Thursday, September 16, 2010

Get down with VIP . . . Yeah, you know me!!!

For some of us, the title of this blog will bring back memories of Spring Break in High School. However, I am pretty sure that Naughty by Nature wasn't thinking about football (soccer to those of you west of the Atlantic) when they penned this song but that is what led me to the title of this blog and is the subject of its contents.

Back in April, we attended an early Cinco de Mayo party at our neighbors', Drew and Lori, house. It was a fantastic event with great food, cervices, margaritas, a pool, and intoxicated guys wearing giant sombreros and fake mustaches . It actually felt like an evening a Joe T. Garcias! Amanda and I spent most of our time talking with our other neighbors, Phil and Claire, who are English/Scottish. As it turns out, Phil is the CEO of one of the local football clubs and apparently is a rock star in the sports marketing world. We talked about ways that they could get attendance up at the football matches as the team was actually paying people to come to the games to fill the seats, even though the team was pretty good. His boss, Sheikh Mansour (owner of Manchester City football club and younger brother of the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi), had challenged him with increasing attendance. We told him we had six people that could fill seats anytime. He vowed to take us up on our offer.

Every time that we see Phil and Claire out walking their dog, we always ask when football season starts. Well, it started earlier this month, and Phil invited Amanda and I to the game between his club, Al Jazira, and the other Abu Dhabi football club, Al Wahda. The game was scheduled for tonight (Thursday) and he sent us invitations to sit in the President's Club (e.g., VIP but not VVIP). The details of the adventure are in the following paragraph.

All week I have been researching Sheikh Mansour just so I have some background in case we bump into him in the VIP reception area. It turns out the guy is one, if not the, richest guys in the UAE and owns thoroughbreds in addition to two football clubs. I had rehearsed exactly what I would say to HH (i.e., His Highness) in the event we ran into him.

Our adventure started with pulling into a random parking lot adjacent to the stadium and stopping a Police Officer to ask where the VIP parking area was at. He kindly pointed us in the right direction. We followed his directions and pulled into the right spot after driving through a large crowd of Emeratis. We were directed to the back of the lot, as the game had already begun and the low was pretty full, and nearly ran over a few mounted Police officers. I am sure they were thinking - "Stupid Americanos". We walked up to the stadium, flashed our invites to the security like we knew what we were doing and walked into the VIP reception area. On one side were the elevators to the President's Suite and on the other was the entrance to the Royal Enclosure. My hopes of bumping into the Sheikh were immediately dashed!

We rode the elevators to the 2nd floor, entered the President's Suite, and again flashed our invitations. It was pretty much just Emerati men in the entire area. Apparently the Sheikh had invited a lot of his family/friends to the game and there was a bit of a seating problem. We were asked to wait and then were eventually led down a corridor to the Executive Cabins. After checking a few, the host led us to one with four or five Emeratis (again all guys) and a few extra seats. The guys were very accommodating and friendly. I was going to ask if they would take a picture with Amanda but thought that might be inappropriate - probably for them and her. We had a great view of the field (see pictures) and it was very comfortable. The cabin beside us was filled with young Emerati boys who were having a good time.








We really enjoyed watching the match and our cabinmates filled us in on some of the details. They also showed us how to drink the Arabic Coffee (similar to Espresso) that was brought in a couple of times during the match. I apparently over-indulged (two cups both times) which is the reason I am up at 12:05am writing this blog. There is a whole ritual to drinking that stuff that involves hand gestures kind of like in poker. You shake you cup to hold and hold out your cup if you want to hit. It was great!






Unfortunately the match ended in a 0-0 draw but we had a good time anyway. We ran into Phil in the VIP Reception Area and thanked him for the invite and told him we had a great time. Leaving the stadium was just like leaving any other sporting event, bumper to bumper traffic.



On the way home, Amanda and I came up with two ideas for Phil to use in boosting attendance. First, he needs to have Sheikh call Jerry Jones and get the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders to perform at half time. Second, he needs to hire Pat Green to perform a concert at the end of the game. We saw Pat "F#$%ing" Green after a Stars game one time and he was a huge hit. I can't imagine anything better than that combination.

Well, the Arabic Coffee is wearing off and tomorrow is Friday - the first day of the weekend - so I better sign off so I can keep up with the kids.

Until your next adventure - keep living vicariously through us as it is something new everyday here in the U.A.E.!!


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Thursday, September 9, 2010

Our First Six Months in Abu Dhabi: Lows, Highs - and a whole lot in between!

Wow! I can' believe that we have been in Abu Dhabi for over six months. We figured that it was about time for another blog post to give an update on what has happened since we got dropped-off in front of our villa back in February. In short, a whole lot has happened. We have had a lot of great experiences and certainly our share of really tough times. In between, we have laughed, cried, cursed, spit (well, not really but it sounded good), screamed, and asked ourselves on numerous occasions - why did I bring us here? On the eve of Eid al Fitr - the celebration of the end of Ramadan - and another equally important event for those of you west of the Atlantic - the kick-off of Auburn SEC football, it is the perfect time for reflection. I'll start with the Lows as it was pretty tough going in the beginning, mix in some of the in-between, and finish with the Highs.

I think reality set in when we woke up the morning after we arrived and asked ourselves a very simple question - o.k., what do we do now? The first month or two were absolutely agonizing. I started work after about three or four days and was running full steam for several months with daily meetings that were scheduled to start at 5:oo pm but typically started late and ran until 6:30 or 7:00. Amanda and the kids were pretty much isolated at home until she felt comfortable driving. Needless to say, 350 sqm (3500 sq ft) got pretty small pretty quick. On top of that, Gray was extremely fussy. Every time we got in the car to go shopping, he cried from the time we left until the time we got home. The big boys were tired of being around each other and were constantly bickering and complaining about going to another furniture shop or grocery store. Our hope to quickly find a new church home was also dashed as the church we attended the first couple of weekends didn't have a very structured kids program or a nursery. So, we sat in the nursery with Gray and tried to listen to the message. The kids complained that the songs they sang were boring. It was a vast departure from Fellowship Church.

However, the straw that almost broke that camel's back was finding schools for the kids. Our original plan was to homeschool the boys for the remainder of the school year and find schools for them to attend in the Fall. Little did we know that it is required by law to have your children in school within 30 days of arriving. We frantically visited several schools, most of which didn't have two openings in the pre-school program, that ranged from strict British schools to the much less structured Canadian school. I think we left most of the schools in tears and were ready to give up and go home. Our favorite school had a long waiting list and we didn't think it made any sense to send the twins to a British school. The Canadian school had two openings so we enrolled them there. While we were waiting for the wire transfer to pay the tuition, we learned more about homeschooling and strongly considered it as an option. You can imagine the stress of the situation! I think the first day of school was one of Amanda's first days driving and wouldn't you know it, the fog was as thick as soup, which didn't make life any easier. Dropping Ryan off at nursery in the early days was a real bear. I would wait outside with the twins and Gray (did I mention he cried all the time) while Amanda would literally drag Ryan in. Then we would go to the Canadien school where I would once again wait with Gray while he cried. It was some kind of routine.

Fortunately, the Canadien school worked out pretty well. The boys made some new friends pretty quickly and there were some great parenting experiences. One of the great perks of working here is that work starts around 8:30a which means I get to drop off the kids. Once Amanda got comfortable driving, we would rotate dropping the kids off. Ryan was always a bear for me to drop off. Taking the twins to school was all together different. Matthew would get out of the car and kids would start calling his name. He always ran across the courtyard on the school grounds, making Spiderman webslinging arm motions while his friends screamed - Hey Matthew! Colin would always calmly walk in, drop-off his backpack and then go play soccer with the older kids. One day, an older boy told him he was too small to play. I was watching and stopped him while he walked away dejected with his head hung low. I gave him a big pep talk and told him that if he wanted to play he should go out there and do his best no matter what the other kids say. He went back out, gave the kid an earful, and then rejoined the game. I walked back to the car with tears in my eyes.

Our first break from the stress was a one-nighter to Al Ain, the "garden city". They have a well-regarded zoo (see previous post) and we stayed at a hotel on the top of a mountain Jebel Haffeet. The zoo was a bit of a bust since it was pretty hot already but the hotel had a great winding road up the side of the mountain and a fabulous view. It was a great time!

Our typical weekends consisted of going to the malls and the grocery stores and eating at the food courts. Church didn't really pan out which left a big hole in our lives. We found the solution to dragging the kids to the grocery store - Sparky's. Sparky's is an indoor mini-amusement park which I take the kids to while Amanda goes to the grocery store. I like to think of it as the sanity premium for not having to deal with the boys in the grocery store.

Our first adventurous shopping trip was to the Dubai Mall while Amanda's mom was in town. While the mall is easy to find since it is at the base of the Burj Khalifa, getting there is a whole different animal, especially with the kids asking a thousand questions. I will never forget our first trip to the Dubai Mall. We had gotten the kids food from McD's and Matthew was playing with his Happy Meal toy while I got everyone's food out. Karen and Amanda had gone to get their own lunch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matthew making a windmill motion with his arm and then he suddenly stopped and looked around. I knew immediately that he had inadvertanly let go of the toy and launched it. As I looked around, my worst nightmare came true . . . I saw an Emerati woman wiping food off of her abaya (traditional black gown). The toy had landed in her plate and knocked food on her dress. I grabbed Matthew's arm and took him over to apologize. Fortunately, she was very understanding. To this day, I still can't believe that happened! On a trip to another mall in Abu Dhabi, Matthew nearly cut his finger off in the elevator.

Once school got into full swing, life got a lot better. The kids went to birthday parties and started having a few play dates with their friends. Our first birthday party was for one of my colleagues' son. We were the only ones there without a nanny/housemaid. One lady actually had a nanny for each of her two kids. One Emerati kid in Ryan's class, had a birthday party with a three-tiered Barney cake. I think he might be the same one whose dad drives a Rolls-Royce. Birthday parties here typically last two or three hours and the parents drop their kids off. I can't wait for it to be our turn!

Our first high point was the Red Bull Air Races that the boys and I went to. It was really a neat experience as described in a previous post. The real tipping point though was the arrival of my mother-in-law in April! It was great to have another adult around to help with the kids and gave Amanda and I a chance to have a much needed date night. I don't think we could have made it another month without her! We made another trip to Al Ain and went on the unforgettable Dubai Mall trip. My parents came in June just after the kids got out of school. While they were here, we took a trip to Atlantis the Palm in Dubai and had a lot of fun. We got to swim with the Dolphins and enjoy the intense Middle East heat and humidity. I think this was Gray's breakout trip. He has really come along way from our first few months and is a real trooper. I call him "Go-Anywhere" Gray. The summer has been a bit of challenge since it is too hot for the kids to go outside almost anytime during the day. Luckily, we found a good day camp for the twins to go to and Ryan's nursery school had a camp as well. They boys pretty much went to camp all summer long.

One of the greatest, though certainly not the easiest, accomplishments over the summer was the hiring of our live-in housemaid, Irene. We met Irene earlier in the year as she worked for the cleaning company we hired to clean our villa. She is a great Christian woman and adores the kids. After a long process involving a few trips to the UAE Ministry of Labour and Immigration Department, Irene resigned her position and went back to her home in the Philippines. On the day she was scheduled to come back, she was not allowed to leave the airport because she didn't have the appropriate exit documentation. After hiring a recruiting agency, more paperwork, more money and a month delay, she finally arrived back in Abu Dhabi. She is a real blessing to our family and has made our lives tremendously easier. Just today we left Gray and Ryan with her while we took the twins to the grocery store.

Ramadan brought on a whole new set of challenges. Since Muslims fast during the day during Ramadan many of the restaurants are closed and our typical weekend food court outings were disrupted. Our answer was to simply spend more time and money in the grocery stores buying food to take home and eat. We went to Kidzania (kid-size city) at the Dubai Mall the second weekend and to Ski Dubai the third week. Can you believe they have snow skiing in Dubai? It was a real blast! During the last week of Ramadan (this week) we spent several days at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel where we ate anytime we wanted and played at Wild Wadi Water park late into the night. It was another great adventure! However, it was not our original plan. We had all the air and hotel reservations in place to go to Cyprus (near Turkey) for a week but I lost my passport and we had to cancel the trip. I am still working on getting a new passport and then have to deal with the paperwork for my UAE Visa documents.

With only a few days left until school starts and Ramadan over, we will probably get back to our normal weekend routine of shopping at the mall and going to the grocery store since it is still too hot to spend much time outside.

Tomorrow morning I will be getting up early to partake in the game-day festivities. We have some real hot dogs and I bought a can of Bush Baked Beans. Nothing like a 5am wake-up call to get the grill cranked up!

We can't wait to see what the next six months will bring!

Our best to you all!


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Thursday, April 22, 2010








The weekend before my mom arrived to visit Andy and I took the kids to the Al Ain Zoo which is about two hours from Abu Dhabi. Al Ain is called the "garden city." It is beautifully landscaped with desert mountains soaring high. The Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort is located at the foot of the Jebel Hafeet mountain making the zoo unique in itself. We arrived around lunch time and enjoyed some ice cream for lunch! Of course, the boys didn't complain. The zoo had many playground areas for the kids to play. At times, they were more interested in playing than looking at the animals. It was neat to see beautiful animals grazing the natural desert land. Not the usual grounds that you would see at the Fort Worth Zoo. They had a train that we rode around the zoo. Colin was in heaven!! That boy still has such a love for trains. The weather was crazy HOT and we didn't stay long at all. All of the natives were covered from head to toe and weren't sweating a bit. We were dying!! We did manage to catch a glimpse of the white lions before we left. The Al Ain Wildlife Park and Resort is one of the only places that you can see these amazing creatures. It was a great day! We plan to go again in the cooler months when Gray is older.

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Monday, April 19, 2010

Red Bull Air Race







A few weeks ago Andy and his coworker Scott took the three big boys to the Red Bull Air Race. Andy and Dr. Scott as the boys like to call him left around noon for the Corniche. They had purchased VIP tickets at $180 each, but all the kiddos were free. They were able to sit on couches and watch the race. Food, drinks, and cotton candy was included. The boys came home on a sugar high! It was a great time and as you will see from the many photos the race over the Arabian Gulf made for a beautiful setting. What a fun time for the boys! They are still saying "smoke on" when they begin flying their little planes around. Be sure to check out the website to learn more about the Red Bull Air Race. What a neat experience! I'm not sure if Andy and Scott or the boys had more fun. A big thank you to Scott for helping Andy keep an eye on the boys while he was busy fetching more cotton candy and food.

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Baby Gray






Hello from Abu Dhabi where it is in the upper 90's today! We have been swimming every afternoon. I promise to post pictures of our villa and pool very soon. The purpose of this blog is to keep everyone informed of our adventures here, but today I want to share with you what life is like with the latest Kirchhoff.

Gray is now four months old, soon to be five months. Wow, time flies.....please slow down you are growing way too fast! His nickname is "chub of love" because he weighs about 19 1/2 pounds. He had a hard time adjusting when we first got here, but now seems to be settling down. Gray doesn't mind getting out as much now and we even met Andy for lunch last week. What fun I am having with ONE precious baby in tow!

Life with four kiddos is crazy and hectic as you can all imagine. What did we expect? The tough time from 4pm to bedtime is such a hard time. We try to spend as much time outside these days before it gets too hot here. The boys are enjoying their new bikes and outside toys. Of course, they LOVE swimming in the pool!

I haven't met another family with four kiddos so we seem to stick out around here. Everyone thinks it is neat that we have four boys and I must agree! Maybe there was a little disappointment at first because God gave us another boy, but honestly I couldn't imagine it any other way. I'm humbled that I get to train and teach four little guys to love the Lord. I pray they will all make an impact for His Kingdom in the future, but for now I am trying to savor every moment with them.

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Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Journey Continues

We got up on Friday morning to some light snow in Chicago and headed down for breakfast. As you will see from the pictures the boys love to eat breakfast at hotels in their PJ's. We have Grammy and Papa to thank for this tradition that they started! Andy's cousin, Amy and grandmother came down from Beloit, Wisconsin to visit with us. It was great to see them and such a treat for Gray to meet Amy and his great grandma. They left after lunch and we began to pack up things to head back to the airport. We then headed downstairs to collect the 25 or so bags that we had left with the bellman and loaded the shuttle. We arrived at the terminal and I went inside with the kiddos since the snow was really coming down at this point. The boys and I watched as Andy and the driver unloaded the bags. About the time the last bag was put on the ground, I realized that I had left my diaper bag on the shuttle. I look up just in time to see it taking off. I frantically pound on the glass window thinking that Andy could hear me....yeah right. Andy was so calm and called the hotel right away to ask the shuttle to return. After waiting 15 minutes or so we retrieved the bag and headed to check-in.

Checking in was interesting. We had booked an entire middle row and side so that we could all be together. Well, they had changed the aircraft on us and had to move our seats. After 20 minutes or so of waiting we had six seats together in the back of a 500 plus passenger plane. At first, they were not going to let us take Gray's car seat on the plane, but thankfully the manager came out and said it was fine. Could you imagine me holding him the entire 14 hour plane ride? Security went fine and we were now inside for the long wait until the flight. Here is a picture of the boys playing inside the terminal. They were a little big for this play set, but still had a fun time.


We boarded the plane around 6:30pm. Let me tell you that it was a FULL flight....not one empty seat. Did I mention 500 plus passengers? The flight took off around 7:30pm. The cabin crew finally got up to feed us dinner, but had to sit down because the flight was so bumpy. They were not able to get up again and serve dinner until after midnight! There was that much turbulence. At one point, Andy looked over at me and said buckle the baby in NOW! He was just sitting in his seat asleep. I don't really like to fly so I decided to do a lot of praying at this point. Gray cried off and on for the first 6 hours of the flight. Once we could get up I stood up in the back of the plane with him. He then went to sleep and slept for the reminder of the flight.

The big boys did well on the plane. I have to say that the Etihad inflight entertainment kept them occupied for hours. It wasn't until 1am or so that they finally crashed and slept. They served us dinner, a mid movie snack and then breakfast on this flight. It felt like we were constantly eating. We left in the dark, the sun came up while we were in the air, and it was dark again when we landed in Abu Dhabi Saturday morning our time. However, we got here in the evening.

Many of the passengers were heading to India. I never felt uncomfortable...the people were so friendly! This adventure is giving me such a different perspective of the world we live in!

Be sure and check out the picture of Matthew holding his nose on the plane. Wonder who is stinky? Also, take a moment to check back in a few days to watch the video clip of the twins wrestling around once we landed. We were all ready to get off, but I can't end this post without saying the flight wasn't that bad. Our God is good and He delivered us safely!

We joke that on our return trip home we will ship our 30 plus bags and ride first class!

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