Happy Monday Everyone!

I’m glad you are visiting our blog today, for our weekly happy hour!  Here’s what’s going on with us this week:

• We had a great time in Dubai last weekend!  I was there for 4 days, while Rachel joined me a day later.  I was busy umpiring at a baseball tournament for the majority of the weekend, and Rachel was able to enjoy a much deserved weekend of rest-and-relaxation.  At the baseball tournament there were teams from Australia, Singapore, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Dubai, and others.  It was a great tournament and I had a ton of fun!  I snapped a few pictures and have a few fun stories that I’ll share with everyone soon.

• I only work 3 days this week, then it’s back to the airport for another trip back to United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the 4th time in 8 months, and back-to-back weekends!  This time I’m going to the city of Abu Dhabi though, which I have only ever been to once before.  I’m going this weekend to umpire at a high school baseball tournament.  I’m super excited about the opportunity, and for another little weekend get away (4 weekends in a row!)

• A few weeks ago, we started watching the new season of our favorite tv show . . . . . . . The Amazing Race with a group of our friends.  It has become a weekly routine now, where every Tuesday night, all 6 of us get together to watch the latest episode.  At the beginning of the season we all picked a team that we were going to root for, then whichever team wins, that person gets a prize!  It definitely adds a little more excitement to our weekly tv show viewing parties, but more importantly it’s all about getting together with a group of some of our closest friends for dinner on a weekly basis.

• A group of teachers organized a Fantasy Hockey League last fall, prior to the start of the National Hockey League (NHL) season.  I’ve never played fantasy hockey before, but I thought it would be fun, so I decided to give it a try.  Our season wrapped up this week, and I’m excited to announce that I finished in 3rd place out of 10 teams!  Obviously it was all luck, but I’m pretty pumped about how I finished the season up!

• The last week or so, we have definitely noticed that weather is starting to get hotter outside!  The weather is absolutely perfect for a majority of the day, but for a couple of hours each day it is smoking hot outside.  The highs have been getting into the mid-90s each afternoon, which has been feeling great.  I wish these temperatures would stick around until we leave in June, however we know that summer is quickly approaching.  And of course, with the arrival of summer, we know that temperatures in the 100s will be here soon.

Thanks for getting together for another weekly edition of our Monday Happy Hour, we’ll see you all again next week!

Happy Monday! We just returned from our trip to Jordan, so I apologize that we have been away for so long!  We had an awesome trip, and a great visit with my parents.  We will be sure to post some pictures and tell some stories about our vacation on here soon, but in the meantime . . . . . here’s what else we have been up to:

• Before we left for Jordan, my parents flew to Kuwait to visit us for a few days.  They had a great time (I think) seeing where we live, work, and some of the sights around Kuwait City. It took a couple of days for them to get acclimated to the time change, but they were rockstars and fought through it.  While they were here, we took them to the Souq (an outdoor market), took a tour of the Grand Mosque, and spent a day at the beach.  Of course the best part was just seeing them and spending time with family!

• On April 1st, Rachel and I celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary!  It seems like just yesterday, we were tying the knot on the beach of Puerto Vallarta.  We celebrated by going out to dinner with my parents and a big group of our friends.  It has been an amazing 3 years full of laughter, joy, and adventures.  I can’t wait to see what is in store for our next 75+ years together!

• While in Jordan, Rachel celebrated her 30th birthday!  We arrived at Petra on her birthday and had a few drinks at the oldest bar in the world, called The Cave Bar.  It occupies a 2,000 year old Nabataean rock tomb.  It was super cool there!  That evening we also did a night hike to the Treasury inside Petra, where the entire 2 km trail was lit with luminaries along the path.  It was a great experience and we took a bunch of pictures we will share with you guys soon.  The coolest part about Rachel’s birthday in Jordan . . . . . . . . it was the 20th country she has been to!

•  We returned to Kuwait last weekend, and my parents were able to hang around for about 6 hours before we had to take them back to the airport for their journey home.  It was a long trek home for them, but with their flight times, they are able to say that on one day, Saturday, April 11, they were on 3 different continents:  Asia, Europe, and North America!

• I’m only home this week long enough to unpack, do a few loads of laundry, and repack before I head back to the airport for our next trip.  On Wednesday, I’m heading back to Dubai to umpire at a baseball tournament.  It will be my 3rd trip to Dubai since moving here 8 months ago, but I love that city, and can’t wait to go.  Then next weekend, I fly to Abu Dhabi for another baseball tournament!  I’ll be gone a total of 4 weekends in a row traveling! #ournewlifeisawesome  It also means that I will be able to drink a beer every weekend during the month of April.  Wooooooohoooooooo!

We are very excited to share our adventures and pictures from Jordan with everyone real soon.  We loved it there, and highly recommend it to everyone!  Until next time . . . . . . . . cheers!

This was the most popular beer in Jordan: Amstel

Happy Monday Everyone!

Hooray, I’m actually typing this on a Monday this week!  If we were meeting for happy hour, here’s what I’d have to share:

• This is definitely the highlight of my week . . . . . . my first apple since I started working at a school!

• Yesterday a co-worker asked me to describe my weekend in one word, and this is what I came up with: Basketball!  As a sports fan, it is one of the greatest times of the year, the NCAA March Madness!  68 teams all enter a single elimination tournament, with the winners moving on and the losers going home.  Every weekend for the next few weeks will be filled with basketball, or what Rachel likes to call “squeeky shoes ball.”  With the time change, the games last weekend started in Kuwait at 7pm and went to about 6am.  A few buddies and I watched as many as we could, but by about 2:30am I was cashed for the night.  We were able to watch the games live through our Sling Box which is totally cool.  Basically we are sending the game from a tv in Minnesota (via the internet) to our iPad, then we just bounce the scree from that to our tv through AirPlay on our Apple TV.  It is kind of nuts how much technology has evolved and how far it has come over the years to make it possible for us to watch live TV from America to Kuwait.

• I woke up early Saturday morning to my wonderful wife running into our bedroom shouting, “it’s raining outside, not just a sprinkle, but actually raining hard!”  I scratched my head, rubbed my eyes, and slowly began to comprehend what she was saying.  Suddenly I realized, wow, rain?!  I took a peek out our window and sure enough, it was down pouring! It was the first significant rainfall we have received since moving here last August.  A few times it has sprinkled, but only for a few minutes, and never really accumulated to much.  It only rained for a couple of hours, but it was interesting to see what a reaction it caused here!
  1. The streets were completely flooded in front of our apartment.  Since they don’t get much rain here, the infrastructure isn’t built to handle it.  There are a few storm drains around, but none of the roads are paved with a crown in the road, so the rain can’t reach them.
  2. Since there isn’t much grass or soil to soak the rain up, there were quite a few wash outs around.  Sand from nearby vacant lots was washed out into the streets and now looks like mini sandbars in the middle of the road.
  3. Traffic on the highways wasn’t bad at all, because a lot of people apparently stay home when it rains.  They treat rain almost like us Minnesotans would handle a snowstorm.

• My first season as coach of our 5th grade girls soccer team has come to an end.  We had an awesome season and won our last game of the year!  A lot of the girls have never even played soccer before or been a part of a team, so we were sure to emphasize the team aspect and sportsmanship mixed in with a little bit of soccer skills.  I think all of the players loved being a part of the team and were so proud to wear the jerseys to school on gamedays.  We played hard all season but couldn’t ever come away with a win.  However on our last game of the season, we won!  The girls were ecstatic and it was a great way to wrap things up on a successful year.

• It is hard to believe that it is fast approaching, but we will be hosting our first visitors in week!  Both of my parents will be traveling to Kuwait for a few days, and they arrive next Tuesday night.  I have been trying to come up with a list of fun things to do and some sights to show them while they are here.  I’m finding the task a bit tricky though, because after only a few months, everything here seems “normal” to us.  I’ve been trying to think back what it was like when we arrived and what kind of things I thought were neat or what gave me a little culture shock.  Hopefully they aren’t to “jet lagged” when they arrive so we can do some fun stuff.

See you guys next week!

Happy Monday Everyone!

It’s hard to believe that we only have 3 months left in Kuwait, before we return to Minnesota for the summer!  Here’s a few tidbits of what’s going on in our life . . . . . .

I’m still working on my Arabic skills, and I think I’m up to about 5 words now!  The kids at school are constantly trying to teach me new words, but apparently my brain is reaching capacity, because I can’t seem to remember any of them!  This week, I asked one of the kids at school how to write my name in Arabic, and this is what he came up with . . . . . . . .

Apparently in Arabic, my name  would be pronounced: “Mich.”

When you live in a foreign country, you never know what you are going to run into.  Some of the most interesting encounters I have had are while driving around.  Last weekend I was cruising down the freeway about 70 mph when I saw a truck full of sheep cruising by in the back of a truck.  I grabbed my phone and took a quick pic!  Lamb is really popular hear, perhaps more so than beef or even chicken.  I’m not a huge fan of it, but seeing them standing in the back of truck made me chuckle.

Lambchops anyone?

I think we’ve officially recovered from our trip to Egypt last weekend, and already have our sights on our next trip!  My parents will be arriving in Kuwait in just 21 days, then after a few days here, all four of us will be heading off to Jordan for a week!  We have an app on our phones called TripIt, that counts down the days for us.  It’s always fun to get a reminder every few days to let you know that you have another awesome vacation on the horizon!

Since we’ve moved here, we’ve been making a list of items we need that we can’t find in Kuwait.  Since my parents are coming in just a few weeks, they have graciously decided to bring a bunch of stuff here for us!  So last week, we have been busy doing some online shopping, and sending our purchases to my parents house back in the United States.  They are allowed to bring a few checked bags for free, so we’re hoping to fill all of their available space with our treasures!  Our friends are pretty excited too, because they have been ordering a few items too!  It’s going to be like Christmas when they arrive, with all of our goodies!

Last weekend, our family back home in Minnesota turned their clocks ahead in honor of Daylight Savings.  We were 9 hours ahead of them, but now we are only 8 hours ahead of them.  You wouldn’t think an hour time difference would make a huge deal, but when you are trying to call people from home, it can make a big difference!  Especially when we are trying to call our little triplet nieces and nephew!

So long everyone!

Hey Everyone,

Sorry, I’m a bit late posting this week’s Happy Hour post.  I’m sure all of you have been anxiously awaiting my weekly post!  We got back from our weekend trip to Egypt and had an absolute blast!  We’ve been busy with what we call “Holiday Hangover,” you know . . . . unpacking, laundry, grocery shopping, and sleeping!  This is going to be a short one, so here we go . . . . . . . . .

• Our 4 day trip to Cairo, Egypt was a ton of fun!  We traveled with our good friends Adam & Lauren and made a ton of new memories.  We stayed at a super nice 5-star resort with a view of the pyramids from the swimming pool and our hotel room (we splurged, and spent $12 extra for the view from our room!)  We visited multiple pyramids, tombs, ancient ruins, and of course the sphinx.  We also rode camels, took a dinner cruise down the Nile River, visited the Cairo Museum, and had dinner in a revolving restaurant at the top of the Cairo Tower, the tallest building in Egypt and all of Northern Africa.  Despite what seems like a very busy couple of days, we were still able to enjoy some time at the pool and have some drinks on the patio every night.  We have lots to share about our trip, including some photos, which we will in the next week or so.  Stay tuned!

• The first day back to school, my 5th grade girls soccer team had our 3rd match of the season.  Unfortunately we couldn’t find the back of the net, and settled for a 0-0 tie.  So far this season we are 0-2-1.  We have improved soooo much already this season, and generating a lot of scoring chances.  Hopefully we can continue to improve and win at least one game this season!

• This weekend is the 7th annual Kuwait Invitational Baseball Tournament here in Kuwait City.  I’m scheduled to umpire about 10 games during the 3 day tournament, so I should be plenty sore by next Monday.  Teams from all over the Middle East will be here playing, and I am super excited to be a part of it.

That’s all for now folks, we’ll see you next week . . . . . .