! All I have to say is Thank goodness for Lufthansa for having a bassinet on the plane Jayna could sleep in, that was a lifesaver! Despite all that she was so good on the trip and now the flights home seem like a piece of cake. Anyways it was all worth it now that we're here, it's so great to see my family and be in warm weather!!

Christmas Party

We went to our first Christmas party this year at our church last night. It was a good time as usual, lots of great food, good company and cute entertainment: children singing Christmas songs! But the highlight for us was definitely seeing Santa. We've been wanting to take Jayna to go see Santa this year but just hadn't gotten a chance yet. Jayna didn't really want to wait in line so we just let her play until all the other kids had seen Santa and then we were one of the last ones. Jayna sat on Santa's lap for a second or two, looking around really confused and then looked up at him and started screaming!! This was pretty much exactly what I predicted she would do. And I still think it was worth it to have waited that long just for that because I think the picture is hilarious!! (Our camera is still broken, but luckily our friend Rochelle snapped it for us, Thanks Rochelle!)

Jayna realizing she's sitting on some weird looking guys' lap

Gibb said that she was shaking after she was so scared

Trying to bribe her after with a candy cane

I know it probably seems cruel, but it was pretty funny! Poor Jayna, she's scared of Everything!

Jayna's Favourites

Book: Touch and Feel
She likes to pet all the animals and comb their fur, and now she has a new Touch and Feel Monster book from her Hill cousins!

Word: Bye-bye
Jayna says this all the time, when she's in her crib after a nap, when she's playing, when she's eating, and for about 10 minutes every morning after Gibb leaves for school

Toys: Pink Ball and Shapes
It's a toss up, she loves both of these toys so much


Food: Milk
Again it's a toss up, she likes a lot of different foods, like cottage cheese, grapes, frozen peas... but Jayna LOVES her sippy!

Game: Being Chased
All we have to say is "I'm gonna get you!", and she starts running away, or crawling away actually, as fast as she can!

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider
She loves the actions and clapping at the end

St. Louis, MO

This year for Thanksgiving we went to visit Gibb's brother Scott, his wife Erin, and their 2 boys Cameron and Evan in St. Louis. It's become a tradition for us to get together with them for Thanksgiving since we've been here in Cleveland. We've spent every American Thanksgiving together for the last 4 years! It's been so fun to visit each other and see where we're living and see how their boys have grown up. The first time we went to visit them in Des Moines Cameron was 1 and Erin was pregnant with Evan, so much has changed since then!

Jayna had a lot of fun with her cousins! Cameron wanted to hold her and give her hugs, it was really cute but Jayna's not exactly the cuddly type. Except her and Evan did have a really big smooch!! They're going to be such great big brothers!

Of course right before we left our camera broke so we barely have any pictures of the week. We remembered the day we were leaving to snap a couple pictures of them all together and they turned out pretty cute!

We didn't do a ton that week, but it was super relaxing and so fun to see everyone. We had a big Thanksgiving Feast, as Cameron liked to call it, that was delicious. And Cameron and Evan now think their Uncle Gibb is basically a super hero after all the stories we told them about his "Deep Ocean Adventures"! We had so much with them and we miss them already!

Tagged

It has been so long since I've posted! We've been SO busy the last couple weeks. With just a lot of random stuff going on, and then my sister was here for a few days, and brought 2 of her kids, Samantha and Nathan. We basically shopped 60% of the time she was here, slept maybe 25% (if we were lucky) and hung out/ate/drove to malls/outlets/took care of kids the other 15%. It was so much fun, I miss them already! Then on Saturday it was Gibb's birthday, he turned 29. We went out to dinner and a movie that night, we saw Bee Movie, it was really cute! And tomorrow we leave to go to St. Louis to visit Gibb's brother Scott, and his family for Thanksgiving. I'm excited to see them, but not so excited about the 9-10 hour drive. So I thought I should post something before we leave. I guess I got tagged by Rebecca Jones a while ago so I think I'm supposed to answer these questions.

4 or more places I have lived:
1) Taber, Alberta, Canada
2) Riyad, Saudi Arabia
3) London, Ontario, Canada
4) Kuwait, Kuwait
5) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
6) Cleveland Heights, Ohio, USA

4 or more places I have went on vacation:
1) London, England
2) Cairo, Egypt
3) Barnwell, Alberta, Canada
4) Amman, Jordan
5) Orlando, Florida
6) HAWAII!! (Oahu and Kauai)
7) Paris, France
8) Vancouver/Whistler/Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
9) Niagara Falls, Ontario
10) New York City, NY
11) Echo Lake, Montana
12) Carribean Cruise
13) Dubai, UAE

4 or more jobs I have had:
1) Babysitting
2) Playworld
3) McDonald's
4) A&B Party Rental
5) Wal-mart Portrait Studio
6) PCA at ICE
7) Apartment Managers
8) Occupational Therapist

4 or more foods I like:
1) Candy/Licorice
2) Turkey Dinner for Christmas or Thanksgiving
3) Italian Food
4) Thai Food

4 or more hobbies I have:
1) Reading
2) Scrapbooking/card making
3) Working out, we have an on again/off again relationship
4) I never realized it before, but I guess I talk on the phone a lot, because Jayna has started pretending everything is a phone and putting it up to her face and saying "Hi"

4 or more things people don't know about me:
1) I was painfully shy as a kid, and still get a little bit panicked in some new situations
2) I was a Cheerleader AND President of the Math Club in High School, we won Provincials for Cheerleading and won the Math Triathlon City Championship, GO SABRES!!!
3) I was obsessed with N'SYNC and Backstreet Boys in High School, and my favourite was Howie D., what was I thinking?!?
4) I am a pack rat, I hate throwing anything out has the littlest bit of sentimental value

4 or more things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1) TRAVEL!!!
2) Still make my kids get part time jobs
3) I have no idea, I can't imagine it right now

Family Photos

We haven't taken any family pictures for a while, so we decided, or actually I decided, it was time. We went with the Walker's and got some great pictures. Here are some of our favourites.

As a reward for being so good Jayna and Dean got to play in the leaves when we were done. They loved it!

Fall

Fall is one of our favourite times of year. Jayna especially loves playing outside in all the leaves, she likes the crunchy sounds they make. She likes playing in the front yard because then she can also watch all the cars drive by, one of her favourite past times. Hopefully it doesn't get too cold very soon, so we can still enjoy Fall.