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

And she's off!

Caitlin decided that Easter Sunday would be a great day to start walking with no help! She has been cruising and taking a few small steps for a while, but always made sure there was a hand or table nearby. Yesterday, she just took off. First it was a short distance but by the end of the day she was walking all over the house and was so happy about it. It was pretty exciting because its rare that Rich, Gloria and I would all be around at the same time to watch this happening.

I managed to get a video of her this afternoon while we were outside playing. She gets really frustrated at the end because she has reached the steps - and she knows that she isn't allowed on the steps. She also gets really frustrated everytime she falls down because she isn't very good about getting back up on her own - but I'm sure she will master that in no time at all.

The link to the video is below - I even captured Ang as she ran around with a monkey on her back.







In case the imbedded version above does not work, here is the link : http://youtu.be/aETXCCSCJ6U

Happy Easter

We had a really nice day celebrating Easter yesterday. Although it was a work day for Rich, he took the day off and spent it with us at home. We woke up to surprises from the Easter bunny, went on an egg hunt in the afternoon, and then had a really nice roast lamb dinner with some friends. The girls really enjoyed it. The best part was when Ang realized that the Easter Bunny had hidden eggs in the back yard - she could see them through the window and was so excited to get outside and find out what was inside them.

Swimming swimming....

It was so hot yesterday and Rich was stuck in the office all day. I normally spend a lot of time with the girls at the park on the weekends but yesterday it was just too hot. After 15 minutes we were all pink and sweaty. I decided it was time to set up the swimming pool that Angela got for her birthday. It was great, I watched two little faces light up as they saw the pool filling with water. They both loved it, and then were thrilled when mommy jumped in too!

I have a feeling we will be spending a lot of time in this little swimming pool. We can't wait for daddy to get home from work today as I'm sure he will be lots of fun in the pool!

Happy Birthday Angela!

I'm a little late with this, but we recently celebrated a 3rd birthday for a very special little girl. Despite having traveled quite a bit just prior to the big day, I managed to pull together a very fun Minnie Mouse party. It was just a small group of friends but all of my Minnie touches were a big hit.

The special birthday banner that I made

A very happy birthday girl. I made the shirt and found the skirt at Target!

Little sister modeling the Minnie ears hats that I made

She was so excited to blow the candles out (and to eat the bow & ears)

HOT DIGGITY DOGS!

Oh Toodles Noodles

Mickey's clubhouse sandwiches

What Happened??

My post count this year is depressingly small despite all the exciting things we have had going on. I have so much to share!

I'm using jet lag to my advantage now and am trying to get caught up on a long list of projects. Caitlin and I flew to the US last week to see my dad after his hip replacement surgery (which was a huge success!!) and arrived back in Dubai on Friday night. I feel like I've adjusted back to this time zone ok but Caitlin is not doing so well. This was after having almost no issues with jet lag on the way to the states (despite cutting a molar at the same time!).

Anyways, to get caught up here I thought I'd share some of my favorite photos from the past month or so. Hope you enjoy and hopefully I'll be back soon with more posts! I'm not giving up on my blog :).

Now I'm off to plan a Minnie Mouse birthday party for a very special little girl who will be turning three on Friday! Can't wait to celebrate her special day.

Happy Birthday Caitlin

We celebrated Caitlin's 1st birthday yesterday with a small party at our house. She wasn't so excited about sharing all of her toys with the big kids from the neighborhood but she loved the cake & attention.

A weekend in Ras al Khaimah

We spent the past weekend at the beach in Ras al Khaimah which is another Emirate in the UAE. It takes about 90 minutes to get there - passing through lots of desert on the way. It was a very quick trip, just one night away. The girls both loved the beach even though it was pretty cold outside. We learned that Caitlin doesn't do so well sharing a room - she kept us all up for a good portion of the night. I've attached some of the photos here - there are plenty more on Facebook!

The girls

Since I always seem to be short on time, I figured I'd just post some recent photos of the girls. Most of these are from a recent day at the park. We had so much fun on the slide and feeding the fish!

A ballerina!

I'm always looking for new activities to keep the girls busy. We have done music class, soccer, mummy & me groups and all sorts of play centers. I recently noticed an ad for toddler ballet classes and decided to give it a try with Angela. She really enjoyed it so we are now signed up for five more weeks! We need to go get her some proper ballet clothes - a lot of the girls were really decked out. I managed to get her shoes but wanted to make sure she would enjoy it before investing in tutu's and what not. She even let me give her 'ballet hair' which is a miracle since he hates having it in a pony tail!