We're having so much fun in Abu Dhabi that we decided to stay for an extra day. I have lots of fun and funny pictures from our trip to the Grand Mosque (including some of me in an abaya), our dinner at a restaurant on the beach, and a trip to the park at 9:30 at night, but since it's late I'll just post this photo from dinner:

Heading back to Muscat tomorrow, but we're already talking about a return trip in the fall when it will be cool enough to rent bikes and ride along the corniche (the path that runs along the beach).

We’re on our way to Abu Dhabi. 3 hours into our drive and so far there has been minimal screaming and yelling – the kids have been pretty quiet too. We’ve got plenty of water and snacks and the only thing I know I forgot is my Motrin. The tension in my neck and jaw is a warning that I will probably be needing it . . . woo hoo, side trip to an Emerati pharmacy in the near future.

 

This is the view for almost the entire trip. It looks a lot like 29 Palms so we feel right at home.

One reason for the silence: chocolate granola bars.

We’re at the border crossing and it’s time for the dance of the passports. Crossing from Oman into UAE is a little convoluted because the road crosses back and forth between the countries a few times before you actually enter UAE for good. So there are several different checkpoints to pass through, some requiring passports, others requiring a stamped slip of paper that proves you showed your passport to someone else when you exited the previous country, one where they might want money even though we aren’t supposed to pay anything with our diplomatic passports, and if you miss any of those checkpoints (they aren’t all marked -- for at least one of them you have to get out of your car and go inside a building) you have to drive back to where you screwed it up and get the proper thing signed/stamped or whatever. And yes, that happened to us last time.

It takes about an hour to completely cross the borders. You can tell when you’re in Oman because there are trash cans parked along the side of the road out in the middle of the desert, but on UAE land there aren’t any trash cans. Oman is big on keeping their country clean – in Muscat you see dudes walking around mopping and sweeping everywhere. UAE doesn’t place quite the same value on cleanliness, I guess.

See? Middle of nowhere . . . nothing for miles. Trash can.

Not related to our trip, this morning before we left, Lucy asked if my sister who works with the girls in India is named Demi Moore. A few weeks ago I showed Lucy a picture of Wendy from the wedding and told her that my sister spends a lot of time in India working with rescued girls. Last night Lucy saw something on the news about Demi Moore working with girls in India and thought the dark-haired beauty doing such honorable work must be my sister. Luckily having Wendy as my sister instead of Demi Moore means that Ashton Kutcher isn’t my brother-in-law. Whew!

Carter creating a dark place so he can see the PSP screen

Three hours down, three more to go. Now I’ve got to go referee a gum fight (no not gun, for a change) while we sit and wait for Josh to clear one of the checkpoints. Hopefully he’ll be back soon with our passports and we’ll be on our way to the next part of the border crossing. Where’s my Motrin?

UPDATE: We just got a call from Lucy who is frantic because water is gushing from the water tank on the roof. It's shooting into the air and running down the side of the house and flooding the street. Good thing Josh has the phone number for the guy who has been working on the broken water heater the last few days so he can go over there and fix it. 




UPDATE: Got another phone call. Our household goods arrived in Oman yesterday and the transportation office at the embassy expected the paperwork and customs to be completed next week. The shipper just called to say he could deliver them *tomorrow*. Too bad we'll be out of town and can't take delivery until Saturday. Boo. We should have planned this trip months ago, then out stuff might have arrived even sooner.

She ate an entire nectarine -- peel and all. I had to wrestle the pit away from her before she tried to eat that too.

 

miles of desert to go before I sleep . . .

a nutmeg story

For years I've heard people like Alton Brown encourage the use of whole nutmeg that you grate yourself in your cooking and baking, but I haven't ever had the opportunity to try it. Until now. Lucy wanted nutmeg for the bechamel (white) sauce she makes for her lasagna and that's the only way to buy it here -- bags of glossy dark chocolate covered almond looking things that smell faintly of nutmeg.

We brought them home and Lucy used some in the lasagna and it was wonderful -- a little extra nuttiness that was perfect with the sauce. A few days later I wanted to try these magical nutmegs for myself so I decide to make molasses cookies. I pull the nutmeg out, get out the box grater and get to work. I scrape and scrape and scrape the nutmeg against the box grater, but hardly anything comes out. The surface is hard, like a walnut, and even the side of the grater with the crazy sticky-outie prongs that will tear your knuckles to bits in a flash didn't make a dent in the side of this nutmeg.

Lucy told me that she used one and a half nutmegs in the lasagna recipe and I couldn't fathom how strong she must be to grate that much. I pressed a little harder and started seeing a few flakes at the bottom of the plate. I increased the speed of the passes and was making a little progress when it slipped out of my hand. I picked it up off the counter and immediately burned my thumb -- the place that I had been rubbing against the grater had gotten so hot from the friction that it seared my thumb. Seriously. It hurt. Now I know how to start a fire if I ever go on Survivor. Sneak a few nutmegs past Jeff Probst and I'll be the hero of my tribe. 

the offending spot that burned my finger

So I inspect it and the nutmeg still looks practically untouched. I smell the few grains of powder that I manged to get so far and it smells nutmegish -- sort of like the stuff you buy at the store. Really? For all that work and a burned thumb? Since I didn't have any other options and I really wanted the molasses cookies, I refused to give up. I gripped it a little harder between my thumb and forefinger and pressed harder against the metal and scraped. Little bits started flaking off and then I heard a crack! and a few little sharp pieces broke off and fell onto the plate.

I picked up one of the larger pieces and tasted it -- hmm, it's like biting down on a piece of gravel and it didn't taste like much of anything. How am I supposed to get this nutmeg grated so no one breaks their teeth on my cookies? And then I look at the nutmeg left in my hand and realized that I have cracked through an outer shell and there is a smaller nut inside. I wonder if I'm supposed to grate the inside part too. Or maybe there's a toxic seed inside and if I grate that part people will get sick and die. Yes, I really do think about those things. But much less often than I used to.

I pull the shriveled, leathery looking thing out of the outer shell and sniff it. Hmm, that actually smells like nutmeg. I run it across the grater a few times and a fine sifting of powder collects on my plate. I taste it and OHMYTHATISWHATNUTMEGISSUPPOSEDTOTASTELIKE exploded in my head.

In my defense, all the instructions for using whole nutmeg say to just grate the entire thing. Even after seeing it with my own eyes, I couldn't find anything about nutmegs having an inedible shell or needing to crack through an exterior layer before using it. Several questions on culinary message boards asking the same thing about the nutmegs' shell were answered with, "grate the entire nutmeg." I started to second guess myself and thought maybe people grate the external shell and the internal nut until I finally found a posting on a message board that said that nutmegs are always purchased shelled in the US, but when buying them overseas they come with the shell on. Mystery solved.

Directions for the nutmeg impaired: light brown seed = good. Hard outer shell = bad.

 This was further confirmed when I found this article about nutmegs at globalgourmet.com:

There are three layers that surround the nutmeg fruit. The outer layer, known as the pericarp, is used to make nutmeg jelly. The red membrane, which enwraps the shiny dark nutmeg shell, is known as mace, nutmeg's twin spice, which is eventually dried and ground, and used in a variety of dishes. Inside this shell is a seed—the nutmeg. No part of the nutmeg is ever wasted including the shell, which is used as flower bed mulch and for covering garden plants. 

          (italics and bold mine)

Great, anyone up for some mulch cookies? I baked and ate them anyway, and nobody noticed that one of the ingredients was actually something normally used as a soil amendment. And now in the future, I know to crack the shell before trying to grate the nutmeg.

I also learned not to crack the shell by pounding on it with a jar of honey.

*Nutmegs really is the plural form of nutmeg, even if it does sound wrong. I think it should stay singular, like "moose."

My favorite walk

The best thing about our house is where it's located. Back before I dared to drive and before we had two cars, I never needed to fear running out of groceries when Josh went out of town because we are a short walk from the grocery store. And Starbucks. And Baskin Robbins. And many other little restaurants and stores. But I'm most often thankful that we have a grocery store nearby.

A lot of times at the end of the day, when the sun's rays are less intense and we're all getting stir-crazy from being inside, I will suggest a walk to the store. We always need milk or yogurt or fruit or something, so the boys grab their backpacks, I wrap the baby on my back, and off we go.

Strolling up our street. I probably made Caleb stop playing PSP to come along so that's why he's shuffling and pouting in this picture. At the end of this block, we cut over to walk along a path that cuts through the houses.

One of  the houses we pass has a small banana tree. This fabric is wrapped around the bunch of bananas to keep the birds or other animals from eating them. Hmm. Do birds eat bananas? :quick google search: I just learned that not only do the covers keep pests out, but they keep the fruit from getting sunburned and helps the bananas to grow evenly. I would be a much dumber person without google in my life.

We always see geckos running along this wall. Of course we have to stop so the boys can try and catch them. Today we saw a baby one that was smaller than my pinkie finger. It was so tiny I was afraid they were going to crush it with their clumsy hands.

See those cars at the top of the path? They are parked in the Starbucks parking lot. It was an easy walk to check our internet from there before we had it installed at the house.

After passing Starbucks, there's another path through the shops that passes several cafes.

And now to shop. The men and women working the checkout counters love the baby.  

My pack mules, carrying their load home.

Lanterns and twinkle lights line the path and light the way at night.

Back down the path, no time for geckos now. We have to get home and get the milk in the fridge.

Home for now. We'll do it again tomorrow!

on the move

This play table was not intended to be a walker, but Camille has figured out that she can push it along and walk behind it to maneuver all over the living room.





We thought we had lots of time until she started walking since she just started crawling recently, but she has other plans.

We're on the move again too! Tuesday we head to Abu Dhabi for a few days. Josh will do "work stuff" one morning while the boys and I (oh yeah, and the girl too -- I'm still used to saying "the boys") hang out at the hotel pool and then we'll explore the city for the rest of the time.

On the rash front, two are looking worse today, Calvin looks the same. Josh went to the pharmacy to pick up ancient middle-eastern medicine, AKA the arabic form of Benedryl.

They aren't happy about the rash or the photos.

Tonight we'll have 18 people for dinner at our house (including our 5, so it's not as many as it sounds) and I'm in the middle of cookie baking since Lucy made all the dinner food: coconut curry, vegetable rice, samosas, and a grilled eggplant salad (one of my favorite things that she makes). If anyone wants to make the trip over here, you'll eat very well!

And one last pre-walking video for good measure:

genetics at work

If you've hung out with the Hicks girls for any length of time, you'll probably end up hearing about our mango allergy. You only have to say the word, "Mango" and 3 of the 4 of us will suddenly back away from the table, hunting for any speck of the offending food.

It wasn't always that way. I remember my mom getting mangos from the grocery store and showing us how she used to eat them when she lived in Hawaii -- how we would fight over who got to eat the leftover mango that was stuck to the pit and then spending the next hour trying to get the mango fibers out of my teeth. Good times.

And then in college, while we still lived in Oakland, Kristy and I ate mango and then did something where we were out in the sun all day. We ended up with swollen lips and blisters all around our mouths and couldn't even open our mouths to eat. We spent all week lying on the couch, watching tv, and getting hooked on General Hospital, so it wasn't all bad.

I blamed it on the combination of the acid and the sunburn and didn't relate it to the fruit until the next time I ate one and ended up with similar blisters. Maybe it was just the juice on my skin that caused the problem -- so a few weeks later I tried eating a few bites using a knife and fork, making sure that the fruit only touched the inside of my mouth. A few hours later I felt the familiar tightness and prickly feeling around my mouth. No more mangos for me.

Thankfully our kids have not had the same problem. They eat them with abandon, just like their dad, always saying kind things like "sorry mom. I wish you could have some." Except for Caleb, who often orders mango ice cream or mango smoothies so he won't have to share with me.

And now we live in the land of perfect mangos -- displays of the yellow fruit piled high everywhere we go. I steer clear while the kids pick out bags of them to enjoy at home. Then they carefully wash their hands before touching me. But those days look like they may be over.

It started with Calvin and Caleb. I didn't suspect mango at first, but blamed it on heat rash or sunscreen sensitivities, or just not washing their faces well enough.

 

So they continued to eat them, and then it got worse. Carter laughed that he wasn't allergic and could still eat mango. Nanny nanny, boo boo, sucks to be you. 

Until he woke up this morning with the first tell-tale spots on his face. Welcome to the club.

the secret of my success

The baby is fed and napping, the floors are mopped, clean sheets on the beds, the kitchen is spotless, laundry is ironed and put away, there is food in the refrigerator and I worked out -- all before noon. Who knew that it took two humans to successfully do the job I've been trying to do by myself for years?

*Although since I slept in and pretty much just focused on the working out part of the above list, I suspect that Lucy could do it all without me, including getting herself to the gym. :sigh:

satellite

Camille opened this adorable hat from Auntie Ginger and Calvin says, "Um, Mom? Isn't that flower too big for her head?"

Our chub-chub is quite the bruiser. But now she's a bruiser with style.

Party time

The morning of Camille's birthday we woke up and went down to breakfast to find that Lucy had brought her a cake and a birthday card. I made the shirt that she is wearing, but not for her birthday. I just happened to finish it in the last 2 weeks so close enough.

Lucy was annoyed because she had ordered a cake with frosting to match the card and it was to say "Happy Birthday Camille!" with the number "1" written on top in frosting, but they put fruit on it instead. She complained that it was the Omanis at the bakery who always mess things up and back when Indians used to work there it was much better. That sounds totally racist, but it's probably true.

There's a recent "Omani First" movement/law that requires that businesses employ a certain percentage of Omanis. Since Omanis are not known for being very hard workers, sometimes to fulfill those requirements businesses will hire Omanis at minimum wage, but pay them to stay home. Then they employ Indians/Filipinos/etc to do the day to day operations to keep their businesses running successfully. Or you have Omanis that do work, but can't get a birthday cake order right. 

Enough poly sci/econ for today -- back to the birthday girl. She ate a ton of Lucy's lasagna for lunch, and then it was time for cake. I'm not sure what Calvin is doing here besides showing off his mouth full of lasagna.

"Happy Birthday, dear Camille . . ."

For her birthday present we bought her a rhythm instrument set so she can play music along with her brothers.

Caleb, impatiently waiting for me to cut his piece of cake, started licking the frosting off of Camille's hand.

Carter showing off his cake lollipop.

She liked the cake. She didn't dive into it the the way that she does the rest of her food, but she was getting really tired by that point. She kept sticking her fingers into the frosting and then eating the frosting off of her hand (with some extra help from Caleb, of course).

Like my dad said in the comments of my previous post, she has had quite an exciting and well traveled year. I wonder how many countries she'll add to her passport in the next 12 months and where we will celebrate birthday number two. Really. I'm wondering. I have no clue.

flower power

Since she's a year old now, girly decided it was time to try some big girl tricks.



Last night the boys were in bed and Camille was crawling around downstairs with us. I thought she was playing under the stairs until I heard Carter call out, "Mom! How did Camille get out of her crib?" He found her crawling around on the second floor after she climbed both flights of stairs. I brought her back to the bottom and watched her scramble all the way up like she'd been doing it for months. I guess we're going to have to keep those baby gates closed from now on.

one year

I know a lot of people would take this time to reflect on the past year, cherishing all those baby moments that flitted by too quickly; a sentimental love letter to their only daughter. But since one year ago today my girlie barreled out covered in meconium and promptly bit the doctor, and that was only the first sign of things to come, it only seems fitting that she woke up this morning crying and crabby, rubbed her frosting covered fingers in her eyes because she couldn't keep them open, and  she's currently standing in her crib, grinning at me while she's supposed to be napping.

Fortunately, we were able to celebrate her birthday with her last night since she was up past midnight, so today I'll just say, "I'm glad we made it."

Happy one year to me!

directionally challenged

Today we had to go out to the police station to officially change over the registration of the Jeep to us. Since you can only have one car registered per person and the Montero is registered to Josh, I had to go along to sign the paperwork. We weren't sure if we needed to have the Jeep present and we can't put the baby's carseat in the Jeep, so we had to caravan. A regular traveling circus. Technically I guess we could put the baby in it, but there's something that felt really wrong about trying to install her rearfacing when there's no back of the car behind her or a roof over her head. And then of course, no sides either . . . now remind me why I let my boy children ride in this car? It's practically a motorcycle with no helmet.

Anyway, so back to driving. I was following Josh and Caleb and had the rest of the kids with me. I didn't actually know where we were going, just that we were headed toward the airport (about 15 minutes away) and getting off the freeway at that exit. After exiting, we get to this huge roundabout with three potential offshoots. Josh enters the roundabout, but before I can get behind him, several trucks get inbetween us. I tell the kids to keep their eye on the Jeep so I know which road to take, but we end up losing him. I'm good though, because I know he doesn't take the first road, the second one has 3 cars heading uphill and he's not one of them, so I take the third option. I can't see his car because there's a bend in the road, but where else would he go?

Just as we're exiting the roundabout, Carter looks back and yells, "Mom! Dad went back the way we came from!" Good grief. Like I'm supposed to be able to figure that one out. No big deal, I'll just make a U-turn . . . except we're on a divided highway with no way to turn around, cross over or do anything but drive straight. For miles and miles. Josh calls (thank God for cell phones) and we speak sweetly to each other and agree that it's wonderful that I'm driving the wrong direction and how much fun this all is. Except not.

Eventually (5 miles later), I get to another huge roundabout, circle all the way around and then drive all the way back. Then we meet up with Josh (who was parked on the side of the road waiting for us) and then finally get to the police station where we meet the guy who we're buying the car from. I don't like driving without directions, but there really isn't a good way to give directions here: "Go to the third patch of sand that is next to the white building that is next to the 100 other white buildings and then look for driveway that is next to more sand."

It almost got really ugly when they needed my passport and my Oman visa number and I didn't have my passport (since we now have residence cards, I don't carry it with me), but Josh was able to call the embassy and have someone look up the number and then he worked it out by speaking Arabic. Crisis averted.

Then because we were so close to the big mall out that way, we decided to head there for dinner and a little shopping. Carter rode in the back of the Jeep so that he could watch and make sure I didn't get left behind. He turned himself completely around and wouldn't take his eyes off my car the entire drive. He was right to be concerned since I didn't know how to get to the mall either.

After a few hours and a great dinner at the Noodle House, we headed back to Muscat. As we were exiting the parking garage I made sure to stick close to the Jeep so I could follow Josh to the freeway. It's a good thing I did because if I had been left on my own, my natural directional instinct would have sent me in the exact opposite direction of home. I'm glad at least one of us knows where we're going.

The last few days have been crazy busy. A new FAO family arrived in town with 4 kids around the ages of ours and we've been having fun showing them around town and getting to know them. I've been feeling like we just moved here ourselves, but I realized that's because I've also been busy unpacking and organizing the stuff that came from Egypt. Tomorrow we turn in all the things we've been borrowing from the embassy so I'm trying to track down all those items. Somehow we are down two dinner plates. How does that happen? I haven't even counted the spoons yet. Those always seem to disappear.

As a break to get out of the house, we took the boys to an indoor play place today. Lots of slides, climbing walls, tunnels, rope ladders and gym mats so they could run, climb, play and be active. The best part was that all the equipment was grown-up friendly too.

We met several friends there and had the place to ourselves.

Camille had fun too. I have to admit though, I have no idea whose shoes she's playing with. I didn't even think about it until I tonight when was looking through these pictures. Mother of the Year, for sure.

This slide does not look steep from this angle, but it really was a straight drop down. My favorite slide was a steep fast drop, right into a ball pit. You'd be flying so fast that you'd get buried in the balls at the bottom.

And unlike a McDonald's playland, this place was clean -- no worries of finding anything gross in the ball pit.

I'd say she liked it, wouldn't you?

I shouldn't even share this video, because it doesn't begin to capture the actual fall involved in going down this slide, but it's proof that I did it, so here it is. It is a vertical drop at the top and you just have to push off and hope you don't hurt yourself. Carter wouldn't go on it and Caleb wasn't old enough to do it, so that should gain me some points in the daredevil category. They make everyone wear long sleeves to play because they don't want anyone getting friction burns.

We were flying so fast down this thing that I thought we were going to slam into the wall at the end. Thankfully they have burlap pads at the base so you slow down pretty quickly. Caleb is already talking about going back there for his birthday next month. It would be a great place for a party.