School inspections-Part 1

This week was a very stressful week, relatively speaking. Both of our schools had the school inspection team come in and evaluate how we are doing. Stuart's inspection was a 3 day snap shot of how the school was operating. My school had its pre-evaluation visit. All schools have a day visit the week before the team comes to the school to watch everyone teach. So by Thursday Stuart was finished and my school's 4 day evaluation starts Sunday. There is a great deal of stress just to end the time with a 'your school did not pass'. From my understanding no schools pass. In fact, I wouldn't trust any school that was perfect. The reason we are evaluated is so we know how we can improve. It all makes good sense to me. 

Enough about school. I started running again this week. Bleck!  Sunday, as Jack was practicing rugby, I dawned a pair of running shoes and headed around the loop that circles the Rugby Club, Golf Club and Equestrian Center. The land where this all sits was gifted to the ex pats. Therefore it is a little bit of an 'island' of activities and restaurants and is most often visited by the ex pat community. 

I ran out of the Rugby Club and headed around the loop. I got to the front of the shooting range and thought I was on the brink of death. Mind you, this was at 2 minutes 14 seconds. I ended up running 20 minutes without stopping and walking 30 minutes, 5 kilometers. I was quite pleased. I did this same thing on Tuesday as well. Hopefully I am on my to getting back into shape. 

Things for us are finally not consumed with 'what do we need to do to be legal residence?', or 'what have we not bought for our house so that we can make this a home?'.  So this week was what I might call 'boring'. We had no major events and did a lot of 'normal' things. 

One thing we did attempt to do this week was to teach Jack how to ride his bike without the training wheels. It was his idea, but the effort was short lived. He is just so intimidated and afraid of falling off. It's crazy that he will try to do kart wheels and fall, wrestle with his friends at school (which he gets in trouble for doing), and jump off the swings as he's swinging, often face planting into the sand, but a bike? No way! I guess we will keep trying. 

Friday Jack had his second rugby tournament at the Dubai Sevens, a famous rugby stadium. His team is your typical group of kids under 6 who come out to have fun, run around, and might just pick a blade of grass or two. However, the teams they play are a little more serious. Can someone explain to me why some parents want to relive the glory days (or not so glory days) by pushing their 5 or 6 year old to athletic perfection? Some of the coaches were literally yelling at the kids, not encouraging them. It was so sad. In spite of that, our kids had fun. They haven't won any matches, but they are getting better. Jack has really improved. I fact, in his last game on Friday he almost scored a try. He got the ball, tucked it under his right arm like a football (not sure this was what he was supposed to do) and ran the ball all the way down the right side of the field. As the other team crowded towards him, he quickly turned left and started running into a gap. He was tripped up and landed really hard, possibly knocking the wind out of him. As he got up he turned to see our reaction. We could only yell 'way to go, Jack!', which I think kept him from crying. He turned a couple of other times, but sucked it up like a true kid of mine would do.  He's a tough cookie. The coaches are really impressed with how quickly he's picked up the game.  I'm just happy he likes to play sports. The physical aspect of it is what I think will be so beneficial for him throughout his life.

Jack is about to get that kid's flag.

This is Millie's attempt at rugby. She's trying to put on Jack's socks and cleats. 

That's one of the dads, Bob, photo bombing. 

We came back from Dubai and decided to have curry delivered to Wade and Karen's. Prior to that I decided I would run to the grocery store so that I wouldn't have to worry about going on Saturday. That ended up being a mistake. As I was returning from the store I ran into mass traffic. On Friday evening the new football (soccer) stadium was having a free football match. The local team was playing Manchester City team. As you can guess, every kandora ever seen in the entire city turned out for this event. We thought about going, but so glad we didn't. I can't imagine how long it took for everyone to exit the stadium at the conclusion of the event. I went through two round abouts trying to get home and there was literally no movement at all for several seconds. It was manic. 

Saturday morning, I left Stuart at home to do some school work. Cathy, her girls, the kids and myself headed back towards Dubai to hit the Dubai Outlets. We had talked about doing some shopping there on the way back from Dubai at some stage, but by the time you leave Dubai and whatever activity you have chosen for the day, you are usually too tired to venture through a mall. So we made a purposeful trip just to the outlets. There were some bargains, but not necessarily a place I will frequent. 

When I returned, Stuart was at the driving range with Wade. On the table there was a card from Stuart with some sweet words that only Stuart would say to me. At the end he stated 'I've left something for you in your car'. To give some back story, you need to know that the radio stations we pick up here in Al Ain are interesting to say the least. Most, as you would guess, are all Arabic. However, there is a station called Star FM that mixes Arabic and English, even when the DJs are on. They will be speaking Arabic and then all of the sudden you will hear, 'Here's to a great week, everyone'. Strange to say the least. At any rate, I went out to my car and there was an iPod nano in the console. Ah, so thoughtful. I have to admit, everytime I get to drive his car I am inveous of his iPod and the music he gets to listen to. But now, I get those same play lists. Yahoo!

Saturday evening we went to some new friends' house, Scott and Claire. They are an English couple with two children, Henry and May. Claire works at Jack's school and May is on Jack's rugby team. Also, Claire and Karen are friends. We had bar-b-que pork sandwiches which were delightful. It was a lovely way to end  a great weekend. 

We didn't get home until just after nine. I showered the kids and got both ready for bed. We have been talking with Millie for a little over a week about the 'Pass (pacifier) Fairy' coming to the house, taking her pacifiers and leaving a gift.  Saturday was the designated not. We made a big ceremony of it. She had agreed with this plan so we went for it. We placed her last three pacifiers in a small plastic bowl. Our plan was going to be to have her leave the bowl on the floor. She must have played with the bowl and all three pacifiers for about 30 minutes after we put her in bed. I choose to think that was the way for Millie to tell her pacifiers good bye. 

As I often do, I fell asleep on the sofa until about 1 am. When I awoke I remembered we had to replace the pacifiers with the present, so that I did. We shall see what the night will being.