We are BACK!

My basil plant! Don't mind the dirty window

Over the summer my mom and I went to a tupperwear party (yes they still have them!) and I bought this little handy contraption and brought it back with me. You put your herb of choice into it and the water bottle on the side keeps it all watered so nicely. This way I can totally forget about it (okay maybe not totally) until I need some basil, yum! I will keep you updated on how it is working.

So Ben and I are back in Abu Dhabi. Ben got here a few weeks before I did and I was delayed 5 days because of Hurricane Irene. But I got here, kicked jet lags butt, and here I am on my first day back with kids at school!

Last week we found out that the new campus would not be ready, not much of a shocker around here. Things in Abu Dhabi never happen the way they say they are, we take it all in stride. So what that means for us is that both schools are on one little campus. Now I wasn't going to go out to the new campus I was staying at the old one so it's been a bit of adjustment. So all 500 kids and 70 staff are on one fun filled campus! It's tight but we managed today pretty well. Last year I had a small gym that had foam under it and carpet. At the moment that room is storage for all of the things that can't go out to the new campus. And with lots of classes in the gym I have started going to each class and doing my lessons.

Today was interesting to say the least. I remember how tired it felt after doing the 3 year olds last year but you always hope for better! Well it didn't go horribly but they are only 3 and for that I think they did fine and I know they will get better and better as the year goes on! Today we talked about what the bell means (freeze) and we danced, ran, jumped, and swam around the room. As Ms. Tanya tried to learn all the names and who is Mohammed and who is Muhammed. Love different spellings.

Ben is doing well, he is riding his bike here and there and it hitting the weights in the weight room. No ironman this year but I think he will do some of the smaller triathlons in January and March. He has started his swim lessons and I will have to soon as well! He also plans on coaching the elementary swim team again this year, try outs start next week.

Nothing to crazy going on at the moment. Just trying to find that routine again and get back in it.

I know I said it last year as well, but I am going to try and do a better job of keeping this up to date ;)

Our Wedding in Abu Dhabi

When we got engaged in December, Ben and I both didn't want to wait very long to get married, but living here and with the busy summer we knew that wasn't feasible to have it this summer. Although I think if I let my mom plan the whole thing she would ;) love you mom

Being over here is much different then the states. Ben and I both have our own apartments and are expected to live in them because it is against the law to live with the opposite sex if you are not married. Ben and I were both living in our own apartments but after we got engaged we were ready to be together and live together. We love each other very much and didn't want to wait any longer.

There have been a few teachers from Ben's school who have gotten married here and then have a wedding at home later. We decided that we would talk to Pastor Joe (the pastor at the Evangelical Church here) and see what it was all about. Talking to him and then talking to our parents we decided that we wanted to get married here so that we could start our life together.

We invited our teacher friends and had the sermon on the beach on a Tuesday afternoon, April 26th. Afterward we headed to a restaurant bar to have dinner and celebrate. It was a very nice event and we were blessed with how many of our friends and co workers came out to support us.

We were so fortunate we could do it here but we did miss all of you here. We are still planning on getting married in the states next summer, June 14th 2012 so mark it in your calenders because the next wedding is going to be bigger and better!

We have a wonderful friend who took some great pictures and I put together a little movie. I also had some video but couldn't figure out how to import it. Once I figure that out I will also share it with you.

We love you all and really can't wait to get home for the summer. We are really missing home these days!

We are going on a picnic

As many of you know Ben is a laid back kind of guy. It takes a lot for him to get upset and with most things he lets it roll off his back pretty easy.

Well a couple weeks ago Ben got this in the mail: Thank you Nancy

When Ben plays this game he turns into someone I don't know. I don't mind that he plays video games, really I don't care. But when he plays this game he gets angry (mind you he plays against the computer). He gets so angry he does this...

And most recently this...

When Ben plays this certain video game and gets upset he takes it out on our coffee table. Now the table is from Ikea and of course you get what you pay for. It's probably good the table isn't any nicer because Ben might actually hurt his hand! So to help hide Ben's anger problem while playing his baseball game we got a table cloth...

So now Ben can bang away in anger when he looses against the computer on his game and no one will ever know. I just looks like we are going on a picnic everyday. Ohh one day we will get this house decoration right.

Tanya's Spring break in Goa India!

I would have updated the blog a little earlier about my trip to India but this week at school was crazy. We not only had report cards to write for the students but we were also responsible for ordering. Since we are opening up a new school next year Jen (the other PE teacher) and I were responsible for ordering for that new school. A large undertaking and very stressful. So it was a little crazy this week.

Then every night when I got home Ben of course had already made dinner for me since he was off this week....NOT. haha just kidding he did make dinner a couple times this week. He also went food shopping before I got home and bought me raspberries. Which he knows I love but we never buy because they are expensive. But he did it anyway, he is pretty great.

India was good. I went to practice yoga with this man name Rolf and his wife Marci. People come and practice with him for sometimes 3 months at a time. Almost everyone there is practicing for more then a week. So when I was there the first couple of days they kept asking me how long I was there and I said "just a week" and they walked away. Haha, I obviously not serious enough about my yoga...no no of course not but, I think they didn't want to go too in depth since I was leaving in only a few days. The yoga was good, I saw some really neat things, and I am glad I went

Sunset the first night

Now the beach was the main highlight. I spent all day there. I had planned on maybe getting a scooter and exploring. But the taxi ride from the airport to my guest house I decided that would not be a good idea. People drive very differently there and I didn't feel comfortable. And my sense of direction is horrible, I would have gotten lost.

Nice Waves

So my days were filled with the beach and sunsets. I had some great food at this shack on the beach called Pete's and also some traditional Indian food at a restaurant with a guy who was also practicing yoga.

My taxi ride to the airport was funny. The driver was a real character. I told him I lived in Abu Dhabi and he told me he used to drive taxi there and also Dubai, Oman, Suadi, all over the Gulf. He then told me he used to drive for Sadam Hussan. Now I am a little sceptically but he told me oh yes he did and he had many nice cars, even American cars such as a Buick. Many cars he had, my India Taxi driver told me. Ha he made me chuckle a few times on the hour ride to the airport.

I had a long flight back but finally made it, safely, back to Abu Dhabi. It was nice to be back to my own soft bed and air conditioning. It was hot there and there was no AC anywhere, only the airports.

Now that both Ben and I have had our spring breaks we are pushing through till summer. We are excited to come home for Ben to do his Ironman, to travel to Utah, planning our wedding, and going to some baseball games. And most importantly seeing all our friends and family!

It's been a while

So, so sorry for not writing in a long time! We have been really busy since we got back from Christmas vacation.

Ben is training, training, and doing more training for his Ironman in June. He completed a Olympic Tri in January and did pretty well. He had some trouble with his goggles during the swim and wasn't completely happy with the swim, but felt good on the bike and with the run. His next race will be in March and he rides his bike about 6 hours in one shot on Friday or Saturdays to get ready for it. Ben has also started softball this week. So he will be busy with practice for that after school for the next 8 weeks or so. ACS had their field day and for the first time in about 5 years there was no sand storm! It was actually a beautiful day, not too hot and sunny. He said it went off without a hitch!

I have started doing 3 gymnastics classes at my school on Friday mornings for 3 year olds, 5-8 year olds, and 10 and up. It has been a lot of fun and a great way to make some extra money (but don't tell my principal that! I am doing it only for the love of the sport ;) ), plus Ben is off on his bike all the time I needed to keep myself occupied. I also had a field day at my school. Since we don't have a huge field we had to do 3 sessions of kids. It was a long day but the kids had a blast and we had no issues! No sand storm and some of the kids were even cold when we were doing the sponge relays. I know its nothing like what you all are experiencing with all the snow! I hope spring comes soon and melts all the snow away. I know in PA it already is melting.

Some people have asked us about the wedding plans. Well, there isn't too much that we can do over here. We do know it will be at the church I grew up in, Pt. Pleasant Baptist Church and the reception will be at our fire house. My mom is apart of the ladies auxiliary there and is getting a great deal on the space. Too bad there is no fire pole :). I have looked at a lots of dresses online and found one I really like and can't wait to get back to the states to try it on. Besides that we haven't done too much. We will have a very busy summer of planning!

I hope all are doing well and I will try and make some more time for the blog! Love and miss you all!

A few more days in Chaing Mai

We were in Chaing Mai for about 5 days. The second day we just walked around and enjoyed the city and our pool. The long day of travel and all that elephant training really took it out of us. That night we went to the night bazaar and got some great deals on some stuff. We had a lot of fun haggling for our merchandise, maybe too much.

The third day we went on a Zip line trip. It was called flight of the gibbon and it was really awesome! There were 21 zip lines in the rain forest that we went through. This was Ben's favorite day of the trip. Our guides names were Bird and Woody and they really made the trip."come to me jungle friends!"

The next day we took a Thai cooking class, Ben was hesitant at first but when he heard we got to cook and eat all day he was convinced. We made a lot of different dishes, we hope to re create them back home if we can find all the ingredients.

My awesome spring rolls!

Ben making fried bananas.SOO GOOD!

The chiefs name was Boom and she was great! She really helped us learn how to make these unique dishes and told us some substitutes if we couldn't find things when we got home. We had some really great meals and we were stuffed at the end. Although I think Ben wanted some food later that night, I thought he was crazy!

Our last day in Chaing Mai we rented a scooter and drove up a mountain to a temple at the top. Now we weren't big on Temple watching but people had told us that the view of the city is amazing and worth the trip. So we did and the view was really cool and the temple was probably the nicest in Chaing Mai. Afterward we went to a palace where the royal family stays when they come up North. The flowers here were amazing! So many different types and colors of roses and apparently we were in the blooming season so we were lucky. There were also a wide variety of other flowers as well. It was a nice walk and we got some great photos.



After all our walking around we were ready for some food and a cold drink, so we made our way back down the mountain. When we came to this part with an opening we saw 3 helicopters coming in for a landing and then taking off right away. It was quite the show and there were many people who stopped as well. At this point we really didn't know if we had enough gas to make it down the hill so we just coasted. It was a long decline so we figured we would be okay, and we were. I was laughing the whole way down, I thought it was pretty funny.

That night we left Chaing Mai late to leave for Phuket then off to Ko Phi Phi on the morning ferry. We met a girl at our guest house who was also leaving for the airport and we were chatting with her for a while. She was from Norway and was staying in Thailand a few months. She was heading back to Phuket to spend some time with friends she met there.

Chiang Mai, Elephant Farm

Well to start off our great Thailand adventure the night before Ben proposed to me. By now I am sure you all have heard. We are very excited and are planning on July 2012.

We left Abu Dhabi on December 18th very early in the morning. We had a layover in Qatar and when we got on the plane we learned that it was Qatar National day an that we would not be leaving on time. I was annoyed but had a tone of movies in front of me so I didn't put much thought into it. But then Ben turns to me 2 hours later when we are just taking off and tells me we will miss our flight to Chiang Mai. So then I was annoyed for 6 hours. Well we did miss our flight and we had to buy another ticket, not happy but we needed to get to Chiang Mai that night so we could go to the elephant farm the next day.

Our first day in Chiang Mai we went to Patara Elephant Farm. This is a place where they are breeding elephants because the elephant population is dimensioning in Thailand very quickly. We got there put on our trainer attire and met our elephants. The first thing we had to do is feed the elephants so they would be happy. They are happy when there ears and tails are flapping.

After that we had to look to see if the elephant slept last night by looking at sleeping marks on either side of the elephant, this is to check if they elephant is healthy. Then we had to check to make sure the elephant was sweating, the only place it sweats is by its toes. Then one last to check if it was health was to see if the poop looked healthy. Elephant poop actually doesn't smell and if it does it means the elephant is sick. It was very interesting!

Ben smelling poop, I think he likes it :)

We then had to clean off our elephant by brushing the dirt off its back and then washing it in the river. After that we learned how to get on our elephant. One way is to get on my using their leg and then climbing up. The second way is to by climbing on to their trunk and then they lift you up on to them, then turning around. I was the first one to try and took the trunk method. Its amazing how strong these animals are! It was nothing for my elephant to lift me up.

We then went on a long walk a waterfall where we could swim with the elephants and they could drink. The owner of the farm told us that elephants and can smell if the water is polluted and wont drink if the water is polluted. He said that a new resort was built near the farm and now the elephants wont drink the stream water near the farm they used to drink.

When we reached the waterfall the elephants got in and they just go right under and don't seam to come up. They loved playing in the water. We got in and also played with them. Every time we tried to sit on top of them they would turn sideways and dunk us.

After a swim we had lunch and the elephants got to eat the leftovers. We then got back on our elephants and walked about 40 minutes with them on some very steep narrow paths but it was nothing to the elephants. They were so sure of foot on these trails. We then took a little rest so that the elephants could eat some more. Then Ben and I shared an elephant and rode back to the farm to say goodbye. We gave them some more bananas and said goodbye to them and our trainers that were so helpful.

It was an amazing day to say the least. We learned a lot about elephants and I was glad we got to see them in a safe and healthy environment. There are so many places in Thailand were they aren't treated right and then live shorter lives. It is an experience we will never forget!