Spring break, weekend in Al Ain and Easter

Happy Easter!!!

The past two weeks Carmen and the kids have been off from school and its hard to believe the time has flown by. Unfortunately during the weekdays I've kept busy with regular work so I can’t say I’ve enjoyed it as much as they have. 

During the first week, Carmen spent a lot a time with kids in activities ranging from jumping on the trampoline, drawing and making crafts to going to the park with other moms and kids from their school.  Although she was off from her working responsibilities in Fujairah, she still had to balance the playing with the kids with her online Masters work and the creation of her website.   As of today she is nine days and counting.  I actually think she is counting down the hours…  Have a look at her website:


http://carmen.myfamilywebsite.ca/

The first weekend was a very busy one.  On the Thursday right after work, Carmen and the kids met me by the beach (which is just down the street from my office).  Since work ends at 4pm (yes, I know.....pretty slack) we were in our shorts and on the beach by 4:15.  The beach is not quite as nice as Cayman but it would be considered a close second.  We spent the rest of the evening having a picnic, playing in playgrounds and enjoying the beach.  Sadly, we really hadn't done this yet since we got to Abu Dhabi so it was very much overdue.   By the time we got home it was dark and the kids were exhausted from all the fun in the sand. 

The next day started off with a bang.  The kids had their regular weekly golfing lessons.  It was their last lesson of a set of eight and so far they really seem to love it (which you can imagine makes me happy).  Anyway, after the golf lesson we packed into the vehicle and took to the highway to spend the day in Al Ain.  Al Ain is a small city approximately 1.5 hours north of Abu Dhabi.  Its known for its rocks and some even refer to their mountains, but ironically there are bigger mountains back on the farm in Cereal.  Al Ain is more known in UAE for its zoo (www.alainzoo.com), which was the main reason for the day trip.  As it was quite hot that day, we decided to delay going to the zoo until later in the afternoon.  Kids didn’t mind as the pool area at the hotel was very family friendly and kept us quite busy.  The zoo did not disappoint.  There were a number of cool animal exhibits that included both white lions and a white tiger.  The zoo was also very interactive.  The kids got to experience feeding carrots to giraffes and then all of us took a ride on a camel.  We were going to finish the day running with the bulls, but the exhibition was closed for the day…..just kidding, not that interactive ;)  We did however finish the day with an interactive bird show.  When Carmen suggested this, I was like, “seriously, who wants to see a bunch of birds….” but as always, Carmen was bang on.  The bird show was spectacular.  Basically it was a demonstration of falcons, owls, eagles and vultures showing their speed, grandeur and extraordinary hunting skills.  The cool part was when they had some of these birds fly literally 2 feet over our heads as they flew to get to their trainer.  A must see for any of you when you come to visit!  After such a full day of activities it was a breeze convincing Trace and Rafi to get to sleep.

The next week Carmen continued to keep the kids busy with different activities.   She enrolled them into a fine art class (only because tennis camp was full..) for three of the days.  One of the other days she took the kids to the Abu Dhabi zoo, which I understand was also pretty good and interactive.  Check out the picture of Rafi with the snake….all I can say is I’m glad I wasn’t there to be the brave daddy.  Also during the week, we had our first visitor.  Bill Fleury, a good friend from my Cayman days came to stay with a mutual friend in Dubai.  For a couple of days, Bill came to stay with us and check out the tourist sites in Abu Dhabi.  It was good to see Bill and to hear the goings on in Cayman.

To finish off the 2 weeks of spring break, we had a colleague of Carmens' come from Fujairah with her family to help us celebrate Easter. They are originally from Denmark, but have lived in Moose Jaw the last 8 years.  They have three boys aged 4, 5 and 7 so Trace was in heaven.   Rafi did a bit of complaining because she said the boys wouldn't listen to her :)  Myself and Martin (the dad) had many squash games together so one might say we "hit" it off well.  Its too bad they live nearly 3 hrs away but hopefully the start of a good family friendship.  Here are a few pictures of our adventures over the two weeks.  Enjoy!

Rafi at Abu Dhabi Zoo

Easter Brunch with Eriksen family

Successful Easter Egg hunt