Half birthdays, hospitals and craziness

What a crazy week! Frankie had a half birthday.... 6 months old, can you believe that! Piper was the bravest. girl. ever. (much braver than her Mum and Dad to be honest) and had her tonsils and adenoids removed, and tubes put in her ears.
She took it all in her stride and bounced back amazingly, but the past 48 hours have been toughest. She is completely and utterly over the pain, a bit down in the dumps, and not sleeping so well. I am sure she will be back to normal Piper in a few days, this is kind of that final hump.
Sure we have our amazing nanny Rose, but this was one of those weeks where being away from family is hard. I could certainly have done with a hug from my Mum.

Otherwise life has been kicking along as per normal. Frankie is still proving to be an early riser, hello 4:30am starts to the day. Naz competed in a duathlon on Saturday and came 7th in his category, although he ran in relatively new shoes and now has the most horrendous blisters on his feet.
The heat has really kicked in even though we are still a month from summer, days are averaging 38 - 40 degrees and nighttime lows of 27 - 28. Any form of cool breeze is now a distant memory for the next 6 months.
As it heats up our plan of sticking out the summer in Dubai this year is fading. I have found myself looking up flights and accommodation for July or August a lot lately. Right now we are thinking Turkey or maybe Greece.

My favourite thing at the moment is watching the girls play together - Frankie can not get enough of Piper, and is becoming more active and responsive to Piper by the day. Almost the perfect marriage - Piper loves to put on a performance and Frankie is the best captive audience.

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Because I know you visit this blog to catch-up on our family happenings and adventures and not to be bombarded with my photography hobby pics (also known as grandparents want to see Piper and Frankie not your personal indulgences Carly), I have started a separate tumblr website for all of my non-family photography. If you want to follow my new website you can find it here.  

Life Lately in Happy Snaps

1. Beautiful entrance to Global Village at sunset - the weather is beautiful in the evenings now

2. Date night for the girls - Daddy was out partying at Atlantis on the Palm

3. This happened this week, the rings are off at 36 weeks - it took a lot of freezing and oiling to get them off too

4. Making masks at school

5. More pics from the garden now we can go outside and enjoy it without melting

6. Sleep over while Daddy was out - between Piper and all her 'kids' there was not a lot of room for me and my big belly

Life lately in happy snaps

Do you use Instagram? I love it and how easy it is to stay in touch and share photo's. You can follow me under the Instagram name carlyobrien.

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Below are a few pics from my iphone lately. I also got a little fancy schmancy and added an Instagram widget to my sidebar where you can see my latest pics.

Kite flying on a lazy afternoon (thanks for the kite Nana Liz)

Our afternoon was interrupted last week by a strong earthquake in nearby Iran that was felt here in the UAE. It was quite frightening and went for far longer than anything I have felt before. We evacuated our apartment for a short time. This pic was taken later in the afternoon, our energy and adrenalin spent tso his is how these two iPad addicts rested.

This is how Piper dresses herself to go to Sushi Train for dinner!
One always needs a tiara to eat Japanese right?

This is what 3 year old fairies do after too much sugar and fun at a kid's party!

In typical Dubai style we attended a children's birthday party at the 5 star Al Qasr hotel this weekend.
As you can see Piper made a classy departure!

Early morning road trip through the desert. Yesterday Naz and friends competed in a triathlon type event in the nearby Emirate of Al Ain ( blog post to come soon). I am also proud to say the early morning was worth it, Naz finished 14th!!

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Still alive and kicking

We are all still, healthy and happy... most of the time anyway.

It has been a big couple of months getting used to our new 'normal'. Naz flying backwards and forwards to work in Australia, and Piper and I establishing our new routines.

There hasn't been a lot of spare time so I apologise for all the missed Skype dates, lack of email responses and more obviously the blog updates.

I am happy to report that this time next week Piper and I will be home in Australia. Back with Naz and our friends and family for Christmas.

I am still working up until Christmas but will hopefully catch-up with everybody during the month we are home.

Below are a few snaps from around the traps lately.

Lazy afternoon at Safa Park - the weather is so lovely right now. I love Dubai winter.

Emirati woman making traditional Gaimat (doughnut like balls covered in rich date syrup)

Gaimat - I could eat far too many of these

Piper dressed in uniform  for school photo day

Nice palm right? Wrong, it is a mobile tower in disguise!

Our fluffy baby Lily is still kicking along but now much happier the weather has cooled down!

This weekend it rained properly for the first time in nearly two years. It was a spectacular stormy day with thunder lightning and plenty of flash flooding! Dubai is not built for rains and it causes quite a mess. Piper and I made the most of it in the afternoon and played in the rain and went on a puddle jumping adventure.

Life lately in happy snaps

Things have certainly been busy around here and this blog has suffered over recent weeks but the important things is Piper hasn't.
She is happy at school, has made friends she meets with every afternoon at the playground near home and has become a pro at Skyping her Dad and cousin Stella.
If I leave my phone lying around or computer on she has worked out what the Skype symbols mean and demands to call whoever is online.

Her independent streak is continuing to grow (so is she quite frankly, we need to do some shopping). She now insists on having alone time to Skype Naz in the mornings. She sends me off for my shower and perches herself up in my bed and chats away until I start shouting we are going to be late for school!

Here are a few snaps from our Nazless days recently.

Thanks Naz for the goodbye gift - DJ Piper plays morning, noon and night!

Everybody should craft naked, right?

Choosing her first ever Barbie, a reward for a very brave week. You do not want to know how long this took and how many changes were made.... and somehow we left with a Barbie pool too

The change in weather brought about fierce morning fog and sea mist last week. This photo is from our balcony right before we got in the car to drive on a 7 lane highway with zero visibility!

This is normally our view of the community and Burj Khalifa

Rocking out on the piano with Brett during our dinner party on the weekend. We have been so lucky with friends like this to help out. Brett has also been helping with school pick-up when I have meeting clashes. Brett will go down in history as Piper's first love!

Making chocolate crackles

Piper has been learning about growing things. Meet Dennis and his first haircut! Dennis has some serious ear and nose hair issues.

Life lately in happy snaps

There is so much going at the moment it a bit hard to keep up.

The past month of house hunting has been beyond stressful and horribly time consuming. We have to move out by mid October (landlord is returning to Dubai and wants to live in this apartment). Due to Naz's departure back to Australia in two weeks we wanted to move before he left to ease my stress.
 I am happy to report that today we secured our new home and received a contract, we have been outbid on more properties than I can count. Although we have been happy in our apartment and have made full use of our amazing facilities we are very happy to be moving just over the road but to an entirely different sort of housing area. I will update more on that next week when we move.

Unfortunately we still have not employed a full-time nanny and with Naz leaving very soon it is becoming quite a problem. The trials and tribulations of the nanny hunt are enough for its own post another day.

Piper has her first day of pre school tomorrow, we packed her bag tonight and got her organised. I am going to try very hard not to cry tomorrow. She was starting the equivalent of Australian 3 year old kinder but after her interview and orientation day they are trialling her in the 4 year old class, her language skills and confidence were better matched but we will see how it goes.

Below are a few pics of life lately. I will update later this week with tales of Piper's first week of pre school.

1. Naz's birthday cake decorated by Piper with his favourite things maltesers, kit kats, jelly beans and sprinkles

2. Best coffee home delivery service in Dubai

3. A wonderful night out with 4 of my Granny's friends who were passing through Dubai

4. Swimming pool fun

5. Piper parading around in Naz's basketball shorts

6. Sushi train lunch date

7. This is what Naz gets up to while I work ;)

8. Finger painting fun - Naz looked away for 5 minutes and this is what I came home from work to find

9. Foyer of our new home - very traditional Arabic style building

Snapshots of Paris

We are back in Dubai just in time to celebrate Naz's birthday. I am going to try and catch-up on the holiday photo's this week. Our last week in the motor home was amazing, the absolute highlight of our trip.

We are all suffering a bad case of the holiday blues.... Dubai is too hot, too sandy and Ramadan is still going. Hopefully things pick up soon!

Here are some happy snaps from Paris.... unfortunately not a lot of pics but I have to be honest and say I am totally over Paris. Tried it several times now but it just doesn't do it for us. French countryside however is the bomb!

From left to right

1. Champs Elysees (all the fences and signs were still up from the Tour de France finish)

2. Minnie Mouse and Eiffel Tower

3. Eiffel Tower

4. Cool cat at the Louvre

5. Relaxed Naz

6. So Parisian snacking on her croissant at the Louvre

Snapshots of DisneyLand Paris

I am a little behind on the posts but will catch-up soon. Following Rome we flew to Paris and straight to DisneyLand Paris where we stayed for two nights with tickets for three days.

The first day we arrived at dinner time and explored briefly before settling in for the late night parade and fireworks show at the princess castle. Overall DisneyLand was amazing, a toddlers wonderland and we definitely needed the two days to explore everything. Staying at Disneyland was also a very smart move and made the three days easy and fun.

Snapshots of Rome

Internet access has been difficult, we are now in Paris after 3 days in Rome and the last 2 and a half days staying at Paris Disneyland. I promise to upload more photo's and write more once we get home but in the meantime I have put together a few happy snaps x

Starting from the top from left to right:

1. Colosseum

2 & 3. Trevi Fountain

4. Lane way

5. Typical street

6. Pantheon

7. Spanish steps

8. Colosseum

9. Top of the Spanish steps

Life Lately in Happy Snaps

From left to right starting from the top:

1. Rocking it out to old school Kylie with Mum

2. Happy Lily (we have finally found a great dog beach just out of town)

3. Sandstorm last Tuesday, the building disappearing is the Burj Khalifa, it also poured with rain for about 5 minutes, the most rain we have seen in 10 months. Temperatures at the moment are averaging between 42 and 48 every day

4. Example of Dubai's dedication to wasting money. This sign etched in metal and professionally erected is a direct result of Lily's love of swimming in the pond. Crazy dog hating country, honestly have a look at the pond, she was not harming a fly

5. Beach fun - unfortunately beach weather is now over until winter, it is far too hot and the water is bath water warm and not in the slightest bit refreshing

6. Our little model and poser, this was taken today. For her birthday we spent the day at KidZania and she played her little heart out

7. Last photo ever taken of Piper with her dummy (or yodgee as she calls it), two weeks ago she decided she was grown-up and threw it down the rubbish chute and has not asked for it once since. The only tears were from me, I am pathetic I know

8. Atlantis Hotel at the end of the Palm

9. Happy 3rd Birthday Piper!! Taken tonight, we celebrated with Magnolia Bakery cupcakes from Bloomingdales

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.



Arrived...

We arrived in Australia safe and sound albeit very very cold! It was a shock to the system to arrive on a freezing 14 degree stormy day and find ourselves greeted by hailstorms.
It has been a busy few days of weddings, baby showers and work but it will all hopefully slow down for the next couple of days before the weekend arrives again and with it a great big family wedding which we are sooo excited about! I promise to jump on here tomorrow and post up some new photo's. In the meantime below is my fave photo from our flight.
Piper sure is becoming a well travelled toddler..... within minutes she had opened her flight kit Emirates provided and pulled on the socks and eye mask ready for her flight, I am surprised she didn't hit the bell and request a wine!

Cheeky