Dubai Pets

We currently have far too many pets in both Dubai and Budapest. In Dubai we have 1 cat and 3 dogs. 

In Budapest we have Betty and Gigi. I'll post about them shortly.

First, here is Oswald (aka Ozzie) with his reindeer ears. He is so ugly and so cute at the same time. He turns 1 in January. Note to self, look up his date of birth. PS He was born in Hungary.

Coco, our elf (right below), is a silly Dubai desert rescue. She is so timid and afraid of her own shadow but craves attention and love all the time. 

Lucky is the alpha of the group - when Daisy isn't around - and another Dubai desert rescue. We thought Lucky would be a small to medium sized dog but he grew and grew and grew. He's lovely but also a bit protective so friends who visit know his bark. Below is a photo of him with Ozzie. For some reason we thought it would be funny to have Lucky wear my dragon boat team top. I think blue suits him! Paddles Ready!

Early on, after Oswald joined our family and Lucky started accepting him, we would (and still do) find Ozzie taking cover underneath Lucky. He fits perfectly. Sometimes he cleans (yes, ewwwww!) and sometimes he just hides.

Daisy is our cat and she is the best cat we have ever owned. She is super cool and friendly, spends her nights outdoors (so we don't wake up with her running across our faces or to her howling at 4am), doesn't jump up and eat our food and leaves our Christmas tree, water glasses and fragile items alone. 

Photo below on left is Daisy and Ozzie about one month after Ozzie joined our family. Daisy took the longest time to accept him and he was so afraid and curious of Daisy.  Every day he inched a bit closer. Today, about 4 months later, they can lay on the same couch as each other and she doesn't hiss at him if he touches her.

The other photo is one of my usual views when I come out of my bedroom and look down into the kids' TV room. Terence in his element (when he is home from school): food, video games, laptop, animals. Usually he has Daisy and one or all dogs surrounding him. His sunnies are nearby as he probably just got home or about to go out. 

This last one is a video. Love it as it captures how I dog walk. Ozzie is off the lead / leash but has to take part so instead he likes to keep either Lucky or Coco's leash in his mouth. It's his attempt of either being in charge or being part of the pack. I have yet to work it out but find it amusing. He goes for Coco's leash more than Lucky's as I think Lucky is bit too tall and he has trouble jumping up to reach it.

Ali's Mime Impression

No idea where she saw or learned this but this was a show she thought would be fun a couple months ago. Thought I would share...

Flashback to 2011 (Ali video)

I just came across this sweet video of little Ali in October 2011. She was 5 1/2 years old and keen to become a good swimmer. She learned by watching her big brother and big sister. Shortly after this she started lessons and got better and better (and stronger and stronger) at all her strokes.

Love these little treasures that take me back in time. Today Ali is 9 years and 1.5 months old. As fun as she is now, a little part of me really misses this little girl in the video!

Mia's Pre-Teen Friday

So our Mia (12 in January; going on 16 1/2) and I organized a little girlie weekend fun on Friday. She's actually pretty good about the weekend hang outs. She is at school for such long hours and we all seem to run around all week long as we are all full on with activities * that our weekend time is really reserved for family-time. I love our family time and have actually steered away from weekend adult activities as I really just, plain and simple, love hanging with my hubby and kids on the weekends. 

You may or may not know but we never had an 11th birthday party for our MiMi. We started a birthday tradition with our kids ages ago that every birthday they have a choice of:

A. Birthday party with friends. 

We set the limit of friends and budget (which we almost always seem to go over in expensive Dubai).

B. Dinner alone with mom and dad at a restaurant of their choosing. 

Terence always picks B since his 8th birthday.

Mia knew she wanted a party but couldn't decide where, with who, when. Our weekends were always packed and every time we detected a reasonable weekend, she seemed to get an invite to another friend's birthday at that exact time. 

Long story short, it eventually became too late. To make up for it, I asked her if she'd like a girlie afternoon with some of her best mates. She jumped at the opportunity.

We started with a lovely late lunch with her group and then walked over to this amazing newish hot spot called BOUNCE. It's an indoor trampoline park and the children all love it. Especially in this Dubai heat. The evening ended just after 8pm and the girls all had an amazing time. Mission accomplished. 

Walking from lunch to Bounce.

Getting their wrist bands which allows them entry.

6 of them (and 2 others) awaiting the start of a game of dodge ball.

Mia and her besties (2 couldn't make it) and sister, Ali.

And a video of some of their dodge ball fun.

We Have a New Soccer Player in the House

Guess who has joined a soccer (a.k.a. 'football' as it's known outside of America) league in Dubai? Our little Alexandra.

After a week at a summer 'soccer' camp before the new school year started (along with her brother and sister), Ali developed a passion for the sport. So much that she begged for me to enroll her into the league regularly. Last night was her first hour lesson at the indoor facility in Al Quoz. I took her (early) and upon arriving discovered she was the only GIRL in the group. I didn't mention it as I didn't want to draw extra attention to this fact and decided to let Ali form her own opinion about the group dynamics. Fortunately, she never mentioned it so it apparently didn't seem to faze her at all. Phew!

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay to watch her for more than 15 mins as I had child #2 (Mia) to collect from her swim squad try outs. However, I did manage to capture a few (not so clear) snaps and a very short video clip. 

Dad collected her at 6pm and she arrived home so excited and so pumped about her new beloved sport. She kicked the ball around the house and practiced tricks and drills with Curt until bedtime. Then, she took her new (part of her new kit from the league) mini-soccer ball to bed and introduced it to her bed full of cuddly animals (photos of this scene coming soon) where it remained all night. Now that is what I call DEDICATION!

PS Dad is so happy to finally have a passionate soccer player in our home!

  

PS She now needs new shoes for soccer. 

More Ice Dumping

I forgot to include Ali's ice bucket challenge. She was the first to do it. Isn't she great? I think her leg itch was due to be nervous...

Activities Resume this week

Terence has resumed (American) Football Training. Four hours today! He plays on the Barracuda team with EAFL (Emirates American Football League) and loves every minute of it... 

The amazing field house

Lots of space for training

Moving slowly after a tough, long practice. Time now for homework.

And this is what the girls do as we wait for him to finish up.

Alexandra's birthday

This is a recent video from Alexandra's 6th birthday. We had a small family gathering / celebration at home. I'll include photos from her birthday (as well as from Mia's on the 22nd) in another blog post.

PS Today is Curt's birthday.

Hula Hooping Island Fun

Mia won the hula (or is it hoola?) hooping contest on Kiawah Island. I had no idea she was so good! She can even do 2 at a time. In this video she was attempting 3 at a time. Love it! Especially since I was never a good hula hooper...

New Kids' Scooters

Here they are testing them out...

Ali's End of School Year Party

On Tuesday, the parents of the maternelle (5 kindergarten classes) were invited for an end of year party with the parents and students. We were asked to bring a snack or drink. I brought in apple cake and enjoyed chatting to the other moms and Ali's teachers. Here is a photo of Ali with her teacher, Isabelle (on the right), and the T.A. (teacher's assistant) Erzsebet. I found it interesting to learn that Isabelle is trained as a Biology teacher for high school kids, however, she enjoyed the short change of teaching the little ones. She was very good at it as well as she is very nurturing and sweet. Her teaching career at the Lycee Francais Budapest has quickly come to an end as her husband's job is taking them to Milan this summer. She is very excited.

Erzsebet has been at the Lycee for quite some time. She was the T.A. for Mia 4 years ago and is really lovely. She especially bonded with Ali - and vice versa. Thanks to Erzsebet, Ali actually had a really good year. She had trouble at the beginning of the year but once her and Erzsebet bonded (mostly in Hungarian), it all improved. After the photo is a short video that I took while we were on the playground of the maternelle.

My Magyar Mia

Magyar, for those of you that don't know, means 'Hungarian' in Hungarian. Mia is a Magyar girl through and through. She loves the food, culture, language and now that she's been introduced to the folk dancing, she is at home!

Earlier this week, we had the pleasure of watching her and her class on stage dancing in true traditional Hungarian style folk dance. She was so great (I thought)! The teacher did a great job and all the kids on stage seemed to be perfectly in sync and with smiles on their faces. It was so fun to watch and I can tell that they also enjoyed performing!

In the short video below, she is the 3rd girl to come out.

Albania 10th birthday celebration video

If you are interested, our marketing team put the photos together from the event into a video show. You can view it here.

Mia's Dance Performance with DCA

Finally, a few more photos and a video of Mia's dance performance last week. Have so many other updates but have no time now. Curt and I are off to Geneva for some meetings in a few hours and haven't packed, prepared anything for the kids during our absence, etc.

Ciao for now....

And a short video clip. Mia is the gray cat with the bun in her hair. Don't feel bad if you cannot find her right away. I also had trouble at the beginning of the show.

Ice Cream and Beer

A couple of Saturday's ago, we were out for lunch with some friends at one of our favorite Italiano restaurants in town. Ali and her BFF, Molly, decided that they wanted to have ice cream and apple juice without glasses. I didn't know why but I agreed. Then, they decided they wanted to sit up in the bar area of the restaurant (the rest of us were outdoors) for their dessert. Here they are eating their ice cream and drinking their apple juice and calling it beer. Funny little things. By the way, notice Ali's new fashion sense. Ensemble is her own creation 100%!

New Juicer

Last week, Terence and Curt came home with a new juicer. It is ubber cool! Love, love, love fresh squeezed juice. When I was living in San Francisco as a single woman (was that in a past life? just kidding), I got really into the fresh squeezed juices as that was very trendy at the time. People were getting all funky and adding extra vitamins, wheat grass, etc. into their drinks. I'm more of a traditionalist. Recently, when we were in Dubai, I noticed a juice bar across the street from our hotel and I became a regular. My personal favorite that I almost never stray from is carrots mixed with celery. So refreshing and uplifting! Now, with the new juicer we got and my amazing kids (and hubby), I get fresh squeezed juice regularly. As long as I keep the supplies stocked, then we can get it. The new juicer works like a star! Love, love, love it. Check out the recent video of Terence and Ali (my 2 clowns) hard at work. Mia comes in later to take part...

Ali's Reading Skills

Yesterday morning, Ali and I were home alone as T was at football and Mia was at her dance rehearsal (practicing for her big show today!). While I was cleaning up the kitchen, Ali told me she was going to practice her reading. I stopped to watch what she was going to do and got such a kick out of her attempt. I think she really thought she was reading. I love how she pretends to sound out the word like she has heard her big sister do so many times this year. Unfortunately for little Ali, the word on these cards did not match the pictures. I didn't have it in me to break this to you. Instead I just went along and filmed the entertainment.

Ali's Bike and Mia's Arm

Here's a video from Wed or Thurs last week showing Ali on her bicycle. I tried to take some videos of her bicycling over the weekend as we rode a lot. She can ride forever. This is funny as she runs out of energy more when she is walking then when she is riding her bike. She loves her training wheels and has no desire to try and ride a 2 wheeler. I think this large bike would be hard to learn on as it's quite tall...




PS I think it's funny that Mia always chooses to wear her ski helmet rather than her bicycle helmet. Maybe she feels more secure in it.

Another T video

I will slowly play catch up to all of T's videos and photos that he took while in Dubai. This next one was of a clothing store's window display in the Dubai Mall (largest in the world, they claim). It certainly caught our attention. He must have taken this as I walked through the store and admired their beautiful clothes...

Chillin' at home

Today is Monday and there is no school due to the Pentecost holiday. I love having Mondays off! Curt had to fly out early this am so it's me and the kids, dogs and cat. Yesterday I was thinking about all sorts of ideas for outings but then just decided to enjoy the day and chill at home. We are NEVER at home. I honestly do not remember the last time me and / or the kids were home ALL day - entertaining friends for a bbq excluded. It has been fantastic. They've had their ups and downs with being active then getting a little bored. I will not let them turn on the TV so it's an active, imaginative day.

They started with a late rise out of bed. I was up at 7am to see Curt off who left at 7:30am. I had a quick one hour work out on the treadmill and then T woke up first at about 8:40am. Ali tip toed down just after 9am and Mia got woken by Ali at 10am!!! Ali was in their bedroom getting her bathing suit out as the warm weather and sunshine equated to sprinklers and outdoor fun.

After a couple of hours of outdoor play time, I found them inside like this. So sweet...




Now Mia and T are attempting to play Monopoly City alone. It's a little bit too difficult for Mia and I don't think T is going to give her any advantages so it probably won't last much longer. I'm making a late lunch / early dinner then we are off for a long, long bike ride.