anyone up for a game of poop truck?

Yes, I said poop truck. Have you ever played the Bug Game? (aka as Slug Bug, but we have to play it without the slugging in our family, because it made mom want to slug everyone after refereeing one too many fights while driving).

In our version the person to spot the bug has to call out the color before anyone else in order to get the points (1 point for new bugs, 2 points for classics). After hundreds of "yellow bug! red bug! black bug!" and being directed how to drive home so we would pass particular high value old bugs that they knew were parked in particular places and then having to referee whether the child actually could see the bug when they called it or if they just "knew" it was coming up and called it prematurely and then having to decide if a car had a cover over it so you couldn't actually see the car body, but you knew a bug was parked under it if that should be allowable . . . I had had enough.  

So for a while the Bug Game wasn't allowed. And then we permitted a variation called the Silent Bug Game. In this version you spotted as many bugs as possible during the course of the drive, but you weren't allowed to call them out. You had to privately keep your tally and then announce your total points at the end of each trip. I thought this was a win win win situation, but it wasn't successful since Caleb quickly figured out that all he had to do was wait until everyone else said their totals, then just say he had one more than the the leader and he would win. Then fights would ensue over whether it was even possible to spot 18 bugs on a 10 minute drive and I just curled up in the corner and cried in defeat.

The Bug Game has reemerged in Oman, but in a slightly different form. Since Oman doesn't have an underground sewage system (they are working on creating one), they handle sewage by having trucks come and pump out the holding tanks. While we were staying at the hotel, the truck came by at least once a week, so they aren't like septic tanks that we have in the US. I think since we are in a newer part of town (our area was wiped out by a hurricane in 2007) we are on a regular sewer and water system because I don't see the trucks in our immediate neighborhood.

The boys think that seeing a truck driving around with poop in it is hilarious and awesome so they've made a game out of spotting the poop trucks. There are hundreds of bright yellow poop trucks cruising up and down the roads here -- a wealth of points to be gathered. Another reason this game works is because daddy is around to referee (and play) the Poop Truck Game, so mom can zone out and pretend she's not there. There are also tons of bright blue water trucks that deliver water to homes that aren't on a central pipe system, but I guess it's a lot more fun to yell out "poop truck!" than "water truck!"

what you end up doing when it's over 100 degrees out

and so humid you have to swim through the front yard to get to the car:

You take turns being blindfolded, tied up (arms and legs), and shut in a closet under the stairs

and you time each other to see who can escape the fastest.

you play cards and let your sister choose which card to play next


 

you play with electrical cords no matter how many times mom tries to give you something "better" to play with.  

 

you lounge on pool toys

and wrestle with dolphins

until you subdue them

 

and you really, really hope someone will take pity on you and take you to the pool . . . and they do.

sweet treats

I love dark chocolate. The other night I wanted something sweet, but not too sweet, but also salty and kind of snacky. . . I went rummaging through my cupboards, but nothing was calling my name. Then I started dreaming about dark chocolate covered potato chips. I didn't know if anyone had ever had that idea before, (they had according to the seller on Amazon who will ship you a pound of them for $20), but I decided to create my own.

3/4 of a bar of dark chocolate, melted in a double boiler type contraption (I rig my own using a pot of water with a metal bowl balanced on top). Once the chocolate is melted, add a small amount of oil to thin it so the chocolate layer isn't too thick.

I coated about half of each chip because it gives you an area to hold without getting melted chocolate all over your hands and because it made for a better chip/chocolate ratio. Then in a normal house you would let them sit on the counter until they firm up, but we had to pop them in the fridge because in our warm house they'd never get past the melty stage. It would be better for the crispiness of the chip to not be exposed to the humidity of the fridge, but we've got a lot of humidity here so it won't make much difference. 

Then eat up! Next time I would use a little darker chocolate (this one was 52%) and get a chip that was a little bit saltier for more contrast between the sweet and the salty. They were really good and exactly what I was looking for. I don't know if I would go through the process to make them again or just go for the same effect by eating chips and chocolate at the same time.

It does help if you have a clean-up crew to lick the bowl and eat all the leftover broken chip pieces.

Except by the time they were finished, the clean-up crew needed a clean-up crew of their own.

blood and sweat

but no tears . . . yet. The boys are loving rugby, but the season is almost over. The past two weeks Caleb and Carter's teams haven't had practice because of the heat and in a week or two all the age groups will break for summer.

Hot or not, they love it. The running, the tackling, the competition, the mouthguards  . . . and I love that it wears them out. Too bad they can't play every day. This trapped indoors stuff is not good for their mental health or mine. We've all been missing our yard in Egypt. I would send them outside to play soccer, baseball, or basketball every day. Here they have the small cement patio, but it's so hot now that you'll burn your feet if you're not wearing shoes. And they can't seem to play more than five minutes without kicking the ball over the wall, so that's sort of a downer. 

They're already excited about playing rugby again when it starts in September. I'm counting the days until school starts and they'll be able to have PE, after school sports, and rugby . . .

 

and so is their #2 fan.

bumper cars

So Josh was involved in our inaugural middle eastern car accident. We've had plenty of near misses, but up until now we had gotten through unscathed. Unfortunately, our rental car is now a little bit "scathed."

One of the problems with driving in Oman is there are traffic laws that people generally follow, but there are a lot of bad drivers here and plenty of people who are impatient and think the rules don't apply to them. So you'll be driving along and all of a sudden someone will pull out to make a left turn and stop right in front of you. Like the big truck that we were sitting behind, waiting to make a left turn onto the freeway. The way was clear at first, but the truck driver sat for about 30 seconds, waited until the oncoming car was about 20 yards away and then decided to turn left right in front of it. Go figure.

So Josh is in the grocery store parking lot, meeting the guy who was going to adjust our satellite dish, when a guy in a Lexus tries to squeeze behind him and smacks into the back end of the rental car. Other driver hops out of the car and wants to pay cash for the damage, but since it's a rental car there are paperwork issues involved, but the guy didn't want to wait for the embassy representative or the police so Josh got his info and dude took off.

Long story short, Josh spent the entire afternoon doing paperwork and working with the rental company getting the estimate for the repair and then the rental company had the other driver come down to the body shop, they haggled over the cost of the repair and then the dude went to the ATM, withdrew the cash and paid for the damage. It was a headache, but at least Josh got to speak Arabic to the Omanis at the rental car agency and at the Nissan dealership all afternoon.

As a funny aside, Josh and a guy from the rental agency had to follow the Lexus guy to the ATM and he proved over and over again what a bad driver he was: speeding, weaving in and out of other cars, etc. It was clear to the guy riding with Josh that the other guy caused the accident and wasn't worried about causing another one. They also suspect that he didn't have insurance because he was insistent on paying cash and not getting the cops or the insurance company involved.

After getting that car drama solved, the next day Josh was able to pick up our car from the embassy. When they got home, Carter walked in the house and announced, "We almost got in a crash on the way home." Josh was driving along at 45 mph and a chick in a tiny car full of women slowly pulled out of a shopping center parking lot right into his lane and he would have munched her if the lane next to him hadn't been open. Thankfully for her and her passengers he was able to swerve into the open lane and miss her. He says he doesn't know if she even noticed that she was almost crushed by a much bigger car.

In Egypt the drivers were much more skilled and confident. There were no rules to follow other than the unwritten rule of "if my bumper is ahead of yours I have the right of way," but the majority of people drove confidently, aggressively, and attentively. It made for a finely choreographed dance that seemed to work more often than not, especially since everyone moved at half the speed in much less powerful cars. Here everyone drives new, fast cars, they like to speed, and they don't pay attention. Not a great combination.

a smorgasboard of photos and food

Here's where I put some of the pictures that I like that didn't make it into the other posts . . .

Not that I really like this one, but it's pretty representative of our weekend. Baby sleeping in the ergo, me waiting at the bottom of the waterslide with camera in hand.

Next time I'm actually going to go on this ride. Really, I am. If I keep saying it, I think it might happen. The funny thing is that I'm actually more likely to go on the quick scary ride than the kid one where you ride an innertube through a dark tunnel and then end up slowly cruising though a plexiglass tube where you can watch all the fish and sharks. That one sounds awfully claustrophobic to me . . .

See Josh inside the tube, inside the aquarium? Kind of cool, but kind of panic-inducing if you're a crazy person like me.

Carter really wasn't being a pain in this photo. It was just an unfortunate itchy eye right as the stranger was taking our picture. Another missed opportunity for a family Christmas card that I'm not going to send out anyway.

Playing around with the night setting on my camera out on our balcony after the kids were in bed. It would have been the perfect time to go swimming if only we didn't have the baby to worry about . . . except we were both pretty tired and had had our fill of swimming by then.

Now for the buffet: our last morning at the hotel we went to breakfast at Saffron, an Asian-inspired buffet. I've been to crazy huge Vegas buffets . . . this one was crazier. Probably because it was 9am, but they were serving breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner, and dessert all at the same time.

It was expensive (we figured the kids were around $20 and adults were $40), but by not buying a $9 cup of coffee and getting my latte included as part of the buffet, it was practically a bargain. They brought the kids hot chocolate and there was a juice bar to choose from: pineapple, green apple, watermelon, orange, lemon mint, and carrot juices. All fresh. I had watermelon juice and Josh had a blend of green apple and watermelon. 

In the breakfast food category they had pastries galore, tons of different fresh yogurts with fruit, all the normal eggs, bacon, sausage (all beef and chicken based and a separate table with pork versions for non-Muslims), eggs benedict, omelet station, blah, blah, blah. Everything you'd expect for breakfast was there somewhere.

Then they had an entire steam table dedicated to dim sum -- steamed pork buns, dumplings, and a bunch of other things that looked dim summy, but I didn't have room to try them. I had to save room for the sushi -- yep, sushi for breakfast. Then there was the middle eastern food table -- I don't know what was on it because I was not interested in middle eastern food when there were so many other things to try, like . . .

the fresh fruit bar that was loaded with pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew and huge bowls of dragonfruit and peeled kiwi. And right next to that was the three tiered chocolate fountain and the candy bar. Yes, at 9am. There were skewers with fruit and marshmallows all ready to be dipped in melted chocolate. The tragedy was that I only had room for one skewer of pineapple to dip in the chocolate.

What else could we have eaten? Smoked fish, enough Chinese food to feed a small country, bread puddings, cold cuts, and I'm not sure what else was out there because there was such a maze of food, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find my way back to our table. Even though I didn't get to try even a fraction of the food possibilities, everything I tasted was great. And now I can say I've had sushi for breakfast.

This is the balcony where I didn't get to sit and enjoy my coffee. Of course, a small cafe americano (espresso with water) in the hotel coffee bar cost $9, so it's not like I was going to get one of those every morning anyway.

The beautiful pool that is in addition to all the pools in the waterpark. The bridge in the picture is the track for the metro. The tunnel that we drove through to get to the hotel is submerged next to the metro tracks. We didn't even have time to go to the beach or take more than a quick dip in the pool . . . 

because this is where baby and I spent all of our time (when we weren't taking pictures at the base of the Leap of Faith). The water was the perfect temperature and shallow enough to sit and be splashed without getting too wet.

This is where I really needed my hat. We reapplied sunscreen (50) all day long, but I have pale raccoon eyes on my tan face from two full days in the pool. At least no one in our family got burned. I saw way too much lobster red on top of pale white skin and those poor people kept coming back for more.

photo credit: Hoffman family

The mix of swim attire was impressive. Plenty of people in too small suits swimming right next to women in "burkinis," basically swimwear that provides full coverage of arms, legs and head made out of swimsuit/rashguard material. I loved them. If your religion dictates that you have to cover completely for modesty, then good for you for finding a way to still enjoy swimming. The sad part was how many women were suffering from heat stroke (we actually saw someone who needed emergency attention) sitting in the shade in their regular burquas while their husbands and kids were having fun in the pool.

Sitting in the shallow water was also the perfect spot for watching the boys climb and play on the structure and slide down the kiddie waterslides. One of my favorite parts of the day was when Josh had Camille for about 1/2 an hour and Carter, Caleb, and I climbed around and they took me on all their favorite slides.

 Every 15 minutes or so, the huge bucket at the top of the play structure would fill up and tip over, dumping a huge wall of water over the people standing below. As it got close to toppling, people would congregate around the base, hoping to get slammed by the rushing water. (you can see calvin and carter running away from the impending shower.) Josh and I both said that this is something you'd never see in America because the force of the water was strong enough that it would knock over the littlest kids and force them under until the wall of water stopped.

I have one more post of Atlantis photos and stories, and then it's back to normal life. With stories to tell of a car accident (small one), a car purchase, and life in a foreign country, I guess our normal life isn't all that normal.