Happy Australia Day!!!

Top 10 things we are missing this Australia Day!

• Friends and family of course.....
• A drunken Russell or two
• BBQ with real snags...... real snags MUST have pork in them
• Sunshine.... the cold snap hitting the UAE has not yet passed (I am wearing boots and a jumper)
• Backyard cricket or football
• A day off work....typing this from my office :(
• An excuse to be drunk in the daytime..... in fact we have not yet got our liquor license so drinking anytime, anywhere is illegal for us
• Sam Kekovich and lamb
• Triple J's Hottest 100 Countdown..... GO Alpine and Christian!!!! (I have podcasted this and I am listening live via my ipod in the office)
• Dim Sims on the BBQ..... no Dim Sims over here at all

What's been happening lately!

It has been awhile since I have written a blog post and update on what we are up to in general over in the land of sand so here it is..... sorry in advance it is rather long!

The weather has currently hit a ‘cold snap’ over the last week and it is expected to last another 3 days, but thankfully back to nice winter 26 – 28 by the weekend.
At the moment in Dubai we are getting lows of very low teens and 17 – 19 during the day, which may not seem cold to a lot of people but believe me we have most certainly acclimatised and our blood thinned and it is freezing outside. The winds have been strong and very chilly blowing in off the back of a nasty cold front in Iraq. Perhaps the only thing worse than the cold weather is the SAND!!! It is everywhere coating everything possible. I am sure it is not called hay fever but my sinuses and head sure feel like hay fever they are so clogged with sand and dust. We have had several days of sand storms and very low visibility... Yuk!

It is a big week in our house – Naz is competing in his first marathon on Friday! Yes you heard right, my crazy husband is running 42 kilometres on the weekend just for fun!!!!! It has always been a bit of a goal for Naz and given the Dubai marathon starts and finishes on our boulevard in Downtown he couldn’t resist. Stay tuned for an update and photos next week!

We are also in the middle of buying a car over the next fortnight – a task we have put off but really need to do. It is a bit of a nightmare but thankfully my colleagues have all been through it already and learnt the hard lessons. We are a bit excited, it will give us a lot more freedom and less stress caused by crazy taxi drivers!
So along with buying a car we also have to buy new camping gear. Desert road trips and camping are popular pastimes in the UAE with so many different areas to explore from mountains to beautiful beaches, deserts and some of the biggest sand dunes in the world!
We have our first camping/road trip planned in 2 weeks time with a group of friends to the Empty Quarter. The Empty Quarter is a unique desert area at the northern tip of the UAE bordered by UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen so it does belong to somebody..... they just haven’t bothered to draw lines in the sand or lay claim to it. It is only inhabited by nomad’s and even then only at certain times of the year. I don’t actually know what is there really other than some of the largest sand dunes in the country and of course camels!! Stay tuned for a post road trip update!

Overall life is treating us good and we are all healthy and happy! Ok so that might be a stretch for everyday but terrible 2’s end eventually don’t they?
Piper is growing at a rapid rate lately – I am looking forward to some toddler shopping in Melbourne, almost all her pants are halfway up her leg! I am starting to think she may not have inherited my height genes after all!

My work is going well and Naz will hopefully have some exciting news soon but in the meantime he has taken on an events management contract for the next month. I won’t name any brands on here but he is managing a 4 day launch for a new luxury car at the Yas Island Formula 1 track in Abu Dhabi next month. I should mention that other than the 4 days in Abu Dhabi and the occasional day down there he is doing this work from home so is still looking after Piper!! I know... I am a very very lucky wife!

Finally a big blog world hug and kiss to all of our friends and family who have popped out beautiful new bubba’s over the past month! We cannot wait to meet you all and Naz just wants all the baby photo’s to stop because you are all making me clucky for more xoxox

Day at the beach in the middle of winter

We are just past half way through winter and I really cannot complain about the weather!
The past few weeks the weather has been averaging mid 20's with the occasional colder 22.
Today is the coldest day so far and I have clearly acclimatised.... I almost stopped dead in my tracks when I left for work this morning to discover it was a chilly 14 outside, of course it didn't last and a nice sunny afternoon is blossoming ahead!!
This weekend the weather was a nice warm 28 so we hit Jumeira Beach Park for a few hours on Friday! The irony of living in Dubai is by Summer it's too hot to go to the beach!

Fave photo of the week

Piper and I had a girls night out for dinner this week and I love this photo of my grown up little girl!

Of course that beautiful little face didn't stay so clean once her pasta arrived!



Road trip!

This weekend we took a road trip with a couple of friends. The road trip we planned was a very well known one for those living in the UAE, particularly Dubai to a neighbouring Emirate, Umm Al Quwain. I believe the technical term for this particular road trip is "booze run".

Within this Emirate is a tiny little town called Barracuda which consists of a beachside resort, a MASSIVE liquor store and a beaten up 1980's water park. We don't know exactly how or why or what the exact laws in Umm Al Quwain are but basically you can purchase alcohol without a liqour license or limit and it is extremely cheap! The catch is that you have to drive it back across several Emirates to reach home and some of these have very strict muslim laws and alcohol is entirely banned with or without a license....

To make the most of our day we packed our bathers and braved the waterpark. It was incredible.... at best 10 other people in the entire waterpark, it had great facilites, fun water slides, kids slides and play areas. To top off our incredulous luck there was a pool bar smack in the middle. We have all decided to plan a camping trip for next month to the camping ground next door!

Now best I go and look for that form and complete our liquor license.......

Wave pool fun!

Boys on the speed slides

The 4 boys racing - photo finish proves Naz to be the winner!

Enjoying a beer at the end of our day!

New Years Eve 2011/12

We celebrated the beginning of a new year by hosting a fancy dress party at our home. The theme was "in my past life I was..." We had a fabulous night with a great bunch of people, a combination of work colleagues and friends we have made in our apartment building.
We certainly felt the time difference though.... as our friends and family in Australia rang in the new year we were busy with final party preparations and waiting for our first guests to arrive!
NYE also highlighted how much we are missing our friends and family at this time of year and I shed a little tear at Oz's midnight.
Dubai's celebrations at midnight were centered on Downtown and the Burj Khalifa (right outside our door) and we knew it was going to be a big night! We had heard lots of stories of people getting stuck for up to 5 hours in traffic to go 3km and the mass amount of people  at last years NYE celebrations so we were happy to not be travelling anywhere other than a 1 minute stroll out the front door to watch the fireworks.
They locked down our area early in the day, annoyingly with no consideration for residents access. A mid morning dash to the supermarket resulted in a very loud argument with security who had locked down the bridge we use to get to the mall from our home blocking my access home. With very heavy shopping bags there was no way I was walking the way they were suggesting residents would have to use.... I was 3 minutes from home and to go the other way would of been at least a 40 minute walk! Needless to say neither of us would back down so I bolted through and hoped I wouldn't be spending NYE in a jail cell! Thankfully he gave up but I then encountered 2 more security guards and blocked access routes just to get into our building.... only in Dubai!!
We were very grateful and happy to experience NYE in Dubai but not so sure we will be doing it again - up to 1,000,000 converging on the footstep of your home is a little crazy!

Batgirl, Fairy and Spartacus

Piper and her friend enjoying my cupcake icecream cones!

Burj Khalifa just before the fireworks, we were very lucky to avoid the large crowds on the island in front and in the other vieweing areas. Residents were able to access this area from internally and avoid the crush!

Baking fun!

Piper looooves cupcakes and just happened to buy me a couple of fab cupcake books for christmas so we thought we had better test them out. Earlier in the week we made oreo cupcakes..... massive fail, too dry and icky! For NYE we made icecream cone cupcakes.... massive hit! Piper is the best little apprentice, here are some photo's of our baking...