Some midweek laughs

Yesterday a friend sent me this hilarious tumbler that accurately portrays our crazy expat life here in Dubai..... right down to the same bank and the same issues!

I hope this makes you smile too!  Click here

Piper Tales #1

So I haven't blogged for over a week. In the first instance I have broken something on this blog and it breaks every single time I try to upload new photo's. In the second instance it has been one hell of a busy  two weeks at work.

To all of my friends and family I am sorry for all the emails unreturned, skype dates missed and just generally ignoring you all for 2 weeks.
Piper is growing up before our eyes at the moment. Can you believe in just over 6 weeks she will be 3 years old (she has requested a princess and pirate party).

I wish I had remembered to write down more Piper quotes and her little stories recently but here a few to entertain you as much as she does us.

Her judgement for when she is grown-up is not "when I am a big girl" or "when I am x age". No out of the mouth of Piper on numerous occasions lately has been "when I am taller than mummy" hmmmm does that mean 10?

To the waiter who informed her they don't have banana pancakes only blueberry "well actually you just take the blueberries out and chop up a banana and put it in see" - she got her banana pancakes after all

On arriving home from work last week Piper informed me "Auntie Leanne broke her foot". As I had only just spoken to my sister that day I was a little shocked. I asked Piper if she had spoken to Auntie Leanne and she told me her and Daddy had been on skype. "She broked it bad mummy" at which point I thought I should probably call my sister and check how she was. I then asked Piper how Auntie Leanne broke her foot and got this response "she picked her toe nails too much". There was no broken foot or even a conversation that day, it was just her imagination.

Her response when running out to the lounge room when she should of been in bed asleep made me cry "I did a really stinky pardy in my bed and can't go in there" Note: Pardy is code for fart in our house.

She reconfirmed this current development stage of fascination with her pardy abilities on the weekend. A male colleague and good friend of ours was at our house when Piper who was sitting at the other end of the couch yelled "Kieran, Kieran, come here" and when the poor guy came over "smell this". Yup, she really did tit, she wasn't joking or repeating anything she had seen before - she really was a little proud of herself and wanted to share.

Someone is a mermaid in her upcoming ballet concert

Snapshots from Sri Lanka #2

A couple of days ago we visited a turtle research project/sanctuary in Bentota. The sanctuary is not only a hospital and home for injured turtles but raises baby turtles for release to aid in saving the turtle population.
Sadly turtle eggs and turtle shells are still illegally sold in Sri Lanka. Local fisherman collect the newly laid eggs before poachers can get them and sell them to the sanctuary. These eggs are then buried in a caged hatchery on the beach until they are born and then housed in a safe tank until they are old enough to be released back into the sea.
Lucky for us on the day we visited the sanctuary we were invited bakc the following night to particpate in the next turtle release. It was an amazing moment on a beautiful Sri Lankan evening.

Tuk tuk ride to the turtle beach

Snap shots from Sri Lanka #1

As you would of seen from my last post, we arrived in Sri Lanka safe and sound..... eventually.
Our flight was delayed on the tarmac in Dubai for over an hour and we had to wait on the plane. As we had purchased cheap flights with Emirates budget airline Fly Dubai our plane was full of labourers heading home to Sri Lanka who spent this hour drinking their duty free alcohol and subsequently sang the entire four hour flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. It was also the first time I have been on a flight where the passengers cheered loudly after take-off and landing which was a little disturbing.

We are now in Bentota, Sri Lanka which is south of Colombo by 3 hours and just north of Galle. It was an area hit by the 2004 Tsunami and there are reminders of the devastation everywhere.
Bentota is a stunning town wedged between the ocean and a massive beautiful river. There is not a large tourist trade here and as such the town itself is rather humbling and very eye opening.

Below are a few of our favourite snaps from the last few days. I will add more over the next few days.

Although Bentota is only 70km south of Colombo the drive took over 3 hours as there are no highways and this is the major road and traffic conditions

There are squirrels everywhere, and now that we stupidly fed them once they stalk us out the front of our hotel room. They are pretty cute and very harmless

This was not what we expecting to run into on our evening walk along the beach road on our first night. He was walking home from a hard day at work.

Amazing to be this close

Then the following morning we discovered this handsome little man in the front garden of our resort

Piper insisted on sending Naz back to our hotel rool to collect all of our banana's we had purchased in town to feed the elephant.

Arrived in Sri Lanka... Somebody didn't sleep on the plane

Know your thobe

As we prepare to depart for our holiday to Sri Lanka I thought I would leave you with some cultural education! Below is a diagram depicting the different types of traditional dress (Thobe also referred to as a Dish Dash) we see on a daily basis here in the UAE.
Now when you come to visit us you will be able spot the different dress styles!

Fave photo's

Piper's current favourite thing to do is take photo's with my iphone. I love looking at my phone afterwards and finding her hilarious shots!

Photo of her own toes.... check out the bright green she chose for pedicure yesterday! She was obviously happy with her toes as I found about 20 shots similar to this one.



I love that she managed to capture both of us in this photo, mind you I was trying to run out the door to work while Lady Muck was lying in my bed taking photo's and dictating exactly where my arms should be and how I should pose!



Posing in her new 'bikini's' as she calls them

We have been spending a lot more time in the pool lately for obvious reasons. Piper's likes to stalk me with her water gun.....

or other childrens poor rubber duckies.... duck shooting anybody?!?

I took this photo in Dubai Mall, Fashion Mall area. This mobile is made from 1000's of butterflies and is stunning in real life but hard to capture in a photo.



Sheikh Mo... he is everywhere

Apartment living and middle eastern weather compromise