Our Home Away From Home

We spend over one-third of the year in Dubai in a serviced apartment, which is similar to an extended stay back in the US.  The 3-bedroom apartment comes furnished and is surprisingly spacious for our family of 5.  We've stayed in the same room for the last several years, so it's like our "home away from home" for us and the boys.

Just a couple of cute boys wearing their red, white and blue for "French" day at school.  

We live here in the tan buildings at the Al Murooj Rotana.  There buildings are comprised of a hotel, serviced apartments and residential apartments

 A view of our living room

 A view of the dining room

 Our kitchen is nothing fancy, but it's light and airy and has a great view of the pool and garden down below

 Our refrigerator is quite a bit smaller than our frig back home.  But we shop more frequently here as  perishable items such as bread and milk do not last as long in Dubai as they do in the States

Our infamous door of Christmas cards; this is SOOOO American!!

 Here is the hairdryer in the master bathroom, which I can probably blow harder than this thing!!  There is only outlet in the bathroom, and it's for the electric shaver.  Everything else has to be plugged in outside of the the bathroom.  Light switches are also located outside of the bathroom.

 Our master bedroom and our master closet!  Yep, Rod and I share this one closet and one really learns to be an efficient packer with this set-up!!

 The boys decided to share a room this year.  Mason was in one bed and the twins shared the other

 They love the fact that all of the bedrooms have a TV, and we set up their PS-4 in the bedroom!

This is our Washer and Dryer combo!  This not-so-efficient piece of machinery can wash a small load of clothes in 1.5 hours and then dry the same load in 2-3 hours! Ugh!  Needless to say, we air dry a lot of our clothes out on the balcony.

Floor signage.  The sign says "No Smoking" but that's only for the hallway.  Smoking in the rooms is still permitted!  Yuck!

Buying alcohol in Dubai can be somewhat tricky.  There is a large liquor store out in the desert that's approximately 1.5 hours away.  This was one of our purchases ;)  An interesting fact is that Dubai licensing laws require venues serving alcohol be attached to hotels or private clubs.  

This market is attached to our building, which we visit on a daily basis.  Al Maya also delivers, so you can call them up at anytime and request anything, and they will deliver!

Cash cruising the aisle on his scooter

The aisle signs can be helpful - at times!

All markets have a Pork section that is clearly marked for "Non Muslims!"

A few items one might find in the "pork" section! 

A view of our hotel swimming pool

The boys are sharing space at the pool bar with two Arabic women.  What you can't see is that the women are lifting up their veil to drink their bottle of Budweiser .  This is "So Dubai!"

A local Lebanese restaurant in our building that also delivers!!

 Traffic like this makes me miss my 2-traffic light town!!

 We spend a lot of time at the movies, which we can walk to at the Dubai Mall.  We saw Kung Fu Panda 3, and there are subtitles in Arabic and French.

 Cash and Jake are wearing their Batman v Superman t-shirts

 I love to get in my morning workout, and here is view from where I do TRX. 

 It's a great view of the Dubai Marina and is located next to Sky Dive Dubai.