The Land Bountiful?

While my parents were here, we took a quick trip down to Salalah, a city in Southern Oman, near the border with Yemen.  There are a couple of sites that LDS scholars have identified as possible locations for the land of Bountiful, as well as places Lehi and his family might have had contact with.  Going to these locations has been a dream of mine for years, but I'll have to keep dreaming.  The day we were all supposed to go, Gwyn woke up sick, so I stayed in the hotel with her while my parents took the boys and went to a place called Wadi Saiq. (I don't have any pictures of that, but you may be able to see some on my mother's blog when she gets back from her trip to Isreal, Jordan, and Egypt.)

The day I had to stay home was still pretty good for me.  I turned 30 (ha ha),  sat in the shade beside my sick sleeping baby, read, and watched the waves crash down.  When they all got back from their exhausting day (3 hours in car each way, 1 hour in boat, for 1 hour at the site), we boogie boarded and caught little sea creatures just like when I was a kid in California.  (I think maybe I was the lucky one!)

Desert Safari

My parents were here for 2 weeks this last month.  We did many of the touristy things there are to do here in Abu Dhabi, including a desert safari.  One of the things you can do while on a desert safari (in addition to 4-wheeling, camel riding, and belly dancing) is sandboarding.  This is essentially riding a snowboard down a sand dune.  What is the difference between sand and snow?  Well, there may be a reason this sport will never make it to the olympics!

Gwyn Laughs

Gwyneth is soooo cute, I had to share these photos--

Every day, she just gets more interactive and cute!

I posted a video of her laughing on youtube. You'll have to copy and paste the URL, because I don't know how to do it any other way yet!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBG8mc7mkLA

Close Call?

This entire past week, every day the local paper has been running articles about how people who come to the UAE on a visit visa (what Gwyn had) have to stay out of the country for a month before they can get a new visit visa.  The law seems to target certain nationalities, and is intended to stop people who are working here illegallly.  Still, it feels like we could have been stuck in Oman for a month!  Imagine!

Here's a link to one of the articles:  http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/10/01/10248992.html

Our Illegal Alien

This week we discovered that Gwyneth has been an illegal alien for the last 2 weeks!

It was actually discovered by the HR office at Dave's work when they were working on applying for her residency visa.  For some reason, she had only been given a 30 day visa when she entered the country, rather than the usual 60 day visa.  They called us up, and warned us that the fine would probably be about 3000 dhs (800 USD) by the time the paperwork was finished.  

We freaked out a little about that, and finally someone suggested that we do a "visa run."  This involves going to another country, getting stamped in and out of that country, and then returning to the UAE and getting a new visa.  The cheapest way would be to drive to Oman, about 2 1/2 hours from Abu Dhabi.  

So that's just what we did!  Connor couldn't come, because his passport was with the Turkish embassy, so I arranged for the boys to stay with friends and I took off.  It took a total of 8 hours.  We made a few mistakes, like I didn't realize that at the border leaving the UAE you have to ASK to be stamped out....I really didn't know there was an option!  Its the first border I've crossed where its optional!  

So, I went all the way to the checkpoint in Oman (30 mins each way) where another visa runner told me that I should have stopped and walked into a building at the UAE gate.....Anyway, I got stamped in and out of Oman, then went back to the UAE to beg for an out stamp....and an in stamp.  I got there about 20 minutes before Iftar (the meal where they break the fast--its Ramadan), and the guy was really grumpy.  (understandable.)  And he told me he was going to have to charge me 1620 dhs. 

I got out my wallet, and he told me, "wait, wait."  So I waited.  Then he kicked me out of the office, went and ate, and when he got back, he called someone on the phone, and then he was able to give Gwyn an out stamp.  For only 20 dhs!  Then, he made me go and wait in the car for 20 minutes before I could come back to the same guy and get the in stamp.  By the time I left, we were pretty good friends, but it was a little rocky  for a while there!

Now little Gwyn is legit again....

Gwyneth Smiles for the camera

Finally!  She has been smiling at us for months, and finally she did it for the camera!!!  She's also laughing quite a bit lately!

Sams........and........ Connors

Over half of the kids at Trevor's party were either named Connor or Sam....