Field Trip to Desert Ranch

Today, we went to Al Sahra Desert Ranch just outside of Dubai for school field trip.  The weather was perfect and we had fun.

Arabian Horses

Korean Restaurant:) 대장금 한국 식당

We went to a Korean restaurant and...we all enjoyed yummy food we have been craving for!

:: Marinated Beef Rib...

:: Sam Kyup Sal (uncured bacon)

:: No need to say anything! HAPPY ME!

Think out of the box......Cardboard box sandwich!

What do we do with boxes after unpacking??.....Making sandwich with roast beef, lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese....yum...

It's beginning to feel like home.....

Finally, we have some furniture in the house.   Without having any furniture (especially sofa/couch) in our living room for two months, we just had enough of hearing echoes (we have a very high ceiling) in the house! haha.

When we moved from Korea to Dubai, we literally shipped only necessity items and didn't ship any furniture except for boys's beds.  We have been out for furniture shopping for many weekends for hours and hours to the shopping malls, furniture shops, we just couldn't find anything we liked.    I find furniture/home furnishing here in UAE in general, either very modern and boxy, or very fancy and too colorful and neither of them are our style...and of course, what we like was way over our price range....Anyway, we found nice furniture we like over the weekend (they were on a huge sale) so we got them at very good price...I love good deals! lol.

Now, our house doesn't feel so empty and it's beginning to feel like home....All I have to do is adding some touch to it and hang lots of pictures around the house.

Hand made hammer..

Caleb is quite industrial.....he made this wooden hammer (aid by Ben) using wood scraps/rubber band with his real hammer and nails James bought for him (right, Father like son...not many fathers would buy hammer and nail for his 7 and 5 years old boys:)

He even bent the nails to prevent from splitting...what a smart boy!

Life in UAE.....Cash Only

One day, I needed to get gas so I pulled over to the gas station and told the guy(they fill gas for you and you don't even have to turn the car off)to fill it up.   UAE is totally a service oriented country!

I handed my debit card over to pay, the guy told me that I can only pay with cash! I didn't have any cash with me and my card wouldn't work on ATM machine that day.

(Photo from Gulf news)

I didn't know what to do..do I have to go to the police station because of not paying for the gas? - Because I have heard many bad stories about the penalties (traffic fines are really high and if you have a  bounced check, you go to jail)

Thank goodness, he filled out some kind of form(like IOU form) with my info and kept the copy there with him and told me that I can come back and pay within 24 hours.  Wow...that was very nice system.

All I(James:lol) have to do was paying the money I owe back that evening!

In UAE, some things can be purchased by cash only (gas, phone recharge card, delivery food order,,,etc) so I carry some cash with me since then! Learned by the lesson! lol.....

My Three Boys...

I'm not sure who is having more fun...lol!

As I said before, our back yard is like desert, sand and some desert plants and that's it! the amount of sand the boys bring in to the house after they played in the sand..unbelievable!.....I literally have to shake them off  and wash them before they come in.   The other day, I was doing laundry and checking pockets for possible coins/trash/legos...I got about hand full of sand from Ben's pants pocket! lol.   But, it has been such a blessing to our boys..they play in the sand hours and hours...what a great playground the little boys can have....backyard full of sand!

Happy 12th Anniversary!

12 years ago, at the Korean church in Enterprise, Alabama, in the day of pouring rain, we said, "I do" to get married.

Happy Anniversary!  Thank you for the beautiful flower bouquet and taking me out to my favorite Chinese restaurant.   After 12 years of marriage, finally I'm spoiled with flowers and chinese food on special occasions!.

(I won't tell anyone that you used to say buying flowers is wasting of money and didn't like Chinese food....hahaha)

I still love you no matter what!

Happy New Year

in Dubai style:)

In the winter (Low 70F's), considered as cold weather, the pool is heated, 

and in the summer, (115F-120F) it is chilled to keep cool.

We went swimming today and it was just so weird  that we are having 

a new year in this warm weather but the pool felt so nice and warm!