Dolphin Bay Experience at Atlantis Hotel

On Thursday of last week we had one of our most incredible family experiences. Together with our Middle East manager, Bojan; his wife, Ivana; Brigi, our sitter; Kriszt, Brigi's younger brother; and our family of 5 we all went to the Atlantis Hotel on Palm Jumeirah for a day of excitement. We had a great time in their water park as well as their Dophin Bay where we got to play with their dolphins. It was INCREDIBLE!

Here are some of the pictures that the professionals took of us.

The famous Atlantis Hotel

And our group of 9 in the Dolphin Bay. Look closely behind us and you can see our dolphin, Sol, showing off.

Mia looked a little sad in the photo of the 5 of us holding Sol because the trainer told everyone except Mia where to put their hands on Sol.

Love these of T as he resisted kissing Sol and finally we all talked him into it. But, look at his half effort....

We all got a choice to play catch with Sol or dance with Sol. Ali giggled while holding Sol's fins and dancing but you can't see it in any of the photos as her hair is covering her face.

And here is our future Marine Biologist who adored Sol!

Wednesday Night Out

Dubai so far has been the perfect mix of work, family and friends. On Wednesday night we enjoyed catching up with our old friends from Budapest. They overlapped with us for a few years in Budapest. They had 5 kids and their oldest three were at the French school with ours. After Budapest they returned to their home country, England, for only one year before James got relocated to Dubai. Their entire family moved here and settled into the French school here in August / September.

It was great seeing them and going out on Wednesday night. They organized the evening's program which was perfect. We started at this amazing restaurant called the Mango Tree. It's a Thai restaurant and we were thrilled as we both love Thai food and don't have any good Thai restaurants in Budapest. The most exciting part about our dinner was sitting out on the terrace and watching the Dubai Fountains. We had no idea that these existed in Dubai and learned from James that they were designed by the same man who did the ones outside of Las Vegas' Bellagio Hotel and the newer Macau Wynn Hotel. The fountains went on every 20 minutes and were magical! Here's a short video clip from our table at the Mango Tree restaurant.

After the Mango Tree we went over to the Bahri Bar to enjoy some Mai Tais and live music in the very glamorous Madinat Hotel. From our spot on this terrace we could see the famous Burj Hotel and watch the colors on it's facade change colors. It was incredible.

Here are some photos of Curt and I with Luanna and James.

If you look closely behind us, you can see the Burj hotel.

Enjoying Dubai

We are in Dubai for 11 days while the kids have a 2 week break. We arrived on Sunday evening and are really enjoying it - especially the extra warm weather. We left Budapest in about 8 degrees C and arrived at 11pm to 28 degrees C. You can only imagine what it is like at mid-day! We don't mind as we need the warm weather.

Our hotel is in the Dubai Marina and we really like the area. The boats are bigger than anywhere we've ever been before. Behind Curt in the distance you can see some palm trees and this is our hotel's pool. We are in a serviced apartment so it's nothing over the top like most of the hotels here but it's perfect for us!

Since Curt and I have to work while here some days and evenings, we brought Brigi and her brother, Kriszt. This allowed us to combine business with pleasure and enjoy the kids without having to leave them with a strange babysitter.

Winter Has Arrived Early

I don't think we are the only ones who got a surprise winter visit out of the blue in mid-October! It did come as a surprise as last week we were still in shorts and t-shirts. It was a scramble this week trying to find hats, gloves, warm jackets, etc for school. This photo was taken of Ali who hates wearing coats, hats, gloves and really, really detests wearing boots. Somehow I persuaded her on Wednesday to get it all on and still smile. I must try and recall what I did or said as every other day has been a struggle.

The photo below is of her waiting for the bus to go to her old nursery school, Heidi Ovoda. She has no school on Wednesdays at the French school and loves going back to Heidi on Wednesdays to visit all her friends and teachers. They welcome her with lots of love and often make Wednesday a really special party day...

I think it's great as it helps her keep up her Hungarian and it also gives me some more time to focus on T and Mia's Wednesday activities. Ali would just end up being tugged along all day so it works well for everyone.

Anyhow, I had to share this photo of her in winter wear.

Playground Fun

Last week I had Terence and Ali only for the afternoon. I think Mia must have been at a birthday party that day. We went to a playground in the city that has recently changed a bit so T particularly wanted to check it out. He loved this zip line. The playground was pretty empty so he got to go on it over and over again. We tried to get Ali to try but she was being a bit of a chicken.

Curt's Visit to Dubai

Last week from Wednesday till Saturday, Curt was in Dubai for work. The purpose of the visit was for some of our vendors to take out the key Move One managers and decision makers. Our business has exploded recently in the Middle East and Dubai particularly has rapidly grown. For this occasion, Curt flew in along with a few other key managers for some relationship building. Since it was on the cargo side and sort of a 'male bonding' excursion, I skipped it. I'm rarely involved in the cargo side of our business and thought it was great for Curt to go and bond with the guys. I think the purpose of the visit was successful as they did many things from boating, to SUVs and ATVs in the desert to a belly dancing show. Curt managed to capture a few moments of their guys' relationship building adventure on video and thought it would be a good idea to share it with all of you. He's looking forward to taking the kids on a few of these adventures next week when we are there as a family.

l'Enduro at French School

Last Friday, October 10th was l'enduro at the French school. It's a running thing that the entire school is involved in. Each year they come up with themes for each class - either a color or a country or something unique. This year, the entire school chose to wear green to represent environmental awareness. They've been learning about recycling and composting at school all week so it was a perfect ending to the week.

Every year the parents are invited to take part in the morning festivities. This year I actually went a bit early to help Ali and her classmates. Her teacher cornered me and convinced me to come. I tried to get out of it as I don't speak French and only a little Hungarian but I figured I was due to take part in a school activity after 3 years of avoiding it. I'm glad I did and Ali was even happier knowing she got to hold my hand ALL morning.

Originally I was supposed to be in charge of 4 kids but extra volunteers turned up so I only had Ali and a little boy named Milan who looked as lost as a deer caught in headlights. I don't know if he spoke French, English or Hungarian (or none of the above) as he never said a word. I talked to him in English and Hungarian and a few words in French. I think both his parents are working full time as neither were there before, during or after the event. I still giggle wondering what went through his head when all he probably heard were words like, "We're going to go run" or "Run, run, run" ... Definitely not the average day in school...

When Ali's class and I arrived to the field across the street, the rest of the school was already there and well into the festivities. I found Mia with her friends and T with his (see below).


Here's Ali with her class waiting for their turn to 'run, run, run'


A shot of all the people on the field.

Of my trio, Ali's group was the first to run. I wasn't prepared to run with them the entire time as I had planned to be on the sidelines clicking away on my camera. It was fun as I dragged Ali and little, confused Milan around and around for 5 - 10 mins. I'm lucky that Wendy, who has 2 kids at the school, snapped a couple from the sidelines to prove that I was out there (see below).

Note: the man to the right of me in the white shirt is the new director. He's obviously in much better physical shape than I am! We've become close to him and his wife since they moved to Budapest this summer. They live 2 houses away; have 4 children (2 of which are in Ali and Terence's classes); and his wife has been Mia's substitute teacher for the first month while her teacher was taking care of her dying mother back in France.

Every time I ran by with Ali and Milan in tow, Mia and her friends cheered us on. It was so cute that I had to stop and click a shot of them on the sidelines!

Here's Mia's class and some of the bigger groups getting ready for their run. Mia's teacher, Marie Pierre, is in the front with the blue capri pants.

To start each race the director used a real starter gun. He counted down 'trois, deux...' then POP (the kids thought it was cool to see the smoke come out of his gun).

Here are the action shots. Notice Mia with her tongue hanging out in the 2nd shot. She's actually an amazing runner. Long strides and very fast. She left her friends in her dust. I thought she would have stayed with them, holding hands the entire way but her competitive spirit took over (I think she gets that from me).

And then there is T who walked half the time. I captured this one on his 3rd lap when he was doing a half walk, half run. I think he thinks he ran a marathon.

Ali afterwards with one of her favorite people, Martha. Martha is in grade 5 and is 10 years old. We are great friends with Martha's family so we spend a lot of time together. Her and Ali have grown very close. I think Martha wishes she had a little sister as she only has 2 younger brothers. One of her brothers is T's best buddies (see him in the photo above with T).

I think it is so funny how Ali closes one eye when she's posing like Curt. It wasn't that sunny out...

Mia at the end of her run - complete exhaustion!

For photos of last year's l'enduro events click on the links below.

l'enduro 2008 and l'enduro 2007

More Glasgow

This is where we stayed - Kim's parents' home.

I love how most of the homes in the UK have names. Their home's name is 'Sunnyside'.

On Day 2 we went downtown to sight see, meet up with some friends, have lunch, and do some shopping. On Day 3, Kim, her parents and I drove out to see nearby Loch Lomond. It was beautiful and again we were lucky with the weather. After walking around the town and the loch, we settled into the beautiful and newly built (2008) Boathouse Restaurant which is part of the Cameron House properties. From what I understand, it's a mansion, golf course, retreat which is quite a famous place for get aways, weddings, etc.

I loved the decor in the Boathouse restaurant. Here is one of the chairs by the fire. It's made out of oars and fishing poles.

When we finally went in for lunch it was already 2:30pm on a Monday so rather quiet.

I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of seafood. It was delicious. We started with mussels and I had 1/2 dozen amazing local raw oysters. Then, Kim and I both had the ceaser salad with fresh prawns and anchovies. It was incredible!

Curt called while we were there and we all talked to him and wished he were with us. We then told him what we were eating and he was less than thrilled... I think we'll be making a trip there together sometime in 2010. As of now there is a direct 3 hour flight from Budapest to Glasgow on Ryan Air. My round trip ticket was less than USD200 so it is reasonable. The only challenge is Ryan Air's strict 15 kg luggage allowance. They charge 20GBP for each kilo that the passenger goes over - ouch! My luggage on my return was 15.1 kgs. phew...

The other challenge was getting up at 4:15am to catch our 6:50am flight on Wednesday morning.

Glasgow for 3 Nights

I've always wanted to get to Scotland and Ireland and I finally had the opportunity to visit one of the two with my great friend, Kim, who is from Glasgow. We went sans hubbies and sans kids from Sunday through Wednesday to visit her parents who still spend 6 months of the year in their home in Glasgow (the other 6 months of the year they are in Mexico).

We landed Sunday at about 6pm into Prestwick airport and drove immediately to the nearby beach in Troon to get a big whiff of the fresh sea air. Kim's dad, Harry, picked us up. The sun was shining and the weather was cool - not as cold as I thought but significantly cooler than the 27 degrees C that it was in Budapest upon our departure.

The above left photo is Kim with her dad, Harry. The above right is a view from their old house (a beautiful huge home that they had always wanted me to see but ended up selling it a couple of years ago). If you look closely, you'll see the rainbow off in the distance.

Next is dinner time at the Matheson home: poached salmon! We started with the Scottish traditional dish of haggis. Many would be grossed out to know what haggis is so I won't explain. Just think of a sausage type dish. It was served with 'neeps and tatties' (mashed turnips and mashed potatoes) but no 'dram' (whiskey) and it was delicious! I was amazed at how Kim's mom dressed the salmon. It was a piece of art and unbelievably tasty.

Kim and her mom posing with our dinner.

Boys' Street Sale

On Friday after school all three kids and I went over to play at the Cooper's home. It's a perfect family fit as our daughters get along really well with their almost 5 year old, Molly, and T gets along really well with Harry and Charlie.

Kim and I were chatting in the kitchen and watching the boys play out the front window. They had decided to gather up some old toys and have a sale on the side of the street. It was very funny to watch them sit like old men on stoops. They were quite patient waiting for customers but unfortunately they didn't have any sales. A few people who were walking by stopped to converse with them and see what they were up to. Since T was the only one who spoke Hungarian, he translated everything. I stuck my ear out to listen and make sure they were being polite. It was adorable listening to our 3 salesmen trying to convince people to buy up their used goods (later I saw they were not very impressive - many broken toys). They even set up the table and chairs all by themselves. We loved watching them (over a 2 hour period) as they really got into it and used their imagination and worked well as a team. For anyone with kids this generation, you'll know that their imagination is not what ours were 30+ years ago when we didn't have all the technology and toys that they do now.

They went back and forth over the fence so the dogs and girls wouldn't get out into the street.

Daddy's Home

A few blog posts ago I mentioned how Mia is really, really into making and giving presents. Yesterday, with the anticipation of dad's arrival home from Dubai, Mia and Ali spent over an hour with tape, scissors, wrapping paper, crayons, etc. making and wrapping something for Curt. Curt returned home right at dinner time and I cooked a very fall weather dinner with cream of carrot soup starter, roast chicken, roast potatoes, gravy and green beans followed by a yummy yogurt pound cake. It was a feast and exactly what we all needed with the feel of fall in the air.

As soon as we finished our main course, the presents from the girls came out. I think they must have used 2 rolls of wrapping paper each! It made them so happy.

Look in the background at Terence parked in front of the oven watching the timer on the oven for the cake tick, tick, tick. He was so excited about the cake that he could barely pull himself away from it.

Off for 4 Days

I'm off today to Glasgow with my really great Scottish friend, Kim. We'll be staying with her parents and returning Wednesday. Curt (with the help of Erika, the nanny) will be taking care of the kids.

On Wednesday he is off to Dubai. He departs about an hour before I land so we won't see each other until his return on Saturday.