" Hattitude... there's a little more strut in your carriage when you wear a hat" ~Deirdre Guion

This past weekend Jessie and I hosted a tea at her house. We invited 4 women to join us for tea on Saturday afternoon at 4pm. I was most excited to get dressed up and wear fun hats but, the party ended up being such a blast. We spent Friday evening and Saturday baking zucchni bread, lemon scones, making chicken salad, homemade clotted cream, iced peach tea (to welcome our guests in from the scorching desert temperatures), arranging flowers in a tea pot for our centerpiece and wrapping tea cups to give as party favors.

We borrowed the hats from our friend Beth who brought along a book about hat etiquette! The first obstacle was how to greet each guest when we all had on these great big hats. We read at the party that you should never try to "put your hands all up around a woman's neck when she has on a hat" you should leave some space between the two of you, I wish I had read it before because when I hugged Fatimah, I knocked her hat right off her head!

Jessie has all these really great antique dishes from her mom and her aunt, we put jordan almonds out in this silver tiered serving dish.

The table was beautiful! It made the day feel so special, Jessie found these really great tea quotes and we all read them in between courses.

Here we are all dressed up and ready to host!

"Sometimes, even a blind hog finds an acorn"

This is an old saying I use to hear from my Dad. To put it in a nice way it essentially means you got lucky!

As we get ready for the new hospital to be built we are constantly announcing each new step we take to the press. We like to remind the city of Al Ain how exciting this project is for the community. In my role at the hospital, I write press releases and do my best to keep in touch with any press contacts. This past week I got an exciting phone call that Khaleej Times was going to do a feature piece on Oasis Hospital in their Weekend Edition.

After working closely with Olivia, a staff writer at Khaleej Times, this article (scroll down to the Expressions section) was published in today's paper. The President of our hospital jokingly told me that I could keep my job for 2 more days, I thought I could get at least a week out of this!

Volunteers Needed Over Here in the Desert!

Do you have a long Christmas vacation, extra days in February or a Spring Break you need to fill?
As we move into our new hospital we need lots of help! If any of you think you might be interested in helping all you have to do is give us a time frame of when you could come, fill out this application and buy a ticket!
We will put you up in a house and feed you while you are here.
Check out the application here!

The Excitement Builds

We are building a new facility at Oasis Hospital. Our current building will be torn down and over the period of about 4 months we will all shift to the new place! When I moved here in September there was a giant hole where this massive structure now stands.

Recently we celebrated the "Topping Off" of the new building! The construction team is working hard to finish this huge project quickly.

In the new building there are:

2,530 tons of steel
1,670 truck loads fo concrete
7 miles of ducting
9.5 miles of pipework
372 miles of cable
7,400 lights
Here I am with Trey (he made me wear that hat backwards!) And below is our President and the Irish Ambassador to the UAE literally topping off the building with a final concrete pour!

A change of heart?

These past few days I have been dog sitting. Yes, Me. Most of you know that I am not the first person to be excited about a new puppy or any sort of pet for that matter. This past week I took on the task of dog sitting. I was dog sitting for corgi dogs; Marley To Die For and Rosie ( I can't remember the rest of her name). They act more like humans than most teenagers do. They have a strict schedule:

8:00 AM Breakfast, Vitamins and Outdoor Time
1:00 PM Bathroom Break
5:00 PM Dinner and Exercise
9:00 PM Bathroom Break
10:30 PM Bedtime Snack (1/3 of a slice of cheese they share) and Lights Out
I actually enjoyed watching them for a few days and I think they won me over.

Here I am with Rosie. Marley refused to take a photo.

JJ Gonzalez is born!

We have been waiting for my sister to have her baby and he decided to come a month early! He was born July 11th just 3 days after Jess's birthday.

Jeziel Miguel Gonzalez, Jr. Born July 11th at 12:40 am 5.3 lbs

Here is Jess. Not just my sister anymore. Now she is JJ's mom!

His dad, Jeziel Miguel Gonzalez (he was named after his dad- that's why he is a junior)

Here is Jared holding him- the coolest Uncle around!

Look at this fabulous grandma! My dad promises to get a picture with him soon!

Baseball: The Great American Pastime

The next day after the baby shower we all went to a Red Sox game. And whatta ya know those sox won it for us! Thank God! When you travel half way across the world to see them play they should win.

It was a sunny day in Boston and we all a good time. We met up with Jessie's sister for the game and then met some of my friend's down on Newbury Street for lunch.

Here we are- like I said it was sunny day so we have some eyes closed! My dad took the picture so he got left out!