Noah for Halloween

We don't really celebrate Halloween here. But we thought it would be fun to play dress up with Noah and all the outfits he has. So if we did celebrate Halloween here Noah could be....

A Bahraini Soccer Player


or..
A Chinese Man


or...
A Saudi Arab
(or an angel in the Christmas pagent depending on how familiar you are with Arab style thobes....)

What's y'alls vote?

Carving Pumpkins

L&A, this is for you. We miss you guys.

Noah not really sure about this whole gooey pumpkin business.

This is B's pumpkin.

This is Noah's pumpkin.....with some help from Daddy.

The two together.

Happy Halloween! Hope something makes you scream like Noah. :)

Quote That I Found Interesting

I just read this so I felt a need to share it. Being is that this is a family blog and is usually filled with pictures of Noah and how we are trying to live in another culture I will refrain from blasting you with my commentary on this, so just read it and imagine..... :)

"Today Islam claims more than 1/5 of the world's population and by 2025, some statisticians predict one out of every three people in the world will be Muslim."

Pneukuntree Baybiotitus

B and I went to the doctor yesterday and apparently we have picked up from the Courtneys a disease called Pneukuntree Baybiotitus (Nu Kun Tree Bay Beo Titus) It is a rare disease found in young couples who move around from country to country alot.

Basically, you can tell if you have this disease if you find yourself pregnant shortly after you move to a new country.........

For those of you with mouths open, I will say it again so it will sink in quicker.

B and I (mainly B) are pregnant again!

In our quest to over populate the world and expand the Bullion Nation, we are pregnant. I' m not sure why it always happens within two months of moving to a new country though. Hopefully this cycle doesn't continue the rest of our lives. That could prove to be overwhelming!

But yes, Noah is having a little brother or sister. And we are very happy, so celebrate with us. Go out to eat and go ahead and order that dessert or that extra something. Don't worry! It's for the baby!! Go out and buy that shirt/book/CD/DVD/whatever that you've been wanting, its a celebration!

For those of you that need answers here are some basic things you may be asking:

How far along?
8 weeks

How is B feeling?
It's the first trimester, so morning sickness is here to stay for another month or so.

When is the baby due?
First of June, Noah will be almost two

Was it planned?
No, are you kidding me? TWO in diapers????? We aren't cr.....well, ..No, it wasn't planned.

Do you want a boy or a girl?
B wants a girl. I am a bit nervous about a girl, but I mean, I am happy with whatever.

Will the baby be born there or in the States?
We are having the baby here. The health care here is great and we love our doctor. She is wonderful.

Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth. ^Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Psalms 127

An Evening at KFC

Tonight as we were out running errands we swung into KFC to grab some food before running a couple more errands. A couple of things that caught our attention that I thought you would enjoy.

1) Working Hours
This is what hung below the open sign. We tried to get a picture of it, but it didn't turn out.

WORKING HOURS
10:00AM until 1:00 AFTER MIDNIGHT

I thought it was strange wording and it made me smile.

2) It's Finger Lickin' Good
This is the slogan for KFC here. I can't really remember if that is it in the States or not, but it is funny how some things just don't translate well. On the English sign it said "It's Finger Lickin' Good," but on the Arabic side it said,

تأكل اصابعك وراه

Which literally means, "You eat your fingers after it!" Now I am sure that this is a phrase that an Arab would read and think, "Oh, man, that must be some really good chicken." But for me, I can't really think of anything that would make me want to just keep on until my nickname was Nubby. You know?

Anyways, thought you would smile at these.

Labels You Should Read

We saw these this week and thought you would enjoy this.

Zaatar is the Arabic word for Thyme, so they are Thyme flavored. It is good. For those of you that know Arabic food it tastes very similiar to Mana'eesh.

That's right, Volcano Water. I got nothing. I did get a little bit of heartburn after I drank it though. :)

Hair Growth by Mr. Bubbles

Are you embarrassed at your thinning hair? When you leave the house are you always reaching for a cap? When people are sitting next to you in a room are they usually squinting? Don't live in shame anymore. Just rub a little Mr. Bubbles on you and "poof" instant hair.



Are the kids in school making fun of you because you can't grow any facial hair? Say no! Mr. Bubbles has got you covered. Need a beard. No worries. Need some chest hair? No worries. Mr. Bubbles has got you covered.

When Noah wants you up......

This morning I woke up on my side facing the edge of the bed. You know that freaky sensation where you "feel" someone there. I open my eyes and Noah is staring at me eye level smiling. I smiled back politely and roll towards the middle, leaving my back facing Noah.

Thats right, I turned my back on my poor, defenseless son.

I doze back off and in a few minutes I "feel" someone staring at me again. This was coupled with the feeling of a certain small body climbing up the foot of the bed and crawling up the bed between B and I. Then that "feeling' that someone was staring at me was coupled with a "certainty" that someone what slapping me on both cheeks. I open my eyes and Noah (and you thought he was poor and defenseless) is laying there smiling at me. So I did what any loving father would do.

I pushed him over to his mother and turned my back on him again. I slept very peacefully too...for about another hour.

At lunch today B and I were talking about this morning's adventures and I got the rest of the story. Apparently Noah was desperate to have someone to play with this morning, so when I rolled him over to B, he then began punching her face. Then played the same game of running back and forth between her bedside and the door trying to get her up.

That was our morning. :)

Arabs.....Well, me too I guess.

This is a picture of a car on fire at an intersection.

We noticed that traffic was pretty one night and then we notice that above the cars infront of us we could see a fairly large flame coming from the intersection ahead of us. I pulled off an exit early to take the side road to get by intersection and turn right.

I couldn't move! Apparently every one thought of the same thing, so the entire exit ramp next to the car a blaze was full of Land Cruisers and SUVS with their flashers on! They had all jumped the curb and pulled on the exit ramp and put it in park and gotten out and were taking pics and videos of the flaming car with their mobile phones!

And they weren't moving!! They parked it and stayed there until the fire department came and put out the fire. We were stuck there. But the thing was, we were the only ones not parking and running over there with our mobile phones to take pictures (that is why our picture of it is blurry :) ).

Ramadan Specials

Ramadan here is great!! That's right, I said it. I like Ramadan. I mean, of course, sometimes it is a pain in the neck to not eat or drink outside your own house during daylight hours because its against the law and yes it sometimes is upsetting that some of your Muslim friends blow you off during their holy month because you are just an ignorant blasphemer, but overall I like it.

One reason I like it is the great Ramadan Specials. You can go break fast at Dairy Queen for 5 bucks and get double meat double cheesburger, fries, salad, dates, and a drink. Chili's will give you Chicken Crispers, soup, salad, dates, a drink, and desert for 10 bucks. That will feed an entire army!

The best thing is the Micky D's Date Pie!!! That's right, Fig Newtons move over. Just thought you would want to see a picture of it.

[the reason everything is served with dates is tradition.... and well, that's really the only thing that grows naturally here in Arabia besides oil]

No, No, NO!!!

Noah understands what "no" means. You say "no" and he immediately, temporarily stops what he was doing.
The other day we went looking for Noah (he has a tendency to run to other rooms and get quiet, which is when you really worry). Noah loves to play with our oven (you see? really worry!!) He likes to click on the electrically light button that sparks so you can light the gas stove top. He runs over there and pushes it and listens to it click. We tell him "no" and swat him, he repeats, we swat him harder, he repeats, blah, blah, blah ....vicious cycle.

Well we heard in the kitchen...
CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK (Noah playing with the oven)

Then we hear...
NO! NO! NO! NO! (Noah telling himself that it is wrong)

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!
NO! NO! NO! NO!
CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!
NO! NO! NO! NO!

Finally when we walk in there, Noah looks up and immediately drops his arms down to his side and walks away like nothing just happened.

My son is living proof of the doctrine of original sin.

Legal in Three Countries

Today I went down and picked up my third Drivers License! I am now officially a resident in three different countries and have three sets of IDs. I am thinking about changing my name to Jason Bourne.

Spudoodle Palooza!!

That's right, spudoodle palooza!

Since B and I have been dating we have played a game while we are driving on who can see the most spudoodles (cars with one headlight out).

I realize that everybody has different names for these rare and fascinating creatures, but I would like to point out that in the Latin Animal Categorizing Thinga-ma-Jigger it is called a spudoodeles doodelas. So spudoodle is closest to the scientific name.

Anyways, the thing is that here we see about 5 every night. We usually would slap our hand to the roof and call out, "There's one!" But now they are so normal it would be like driving through Brownwood and calling out everytime you saw a truck, so they've lost there value here I guess.

We were telling a friend here about our little game and they thought we were rather stupid and that spudoodle was not a good name for these one-headlighted creatures.

So the question is: What do you call a one-headlighted car?