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.

Kirra Beach Australia July 2008

We had a lovely time visiting Grandma and Mac in Queensland. The kids played on the beach and even ventured into the water once, but on the whole it was too cold from what we were used to.
Aunty Juanita and Lee also came to visit and spent lots of time taking the kids to the park and for walks.
We can now understand why Grandma and Mac migrate north each winter, it is a very beautiful place to stay.

Alice, Olivia and Stella's 5th birthday party

Friday saw us celebrating the girls 5th birthday. Had we been in Australia their birthday would have fallen on the Monday of the June long weekend as it did five years ago, but in Dubai we will all be at school so we had their party a few days earlier. We invited all the girls in KG1 to our home which was transformed into Minnie's Cafe for the day. All the girls and Angus dressed up as chefs and had to make their own party food. On the menu was mini pizza's, fruit kebabs, bread sticks dipped in chocolate, and patty cakes which the kids decorated themselves. Our little chefs had a wonderful time. It is very hard to believe that it is five years since those three tiny little babies came into the world, now they are three very grown up five year olds.