Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sport. Show all posts

Sunday, March 8, 2015

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!

Monday, January 5, 2015

Clements Girls skiing (Dec 2014)

Here are a few short clips of my our girls skiing in Meribel last month. 

Mia (in the 2nd video) is harder to spot as there are more people. Look for her in the blue jacket and bright orange ski pants.



Sunday, September 21, 2014

Terence - Football

I don't ever get many photos of Terence. The girls are a bit better about the camera. However, I got this one of T last week after dropping him off for football training. Doesn't he look like a man? He is so big (nearly 6 feet tall) and only 13 years old. His shoe size is 45 - 46 EU!



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.


Tuesday, September 9, 2014

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. 

Monday, September 8, 2014

More Extra-Curricular Activities

Today from 4-5pm (after school) Emilia will be at the U14 (grades 6, 7 and 8) swim squad try outs. Last year she made the team for the Elementary (Primary) school and we were so excited for her. This year she is trying out again. Then, on Wednesday, she will try out for the U14 Girls Volleyball team. Keep your fingers crossed! 

Here is a short clip of her trying out last year. She is so strong!


Monday, December 13, 2010

Mia's Kabaret

I have been the ultra worst blogger ever. Work, kids, life, etc are all keeping me so busy that I have no spare minutes to do the things I enjoy... like blogging. C'est la vie... Here are some photos and videos I had to post from Mia's weekend Kabaret. She was incredible! The entire show was so incredibly professional and well done. Curt and I were proud of our confident daughter who seems to have fell right into a very comfortable place in this group. Here is an overview of her show on Saturday. (by the way, she had 2 performances on Friday and 2 on Saturday).

her young fans waiting to go into the theatre


She performed 3 song / dances - all were from famous shows... I'll put down what they are in my next post.


LOVE THIS NEXT ONE. It summarizes her confident stage presence!

2 videos



Wednesday, October 6, 2010

T sailing videos

Finally - the 2 videos showing Terence sailing! He's so sweet as he is so excited to be learning sailing and told me that he cannot wait until he can sail a large boat and sail our entire family all over the sea! I too look forward to that time...

In the meantime, it looks like he'll be stuck with this much smaller sail boat while he learns.





Sunday, October 3, 2010

T's First Sailing Course

I will write about our weekend, sailing class, etc and include videos tomorrow. Just wanted to post these quickly...














Wednesday, July 7, 2010

WIMBLEDON 2010

Lucky me. I recently had the opportunity to go to Wimbledon and enjoy an experience that I have always dreamed of... And, it exceeded my expectations! The best part is thanks to my friends' tennis family (including family members who have played in Wimbledon) we were able to experience it all in VIP style! And, cost free!

Kim jumped the queue to pick up our VIP / members enclosure entrance passes.

With her dad who holds 1 of 350 VIP access tickets. That is 350 individual tickets in the entire world! They cannot be sold, traded or lended out! By the way, they are buying a pitcher of Pimm's.

A delicious lunch in the members enclosure / VIP area.

My 2 dear, dear friends who always make me giggle like I am 15 years old!

Kim's mom, Carole, meeting up with some of her Texan friends who she also hooked up with Wimbledon tickets.


Getting ready to experience Centre Court! Centre Court is where the top players play. There are approximately 14 other courts in the Wimbledon tennis arena but Centre Court is the most important court...


Sort of dark photos but posing in our seats while enjoying Lleyton Hewitt and then Roger Federer playing (and both winning).





This is my view (without a zoom lens)

Inside the Members Enclosure they have the Wall of Fame - past winners... It was great and brought back so many memories as I have seen the majority of them win on TV.


Other photos around the Wimbledon tennis area - including lots of the flowers in Wimbledon's colors.





Getting ready to head home (to Nicky's home in Aldbury).


Below are 2 photos of Nicky, Kim and I on a recent trip to Cyprus to celebrate my birthday.



Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Ali Swimming Video

I've just plugged in T's camera's memory stick into my laptop. There are 171 photos and even a few videos. I love looking through them to see life through his perspective. I will try and sort through and post over the next day or 2. In the meantime, I had to post a video that he took of Ali swimming. Unfortunately Curt only made it to the pool one day of the 2 weeks we were there due to his work schedule. The kids were so excited. I was happy to have a break as I had given tons of 'dolphin rides' to each of them. Even Ali let's me take her all the way down to the bottom of the deep end. She can hold her breath for an amazingly long time! We had a system that she pinched my shoulder if she was running low on air and I would quickly go back to the top. The deep end was only about 2 1/2 or 3 meters deep.

While in Dubai earlier this month, Ali's endurance for swimming really improved. She's always been a great swimmer and stopped wearing arm bands about a year ago but I still like her with either a noodle or some sort of flotation device (the small inner tubes are great) nearby. Her biggest achievement this time was swimming all the way across the width of the pool. The width was probably about 4 - 4 1/2 meters. The hardest thing for her was coming up for air. She's a great swimmer but she only just now how to incorporate her stroke with breathing breaks. Curt kept the noodle nearby for her to grab during breaths.

And, keep in mind that Terence did the filming.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Desert Fun


On Saturday we had a fantastic afternoon / evening in the Empty Quarters desert. I didn't know much about this desert until our Dune Bashing adventure. Our informative driver (2nd generation Emirati), Omar, filled us in on lots of things about Dubai and the surrounding area.

The Empty Quarters, we learned, is one of the largest deserts in the world. It is called the Empty Quarter because four countries' borders meet in the desert: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen.

Our driver picked us up in his very large Chevy Tahoe at 4pm to drive us out to the desert meeting point. There were 25 cars in total dune bashing on Saturday. 3 cars were filled with our group (see above photo).

Curt had been before and really thought it would be a fun outing for us to all do together. He especially thought the kids would love it and they did. It felt like a rollercoaster ride as Omar drove us quickly over the dunes - up and down, sliding left and right. Several times it felt as if we'd tip over. I was in the car with Mia and Ali and they screamed with delight and shouted, 'faster, faster'!!

During our ride (about 1 1/2 hrs total), we had several stops to stretch, have a drink and take a few snaps. Then, we ended at an area in the middle of the desert set up with a stage (for the belly dancer), dinner, shisha pipes, henna tattoo artists, camels, etc. The food was fantastic and the evening was wonderful out in the desert with friends and entertainment.

These were taken at one of our stops


Our fantastic driver Omar. He spoke about 4 or 5 languages and has been driving through the dunes for 4 years.

The kids with Carl (who is also moving his family out to Dubai) jumping down one of the big dunes.
Another group snap (above) and T's jeep (below)

Some white antelopes in the distance

CAMELS








Night time entertainment in our Bedu encampment