Party of Five BACK in Dubai!

Part of Five is BACK in Dubai!!  It's hard to believe that it's been 7 months since we were last in Dubai, and we have now been back for over 2 weeks!  Everything went smoothly on the flight over, which is always a relief!  The boys slept very little, but they were great and watched movies, ate snacks, played games on iPads and visited with all of the flight attendants.  Mason is now caught up on all his shows and movies as he watched TV for 14 straight hours!  Mom also got to watch a couple of movies this time, which has not happened in a few years (2.5 to be exact!)

The night before we left, and the boys are "helping" me pack all 10 of our suitcases!

Rod and Cash before departure

Jake and Mason are ready for departure  

 Mom is now ready for departure ;)

 And we're off!!!

 Cash actually sat and watched some movies while Jake was more interested in the remote!

 Boys decided to sleep with only 2 hours remaining out of the 14 hour flight!

We are staying in a similar room as last year, and now the twins are sleeping in big boy beds!  It helped that they were so tired the first couple of nights here and would have slept on the floor if we let them!  They are enjoying their new beds and their new freedom!  Many days during nap time, I find them with the lights turned on and playing in one of their beds with all their toys and books!

 The first week is always the hardest.  No matter how hard we try to keep the awake, sometimes their bodies just shut down!

Mason started back to school on Tuesday, December 3rd, which was only 4 days after we arrived in Dubai!  He seemed ready to go, and it was a short 3-day school week for the kids because of a National Holiday.  I think it was a great way for him to ease back into things, and his teacher said he's fitting in great and going along with everything!  There were a lot of nerves on his first day back, but I know they were somewhat calmed when kids were giving him high-fives and saying "Yeah!  Mason's back!"

Mason is also playing baseball with the Dubai Little League, and it's an amazing organization here in Dubai.  There are over 450 players ages 4-17 playing both baseball and softball.  Mason is on the Cardinals, and they played two games before we arrived and Mason has now played in two games!  He's quite the player here, and his team is excited to have the "new kid from Texas!" ha!  It's a great place for the twins to play too, and there is usually a nice young girl that wants to play with them :) The team practices Fridays and their games on Saturdays (those are the weekends here).

 It's a triple with the bases loaded!

 Mason's biggest fans!

Dubai skyline is our backdrop!

Cash and "Jack" (for some reason that's what a lot of people call him) are local celebrities at our hotel and at school, and everyone is excited to see them back in town.  It only took the boys a couple of days to get used to all the hotel staff saying hello to them and wanting to give them high-fives and pat their heads!  Cash seems to handle all the attention better than Jake and loves to say hello to everyone.  Jake is a bit more shy around strangers and has mentioned several times that he does not like the ladies in the full arab dress with their faces covered.  He says, "I no like the mask!" But he's starting to warm back up to it now and it won't be too long before he doesn't even notice the local attire.  Their favorite activity is going with me to pick up Mason after school and staying after to play!  They have also had several playdates with Shyla (Caroline and Bhupat's daughter) and the three have so much fun playing together!  We are just waiting for our other horse racing friends to arrive so we can have more playdates :)

 My silly little elves!

I am so grateful that this transition back has by far been the smoothest and easiest on everyone! We were able to pick up right where we left off, and I guess that's why it's taken me so long to update Party of Five!  We literally hit the ground running and have not stopped!!  I am so excited about our adventure this year, and I will try to document it all!!  Stay tuned...