November update

Hi Everyone! We hope you are doing well!

Things have been hectic the last month. To give you the "in-a-nutshell" version, we've been enjoying Al Ain, Chris broke his wrist, our principal resigned, and we found a weekend retreat!

...Paul Harvey, and "Now for The Rest of the Story..."

We have been exploring our area a bit. There's a great park called Jahli Park. It's only a short distance from our apartment, but it is the only grassy place that's close.









Chris has been playing football with quite a few of the expat guys from school and in Al Ain on Thursday nights. We bought soccer shoes (trainers, sneakers, etc.) and some shorts, etc., with the idea that this was going to be a long-term activity. Chris lasted three weeks. He was playing goalie and playing very well; however, one of our good friend's, Salim's, shot was a bit too hard for Chris' hand to take. After saving the goal, his wrist being thrashed backwards in doing so, he had to have a cast on for a few weeks. Now he will have to wear a brace for two weeks...

School has had its ups and downs this month. Our principal resigned--we are meant to give 30 days notice, but the school asked her to leave immediately, and all of us were absolutely dumbstruck. She left as usual one day after school and was gone the next. We were quite disheartened for awhile, and many other teachers talked of following her. However, as the UAE tends to work, Annette appeared the next day in school much to all of our relief. Apparently, she resigned with the knowledge she would have to go before the board of directors. The entire country has a lot of bureaucratic issues. Multiple levels of administration is only one of the few problems. Annette had tried many times to get changes made to our school, but she kept facing a brick wall. Consequently, she used this opportunity to voice her frustrations and actually speak to the appropriate people. What ended up feeling like an ultimate catastrophe, actually ended up being a wonderful plan. We had parent-teacher conferences this week. They went pretty well, but it's very surreal talking to parents about their children via a translator. You never know what they are actually interpreting or what they caught from our sentences.

A few weeks ago, Chris and a lot of our building friends went to the Green Mubazzarah. It's a retreat that the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi created at the base of Jebel Hafeet, the mountain in Al Ain. It's a hot springs that he has completely landscaped and designed. We had a picnic dinner, soaked our feet in the spring, played badmitton, and petted a camel for the first time =) It's completely relaxing, and our weekend actually seemed like a weekend.

I guess that's all for now!

T-17 days till we are home in the UK
T-63 days till we are home in the USA

Love to you all!
Miss you!