Hamdan Awards....

I told you last week that CURE got an award last week in Dubai. It's called the Hamdan Award.

This award is presented to four individuals {personalities or organizations (doctors or others)} who provide important voluntary services and who significantly contribute to alleviating the suffering of a large number of human beings subjected to exceptional circumstances such as catastrophes, epidemics, famine, wars and natural calamities. 

The man on the left is our President and CEO at Oasis.  Both Trey and I directly report to David which is nice because there is so much to learn from him.  When he tells you stories, you feel like he's lived about 12 lives already.....his wife Beth is in the above picture.  Dale Brantner is also in this picture. He works out headquarters for CURE in Harrisburg.

And then there is always this character!  I have NO idea what he is doing here.  The background behind him was pretty cool....except that it got to be a bit much when you were looking at it all night.

 

Peppy's Pita.....

Rising for the second time before you put them in the oven

We made an attempt at making pita.  It was pretty good but not all puffed up as they should have...but they still tasted great. The recipe says to use a bread machine and I'm sure that makes it easy but we didn't do that. We just mixed the dough in a Kitchen Aid mixer and then my dad kneaded it by hand a bit.  We let it rise and then followed the rest of the directions.  It tastes great, but I don't know why they all didn't puff up.  It still tasted good with the hummus we made last night.

Here's a recipe that I got from another couple who used to live in Nazareth while we were in B-town. 

In the oven....some of them puffed up. All of them still had the pocket when we pulled them out. 

Ingredients

• 1 1/8 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in bread pan of your bread machine, select Dough setting and start. When dough has risen long enough, machine will beep.
2. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Gently roll and stretch dough into a 12 inch rope. With a sharp knife, divide dough into 8 pieces. Roll each into a smooth ball. With a rolling pin, roll each ball into a 6 to 7 inch circle. Set aside on a lightly floured countertop. cover with a towel. Let pitas rise about 30 minutes until slightly puffy.
3. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F (260 degrees C). Place 2 or 3 pitas on a wire cake rack. Place cake rack directly on oven rack. Bake pitas 4 to 5 minutes until puffed and tops begin to brown. Remove from oven and immediately place pitas in a sealed brown paper bag or cover them with a damp kitchen towel until soft. Once pitas a softened, either cut in half or split top edge for half or whole pitas. They can be stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for 1 or 2 months.

Abu Dhabi

The night before we flew out, we stayed in a hotel in Abu Dhabi since Trey had a meeting and a lecture to attend.  Our friend from work was also staying in Abu Dhabi for a conference so we went out for the evening in the city and then took a walk along the Corniche. The weather was perfect and is so enjoyable this time of year. 

This is a beautiful hotel in Abu Dhabi called Emirates Palace Hotel.  I love how they light it up at night. It looks just like Christmas at home.

In early December, the UAE celebrates National Day. This year they celebrated 39 years of being a country.  They put up lights all around which is so nice because the country colors are red, green and black.  It makes it nice for those of us who celebrate Christmas. 

As time goes by.....

Usually when we fly home, we take a night flight and arrive at home in the late afternoon.  It's nice because we're usually tired and just force ourselves to stay up for a couple hours and then hit the sack.  Usually we wake up early, but that's not a problem. The early morning is pretty nice.

This time we flew home on a day flight......we left Abu Dhabi at 10:30am and then arrived to my parents around 7:30pm.  We barely could stay up for an hour. I was asleep by 8:30pm and Trey earlier than me.  But our problem has been waking up SUPER early this time.  The first night I woke up at 3pm, Trey at 4pm.  Last night, Trey woke up at 1:30am and me at 3am again.  Trey made it the whole day until 6pm and then went to bed.   Today I just woke up at 4am but I'm happy because I made it to 7:30pm last night, took 2 Tylenol PM and slept for 8.5 hours. 

But this is what happens when you wake up at such odd hours....by mid morning you feel like you've conquered the whole world.

Yesterday we decided that this would be a good meal for 10:30am.

Pasta with olive oil, garlic, lemon, wine and shrimp.  It was sooo good but I was laughing so hard that we were eating that at 10:30am.  Thank you jet lag.

On the first day of Christmas.....

We arrived home safely last night.  It was a long trip--we did a 15 hour straight flight from Abu Dhabi to New York.  I was done at hour 8 of the flight......the poor lady next to me. I was so restless.   I can't even think about going back. 

I woke up at 3am ready for the day..... enjoy some pictures from our first morning. 

Baby it's cold outside!

The tree. I love these big colored lights with the old reflectors.

We started the fire first thing this morning.

Home, sweet, home.

1. We put up our tree.....I'll get a picture up some time soon.
2. We went caroling in the desert.
3. Christmas party at the Hulsey home with all of our friends who are all 40+.  Seriously, I like our  friends (all 40+)! They enjoy partying, too.
4. I can't forget about crashing the bike....my leg reminds me everyday.
5. Finding little piece of America here.  Yesterday, we went to Chili's with our friends.  I don't know why we went there...I don't really care about Chili's in the US...why here!? But anyway, while we were sitting there, they were playing oldies songs and it felt like we were just in America for a second....except for the fact that the people sitting across from me were wearing black abayas and the guy wearing a white kandora.  Trey spotted this sign.  Shout out to Springfield, MA.

And an Extra Credit: Tonight we are going to the Hamdan Awards for Oasis Hospital. CURE is getting an award in Dubai tonight.  We're pretty excited.  I'll update you later if I find something good to tell you:)

It's a beautiful day.....

This weather has been fabulous.  Tonight we're enjoying our patio. 

Sitting outside at the table, each of us doing our own thing (Trey studying arabic, me writing a blog as you can see), candles lit around the patio, enjoying some good music and good weather.

The patio door is open, the Christmas tree is on and the Christmas lights over the tv that are strung on the garland are also lit. 

Many nights after work feel like a rat race or we enjoy having people over for dinner.....BUT these are the nights that I enjoy once in a while after work:)

We leave in a week for the US. Can't wait. The last time we were with family for Christmas was 2006 so we're excited.