Ghosts of Dubai #1

After a 6 year boom the financial crisis in 2007 - 2010 had a significant impact on Dubai.

One of these is the 'ghosts of Dubai' - projects started and never completed. There are hundreds of these projects around Dubai, more recently they are tearing some down, filling holes and restarting. But a lot are rather iconic, and have now stood still in mid-construction for so long they are part of the landscape.

Below are a couple of pics taken recently, I will add some more over time. At 38 weeks pregnant my ability to get out and about on excursions for taking photographs is somewhat limited by my size, swollen hands and feet and the ever present Dubai heat which has made one final come back before winter kicks in.

Universal Studios - part of the never built Dubailand. It is a common theme in Dubai to build grand entrances first then construction follows - unfortunately this project never made it past the front gate!

These two connected towers would of been an impressive structure, however they are likely never to be completed having stood exactly like this since about 2009. They are eerie building sites - everything right down to workers belongings just sits there.

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

BBQ Season Begins!

Finally the weather is cooling down - by cooling down I mean today was the first day under 35 degrees in 6 months. 
It was still a very warm 34 but by 5pm it was cool enough to move outside, enjoy a gentle breeze and our first proper BBQ of the season in our new backyard. It was beautiful while it lasted but unfortunately by 7:30pm the humidity had rolled in the breeze departed, sending us back indoors.

Finally able to enjoy this beautiful space as a family

Not sure if it was the angle, the light or the silly trying not to laugh face , but I can see so much of Naz in this pic of Piper

Nesting and a baby update

Last week I promised a baby update, so here it is.

The most important thing is we are all healthy and doing well.

We had a scare two weeks ago that caused us to reassess our plans for the next few weeks, so those of you expecting to see Naz in Australia at the moment, sorry guys he is right here next to me where he is needed a little bit more! Piper and I are both pretty happy not to be waving him off on another trip back to Melbourne.

Our visit to the obstetrician last week was positive and we are definitely feeling more relaxed this week.

With Naz no longer able to collect our final baby items from Australia we realised we had better get our butts into gear and organise the nursery, this has taken up a lot of our time the last 2 weekends - nothing is ever easy and straightforward in Dubai.
But we are almost done and I guess you could say I have well and truly started nesting. It's strange but fun this time knowing the sex of our bubba.

Piper has been mostly helpful but at times feels the need to exert her big sister authority and refuses to allow certain items to pass down to her little sister. I see some growing pains and hurdles in the future but mostly I think she is going to make an amazing big sister. She spends her days at the moment tending to her 'babies' and asking lots of questions about how to hold babies and why they do this and why do they do that.

Hopefully not too long now til we get to meet her!

Life Lately in Happy Snaps

1. Playing in our new pool - not sure who is the bigger kid

2. 'Never too early in the morning for licking the bowl' - wisdom from Piper

3. Backyard, trampoline, sprinkler - what more could an Aussie kid want? - Who would believe we live in the middle of the desert!

4. Robot Man - built by Piper and Mumma

5. End of the first week back at school - little munchkin couldn't stay awake a minute longer by 7pm

6. Nesting Carly style - building furniture while Naz relaxes on the couch and watches

Melts my heart

Ballet has started for another year. Piper has moved up to the 4 year old class and also a different venue, one closer to our new home. But as always she took the changes in her stride, she left class with a big grin and declared she wanted to go to ballet every day!

Moving house and a sand storm

We moved house over the weekend, although we had removalists pack and relocate our furniture and goods it was still exhausting work.

The weather over the past week has been hot, hot, hot.... there is still no sign of winters arrival at all and this combined with a bored 4 year old, 7 and a 1/2 month pregnant me and stairs almost killed us.

But as you can see below, two kids quickly settled into their new surroundings. Who would of thought having grass would make us all so happy. Looking at our yard you would hardly believe we are now living out in the desert (my water bill will certainly reflect it next month though)

We are almost settled in and fully unpacked, with the exception of a nasty sand storm yesterday afternoon everything has gone well. I will write a blog post soon about our new community with some more pics of our new home.

Helping Dad build Ikea furniture



The sand storm hit from nowhere as Naz and I were driving home yesterday, thankfully Piper was at home with our nanny who had the good sense to get everybody indoors quickly.



Interesting drive home - this is just near the entrance to our community

This morning as we drove to school and work Piper commented 'did they just put the trees back up?',  we laughed before looking out the window and realising that in fact all 3 trees that had been blown over the previous afternoon were now standing back upright. I don't even know whether to laugh or cry at this stupidity, but given sand storms are predicted for the next two afternoons I will be staying well away from the roads and trees!
There are just some things that the words 'only in Dubai' describe all too perfectly.

Milestones

This week the new school year started and three months of summer holidays came to an end. It's funny how we have become acustomed to being on the British/American curriculum time table of September through to June.

Piper is attending 4 year old pre school, although school here has an option to start at the age of 4 we made a very conscious decision to let her be a kid for as long as possible, and so another pre school year it is.

I also reached the 30 week milestone this week! We had an obstetrician appointment earlier in the week and all is going perfectly.  We spent this past weekend car seating shopping and baby preparing, suddenly aware of how little time we have left, especially when we have to fit in a house move and another trip back to Australia shortly for Naz.

We move house in a couple of days and will be without internet access for for a bit but I will pop in next week with some pics of our new home hopefully.

To all our Aussie friends and family - happy election weekend!! We went to the Australian Consulate and voted this morning, sadly no sausage sizzle awaited us.


First day of school for 2013-2014 school year




30 Weeks