Happy 5th Birthday Gabriella!

 

On the same day as her 5th birthday, she had her first karate test, to be promoted to Yellow Belt. I told her she had to really pay attention and not goof around in class. It was her first "real" test and she didn't quite understand what the big fuss was all about. Personally, I think the sensai was a bit lenient on Gabi, only because she spent the whole term as a white belt while all her friends were promoted to yellow. She had missed one class a week all term due to it being on the same day as her music class. I baked her a chocolate cake with coconut frosting. Only two more weeks to go before we are on American shores!Summer vacation, YAY!! I am excited to see my family and nervous too, because I will be flying home with the kids alone and they are at an age that is (to say the least) challenging.Phew! They have tapless amounts of energy!!

Yellow belt

 

Here's to hoping she doesn't karate chop her little brother any time soon. High-5!

Getting her yellow belt

 

Mosaic ghekko!

 

Class art project

 

Lucas and his green dog, GOOD JOB LUKY!!

 

Art Exhibition at school

 

Towards the end of the school year, an art exhibition is held, exhibiting one great piece of art work by each child attending the school. Gabi's was a group project, ducks in a pond, part of the topic of Small Creatures, and Lucas had a green dog with ears made with balloons as ears. There were quite a few children that you could clearly see have a lot of talent. All classes also made one major piece of art, letting a famous artist be their influence. One class made a sculpture of a ghekko (papier mache) which was awesome!

Gabi making a rug out of strips of plastic shopping bags

 

Lucas has a go..

 

recycled materials art fair for Gabi's class.

 

When you take your son to a ladies' hair salon...

 

Singing Gabi...

BTW

Yes, the only nose-picker in the class photo IS my sweet Lucas. Give him a break, he was digging for gold. :)

At least one for April

I at least have to get in one blog for the month. I can't believe how fast time goes. Gabi and Lucas are now doing the last topic of the school year, The Tale of Three. We are in the midst of arranging our Summer leave. This time we will fly straight through Amsterdam to Houston, onto Midland to see the American family. Yay! Then on our way back, stay in Belgium to see the Belgian grandparents. Double yay! I've attached Lucas's class photos. His pre-nursery class is ages 2-3yrs old. They are from all over the world. Germany, Canada, Belgium, England, Thailand, Egypt, Italy, the good ole USofA. Some have mixed parents, from places like France, Tunisia, Switzerland. The grandmotherly teacher, Brenda, is from Kenya and the younger dark-haired one Jenny, is German. Gabi's class photo is tomorrow. I'll post again.

one more..

We spent Easter at a fellow American's home. It was great fun for the kids. The Easter bunny hid over 200 eggs in the garden. And yes, that IS Marc taking a swing at the pinata!

Happy Spring!

Update

HELLO! We had some friends who have repatriated to their home country(Switzerland)visit us for the day. Pascal was one of Gabi's first friends here in the neighborhood. Sammy is the other first friend. They came together (along with their younger siblings) for a one year reunion and ran around like maniacs, just like the good old days. It's been 21 days since I've torn the ligaments in my left ankle. It looks a lot better but it is taking an incredibly long time to heal. I am still walking around with a huge removable air cast. I look like I can climb on to a ski slope or snowboard any time!! I'm thankful that it wasn't worse - but I am so happy not to be walking around with a plaster cast and crutches anymore. I still go and support my soccer team from the sidelines. Gabi had a very successful sports day at school. She had all her friends with her and it was fun to see how well some kids are already doing at certain sports. Our community has started a book club. The first book we've chosen is March by Geraldine Brooks. I am excited to participate but nervous I won't have anything really intelligent to say. We're heading into Spring Break and Easter holidays here. Today is the Prophet's birthday so today was a day off from school and work. We took the kids bowling for the first time and they really loved it. Although, Lucas kept dropping the ball at his feet with such a loud thud! I think one of us in a foot cast in this family is enough! HAPPY EASTER!!

 

 

 

 

HANGING OUT WITH FRIENDS, Sports Day at school

 

International Day at The Children's Garden

Gabriella's class,- Arabian Oryx - sat patiently waiting for the parade of other classes to come by and show their home country outfits. They are quite an international mix. We dressed Gabi up as a Mexican dancing girl. Her teachers gave her a Belgian flag and face painted a Belgian flag on her cheek.Her closest buddy, Noor, was an Egyptian pharoah. Lucas refused to wear the cowboy hat we put on him and we ended up also face painting flags on his cheeks, which he promptly smudged faster than Gabi asking us to take the woolen Mexican poncho off of her immediately. Afterwards all the parents were invited to share an international pot-luck buffet. Instead of the usual tex-mex dish I make, (nachos, haha) I made Belgian waffles.

more pics

The picture of Sheik Ha-Jo, is Hans-Jochen. He is the husband of Marc's cousin Petra, part of the German family who came to visit us. He and his son Sebastian both bought full male Emirati outfitsas souvenirs. AH, what good visitors they were. They didn't even complain about how cold it was. The weather was actually no warmer than 60 degrees. But the morning they left the weather changed to 85 degrees and has remained warm. ...Gabi and Lucas helping Oma and Bompa set up for dinner.

Sheik Ha-Jo

Sheik Ha-Jo gets fitted for a new dishdasha.

Visitors

We've been very busy with visitors from Germany (a great family of 6 from Neustadt-Coburg-home of Hummel porcelain figurines.). And now my in-laws are here from Belgium. I'll try to post pictures. It was nice to finally see some of Dubai again, as a tourist, especially the creek and souks filled with so many colorful fabrics,- rather than as a resident just heading to the grocery store in mass traffic jams. I have to admit it has been enjoyable setting the table for 8 people, breakfast and dinner. Cooking all that food for dinner. I made 16 huge bratwurst sausages the other night, haven't cooked that much meat in ages. The Germans have only been eating a donut in the afternoon. (something I had to tolerate even with a growling stomach, longing for something for more substantial.) Although strangely enough, in Germany, they eat their main meal at noon and eat sandwiches in the evening. I think it has more to do with not wanting to eat in restaurants, something most Germans and Belgians do only in special occasions. Today we head to the Mall of The Emirates, the biggest mall in the middle east, the one with the ski slope. And then tomorrow we will go see a camel farm and head one more time to a spice souk to look for saffron, which cost an arm and a leg here (yet cheaper than elsewhere.)Gabi and Lucas have not been sleeping well because of all the excitement, and oh, I scored 4 goals at soccer practice yesterday. :) My first goals ever!

Excuse me, may I have some privacy please!

Lucas has been telling us lately when he has to do a number "1" or number "2", so we decided to pull out the "potty". He was pretty funny the first time with it. He got up about 15 times and shouted out, "FINISH!" each time, and then sat back down. We're sure he got that from Gabi. In the end, there were only a few "droplets" of number "1". Small success, but still in diaper. :)

clean up

The flood clean-up started a few days ago in our building. Unfortunately, our friends downstairs lost all the contents of their house and have been sleeping on couches of friends and neighbors. In fact all downstairs' apartments were badly damaged, cars included. Marc's car suffered some major water damage, sigh. But we are doing fine, thank God. Schools re-opened and we are resuming our Spring Term schedule. Both Gabi and Lucas are doing class topics of Self, Civilisation, and Home Countries. So, we are making big collages of the Belgian side of the family and Mexican American side. So far all Marc and I can think of are food items, like tacos and belgian waffles, (typical.) The rains also brought the satellite down so we've had no TV since then and we are actually enjoying the evenings without it. We are watching some of the DVDs that we buy and never get around to watching. We are also catching up on books too. I finally read Into Thin Air. That was intense and so sad. I've included a picture of some of the clean up process here in our compound. But also, Marc ran a 10k on Friday. He did really well for a first-time-in-his-life run. So here is a before and a couple of afters.