Shifting Sands

If you look carefully, and have spent way too much time persuing pictures of our apartment, you may notice that this first picture looks a little different. We got lucky and got to move to a bigger apartment, and even luckier that it was empty before the end of the school year so we are working on getting settled in the new place before we head home - which will happen in 3 more days!!! Our new place is bigger, and has two balconies, and we are now the proud owners of a small bbq grill! Nate is pretty excited. We also painted the main living area, and have big plans to actually hang things on the walls, and make it really homey when we get back next year. I am pleased to have a small extra room for storage and no more boxes piled in our entry way. Will's friend Sam and his family are moving in down the hall over the summer, and so we will have friends close.

With the opportunity to move, we had the opportunity to learn yet another new word - shift. People don't move here, they shift. So with our shift 95% finished, and as of this afternoon, all our "marking" (grading) done at school, and kids sent merrily on their way to various summer adventures, we are ready to have one last weekend in Dubai, and get on a plane. Calista is sad to be missing Will's birthday, so she brought him some early presents - he was super excited about another horse, and has had so much fun with it. It moves and neighs and has clipclop sound effects. Sometimes the horse gets really tired from all his clipclopping and neighing and has to hide and rest though...

We had to take one more trip to the aquarium a couple of weekends ago, and we invited a couple of friends to come along - Will is getting just old enough to really get into all the fish and running around with his friends. It was really fun for kids and adults alike.

Anna, Sage, Emilee, Sam, Will. Anna and Emi are our friends from church, and the girls Will asks for often - they have headed back to Canada for the summer, and he will be very disappointed at church this Friday when they aren't there. We have started to try and sit pretty close to them so he can see them, and not have to go looking for them during Sacrament meeting...

And finally, just a few more pictures of Will's favorite things - his animals, and bags into which the animals can go. One night he pulled out half a box of sandwich baggies - each one had an animal inside... He also loves hanging out on our bed with the animals - it is much softer than our hard tile floors. His vocabulary is continuing to grow, and just in time, he has learned Grandma! (He's been saying Grandpa for awhile). Our other favorite word of his is schoolbus. It really sounds adorable. Airplane is another favorite, so he is branching out from all the animal words and sounds to some transportation words. As I already mentioned, just three more days until we get on a plane, leave the sands of the Middle East and fly across the big blue ocean to see you all - we can't wait!!!