My very own garden

I think it's safe to say that both of our mothers will be proud that we chose an apartment with a "garden" or what we would call a small backyard.  Anyways, while I love plants and love having something to nurture, somehow neither Paul nor I inherited our mothers' green thumbs.  Although, I usually kill my plants by watering them too much...I don't think that will be as much of an issue here being that it's a desert and they're not potted...but only time will tell.
I thought I would go ahead and post some photos of our 4 trees (and a shrub/tree thing) to see if anyone (particularly the Dianes) knows what they are.  For each tree I've posted a full shot and then a shot of the leaves/flowers.

Tree 1 (sorry the lens is a little foggy from the humidity)

Tree 1 flowers & leaves

Tree 2/3 (we have two of the same)

Tree 2/3 leaves

Tree 4
(we tend to forget we left the water running
sometimes when we water them...oops)

Tree 4 leaves

Tree 5 (if you can call it a tree)

Tree 5 leaves

Tree 5 flowers

Shrub 1/2

Shrub 1/2 leaves

 We're supposed to be getting new grass sometime over the next week or so.  I'm really looking forward to having more green out there.  Plus, actually getting things like that done make us feel like we've really accomplished something.  First of all, our agent tried to tell us that they were going to charge us for getting new grass...which would make sense if we're the ones who killed it, but we didn't.  Finally Paul got the people in the office to agree to replace it for us, but then he still had to go talk to someone else to schedule the maintenance crew to come out here.  They were scheduled for 8:00 and another crew was scheduled for 10:00 last Saturday.  So we got up early from the hotel and came over.  When they still weren't here at 9:15 we called only to find out that they meant 8pm and 10pm...so yeah.  We came back at night and actually one of the men on the landscaping crew actually spoke decent English, but he informed us that they were busy because it was Ramadan and they had limited working hours (Ramadan is used as an excuse for everything and anything) but they would be back sometime after Ramadan to plant new grass.  So we'll see.
The guys we had come to give us a new mirror at 10pm are a completely different story.  They hardly spoke any English, but we did find out that they were actually the plumbers that were there to fix our sink drain and they do not do things like mirrors.  Eventually they said they would take some measurements for the mirror and take it back to the office and give it to the right people...or at least that's what we understood.  We called the next day to schedule the mirror people, who came that night.  They came and took their own measurements after much discussion.  I really wish I had taped the conversation Paul was having with these guys.  It was pretty comical because they can't really speak English and we know absolutely no Arabic.  So Paul will try to speak slower and very clearly in English and they just speak slower and more clearly in Arabic...but we still have no idea what each other is saying. Then they start with the hand motions and then one of the guys will recognize an English word and get excited and start talking faster.  Eventually they called their boss in the office who can speak English and the phone was passed back and forth.  The first part of the conversation was that they guys had supposedly told their boss that our mirror was fine (it's got like burn marks all over it...definitely not fine), but eventually i guess they got it worked out and understood it needed to be replaced.  In any event, they took measurements again and said they'd be back in a day or two (we think) but we haven't heard from them.
So like I said, whenever we get any of these little things accomplished, it's hard not to feel proud of yourself.

And as a last random photo, the moms had asked earlier what the native plants were like out here...as in what grows in the areas that aren't landscaped (most of the roads in the city are landscaped with grass and date palms).  Here's a photo I took on our drive to Dubai a couple of weekends ago.

Abu Dhabi - Dubai Highway