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.  

Baseball, Kuwait and More Baseball!

This year Mason celebrated his 10th birthday back home in Texas.  GranBobs (Rod's dad) came out to visit us last week, and we decided to let Mason fly home with him.  The transition back and forth to Dubai is probably the hardest on Mason, and it's safe to say he was really home sick this year.  I know each year it gets tougher for him as he's really starting to miss his friends back home.  Fortunately for him though, the baseball season in Dubai is from December through March!  The baseball fields are less than 10 minutes from our house, so we spent A LOT of time there this year!  Between his private lessons, team practice, all-star practice and games, he was at the fields at least 5 days a week.  The twins loved going up there as much as he does, so it was a great place for us to all go during the afternoons.

This year Mason played on the Rangers, and they finished in first place with 11 wins, 1 loss and 3 ties!  Mason was able to play a variety of positions from pitcher, catcher, shortstop, first, second and third base.  He also ended his last at bat with a homerun!!

 Baseball field where Mason plays most of his games

The batting cages

Mason also had the opportunity to play on the Dubai Dodgers All-Star team.  Their team played in Kuwait against teams from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar!  This was such an awesome experience for both Mason and myself (we had to leave Rod and the twins at home as Rod had a big weekend of racing in Dubai).  This was the first time for both Mason and I to travel outside of Dubai and in the Middle East, and it was less than a 2-hour flight away.  We spent all of our time either at the ball fields or the hotel, and traveled via bus to and from the fields.  Once we reached our hotel, the  guards used a search mirror to inspect underneath the bus.  Then we entered through a metal detector as we walked into the hotel (except the detector beeped continuously as the boys walked through with their bat bags!  I guess we were not a big security threat!)  I got the feeling that Kuwait is somewhat liberal but it had more of an authentically Arab feel to the country.  Alcohol is also totally prohibited in Kuwait!  I'm so thankful Mason had this opportunity, and they finished third in their division!

Mason came in as the closing pitcher against Kuwait and no runs were scored! The game ended in a 4-4 tie, and Kuwait was the tournament champion

 He had the highest batting average on his team of .666!

 Coach Michael is giving a team pep talk before the Bahrain game!

 Mason was one of the team captains vs Bahrain.  They won 9-2

 Fun pool time at the hotel after their games

 DLL (Dubai Little League) sent 5 teams to Dubai, so we had over 125 people staying at this hotel.

 Team meeting after Day 1 of games

Playground at the Kuwait fields 

 The Kuwaitis were excellent hosts!  They provided daily food coupons for the players, bottles of water, baskets of fruit and snacks!

 Entrance to the Kuwait fields

 One of the major highlights was the Taco Bell stand!!

 Mason really enjoyed playing catcher!

A big win against Qatar! 

 Tournament photo with all 6 teams

 The third place Dubai Dodgers

Mason really enjoyed his training sessions with Coach Sean and two older baseball players.  They were excellent role models for Mason, especially his buddy Lincoln.

Did You Know...

Mason skyped with his 4th grade class back home in Texas the other night, and it was such a treat for all of us!  He visited with his team of teachers and their classrooms: Mrs. Thorne, Mrs. Gallegos, Mrs. Emmons and Mrs. Baize.  The kids played "20 Questions" and it made me realize there are a lot of things that people may not know about Dubai.

Mason skyping with his 4th grade class back in Texas (notice "Frick and Frack" in the mirror)

Weather - We are here during their "winter" months.  December is still warm, but January is the coldest month of the year with temperatures in the 60's.  February is typically the wettest month with an average of 15 inches.  Temperatures start to climb back up in March/April.  Mason had a baseball game today and the temp was 66, cloudy and windy.  It was chilly, but he's played in much colder temps including a game in the sleet and rain one cold weekend in November!!

Mason plays for the Rangers, and the baseball season is from Dec - Mar

Taking advantage of the "winter" months, with a bike ride through Safa Park!

School - Mason attends ASD, The American School of Dubai.  The hours of school are the same as back home, but the ASD campus houses all grades Pre K - 12th grade.  There are approximately 1600 students represented by over 55 nationalities.  Mason's school back home is very similar in size with 1700 students, except there are 4 different campuses.  In 4th grade at ASD, he has one teacher for all subjects, while has four teachers back home in Fairfield.

Dubai is a very clean place.  There are cleaners everywhere, including this guy that sweeps the curbs out front of our hotel.

Advertising is very popular here.  If there is an empty space, it will be covered with some sort of advertising, be it a building, walls, etc.  They also construct billboards to cover up construction sites. And according to this advertisement, if you buy a home at a Damac property, then you are guaranteed a new Lamborghini!

According to the Guinness World Records, over 150 were set in the UAE.  The world's tallest building is the Burj Khalifa, The JW Marriott Marquis is the world's tallest hotel and one of our favorites is the Dubai Aquarium at the Dubai Mall, which is the world's largest suspended aquarium. 

Mason taking in a view at the JW Marriot Marquis' Prime 68 Steakhouse

Eva, Liam, Cash & Jake at the Dubai Aquarium underwater tunnel, which is the length of half a football field!

Construction - Between 15-25% of the world's construction cranes are in Dubai. There is construction everywhere you look, and they always excavating something!!

Construction well under way at the City Walk development

There are no street addresses, zip codes or area codes in Dubai!  Street names are always changing and the spelling is not consistent! Makes getting around pretty interesting!

The Dubai police fleet includes a Lamborghini, Ferarri, Bentley and a Mercedes G Wagon!


Sales of oil make up approximately 6% of the Dubai economy.  The local economy is based mostly on tourism, real estate and financial services.

The local people, called Emiratis, are just 15% of the total population.  Majority is split between India, Philipines, Pakistan and European countries.

The official religion of Dubai is Islam, and the call to prayer occurs five times a day: pre-dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and evening.  Be it a mall, airport, beach, etc, you can hear the prayer broadcast out over a loud speaker.  Sometimes it sounds like a chant or can be more song like. It is very common to find an arrow on the ceiling in your hotel room, which indicates the direction of Islam's holiest site.  Dubai is well-known for it's tolerance and respect of all religions.  Besides mosques, the city houses many other places of worship including churches and temples.