Dinner Club Fiesta

The Dubai Divas graciously decided to invite the men along (and my in laws who were still in town) for the second dinner club which featured Tex-Mex. Susan whipped up some fabulous enchiladas and the rest of us provided the typical accompaniments of rice, beans, margaritas, salsa, margaritas, and queso. Did I mention the margaritas? We finished up with a margarita cake (goes great with margaritas) and flan. We decided that our Mexican food was WAY better than anything offered in Dubai. Maybe we should start a take out service??

Amber and Tracy

Carla and Michael

SUV Bliss!

FINALLY we bought a car! It was getting so hard for me not to have one of my very own. We got a Mitsubishi Nativa (only made in Mexico and the Middle East) which is the same, I think, as a Montero. It's a handy little SUV similar to my 4Runner (which I miss terribly) and it's great to have a vehicle to lug stuff around in again. I missed lugging! Kel was definitely happy to see all the baby paraphernalia leave his car!

I immediately put on my Longhorn decal, but sadly haven't seen one anywhere else. I'm remaining positive. I did stalk some people that had a state of Texas sticker on their car. Kel thought I was crazy, but it's nice to know a few fellow Texans that can commiserate on the lack of good Mexican food. Seriously, Taco Bell is sounding like heaven right about now.

Anyway, back to the car...

Dubai's traffic system basically involves a bunch of speed cameras and the black point system which I included a few posts back. There's even a website where you can enter your license plate number to see your fines. (You don't have to pay them until you re-register your car the next year.) I decided to check out the website today to see what it said, not expecting to find anything because I've only had the car about a month. I was SHOCKED to see that I had a fine of 600 dirhams! It doesn't say what it's from, but since I received no black points I guess it was for speeding.

The max speed on the highways here is 120 km/h. In my car, I have a constant dinging when I speed above 120 which DOES NOT stop until I go 120 again. Unless I want to listen to DING, DING, DING, DING, DING, DING, DING, DING (you get the picture?), I rarely speed. However, there is no minimum speed and many of the highways are 2 lanes, which means you have trucks in the right lane travelling around 80 km/h and the crazies who go 180 km/h in the left lane. I'm stuck in the middle and constantly have to switch lanes. Occasionally, I have to endure the dinging so that I can pass the way overloaded truck and make it back around before the bright white Range Rover with completely blacked out, I mean, tinted windows threatens to run me off the road. I guess my stupid fine came during one of these moments. The date was April 27th...2 weeks after getting the car.

So pretty!

Hook em! I know, it needs a wash, but you try to keep it clean in a land of sand!

Grandma and Jo Anne check out Dubai

On the dunes while on the desert safari
At the Jumeirah Public Beach
Global Village in Dubai Land
Souk Madinat Jumeirah

While we were home for Christmas, my Grandma and great aunt, Jo Anne, came down from Washington to see Dylan (and maybe also me and the rest of the fam). While there, they decided to come and visit us in Dubai sometime in the next year.

They didn't wait long. I picked them up from the airport in early February (wearing jeans AND a pashmina in the cool 70 degree weather)!

In 2 weeks we covered the Arabian peninsula and even fit in some dune bashing. They picked up some great souvenirs, took a few pictures of Dubai and a LOT of pictures of Dylan.

Fuel efficiency? Must not have a 1 year old...

Planes will be now be flying slower for fuel efficiency. Great. Now my 17 hour flight with a toddler will be how long? And that's the direct flight...arrgh.

Standing Tall

I am continuously amazed at Dylan's development. It changes on a daily basis, literally. He finally learned to clap just before his 11 month birthday. The day before he wasn't doing it and then the next day Kel started clapping and Dylan did it too. Of course now he does it all the time...while I change his diaper, when I tell him no, and when he's eating.

Now he's pulling up (which he's been doing since around 8 months) and letting go of the piece of furniture and is standing unaided. How long until the first steps?? Maybe he's waiting to unveil the coup de grace when the grandparents are here. Just a few more days!

He has a little push toy that he races around like Andretti. He gets pretty upset when he runs into an obstacle and tries to lift the toy.

Dylan has now had haircut number 2 and he's not even 1! I would have loved to let it grow and have a big cut around his birthday, but he was starting to look like a 15 year old garage band drummer. No thanks!

Dylan's friend, Maximillian - a rare bit of sharing

Gnawing on his crib

Dubai Divas Dinner Club

I miss my Houston dinner club so much I decided to start my own here with some of my new friends. Here it will be a very transient group - the nature of the city. Our first dinner was an Arabic menu and the ladies stepped up and did a great job on the food! Some of the names were hard to pronounce, but we had no problem devouring everything!

We had hummus, Prawns in biz'har spices with spicy yellow rice, Fattoush, Tabbouleh, Freekeh risotto with green herbs and broad beans, and mou'hallab'ia. I think the favorite was the freekeh which is like a barley grain. It was cooked like a risotto and extremely tasty! The mou'hallab'ia is a type of custard made with rose water. Yum!

The girls (from left) Tracy, Janice, Heather, Susan, Krissy, Carla, and Laura

Freekah Risotto with Broad beans - Susan's dish

Easter Brunch at the Polo Club

We celebrated Easter with a brunch at the Polo Club with four other couples plus kids. The food was relatively decent, but a bit overpriced because of the holiday. We enjoyed seeing the green of the polo field and despite the overwhelming amount of flies, had a good time. They had an Easter egg hunt, jumpy thing, face painting, and even a girl in bunny ears (apparently I'm the only one who raised an eyebrow).

Seriously, this is the widest expanse of grass in the UAE!

Dylan and Daddy

Our friends, Jay, McKayla, and Heather

Our friends, Brian and Amber