Ice Cream Boys

The boys eat a lot of ice cream in the summer, somehow the agenda for swimming at Nana's house has evolved from popcicles to Drumsticks, I'm sure you can imagine how upset the boys are about this.

4th of July Parade

The boys in the Nevada City 4th of July parade.  For more photos check out the Outside Inn's blog post.

boys

Is any explanation needed for this photo?  Josh in a tuperware bin in costume on the floor surrounded by toys?

And Ben had a big milestone, he lost his top front tooth!

And two photos from our fabulous visitors this weekend, Mr. James and Mr. Kieran.

Colorado visit

A visit to Colorado to hang with our Colorado College friends and their children.  Gotta love our friends, so great to see them, it's like no time has passed at all.

Ben

Ben, grumpy and scowling under neath his accessories.  Precious child.  He couldn't frown for very long and ended up in a fit of giggles.

Abu Dhabi, Tiki Tour

We decided that since our time in Abu Dhabi was brief we should leave the swimming pool and see the sites.  The city of Abu Dhabi is like night and day to Jo'berg, where we had travelled from.  Everything in UAE is build on oil money, so it's all new, shiny and brand spankin new. Our tour started off at the mall, because shopping and UAE go hand in hand.  Sorry to say I didn't buy anything. A visit to a historic site with a funky museum and pretend desert camp checked off the super touristy attraction.

New high rises and the Emirates Palace Hotel, which we couldn't go in because Dan was wearing shorts.

This sign is awesome!  Most of the people crossing sign are normal, but this one has an Emirati in traditional dress.

Lebanese Flower, seriously one of the best meals we had on our whole trip.  

And our tiki tour would not be complete without a trip to Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque.  Visitors are welcome, but required to wear appropriate clothes, so Dan changed into pants and was fine, but I was required to wear an abaya.  Dan took most of these photos as I spent most of our time there tripping over my dress and trying to keep my headscarf on correctly.

We returned to Yolanda and Darryl's and took another dip in the pool, it's hard being a tourist!  Then we feasted on left overs from lunch, yum.  Both of us were surprised by how much we enjoyed our time in Abu Dhabi, somehow I'd expected a desert and a backwards society, but instead was treated to a clean modern city with friendly people and tons to do.

Abu Dhabi, are you sure we're not at Disneyland?

We left South Africa and flew to Dubai, having one of those arrivals where you arrive into a busy int'l airport in the middle of the night, after an 8 hour flight plus an 45 minutes of a holding pattern, a 20 minute bus through the tarmac and then promptly turning the wrong direction in the transfer section and getting lost.  After we finally arrived at our hotel after the mass taxi stampede at 1:30am we were told, "We know you asked for a king, non-smoking, but all we have is a room with two twins, smoking."  Hello United Arab Emirates!

But in the morning after an amazing buffet breakfast we were collected by our friend Yolanda.  We met Yolanda and her husband Darryl in our antenatal class in Dunedin and have enjoyed their hospitality both in Dunedin and Napier, where they lived before they moved to Abu Dhabi.  Yolanda, Darryl and Gemma live in a residence at the Shangri-La, which I knew before we arrived was a 5 star hotel, but I don't think I was fully prepared for how amazing it is.  Our day was seriously like a day at Disneyland.  We went out to lunch at the hotel restaurant.  We sat by the chilled swimming pool, had some refreshments.  We jumped in the ocean.  We surfed the internet, had a coffee drink...

Later we took a boat ride on the hotel's water canal between the residences and the souk, the traditional Arabrian market (i.e. an upscale shopping center) where Gemma had an ice cream cone.  

We marveled at the views of the Abu Dhabi Grand Mosque from the hotel.

And later we went out for dinner and while sitting outside on the patio there was an amazing fireworks show.  No one knew why, 8 pm on a Tuesday, but needless to say we truly felt like we were at Disneyland.