Our new kitten

Yes, we are creating a new zoo here in Dubai. We can't be without a lot of animal running around. We called Feline Friends, a great cat rescue organization here in Dubai. The process took a few days but we found the most adorable kitten. He is all white with one blue and one green eye. He is fun loving and doesn't mind being smothered by the girls. Today he is playing around my feet while I do some catching up on my computer. We haven't named him yet but we are working on it. Stay tuned...

Below are a few pictures of him. Boy he is hard to photograph being white! Hardly any of the pictures turned out. I ended up swiping the photos that the foster parents sent to us, they are much better. He is now sleeping in my lap purring away.

Pottery Class

I had my first pottery class today. I am taking it at the Dubai International Art Center. The teacher is very good. She has been doing pottery for 20 years and has won several awards. Today we made pinch pots. I am looking forward to seeing my final creation. I turned mine into a small vase and put some spiral things on the outside. I am sure that I will post pictures of it when I can. Funny enough there is a Japanese 30-something woman in the class, she takes pictures of everything. It's pretty funny.

Sports, after school activities and an art class for Mom

Bummer... Dani did not make the soccer team but neither did any of the 6th graders. The league they play in at the middle school here is U14. I'm sure that we are a little bais but we thought that Dani and her friend Natalie were better than some of the 8th graders. As it turns out mostly 8th graders and some 7th graders were chosen for the team. Dani is sad, but she will be fine.

However, that does open up her schedule for another after school activity that she wants to do - ski club. Dani will be going to Ski Dubai for the next 10 weeks! She is also taking mask making. Elle is doing the swim team and an art class on Thursdays.

I am starting a pottery class tomorrow. I can't wait. :)

Sports Update

Sports are more competitive here... well sort of anyway. It's more that there aren't the intramural/city leagues that we have in the states. The soccer team (grades 6-8) only has room for 15 girls. And the swim team in the elementary only has room for 12 kids (co-ed) per grades 3, 4 and 5.

Elle made the swim team. Way to go ELLE!!!

Dani has made the first 2 cuts of the soccer team. The final cut will be on Monday. They have to cut 5 girls. We hope that she makes it but if she doesn't there is a whole host of other after school activities that she can do.

The Sand

We've read that there are 7 colors of sand in the UAE. We have seen 3 of them so far - the orange sand of the huge sand dunes to the south, the black sand of the northeast coast and the white sand in Dubai. In addition the the colors the sand itself is different, just like there are many types of snow. The sand on the northeast coast is black, thick and sinky... meaning that when you stepped your foot sunk in much more than expected. The sand here in Dubai is white and more coarse - not at all good for sand castle building. The orange sand in the desert is fine and also not good for sand play.

Here is a picture of something I made with the sand that we collected from places that we've visited. On top is coral from the northeast coast, next is the orange sand, next is white sand and last is black sand.

A drive to the North East Coast

We took an AWESOME drive to the north east coast of the UAE. The plan was to go to a place one of our neighbors recommended for snorkeling. We took a wrong turn on the way which made us drive thru the mountains longer but it was one of those good wrong turns. The mountains are beautiful! Just lots of rock and sand, but so different than places we have seen before. It looked like there were numerous caves throughout the mountain range. I hope that we will have time to investigate more one day. We took a ton of pictures.

Oh back to that wrong turn thing, we did have a map with us but of course the roads are rarely marked and often the number/name in the map book is different than what is posted. Crazy really, but the whole concept of numbering and naming roads is very new here. Plus we didn't want to end up in Oman because we didn't have our passports.




The mountains seemed to go on forever but finally we reached the coast. We stopped to see the water. Unfortunately the waves were far too big to go snorkeling. So we drove further up the coast to see if the water was calmer there. No luck. But we did get to see lots of beaches. For some reason we didn't get any pictures of the beaches. We will have to remember to take some next time.

On the way back down the coast we looked for some lunch. Dubai is very liberal and has many American restaurants, however this part of the country is more conservative and has very few. The girls and Larry aren't into Arabic food. It's not my favorite either, but I would have eaten it. Anyway, we finally spy a KFC and called it our oasis in the dessert. We also stopped at an old fort. At first we weren't sure if it was something that we could go into because there weren't any non-muslim looking people inside the gates. We finally went in and it was fine. We just couldn't go into the old mosque.
Our desert oasis in the sand....

These are views from the old fort. Just look at that oasis... beautiful ay? There are mountains and rocks every where and then BAM, out pops a section of trees in the middle.







Here is a picture of some native housing in the area.

Then it was time to head home. We took a quicker way home and we came across something called the Friday Market. It's a large market for fruits and vegetables, plants and carpets. We bought some apples, a large rug and some plants. It was fun haggling over the prices and leaving feeling that we had gotten some bargains.

Also on the way home we decided to stop at a children's museum. We figured it would be some small, not so nice place as it was in the middle of the desert and the admission was only 15Dhs per adult and kids were free (that's only about $5). It turned out to be amazing. There were 3 museums in one - a farm, natural history (which we didn't even get to before it closed) and a huge musuem of animals native to the UAE. We spent most of our time in the native animal building. There were at least 4 times that we thought we were at the end of the museum only to see it went on more. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside. There was a section for each animal type - bugs, snakes, birds, big outdoor animals, fish and so on. It was really great.

Here are a few pictures of the farm animals and some of us outside enjoying the low temperature (95 or so).

Big Bus Tour

Since the girls were off for the week we decided to take in some touristy things that we have not yet had a chance to do. We went on a big bus tour which goes into some of the older parts of the city. The tour stopped at a couple of museums plus several older souks. It was very hot that day and since it was Eid the streets were crowded with people. So we decided not to stop at many of the souks. I'm the only one who would enjoy shopping where there are no prices and you have to hangle for everything. The places that we did stop were good.

Here are some pictures of the Dubai Museum which is in an old fort in the one of oldest part of the city.



These are some pictures of the people in the streets. Check out the "itunes" store in the 3rd picture. There are never any copyright infringements here, we were shocked to see it (I'm being sarcastic just in case you didn't catch that). It is hard to tell from the photos but most everyone in the streets are men. Men out number woman 4 to 1 here because of the number of laborers for building projects. Many are from India.




These 2 pictures are from the Wafi Mall. It has an Egyptian theme.