expat life

Ready for Take-Off?

June 8, 2011

Yesterday my husband booked our tickets for Flights #53, 54, 55, 56 and 57 with children in tow. We’re excited about traveling around to visit everyone. We’ll get to introduce Judson to our friends and family, blue skies, Texas, and taxes. Last night I was thinking about ways to best prepare for our summer whirlwind [...]

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Loose change

June 4, 2011
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Growing up overseas lends itself to lots unique learning experiences. Take, for example, the play money and loose change that my girls like to count and organize. The four-year-old calls the dirhams “Dubai coins,” the British pounds, “England coins,” and the money from the United States, “the American Faces coins.” The two-year-old calls all of [...]

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How to get a newborn residency visa

April 6, 2011
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You need to gather all your paperwork. Your attested marriage license, your passports, the baby’s birth certificates (Arabic and English), a Consular Report of Birth Abroad, passport-size photos, and photocopies of everything. And cash to pay for the residency visa, any extra photocopies, translation work, and typing fees. And maybe a parking fee. And maybe [...]

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Thalatha shabab

March 12, 2011
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Or, as they say in Spanish… the 3 Amigos! There are three baby boys at Redeemer who were born within 6 weeks of each other. Here’s Judson (6wks) and Kingston (12 weeks). The third amigo is James (12 weeks) who is traveling abroad this week (expat babies live very cosmopolitan lives!). Someone wisely commented at [...]

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Passport photo practice

February 13, 2011
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It’s quite a process to become an official passport-carrying US citizen when you are born in the UAE. You need to get your parents to sync their schedules to take you to the consulate in person during certain hours on certain days of the week. You have to bring both your Arabic and English birth [...]

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Snail mail

September 23, 2010
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We love to check our post office box. The kids love the whole process– the anticipation of going to check the box, using the key to open the box, inspecting the contents when something arrives, and personally delivering the mail if it is for a villamate. My favorite part is reading notes and letters the [...]

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Flying with Babies: In the air

September 22, 2010
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Here’s the final post in this series on Flying with Babies. If this information has been helpful to you then I will be taking donations in the form of recommendations for vacation spots so we can use up all of our frequent flier miles. A brief re-cap on the ground that’s been covered: Part 1: [...]

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