Angus' Fourth Birthday

Angus' 4th Birthday just awake.  Present from Mummy and Daddy a Power Ranger

Watch out Fireman Angus now has his own water pump.  A present from Juanita and Lee

Angus had a Pirate Party, here are all his little pirate friends ready to watch a movie about Angus' first 4 years.

Mummy made a Pirate Cake and everyone helped decorate it.

Captain Angus had a wonderful day.

Mina Mile

In a fit of madness, I mentioned to my friend Tom O'Byrne that it would be great to try the Mina Mile open swim.  Tom is always up for a challenge and then wouldn't let me back out even though it was on my 42nd birthday and the first time I had ever swum that distance and the first time I had ever swum open water.  So we rocked up on the 20th of March and swam in the Mina Mile, I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people and the frenzy at the start of the race.  Trying to keep a track of where the buoys were to swim around was also not easy.  But the water was lovely and the view beautiful.  The first 800 metres was pretty hard and if it were not for my pride I would have probably stopped.  But the second 800 was actually easier.  I thought I had come in dead last but there were apparently 11 people behind me, I came in just after a 70 year old lady, but I finished and as I said to the girls that was the most important thing.

Australia Day Ball Dubai 2009

Last Thursday night we attended our second Austalia Day Ball here in Dubai. It was held at the Grand Hyatt Ballroom and the theme was 70's and 80's Countdown Revival. We decided to frock up as we so rarely get to do that but some people really embraced the theme complete with Afros, sequins and platform shoes.

But the highlight of the night for all of us was meeting the legend of Australian Rock and Roll, the one and only Molly Meldrum. He seemed to have a great time, and commented on how we all continued to dance the night away he said usually at these events people just don't dance.

Our lovely German friend Kirsten was amazed that people were up dancing before dessert. We all felt like we were back at school at the disco.

Here we are with Molly.

He also auctioned off one of his hats which went for 12000 AED, about $4000 and the shirt off his back which was made especially for him for count down. All the money went to the charity Helping Hands.

One of the best lines of the night was just before they played the classic Angels song "Am I ever going to see your face again" Molly remarked that it reminded him of how he felt about George Bush leaving office. If you know the aussie version of this song you will know exactly what he meant. Here, here.

Some of the very cool people at our table. Our dear friends, Jeremy and Melissa, Tom and Kirsten, Belinda and Mick and Alison and Tony.

Unfortunately we will all be working on Australia Day but will have a Tim Tam with our cuppas.

Christmas Day 2008

We had a lovely Christmas Day made extra special by having Grandma and Mac and cousin Laura with us. We. were also lucky to be joined by one of Pete's friends from work and his family and Virginia and Ciro.

Santa once again really looked after everyone,

The kids got a great castle from Grandma and Mac and a lovely kitchen from Juanita and Lee as well as a tool bench for Angus.

Peter organised beanbags to be made for all the girls in their colours as well as a soccer ball one for Angus. As you can see Angus has no choice but to support Liverpool.

Hopefully this is a sign of things to come and Angus will continue to be as interested in reading as he is sport. Of course it is a book about Fireman, his other great passion.

Santa comes to visit

We had a lovely Christmas when Santa came to visit

Santa Mac

Santa and Angus

Santa and Olivia

Santa and Stella

Santa and Grace

Santa and Alice

Camping in Dibba

Last weekend we went camping with friends from school on the East coast of the UAE just near Dibba. We arrived late on Friday afternoon with our brand new tent, only to find that three of the tent posts were broken, and the tent didn't come with tent pegs. (Note to self, check any purchases like this first before heading out to use them). Luckily the boys were able to be good

boy scouts and make do with the tent poles and one of the other familys had spare tent pegs.

The kids were having a wonderful time playing in the sand. We camped right on the beach; literally, apparently about an hour after we went to bed on wave missed our tent by centimetres (another note to self: when camping on the beach check the paper for high tides first)

The kids were up at the crack of dawn the next morning. No need for alarm clocks in our family.

The next day the kids played in the sand and helped one of the other families unbog their car. The kids were so cute trying to help, but in the end a nice English gentleman had to give us a

hand by towing the car out.

After packing up we all headed to the Sandy Beach Hotel next door where we were able to use their facilities, pool, showers etc and snorkel out to Snoopy Rock, where Peter and I were able to see numerous colourful tropical fish, in the meantime our lovely friends kept our five amused on the beach.

For a first camping experience as a family it was great fun, and we will definately try it again. We will first get another tent, the one we bought was supposed to sleep 8, (8 very very small adults maybe) so we think we will make this one our kids tent and get ourselves a more luxurious adult size tent. Our next plan is to go camping in the desert and really be away from the city and lots of people.

On our way home, just near the Green Community roundabout we experienced the worst sandstorm we have seen to date. In this photo we are four cars back from the traffic lights, and we couldn't see a thing. It was pretty intimidating, luckily we were not on the beach in our little tent when it hit.

Catherine in Beijing

I recently visited Beijing to attend an IB workshop for Diploma coordinators. The workshops were very informative and I learnt a lot and met some lovely, informative, interesting people. We worked hard between 8 and 4 but I was able to get in quite a bit of sightseeing both before and after the workshops. Friends of mine had lived in Beijing and gave me the low down on all the places to see before I left. I am not known for being a morning person but made the effort to get up at five one morning to go to Tianamen square at dawn for the raising of the flag. I think I was the only westerner in a sea of Chinese, it was an amazing experience, and I was startled by the number of Chinese who would go to see their flag raised.
Food was certainly an interesting experience. I did have some very nice meals especially the Mongolian Hot Pot I shared with Steve, Rod and Iona. But I only looked at the various fast foods on sticks displayed here.










I had a bit of a giggle when I saw the Chinese version of the Kebab.





















Even funnier was when we came across a camel at the Great Wall of China. That was definately not what I was expecting in China.














We had been warned to avoid the busy tourist parts of the wall but that was the only place our driver knew where to take us and it was still beautiful, coming into Autumn all the leaves were just starting to change.






















In addition we got to really feel what Iona called the "press of humanity".
















I loved the old architecture throughout Beijing. Beijing is now a very modern city and these were not so easy to fine, but I am glad to see some of it has been preserved.

















There were also some great signs to be found.
















All in all I loved Beijing and would love to take the whole family back there for a visit and to explore more of China.