Party Of Five in Dubai: Our Christmas and New Years 2015

My boys have celebrated the last 4 Christmas' in Dubai. Before that, Mason celebrated his first two in California, one in Texas and 6 in Dubai. This is crazy to me because I celebrated Christmas in Geary, Oklahoma at my Ma-Ma and Pa-Pa's house (mom's parents) for the first 28 years of my life. My mom never missed a Christmas at her home in Geary until my Pa-Pa decided to move to Plano, so that was nearly 60 years with her family in her childhood home! There are days I think my boys are missing out because they have not had a traditional Christmas, but then I remember that the most important thing is that our family is together. Before we leave for Dubai, we host a Thanksgiving Dinner with our extended family and friends. The kids also exchange gifts with their cousins and have a fun-filled day!

This Christmas Eve, our friends the Appleby's, hosted an awesome traditional dinner with turkey, ham, stuffing, roasted potatoes and veggies, and a gingerbread house for the kids! That evening, the kids took a plate of cookies for Santa down to our hotel lobby with a note telling Santa to take the "lift" to the third floor! Santa was able to find his way to our apartment, but the boys actually slept in that morning until 8:30!! We decided to spend the rest of our day at a hotel located on the beach with the Yarbrough family! It was such a relaxing day! Kids swam, played putt putt golf, ping pong, ordered lunch from the pool swim-up bar and played on the beach. Does it get any better?!? What a day!

CHIRSTMAS EVE DINNER!

Chef Charlie Appleby

Boss Lady: Sharon Martin (Ailsing's sister!)

Rod & Sharon

Me and My Irish Bestie, Caroline :)

CHRISTMAS DAY

Kids opening their presents on Christmas morning

Ninja Cash

Jake's upset about losing the baseball dart game! (They are also into mismatching their pajamas these days!)

Kids fell asleep en route to the beach; I had no idea how this day was going to go down!!

A game of putt putt golf

Santa even made a visit (ironically it was the same Santa that the kids visited with at the Ice Lounge!)

Happy 2016!

Mason & Rod played football on the beach

Surfer Dudes! Cash, Mason & Jake!

My Cuties!

Liam & Jake

Jake, Cash & Liam

Silly Boys!

Cash

Jake

Eva Yarbrough

Cash and Jake wave jumping!

We spent New Year's Eve day at the beach with friends. The water was a bit chilly, but it's so clear and beautiful!

We decided to stay in on New Year's Eve and watch the fireworks from our place. We live across the street from the Burj Khalifa, and they have a fantastic fireworks show. However, we got word around 9:30 that The Address Hotel was on fire. It's less than a mile from us, so we rushed outside to see the scene! It was pretty scary, because nobody knew what caused the fire and it continued to grow and spread around the building. We just knew there was no way the fireworks show but would continue, but in typical Dubai fashion, the show must go on and went on as planned!

Here is a view of The Address Hotel fire from our hotel

Photograph of The Address fire on the right, and the Burj Khalifa all lit up on the left

Images after the fire. The boys' school is located across the street

I found this image online. Our place is located in the bottom lefthand corner (white buildings with maroon rotundas). The Burj Khalifa is the world's tallest building, and The Address is the white building to the left of the Burj.

We took the kids to Meydan for racing on New Year's Day