NICU

We've just completed 2 full weeks in NICU, uh, can I get a woot? woot?
Looks like there are still many more days to look forward to as well. 

There are good things about being in NICU. For one, I am not too worried about SIDS because they're hooked up to all types of monitors and such! Nor am I worried about them gaining weight because if they dont eat, they'll be tube fed! I also get a lot of extra hands/help so that I can sleep more. If only I was more of a nap person...

The biggest struggle with these babies, not graduating from NICU, is that they dont eat. Apparently, it's what being pre-term is all about, sleeping and not eating. Another reason why I'm grateful they're being tube fed.

They are on oxygen but, I've been told, you can still go home and be on oxygen if that's all. We just need these babies to eat at every meal. Some days we get really close to that and then the next day it's like they're trying to recapture any calories they burned waking up, by sleeping off the entire day. Naturally that's what newborns do, but these babies dont even open an eye when you change a diaper or check their temperature. They're out cold. I guess that's what is most frustrating about this whole experience. One day things are going really well and you see the light at the end of the tunnel and the next day it's like you realize that light you saw was a freight train!

We've been really fortunate to be at the receiving end of a lot good service. We are receiving meals from the members of our church, because who has time to think about dinner?? My mom is in town watching my little boy while Matt is at work and I am at the hospital. Friends have been calling or texting to get updates and a lot of people have been  offering help and support and that's been wonderful too. I feel like we've been really fortunate and blessed. Being in NICU isn't all that bad. It's a pain because we can't take our babies home and try to live life as "normally" as we can, (what is normal with twins anyways?!) but I figure, in a year this will only be a small portion of what we've had to endure. Unless, of course, this goes on for MONTHS, but I am remaining optimistic about that. :)

One day they'll wake up and be ready to eat at every feeding and, maybe, even demand and cry that they get fed immediately.

Baby B receiving milk from a sponge

Baby A

Christmas Break: UAE and Oman

We really took advantage of vacation time this year. Here are a few highlights of places we went to and things that we did. :)

Here's a little map of the Arabian Peninsula to give you an idea of some of the places we went to. My parents live in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain isn't that far away from where they're at. In fact we took a few flights in and out of Bahrain and even spent some time sightseeing one day. We spent 12 hours or so in Qatar (post and pictures to come soon) and then after Christmas we flew to UAE to spend a few days in Dubai and we stopped in Oman for a little bit. The last post we were in Yemen before Christmas. So in technically, with the exception of Kuwait, we traveled to all of the countries in the Arabian Peninsula! Before I joined up with Matt he spent some time in Jordan too. Although that's not included in the Arabian peninsula, or this post, pictures are coming of that soon.

Dubai- UAE
I have been to Dubai but Matt has not and truth be told, Dubai isn't Matt's kind of place. Probably because it's a tourist magnet and Matt's more into the hidden beauties of the world than the places that people obviously want to visit... which may explain why we have never taken a trip to Disneyland. (I'm working on that.)

Funny story. We had arranged to rent a car in Dubai and drive to Oman because we had heard it was prettier and more of our kind of a place. The night before we left Calvin took out all of the contents of Matt's wallet. When we arrived in Dubai and went to pick up the rental we needed to provide a credit card. My dad doesn't usually carry one and because I knew Matt was carrying his I didn't take mine. We thought it better that we not take all of our cards in case something got stolen, etc. We thought to take as little as possible. In any case, when Matt opened his wallet he had nothing in there. Long story short, we couldn't rent a car at all, and as a result we were forced decided to spend the few days we had set aside for Oman in Dubai. I didn't think it was a big deal, Dubai wasn't that bad, however the caveat is it's really expensive.

Matt racked up a bunch of hotel points from doing a lot of work in Wyoming before our trip so lucky for us we didn't really pay for a place to stay. 

In one tourist/guide book I read about Dubai which said, "if you can dream it, you can have it." Which may be the reason why Dubai has a 7 star hotel that goes under water (they created the 7th star just for this particular hotel), they have "islands" that when seen above make the shape of the 7 continents, they have the largest building in the world, the "lost" city of Alantis (not really lost because, duh, it's in Dubai!), and they have the largest mall in the world, largest as in square feet. Dont forget the indoor skiing! Yup, they have one of those too.

Anyways, like I said, it's a pricy place. Probably another reason why we wanted to escape to Oman. Anyways, we decided to take advantage of what fate had thrown at us.

 The tallest building in the world.

 <------  Matt posing infront of the Burj Khalifa. It's the largest building in the world. Matt was pretty excited about this land mark that he got to take a trip to the very top.

Scroll down and you can see some of the shots he took at the very top of the "Burj".

**On a side note, we were told that for New Year's Eve they were going to have the world's LARGEST firework show here. Google it. I've seen a youtube video of it.

The Dubai Mall. 
I like the decorations and the shops. I love candy shops, not that I adore eating candy but I really just love the colors and all the thought that goes into designing sweets. :)

The Dubai Mall has an aquarium, that if you pay 15 dollars (USD) you can walk right through it. OR you can just stand outside of it and take pictures, like we did. The aquarium was really cool. We saw sting rays and SHARKS and all types of coral and multi colored fish, it was pretty cool. The mall also had an indoor ice skating rink and they had these plastic penguins (see photo down below) that little kids could use to move around the ice to help them with their balance.

 

 Camel Racing.

Our guide book suggested we check out the camel racing scene in Dubai, so we did. 

Apparently it's now illegal to actually ride on top of the camel when racing. So they have "robots" ride on top of them instead. There's a walkie talkie and next to the race track (for the camels) there's a road where the camel owners are shouting orders to the creatures and sending signals for the "robot" to give the camel a "friendly" little "smack". 

This photo gives you a better perspective of what the race track looks like. The camels are running on the dirt and the "racers" are driving in their cars, riding alongside their camels. Speaking in the walkie-talkies and triggering the "robot" to lay a friendly "tap" to make the camel go faster.

Of course my dad found a guy who would offer to let him ride one of this camels! :)

The Global Village.

This was like an amusement park but without so many rides. It was more a "cultural" center where they had a few countries represented. You could stop into each little area and buy goods from that particular country and there were places to eat from all over the world. 

We tried Turkish ice cream. It was gross.

Matt's a sucker for coconut water from a coconut. Unfortunately, he said this wasn't very good.

At night there were shows from different parts of the world. This one is from Egypt.

We got to see a fire show! Where the performers had hula hoops that they lit on fire. That was pretty awesome too. :)

Oman and the Fijords of Musandam

So even though we couldn't really drive to Oman we decided to pay for a quick tour. We went to the Musandam Peninsula which is the "northern" part of Oman. The UAE sits right between this peninsula and the rest of Oman. 

Here's a picture below to demonstrate what I mean. Oman is colored in white. You can see the United Arab Emirates to the left of it and then on the very top of the UAE there's a small part that is in white as well. We went to that part. :)

Look how close we are to Iran! Apparently there are smugglers that go to Oman to buy things like cigarettes and TVs and take them back to Iran. It's not a problem for Oman, but it is a problem for Iran. I'm not quite sure why. We did see a few "smugglers" with their boats.  The tour guide said that Iran was about 40 miles away from where we were at.

Matt, my dad, and me.

 

We sat on a boat like this.

Fijords

We did some snorkeling and socializing with the other travelers on the boat. We mostly just sat and looked around. I can't say it was the most exciting thing ever, but er... we can say we have seen the Fijords of Oman! We also got our passports stamped. So not too shabby.

Socotra: The Jewel of Biodiversity

I saw this little gem on Pintrest a few months ago.

I am not really one to pin about "places to go".  Mostly because my chances of actually seeing "Top 10 Places Before You Die" are slim and the pictures you see on the internet have probably been enhanced by Photoshop 10 fold so it won't really look like the pictures you see online. Besides, I've become kind of snobbish about traveling and I'd really just like to visit Disneyland instead of traveling half way across the world to go to a new country. I go where I can.

This time our travels just so happen to be Socotra. I promise you, it wasn't because of Pintrest.

We were already planning on going to Saudi to visit my parents in December and Matt wanted to take this chance to visit other countries in the Gulf. My sister Aline was in Yemen for a couple of weeks last year and Aline suggested we go to Socotra.

If you didn't know, Yemen, especially it's capital city of Sana'a, is not currently tourist friendly. There are warnings out about the dangers of traveling there. The US Embassy pretty much states that if you get into trouble it is unlikely that they will be able to help you because they dont even have a lot of US workers out there. Our Lonely Planet guide book told us not to go. The UK and Australia have warnings against traveling to Yemen. At the beginning of December there was a bombing in a government building that killed 15 people. Weekly, westerners are being kidnapped or shot. Mostly, targets are government officials and not so much tourists as much as people who actually live and work in Sana'a, but STILL I was slightly embarrassed to tell people we were going to Yemen because I didn't want people to tell me I was crazy and asking for a death wish, because really I did feel like it was slightly foolish we were going to Sana'a. We only spent the night in Sana'a because of the way our flights worked. I made sure we had someone to pick us up from the airport, someone legitimate and probably a little more expensive, and I covered from head to toe in traditional dress, making sure to cover my hair with a scarf. I was trying my best to fit in with my white, blue-eyed husband. I was pretty close to covering my face but I saw that some women didn't cover their faces so I decided against it. Now that we made it back alive I will proudly tell you I went to Yemen! I want a shirt that says: "I survived Sana'a!" ;)

Set aside from the fact that I felt like our lives were at risk I thought Sana'a was beautiful. The houses look like ginerbread houses with just the icing and no gum drops. The electricity goes out a few times a week so we were lucky enough to see a lot of darkness over the city. Which was fine because we did risk our lives to find a bite to eat in a city where very little people spoke english. The only person at the little restaurant we went to could say three things: "Meat, Fish, or Egg?" Matt got eggs and I said Meat, not knowing what we were going to get. Matt got an omelet and I got a chunk of lamb leg. :) We walked about 5 minutes to a restaurant outside of our hotel and I felt pretty good that the lights were out. We could hide in the darkness.

Socotra is nothing like Sana'a.  I think it is the most rural place I have ever been to. There were no signs of western influence. No pepsi or cola advertisements. No advertisements of mobiles or hand bags. Not a single steel structure. Everything was made out of wood and mud. There were goats every where.  Children playing soccer in the streets and fisherman casting there nets into the ocean. A very simple way of life.

We saw these, Dragon Blood Trees.
This seems to be the gem of Socotra. In fact Yemen put this on one of their coins. 

 The Dragon Blood Tree, apparently isn't any where else in the world. There are some that appear like it in Kenya, but Socotra is it's home. The people of the island have a lot of respect and reverence for the tree and are interested in learning more about it's origins. Botanists seemed to have come and gone studying the trees. The major things that is threatening these trees, as of to date, are the goats and sheep on the island who eat the seeds and baby/smaller trees, preventing new trees to grow.

Here are some other funny looking trees. The first is a cucumber tree. They dont grow cucumbers, not sure why they call them cucumber trees and the second is my favorite, the Butter tree.

   

 

We did go to a botanical garden where someone wanted to study a little bit more

about the plant life of Socotra and to take notes on how the plants grow. 

They're more interested in the Dragon Blood Tree because it seems like

there's a lot of uncertainty on the life cycle of the tree. These plants, above, are

the 7 types of frankincense that grow on the island. 

Super cool seashell I wanted to remember but not steal. So we took a photo and threw it in the ocean.

 Dead puffer fish. I guess the poor guy had rolled up on the beach (rocks) and couldn't get back.

It was still kind of cool. :)

Lunch in some cave. Typical to sit on the ground and eat every meal.

On one beach (there's a lot of beaches in Socotra!) we slept here. 

We slept in a tent that was too short length wise for Matt. So we slept with our

feet outside the tent. In the middle the night I felt a little "hug" on my big toe and realized

it was a crab! I shot up and saw this skeletal looking thing running

away from the moonlight. It didn't hurt, like I said, it just embraced my toe.

It was kind of cool. Sort of wish I could see it closer.

 

Typical breakfast. Bread with jam, honey, and coffee. 

I told Matt every day that I really loved this one meal and I could always eat this. By 

our last morning I was tired of it and I just wanted a bowl of cereal. 

              

We stayed in these huts for two out of the three days we were there. We slept on foam pads that may have been just a bit better than sleeping on the floor, but not much than that. We tried not to study the foam mattresses too much. At least they provided cool mosquito nets that helped me feel like I was protected from mosquitoes or bugs, more specifically centipedes. :)

 

We saw these strange cones built on the sand one morning and wondered how they had gotten there. Upon closer look we realized that crabs had probably dug them to create holes to spend the night in. If you look at the second picture you can see the claw marks from the crabs. Call me landlocked, but I LOVED to see the crabs! I loved to see them hanging out on the beach and wanted so badly to take a closer look and a picture, however, as soon as I started walking closer to them they all retreated to the ocean. Seriously, they wouldn't let me get within 20 feet of them without all disappearing into the water!

Socotra was only one part of our trip. I'll be posting shortly about the other places in the Golf we visited. Between Matt and I we have been to all of the places on the Arabian Peninsula... well except Kuwait. I did have layover there?