Dubai

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We're a little over halfway through our stay in Dubai. We had to leave East Africa because we only allowed to stay for 6 months at a time on our visitor visas. It's only been about 5, but we decided to go early.

We're really enjoying our time here! It's so nice to have constant electricity, hot, running water, ice, air conditioning... all things none of us really "need" in life, but are nice to have.

Jake and I are enjoying our time together. We've been seeing a few small things in our marriage that we want to change, so we've been working on them. Can you believe that we've been married for 2 years and 3 1/2 months? 834 days, to be exact. 'Time flies when you're having fun!" We're still loving married life, more and more every day. It's a blessing to be married to such a wonderful guy.

It's really hot and humid outside, so we've been spending most of our time indoors or in the pool/ocean. There are a bazillion huge malls here, and we've ventured to three [the most "mall-ing" I've ever done in my entire life]... most of the stores are far out of our budget range, but we managed to find a few things that we needed that we could afford. Check out how 'ritzy' some of these places are!

[waterfall]

["candylicious" store]

[coffee and chocolate shop]

Inside this mall is "Ski Dubai," the indoor skiing/tubing hill. It also includes a snow play area. It was interesting to see people throwing snowballs at each other. I never thought I would say this, but I kind of miss the snow! It was something we were interested in doing, but after checking out the prices, we decided against it. It sure looked like fun! We weren't able to get a great view of the ski hill from where we were, though.

On one of the days when we were brave enough to venture outside, we took a little boat across the Dubai creek in search of the "souks," some fun shops. We never really did find where they were, and we were both miserable from walking around in the 95 degree/90ish% humidity weather, so we took the boat back and went to the mall instead. We got a few neat photos, though!

[spices]

We went to the beach on this same day [I think we were crazy to be outside so much]; just to check it out and see if it was a nice place to swim. My photographer's heart was broken when I saw signs posted everywhere stating that photography was banned. I was so bummed! We walked around a little bit, and then headed back to our hotel.

Yesterday, we went to a different beach. Jake asked the hotel receptionist, "Where do we go if we want to go to a beach with waves?" The other beach had a rock barrier around it, prohibiting waves from entering the swimming area. We were directed to a beach where "we would have fun," and off we went. I left the camera at home, lest I have any temptation to break the rules... and there were no postings there, banning photography. Of course, when I DIDN'T bring my camera. It was beautiful; the sand was as white as snow, and the water was a beautiful turquoise-crystal clear. We were in the water for close to three hours... and now we have the tans to prove it. We're definitely going back before we leave here, and this time, I'm bringing the camera!!

Our plans for the rest of our stay here? 

Going to the beach again.

Enjoying the conveniences we don't normally have [A/C, refrigeration, running water, electricity].

Going on a "dhow" cruise [an old boat on the Dubai creek with food and entertainment].

Finding an Applebee's restauraunt and eating dinner there.

We leave on Wednesday. We would really appreciate your prayers as we fly back into Kenya; on our way out, we had a few problems leaving because we didn't have a certain 'alien resident' card. We were told that these cards never really show up and not to worry about it. Well, when we were going through customs, they wanted these cards that we didn't have! They eventually let us leave. I'm not going to lie and say I'm not concerned about getting back in... I am, a little, but I really shouldn't worry because our God is such a big God and He knows what we need far more than we know. Please join us in prayer! Thank you :]