ALAN, HEIDI, RYAN, & CALEB

Surprise! We've moved again... this is our seventh state in six years of marriage and I have to say that Missouri is also one of the prettiest of all the places I have ever lived...or been (after Idaho, of course which will always be my favorite...ok, and Phuket, Thailand which will always be number 2). I am going to make this a really simple post, and not write a whole lot, but here are some shots to give you an idea of just how beautiful it is here in Missouri.... anyone want to come and visit?

Adam-Ondi-Ahman is about 1 1/2 hours north of Kansas City and Independence and we were lucky enough to get to stop there on our way to St. Louis....it was awesome.

Alan, Ryan, and I in front of the Valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman.

We drove to the St. Louis temple our first Sunday here (which is only about 20 minutes from our house! yay!) and here is my attempt at a beautiful picture...too bad Ryan was pulling his pants down....but then again, why should I think he'd be doing anything normal? :)

Alan and Caleb walking in Forest Park in downtown St. Louis. This park is 500 acres BIGGER than Central Park in Manhattan...and it is beautiful!

I love this picture....

The rest of these scenery shots are at an old neighborhood built in the 1800's that has been preserved and restored as sort of a museum. It was next to a park we were playing at and it made for some great shots!

End of scenery shots... how did you like the antique touch? Did it make them look like they were really taken 100 years ago? ...or did their baseball and Dubai shirts give them away? heehee :)

My kids love being wrapped up in a "cocoon". It's so cute, I had to take pictures...This is at our apartment with our rented Cort furniture that we sprayed a full bottle of Febreeze on to get the cigarette smell out:

And to wrap up my first post of the summer, I have been in a "culinary creating" mood so I took a few pictures of some yummy recipes I tweaked to make them just the way I like them...and they are all super healthy and sooooo delicious, too!

My version of Panera Bread's Meditteranian Veggie sandwhich

Whole Wheat Double Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Brownies with Whey Protein :) ...perfect for someone attempting the P90X phenomenon but not wanting to cut out chocolate either! heehee

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies...OMIGOSH these are so good! (Recipe at:

http://morganmoore.typepad.com/one_more_moore/2007/01/whole_wheat_cho.html)

So pretty much we are having a good time here in Missouri! Really missing home but so happy we picked somewhere beautiful and exciting to spend the next four and a half months!

THE END.

So my parents moved to Dubai (one of the seven "states" or emirates of the United Arab Emirates"...in the middle east) last summer and we have been planning a trip to visit them ever since. We finally made it there last week (we were there March 9 - 14) and it was one of the most exciting places I have ever been. There is NOWHERE like it. Of this I am very sure. For one thing, they seem to be obsessed with architecture over there. I have never seen so many unique and beautiful buildings in my life--and all in one place! (I took a few pictures of some of the most unique ones and will put them at the end of this post.) The entire city seems to be under construction and I didn't notice hardly any structures that looked like they had been built more than 10 years ago. It was absolutely unbelievable. My other favorite part was all of the people. Dubai is like a melting pot of every culture in the world. Their population consists of practically every ethnicity from native Arabians to Asians to Europeans to Americans to Iranians, Pakistanis, and all kinds of other middle easterners.... you get the idea :) As a result of this there was a massive selection in cuisine--we ate Lebanese, Arabian, Japanese/Italian, and saw hundreds of other delicious choices too. I could have eaten out there for a year without having the same thing twice....but they do seem to like Greek salad a lot. It was on every menu we looked at. And I ordered one almost every day :)

Well anyway, here is a quick summary of what we did every day we were there (with pictures!) Hope you enjoy! ...

Tuesday, March 9 --

Alan and I arrived at the Dubai International Airport at 8pm after a 24 hour trip (16 hours on one plane!) and my parents met us with a delicious mango smoothie and a taxi cab. We drove to their apartment, unpacked, talked for a bit then hit the sack...post benadryl...and slept great!

Wednesday, March 10 --

Wednesday morning mom and I worked out in the gym and then we all headed to Wolfi's Bike shop to pick up my rental road bike for the Abu Dhabi Triathlon on Saturday. (I decided to do the triathlon back in December when I found a link to it one night, before we even had arrangements to go to Dubai...that's sort of why we ended up going that week.) The picture above is of me test riding the bike on the marina walk in front of my parents apartment complex.

We had Lebanese food from the restaurant downstairs for lunch (which, by the way, was very delicious!) and then we headed out! We spent Wednesday afternoon and evening traveling by train and taxi to the Souks or markets (gold souk, spice souk, and old souk) then taking a boat (abra) ride accross the Dubai creek, and then on to the Dubai Mall (biggest mall in the world!) and the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world)! It was FABULOUS...and I don't use that word very often. Here are some pictures of the Burj Khalifa and the Bellagio style fountains in front of it (also the biggest in the world!) More pics of Wednesday to come later...

This is a shot of the Dubai Marina where my parents live. Their building is the short blue one about in the middle of the picture and the Lebanese restaurant is at the bottom in the white part of the building.)

View from the train station near my parents house.

View from the train...look at all those cranes!!!

Cool shot of the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world) that I took from the train.

Looking at it next to other buildings sort of gives you an idea of how TALL it is.

At the Gold Souk: me and the largest gold ring in the world...not sure who they made that for...

This is one of the Abra's like the one we rode on to cross the Dubai creek.

The Old Souk.

The Spice Souk.

The largest fountain display in the world at the Dubai Mall (the biggest mall in the world) and in front of the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world)!

Alan and I eating dinner at Scoozi-A Japanese/Italian cuisine at the Dubai Mall. I'm sure it was really tasty but I had clogged sinuses and couldn't hardly taste anything the first three days we were there :(

My parents and the Burj.

One more shot of it...because it's just so cool!

The front of the Dubai Mall...duh. Too bad it was dark because that thing is HUGE.

Thursday, March 11 --

We drove to the beach in front of the Burj Al Arab (the only 7 star hotel in the whole world, cheapest rooms start at $1,500 a night!) and I did a practice swim for my race, and of course we took pictures. Here is one with the Hotel in the background:

And here is a better picture of the Burj Al Arab that I found on the internet...so you can get a better idea of what it is like:

If you look at the top of the hotel, you can see a little helicopter landing pad and a circle shaped putting green that hovers next to it... And, the beach we were swimming at was the one just past the big green circle of land behind the Hotel.)

Soooo, after that awesome adventure, we drove to Abu Dhabi so I could pick up my registration packet for the Triathlon and attend the "manditory pre-race briefing" ...we stopped at the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque, the largest mosque in the world (of course) on the way and got some really great shots.

They made us put these on because we were wearing shorts. Do we look like authentic Muslims?

The mosque was so beautiful inside. This whole room had flowers and vines from floor to ceiling. I was copying a bunch of other women I saw doing this same shot :)

The mosque from our taxi window. This was the only way I could get the whole thing in the picture!

After we got back to Dubai that night, we went to dinner on the walk and then found this Chili's and took a picture in front of it in honor of Preston...Elder Wheiler :)

Friday, March 12 --

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME :) Friday is the Sabbath in Dubai and other Muslim countries so we went to church that morning with my parents who were the speakers in Sacrament Meeting, too!

I met one of my old college friends, Tiffani (Clark) Bates, at church in Dubai! My mom had just been to her baby shower a couple days before and told me about it but I had no idea it was her! What are the chances?! I didn't immediately recognize her but it only took a couple of minutes before we connected everything! We both still have pictures from a group date we went on 10 years ago!!

After church we went back to Abu Dhabi to drop off my bike and other race equipment at their designated places and have a relaxing evening in our beautiful Sheraton hotel rooms.... BUT that never happened. Instead, when we got to the hotel they wouldn't let us check in because we didn't have our passports with us. We debated with them for about 45 minutes before we realized we had no choice but to make the 1 1/2 hour drive back to Dubai (which we had just completed not 2 hours earlier), get the passports, and drive another 1 1/2 hours back to Abu Dhabi--a total of 6 hours and two trips in one day from Dubai to Abu Dhabi to Dubai to Abu Dhabi. Not ideal. However, I am proud to say we were good sports for the most part and tried to make the drive worthwhile by talking, sleeping, and uploading pictures to the internet (since there is free wireless internet no matter where you are!) We ran into another unfortunate circumstance, however, when we decided to stop for some Chili's to go on our way back to Abu Dhabi. The taxi driver finally found a spot in the busy parking lot and we waited for 25 minutes for our food, got back in the taxi and ended up waiting in a massive crowd of cars for 30 minutes, all of whom were trying to get out of the same huge parking lot and onto the same one lane road (not very good planning on the builder's part). So by the time we finally made it back to Abu Dhabi it was 9pm and my stomach was still full of pasta. Also not ideal on the night before my first triathlon. But I went to bed hoping for the best...and relying on a small dose of benadryl at the last minute, just in case...but again, it was not to be. Both Alan and I layed awake for most of the night and I think it was around 2:30 when we both finally dozed off, only to be awaked by the courtesy hotel wake-up call at 4:45. Once again, very NOT ideal. But I am proud to say that I never lost it. I just pulled on my stylish zoot suit, did a few crunches, and we headed for the race start. Once we were there all of the frustration of the previous 12 hours evaporated and I transformed into adrenaline pumping triathlete.....

Saturday, March 13--

Sporting my color coded (white meant short course racer) Abu Dhabi International Triathlon swim cap and my favorite Speedo Vanquisher goggles and trying to keep warm......

On your mark...

Get set.....

Go!!!!!!

Finishing my first and probably only ever one mile swim in the Arabian Gulf:

This is where we swam:

(That beautiful structure is called the Emirates Palace and this was it's private lagoon. The Emirates Palace is a luxurious Six Star Hotel and also serves in part as the Presidential living quarters.)

Anyway, moving on...

The bike section of the race was 62 miles of completely closed five lane roads, over bridges, through tunnels, along the beach, past miles and miles of new construction, and my favorite part: around the Yas Island F-1 circuit--the smoothest part of the whole ride!! This next picture my dad shot of me at about mile 60-- or 3 hours 40 minutes into the ride...five minutes to go!!!

And after a six mile run, here is the finishing stretch...

VICTORY!!!!!!!!

Alan took a picture of the race results that they sent out later that day. My total time was 5:25:23. I came in 315 out of 372 short course finishers (381 starters) and 41 out of 53 women that finished the course...sooooo definitely not one of the fastest :) ...but I am just happy I didn't finish last and it does feel kindof cool to be one of only 53 women in a race including over 300 men :) GIRL POWER!!!

After the race, we went back to the hotel, showered, ate my See's chocolates that I'd been saving ever since the SLC airport (they were my delicious "prize" for finishing the race), and headed back to Dubai to return my trooper of a rode bike to Wolfi's. This is Wolfi's:

P.S. I love them!!! They were the greatest people ever!!!

Sunday, March 14 --

Our last day in Dubai, and we made it an eventful one. We took a trip out to the Palm Jumeriah (you should google it, it's a completely man made island in the shape of a palm tree with each branch of the palm lined with cookie cutter mansions, each with ocean front property either in front of their house or in back. What a smart idea.) There is also a ring of land that goes around the Palm shaped Island on which sits the magnificent ATLANTIS RESORT and it's masterpiece of a waterpark: AQUAVENTURE!! We spent the entire day there and loved every second...as you will see below:

A shot of one of the branches of the Palm. They are very long and narrow. Only two rows of homes on each branch (in order to give everyone their aforementioned oceanfront property).

On the tram heading to the Atlantis!!!

Here is my dad about to go down the "Leap of Faith" waterslide, which he re-named the "leap of death" but which should really be called the "drop of death". It is straight down and goes through a shark tank before shooting you into the pool at the end.

And there goes Alan, sporting the great Speedo Vanquishers to aid him in seeing the sharks as he wizzes past them.... unfortunately it didn't end up working too well...

My turn!

And I am proud to say I did it TEN TIMES, a feat which I never would have attempted had my dad not suggested we defeat Nick, the "wimpy" four time leap of faith veteran. (Heehee we love Nick!!)

Sitting on the Aquaventure Beach. This beach is part of the ring that goes around the Palm Island which you can see one of the branches of behind us. So totally cool.

My awesome and adventurous parents!

Here is a small picture I found of an airplane view of the Palm Jumeriah. The Atlantis is at the tip of the surrounding ring:

After Aquaventure, we got some Cold Stone Icecream (on the way out of the Atlantis; the icecream scooper guys were throwing icecream like they were juggling balls and they never once dropped any! One guy accidentally hit the icecream on the ceiling though....needless to say, it was very entertaining! And once again, only the best for Dubai--even the best Cold Stone Icecream scoopers!)

Sunday evening we went to the Marina Mall Grocery Store to get a bunch of salad ingredients for our lite and last dinner in Dubai. While we were there I saw something that reminded me of my awesome friend, Meieli and her love of cadbury eggs! This picture is for you, Mei :)