Visitng a camel farm

On Saturday afternoon we loaded up the car and headed into the desert to visit a camel farm.  While we have been to the desert numerous times on arranged tours, this was a little bit different.  A friend of ours had heard about this place through one of her mom's groups and arranged for the visit.  This was a small working farm with no tour operator, advertisers or touristy photo takers.  There were about ten camels, including a baby who was only two days old!  We were able to ride the camels, take lots of photos and then had a traditional Arabic barbecue just after sunset. I've attached some of my favorite photos.  You can find more in my Google+ album online. 

She probably could have eaten this entire plate of sweets

This is Uschi, the camel lady (she runs the farm) and the baby camel is only two days old

 Being brave and sitting on a camel.  Her big sister was braver and went for a ten minute ride (with mommy).

The girls made friends with one of the farm-hands.  He took off his head scarf and let them model it for a while.  I'm pretty sure he would have let us leave both of them for the week.  

Oops!

I promise, I really did have good intentions when I brought this blog back to life.  But the past few weeks have been beyond crazy.  We had a night in Abu Dhabi (adults only), a trip to the aquarium, some exciting news, a visit from Katie & Dave and an outbreak of hand, foot & mouth disease (ugh!).  I'm a bit behind on sorting photo's and stories so this short update will have to do for now.  As soon as I catch up on my to do list I'll be back!!

Happy Valentine's Day

When I wished Angela a Happy Valentine's Day this morning, she broke into a huge smile and cheered 'yay, I can bring my heart things home for you today!'.  Apparently they have been quite busy at school making special gifts for Valentine's Day. 

Caitlin didn't quite understand that this was for Mom & Dad but was very happy to show it off

The drawing on the right (in the white oval) is a self portrait that Angela drew.

Broccoli Wars

My kids have never been very big vegetable eaters.  We've been on a food kick lately, trying lots of new things and eating quite healthy.  Last night it was broccoli - and I had a blast watching them race to see who could finish first! 

You can see Kai Kai's personality shining through in these photos.  I love it!!  And although Ang does look quite hesitant, she really did enjoy it :).

Personal Accomplishments

We haven't even finished January and we can already check a few things off our 'goals' list.

This morning, I ran a 10km race as part of the Dubai Standard Chartered Marathon. Although I've been running quite regularly now, my training for this race was crap after being so sick for the past few weeks. I wanted to give it a try anyways and was really hoping to finish in under 1 hour. It was so cold and foggy here (ok, cold by Dubai standards - I know those of you sitting in New England are laughing at me now) this morning which made it really tough to get started. Once I warmed up I felt really great and kept to a consistent, comfortable pace. My official finish time was 57:41 which is six minutes better than my last attempt at a 10km race (this past November).

 I also received a phone call from Rich this morning as he made his way down Mt. Kilimanjaro. He is on day 8 of his trek and happily reported that his entire team of hikers had reached the top of the peak this morning! A huge accomplishment as they've been hiking for 7 days now, camping and dealing with crazy altitude (peak is 5895m / 19,341ft). Our phone conversation was short as he didn't have a great signal and I'm so anxious to hear from him again tomorrow when he is off the trail. As soon as he returns home with the camera we will get some photos posted!

In front of the Burj Khalifa, just after completing 10k race

The 1st Sunrise

We woke up around 4am on January 1st and drove a very long way out into the desert. It was cold and dark as we approached three massive balloons being blown up. We were given some basic instructions, hopped into the basket and up we went! A little after 7am we were 4,000 feet above the desert and watched the sun slowly creep up in the distance. It was a stunning sunrise. Such a fantastic way to start a new year! My favorite photos are included in the video attached.

My Big Return

When I started this blog, it was meant to help document all the adventures of becoming parents and moving to China. The ever-changing Angela and move to China gave me plenty of material to be able to post updates on a semi-regular basis. Since then we've had a second baby (who is now not at all a baby) and moved to Dubai. And now I'm left with a blog that never gets updated because the kids change daily (and no way could I keep up with the photos and entries) and Dubai just doesn't offer the same material that China gave me. I've taken to using Facebook to share most of our photos but have decided that I don't want to abandon the blog entirely. The girls are both at nursery in the mornings now (Angela five days a week and Caitlin three days) and they are both sleeping so well (knocking on wood). I plan to make good use of that time - gym, groceries, crafting, and blogging! That's right, a return to the blog. I'll continue with some of the fun stuff the girls are doing and also mix in the things that Rich and I are up to (me - running, crafting & photography; Rich -climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, and traveling all over the place for work). Hopefully I can keep this going through 2013. Please read, comment, share, etc. It's motivating to see that people are actually following along :). Happy 2013! Love, Meg