Party Of Five in Dubai: January 2018

I attempted to update our blog once we arrived, only to discover that the Blogger website had been hijacked! Photobucket blocked my blog and covered it with this Warning image. They require a paid membership of $399/year to show your images, hosted by them, on your blog. Fortunately I found someone to help resolve this issue, and after more than a month, the blog is back!

December in Dubai was a very busy month for us, so I'll use my sister in law, Demar's favorite term: highlights and bullet points!

- Departed TX on Tues, Nov 28th and said good bye to family and friends, but the hardest good bye was to our 13-year old Australian Shepard, Levi.

- Landed on Wed, Nov 29th and Mason had his first baseball practice on Friday and a game on Saturday. He's playing for the Red Sox this year.

- We tried our best to combat jet lag by dragging out our sleep deprived kids, and we went for late night scooter rides, tried out new restaurants and played Jenga at our local pub.

- All three boys started back to school on Monday, Dec 3rd! Their two weeks back were filled with Christmas programs and class parties for the twins and Mason's class took a field trip to the Dubai Mall for ice skating and lunch! It's a nice way to ease back into school and before things get crazy in January.

- The Dubai schools had three long weeks off for Winter Holiday, so we've tried our best to stay busy and out of the apartment!

- Dubai Little League hosted Chase Utley and Justin Turner at the ball park, so the boys got to meet them and get autographs. We also discovered that Utley and Mason were born at the same hospital Huntington Memorial in Pasadena, CA!

- The boys got their stylish haircuts by our local barber.

- We've enjoyed the warm temperatures and went to beach and the pool.

- We spent a lot of time at the mall, went bowling, jumped at an indoor trampoline park, played at the arcadesaw a lot of movies (Daddy's Home 2, Jumanji, Ferdinand and Star Wars The Last Jedi.

- Dubai is very festive during the holidays, so we visited an outdoor festive market, went to an Ice Lounge and had an awesome visit with Santa Claus.

- We had a lovely Christmas morning at home and Rod got to enjoy his one day off from work! Some of the favorite gifts this year were hover boards with a ride-on attachment, a fit bit, Alexa Echo Dot and a dice game Tenzi. We celebrated Christmas afternoon with our friends the Bianchi's and Rae's and had a traditional Christmas dinner :)

- The boys and I went dune bashing out in the desert one morning. They also got to ride a camel and run up and down the sand dunes. The desert sand is much finer and has a silky feel to it compared to beach sand.

But now our winter break is drawing to a close, and it's time to return back to reality and our routine!!