If I posted a status on my facebook page for today it would say: Jessica Hulsey wishes there was something else to do in Al Ain besides go to the mall.  Really.  I'm thankful that we have some good friends to hang out with and I'm really thankful for the weekend but I can't wait to get into our house so that we have projects to do!  Like painting or our garden or decorating our new place. 

We could go to the pool but my husband informed me today that he's sort of like a cat and doesn't really like to get wet....hmm.....where the heck did this come from......wish I knew that 6 years ago:)  Really, to be honest with you, this might sound dumb, but it's too hot to swim in the middle of the day....so 5:00pm seems about the right time to go...but my bathing suit is still in storage.  We enjoyed the gym, though and it's usually pretty quiet on weekend afternoons (I am so sure that everyone is home sleeping because that is what the weather makes you want to do.)

Can you tell that we're getting sick of temporary housing and not having our stuff yet. It's coming. We got to go look at tile and cabinets for our kitchen this week...we're doing a small overhaul...not a complete one but some necessary changes. We're looking for cheap things to replace them, though since the hospital is only renting this place and we don't want to stick too much money into something that we are renting, obviously....but still if Trey wants a happy wife, a few things are necessary to make this place livable.   I heard about these cabinets that actually look really nice but are just pressed wood or something stuff with compacted newspaper.  They actually look great and seem to be the right price.  Anyway, my new goal is to be in our new apartment before we go for vacation in August...seems reasonable, right!?

I forgot it's Memorial Day weekend. Hope you all have a great 3-day weekend and enjoy a good b-b-q and parade somewhere.

So working in a multicultural setting can be all sorts of things....funny, frustrating, a learning experience, etc.   I think I get more laughs than anything.......

Last week, at my first daycare meeting with parents, I was sitting with a Filipino co-worker.  We got onto the subject of how cute the kids in the daycare are.   I said something like  "They are such little peanuts and I want to eat them."

She looked at me with a face that said "I've never heard anyone say that before." So I go on to explain how you can say that about little kids and it just essentially means that the kids are really cute.

She says "Can I say that to Mr. XXX" (I will protect his name).  Mr. XXX is our co-worker and about 42 years old.  He happens to be  a shorter Filipino man.

Me:  "No, don't ever say that to him." and then I just started dying laughing with another woman who is from Canada and was sitting there listening to our conversation.

Could you imagine.....my young Filipino co-worker says to our older Filipino co-worker "You're a peanut and I want to eat you."  Nope, doesn't work!

Is it even funny to you?  It still makes me laugh really hard but maybe it's one of those situations where you had to be there.

I put a spell on you.....

Last week, Trey and I noticed a few things spelled in interesting ways while visiting the East Coast of the UAE.

Terry Hulfey, we're glad that you are staying with us for the night.

(At a local Lebanese Restaurant)

Hi, I'd like to order some Dried Meat.....

Oh wait, you said that you wanted Homes with meat......

We don't have that this evening, but instead we could offer you Bar BQu Lamp.  

Oh, you'd rather have the Lamp Chops.

One order comin' up!

All Falls Down.....

They are starting with the new hospital construction soon --hopefully July!  But before they do that, they need to take down a few things. They started taking down some homes.  Our friends Jenna and Dexter lived here just a short 10 days ago! Now they're in Kenya. 

Happy Happy Birthday.....

Our boss and his wife took us out last night to a fun restaurant called Trader Vic's for Trey's birthday.  We had a great time and they made it really nice for his birthday.  We arrived and they had party hats on the table, a banner on Trey's seat and glitter all over the table.

At the end, the Filipino live singers (with their full accents) sang a nice rendition of Happy Birthday to Trey as they brought out a cake.  It was pretty great yet Trey wanted to crawl under the table.   What a great way to celebrate a 30th b-day. 

In my next THIRTY YEARS.....

Today

this guy

turns 30!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERRY!

It's gettin' hot in here...soo....

Mmm..I feel like a limp noodle today. It's just hot. I don't care if it's 101, 108 or 120...it's still flippin' HOT.  At some point it just feels toasty and today I'm feeling it.  

Today I went onto my igoogle home page and saw that it is a nice 42 degrees back home in PA and MA and here it's 108. 

The annoying part is that everyones favorite thing to say is "Just wait, it will get worse, this is nothing yet." 
Mmm....108 doesn't feel awesome but I'm sure 115 doesn't feel so good either.

Anyway, Trey is concentrating on trying not to say "It's hot here"......we try to come up with different ways to say it like "Today is not a good day for a long sleeved shirt." or "It's not cold out today." 

That's all.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Combine oats and milk and allow to stand for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease each cup of one 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Stir egg, oil, 1/2 cup of the brown sugar, chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of the pecans into the oat and milk mixture.
3. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add oat mixture to flour mixture, stirring until just moist. Fill each cup of one 12-cup muffin tin 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops with the remaining brown sugar and pecans.
4. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes.

We are the world, we are the children.....

Oh man....so I got a new piece added to my job this week.

Our daycare on campus!  Me....what?!  I have never done this before but with the help of my sister and the internet I'm convinced that I can do it. 

One of our V.P.'s had it on here plate with lots and lots of other things...and she needs to get rid of a few so she asked if I would take this over.  It's kind of her to have confidence in me that I can do it.....I can keep it status quo easily, but really my goal is to improve it.  She did a lot with it since she took it over in July and she is now passing it off hoping that I will improve it even more.

So I have a goal and will work towards it.

I went out to our "babysitting" (that's what they call it here) facility today.  It's such a small facility in my mind but we'll work with it!  I have some ideas and the team leader has some ideas, too. So I better get workin'. 

If you have ideas for crafts or activities we can do with this little kiddos, please let me know.  They range in age from 0-5. 


Anybody have kids in a daycare...any schedule ideas?  We have one but what do you do with such a long day...our daycare is at a hospital so it is open ALL day from early morning until 11pm so that the evening shift crowd can use it, too.


HELP!

The other side....

I haven't written in a while on here.  So what have we been up to:


1) This past weekend Trey needed to go to another city in the UAE for work called Fujairah or Fujayrah (it is spelled a few different ways since it's really spelled in arabic and we make it english) and I decided to go along.  It was a pretty good weekend.  We got to meet the staff at a maternity hospital there and then meet with a man we met in Al Ain when we first came to visit.   We got to drink coffee on the beach and enjoy the sound of the waves...love that sound! 



Usually we head to the Westish Coast (where Dubai and Abu Dhabi are) but we went to the other side this weekend. The Indian Ocean side.

Fujairah and towards the north of the city are all beach essentially.  There isn't much around except beach towns and resorts but it has potential to be a nice weekend away.  I read about some snorkeling and diving places so maybe we'll try to do that next time.

It was the first time for me to put my feet in the Indian Ocean!  I plan on doing that a lot more in other parts of the world. 

2) I'm really excited to travel and I keep mapping out the places I want to go from here.  We're halfway around the world from our home, so really anything is an option.....New Zealand would be far but definitely on my list as it is much farther from the States.  Where else you ask?! Thailand, Sri Lanka, Italy, Australia...ahhh, I have the travel bug! 

3) We still didn't move into our house yet.  Yeah...we're still in the guest house but it's okay.  We looked at another house last week because the original house we thought we were moving into was occupied by a doctor who thought he wanted to stay there instead of move off campus.....but then decided later he wanted to move on campus (thank goodness!!!).  Seriously, the 2nd house we were thinking of moving into was soooo BAD and would need a TON of work.  Tons of work. This house we plan to move into needs lots of work, too but it's doable and I can handle it.  I'm actually pretty excited to fix it up, paint, get a new bathroom, etc.  It will be nice to see the stuff we shipped and get settled.   We keep telling people that we'll have them over when we move into our new house--ha ha, now it's like a joke because we never get there!

4) I think we're going to Syria in June for work which has potential to be cool but good for work stuff, too.  We'll see.

5) It's getting warm.  We're concentrating on not saying "It's hot here".  It does nothing but make you feel sad and think that July and August will be so depressing.  I'm already sick of living inside air conditioning and it's only starting.

6) I finally bought a bathing suit this past weekend since mine is in storage (I couldn't even think about the fact that we would need a bathing suit when we were packing our shipment in Massachusetts in January-get the idea--it's hard to imagine that it can actually get warm!).  I can now use the pool where we became members to the gym.   I'm pretty excited.

7) And I made some really good chocolate chip oatmeal muffins this past weekend for the new church that is coming about. I'm so excited on many levels.  But back to the chocolate chip muffins..usually I think they are bland and dry so I never bother to make them...but these were moist and so great. You soak the oatmeal in milk for 15 minutes before mixing it into the flour, etc.  I think that is the trick that makes them taste so good.  Trey just asked me if I could make them again.  I'll post the recipe in my next post.

8)  The BIG T (also know as Terry in the Middle East) turns 3-0 this Friday!  I'm trying to figure out what to do for him. I'm horrible at birthdays.  But I need to do something.  Ideas?