Try Not To Be Jealous, But...

I have my annual February sickness.  This was me last night.

Hot, eh?  Watery eyes, raw nose from blowing every five seconds, massive headache, achy skin, yucky cough and a temperature for the first time in years.

In all of my teaching years, I've never had to take 2 days off in a row from a sickness.  Maybe that's because I always get sick on a holiday or weekend, but still.  I'm making history here.  Two days off in a row PLUS a weekend.  Surely I'll feel better by Sunday.

 

Casey snapped this lovely gem last night.  I was so sleepy and tired of waking up every 5 seconds to wipe my drippy nose, so I did something I never thought I'd do and stuck a tissue up there so I could sleep in peace.  Sometimes sleep is more important than beauty.

Here's me today - same old hair and mascara from yesterday.  Maybe I'll get enough energy to take a shower later tonight, but it doesn't seem likely.

Best part about being sick?  Casey made me homemade chicken noodle soup last night!!  It was AMAZING and exactly what I needed to cheer me up.  Best husband ever.

YAY!

I just want to express the sheer elation I'm feeling about moving home next summer.  I've been giddy since I wrote the last post, a huggingdancinghighkick kind of giddy.  16 months seems like nothing compared to 28.  Yay!

 



Newest Life Plan

Oldest life plan: live in Dubai for 2 years, move to Europe, move to Asia, move back to Colorado with a baby.

Old life plan: live in Dubai for 3 years so we can travel and save a shit ton for our future house in the Rocky Mountains.

New life plan: live in Dubai for 2 years, move back to Colorado.

Can you see a pattern here?  Our time away from Colorado seems to be getting shorter and shorter, but with amazingness like this...

 

and this...

how could we stay away longer than 2 years?

Advantages of living in Dubai for 3 years:

Tons of traveling and tons of saving (but mostly traveling).  I'd get to visit most of my dream destinations - Austria/Switzerland, New Zealand, Greece, Norway, possibly Thailand, and amazing places in between.

That's pretty much it for advantages.

Advantages of moving home a year earlier:

COLORADO!, being within driving distance all of our favorite people again, mountains, clean air, having a baby, visiting all of our friends' new babies.

The choice seems pretty clear to me.  Dubai is amazing for a lot of things, but for people who are ready to settle down, it's not really the place to be.

All except maybe 2 of our friends are either having babies, just had babies or are trying to have babies.  My sister's second baby is almost 2 and I barely even know her because I've been away pretty much her whole life.  She's pregnant with her third now and if I want to regain my status as Superaunt, I need to be closer.  Plus Morgan's practically a teenager now and I'm missing all the good stuff. 

Other things pointing us toward moving home:

About half of my teacher friends are moving home this year :( :( :(.  They're the main reason I like Dubai, and I'm really worried that Casey will have to work weekends again next semester and I'll be stuck at home again with nothing to do.

Working in the UAE is stressful to the max.  We can't quite put our finger on why; there's just so much pressure and so many expectations that are sometimes unrealistic.

We miss our family and friends and feel like their lives are moving on while ours are on pause.  This makes me really sad.  They're all having babies, buying houses, doing grown up things, and we're just here in Dubai being here in Dubai (I know, big problem to have, but it's how we feel).

I want a dog.  And a baby.  And I want to work in a public school again.

This...

and this...

and this...

I realized last night that most of the places I want to visit in the world are mountainous - New Zealand, Austria, Switzerland, Norway... Why would I spend most of my time in a desert so I can travel to faraway mountains when I could just spend all of my time living in the mountains?  Colorado is our happy place and I'm realizing this more every time I see a new piece of the world.

Dubai has been an amazing adventure and I know I'll be sad when it's time to leave, but moving home to Colorado will feel like a big heap of happiness.

Ordinary Joy

This is my new motto...

This definitely wasn't my best week ever, but here are the ordinary things that brought me joy during a stressful week filled with reports and deadlines:

1.  Body Combat.

2.  The Marina bridge.

3.  Ocean sunsets.

4.  "Mrs. Elder, the moon was a waxing crescent last night."

5.  "Mrs. Elder, I'm making an inference that..."

6.  "Mrs. Elder, this is my favorite day EVER!"

7.  Valentine's Dress Down Day.

8.  Making the perfect juicy chicken for the first time with no help.

9.  Peony-scented candles.

10.  Amazing cleaning crews.

11.  Valentine's Day sushi date.

12.  Post-work wine with Kelly and Jessie.

13.  The Lumineers.

14.  Leon and Owen.

15.  Emails from Casey.

16.  Staying in bed 'til 1:00 pm.

17.  Fresh sheets.

18.  Dreams of Austria and Switzerland.

19.  New chapstick and vitamins.
20. Pancakes.

21.  Casey not working weekends!

Next week is Only Happy Things at Work Week.  Teaching sure can get stressful sometimes, but I love my job and have THE best kids ever, so even when it seems too stressful, it's still the best job for me.

Night Brunch!

 Brunch: Dubai phenomenon, expats galore, all you can eat, all you can drink, four hour shit show.

Casey's never been to brunch because of his awful schedule last semester, and I've only been to two.  Two in one semester is about all I can handle because they start at noon and you continue the party into the night.  That kind of partying should be reserved for college kids, not a 30-year-old homebody teacher lady. 

We have four teachers with birthdays in February, so we decided to celebrate with our first night brunch.  Night brunch sounds like an oxymoron, but in Dubai the term brunch has nothing to do with breakfast food.  Highlight of the night - Casey finally got to experience this brunch amazingness firsthand.  

For some reason our nights always include a photo shoot.  We took about 1,000 pictures Thursday night and took even more on Alice's phone while she was in the bathroom.  Most of them are blurry, so I'll spare you and only share a few.

Can you see the excitement in Casey's face?  First brunch - woo!

 

No prob, if he can't show excitement, we'll do it for him!

Casey with the birthday girls, Rachael and Jordan.  Love Jordan's disgusted face in this pic.

 

Pretties Julie and Naomi.

Poor Lyndsey and David.  900 of the 1,000 pics we took were of them.

Pretty friends!

And this is what we looked like the next day.  Nap time on the beach, best post-brunch recovery.

Happy things happen when Casey's not working weekends :)

Dubai Lately

Oh, hey there.  Long time no talk.  We've been busy as fracking ever, a good thing for us but a bad thing for blogging.  Nothing too exciting has been happening, so I'll just fill you in on our everyday happenings.

Things that make me happy:

My gym is AMAZING!!  It hasn't even opened yet, but I looooove it.  We've been doing classes outside in the Marina and at a school down the street.  The classes are badass and I'm excited about working out for the first time in 2.5 years.  Woo!

We had our first weekend off together last week, and that was again AMAZING!!!  Jordan came over on Thursday, we had a few drinks and planned Spring Break, and then we walked to a bar down the street to listen to my favorite Dubai band.  Casey got rejected at the door because he had flip flops on, even though WE LIVE AT THE BEACH and I had flip flops on, too.  Jordan and I stayed and danced our faces off and I tried to convince Casey to come back, but he went to bed instead.  

Friday was a perfect day in Dubai.  We went to breakfast Friday morning, went to the beach and paddle boarded with Jamie, Jay and Jordan, and wrapped up the day with some delicious Mexican food - first Mexican I've had in Dubai that's actually tasty.

We saw Zero Dark Thirty Saturday night.  Holy wow, it's amazing and crazy and a tad bit too violent, but still amazing.  I had nightmares all night that the Navy Seals were breaking into my apartment and shooting machine guns, but it was worth it.

My dad's coming for a visit at the beginning of April.  Hooray for our first visitor!  I can't wait to show him around and see all the touristy things we've been waiting to see with a visitor, and I can't wait to see my dad on a camel. :)

I saw the most gorgeous picture of Switzerland on Pinterest and have been giddy about my life-long dream hopefully coming true this summer.  I've been dreaming about visiting Austria and Switzerland pretty much my whole life, and if everything goes as planned, we'll be there in July - woot!

My sister's pregnant with her third baby!  Flanigan babies are the coolest.  She's due around the time I'll be in Texas, so I'm super hoping the baby comes before I have to leave.  Alyssa and Kris are pregnant too.  So many Texas babies to meet this summer!

Casey's attending his first brunch this weekend!  It's a night brunch, but it's still a brunch.

It's volleyball night!  I love volleyball night even though it makes me super tired the next day at school.  We're definitely the worst team in the league, but we're also the most fun.  I kind of feel sorry for the teams who have players who have actually played before.  I would be totally annoyed if my soccer team was playing a team like ours, but we're pretty entertaining so hopefully they don't hate us too much.

Pictures of the Week :)

Beeeeeeach!

Skydivers.  This will be us one day :)

One of the only reminders that we live in the Middle East.

That's all for now.  I'll try to find some fun this weekend so I have something more exciting to write about.
Happy Wednesday, friends!

Hey, Sexy Lady

Anyone looking for a "massage"?  

'Cause these cards were slipped under our door last week and they seem legit...

Pretty awesome, eh?  In a country where you can't even kiss your husband in public, this seems a little risque.  Apparently Russian prostitution is a big thing here, too, but we haven't seen that with our own eyes so who knows.