Last day of school tomorrow.

It has been a busy few weeks.

On the 19th of June Mum and Dad came to visit on their way home from Europe for a few days. Lachie and Charlotte were so excited to see them and enjoyed their undivided attention! Unfortunately it was to hot to get out and do much while the kids were at school, but they saw most of it last time- and the children are the real attraction for them anyway! As per usual with my great timing, after having a Doctor visit, I managed to get sick the day they flew home! So I spent the last half of last week in bed hoping no-one else got it. So far (fingers crossed) the children have managed to avoid it and Clint only got a mild dose.

With school finishing tomorrow the reports cards have come home and we are very proud of both Lachie and Charlotte; they both got brilliant academic results and also excellent results for effort. Next school year (September) Lachie will start Year 2. His class are staying together for the 3rd year in a row which is great. 3 of his friends are moving back home so there will be some new faces. Again they have been given the lead teacher and she has a fantastic reputation. Charlotte will go into fs2 (already reading and writing sentences) her class is also staying together and she is lucky enough to have the same teacher again next year which is absolutely wonderful, 2 of her friends are also heading home… such is the transient population of Abu Dhabi. As a teacher I use to dream of 10 weeks of Summer holidays, now as a parent it is a completely different train of thought!

We head to Germany Thursday for Clint to race the Frankfurt Ironman, we were extremely organised booking our airfares, accommodation and car hire early knowing it would be peak season. However…. Saturday night we received a call from the Adina hotel in Frankfurt saying our apartment (which we booked in January) had been doubled booked. To add to our annoyance, the lady proceeded to tell Clint has been taken by someone who walked in off the street looking for accommodation for 3 weeks, checked in and will still be there when we arrive! How this is our problem I am still not sure, we are still trying to sort out some alternative accommodation. The staff at the Adina have been less than helpful! But I am sure we will find something and look forward to seeing Fiona and Steve again who are flying in from London for the weekend.

Stay tuned for race results…

Lachie turns 6!

Like all kids, Lachie loves his birthday! He counts down the days and spends a lot of time agonizing over his choice of cake. However being born on the same day, every time he has a birthday it makes me feel OLD!

This year I got to celebrate my birthday with a Baskins and Robbins oreo ice-cream cake at a pool BBQ a few nights early… it was a huge cake and we are still working our way through it; however with 4 ice-cream lovers in the house, finishing it wont pose a problem at all.

This was the first year Lachie has woken up early for his birthday, he came bounding into our room with excitement just before 6:30am and couldn’t wait to open his presents.

Meeting one of his new pet turtles. They are both still nameless at this stage.

Happy Birthday my boy!

Thanks Nanny and Poppy

My birthday present

Birthday breakfast- waffles and ice-cream

He spent the morning playing with his new toys before heading off to the local play centre for his party.

The cake- a job well done Clint

sack races

Nearing the end of musical chairs

Ride time

Maddy and Charlotte

Yippee

Food time (how nutritious)

Our family

Killing the dinosaur (cutting the cake)

After all the excitement we had two very tired but happy children, who were in bed very early! Happy birthday Lachie xxx

So proud…

Very proud of our little man, his poem he wrote all by himself at school this week, was published in the school newsletter. They had to write a number poem about toys… here is his masterpiece:

The Number Toys Poem by Lachlan Theil Year 1 The Sparrows

One glittering, shiny sparkly gold car,

I hope it doesn’t zoom to to far!

Two fast brown zooming teddy bears,

running up the stairs.

Three giant bakugans,

getting blown by a great big fan.

Four great sparkly trains,

full of yummy candy canes!

Five big board games,

I wonder what are their names?

Six big swimming pools,

and they look very cool!

Seven girly dolls,

I hope none of them fall in holes!

Eight long skipping ropes,

I hope everybody copes!

Nine mermaids,

playing a game of charades!

Ten hula hoops,

making a lot of loops

Half Term

Last week saw the children off school for 3 days as it was half term, great timing as it coincided with 2 lots of Grandparents being here.

On the Friday we headed to Al Ain (town that straddles the border of the U.A.E and Oman, about 140km away) so Denise and Hans could have a look. Lachie had been wanting to see the dinosaurs at the zoo and Charlotte wanted to see the white lion cubs. First we headed up to Jebel Hafeet which is the countries highest mountain… anyone want to spend the day here?

not my idea of a fun park!

Then we headed into the Al Ain zoo, it was about 4pm but still round 48 degrees… sounds pleasant doesn’t it? Lachie had been wanting to see the dinosaurs- a display currently on loan from the San Diego Zoo that consists of life-size robotic dinosaurs. Both kids were all eager following the signs through the zoo to the dinosaurs and all smiles heading in…

My favourite dinosaurs

then Charlotte heard the dinosaurs roar and that was enough for her (my brave animal warrior). Lachie loved it, and I have to say the robots were very impressive; mind you the one of a dinosaur ripping another apart, complete with noises, I could have done without; but the one of the eggs hatching made up for it. The way they moved their heads, limbs and eyes were amazing, as were the sound effects. Charlotte kept wanting to leave and had to be carried most of the way round, every time she started getting brave another one would roar or move its head and look at her and she would freak out again.

Lala not so keen

She was quite relieved when we got to the end, it took her a couple of minutes to realise this one wasn’t going to move before she would brave a photo.

After the dinosaurs we headed to see some animals more to Charlotte’s liking… small and caged!

Charlotte had been wanting to see the white lion cubs every since they were born… however it has taken us awhile and they were not so little anymore.

the white lion "cubs"

Despite the heat, the kids had fun seeing all the animals. Especially the zebras, giraffes and rhinos as they headed to the water holes on dusk.

Saturday saw us drive in the other direction to Dubai so the kids could take Denise and Hans to ski Dubai- and to give them quality Grandparent time, Clint and I stayed outside and enjoyed the shops without kids in tow.

Lachs ready to go down

The kids loved going again and this time charlotte braved all the rides, but 2 hours was definitely enough.

Lala

Kids and Denise

After such a big weekend I think Clint was glad to head back to work on Sunday. Lachs had a lazy day at home but Lala had to go to the doctors for  follow-up appointment and then gymnastics… so no rest for her.

breathing is so over-rated!

Denise and Hans flew out Monday morning and the kids and I drove to Dubai to see my parents who stopped in for the day on their way to Europe. The kids were both so excited to see Mama and Papa… me too as I got my supply of cherry ripes 🙂

Tuesday Lachie had a party at the palace. He has the Sheikhs granddaughter (one of)  in his class and she had the whole class over. As we drove into the grounds (past the armoured guards and tank) Lachie wanted to know which house was hers, the look on his face when I said “all of them” was priceless. As you can imagine the grounds etc were amazing, we only got to go to the pool house but that was an experience in itself. All the kids had so much fun- how could you not with 3 inside pools, a million inflatable toys, amazing food and a mini ice-cream pallor. Of course there was the party bags at the end- complete with beach towel, goggles, inflatable pool toys, beach ball… how the other half lives!

It was a very busy few days, I was glad to drop them at school on Wednesday morning! Only 5 weeks left of the school year, then a long hot summer awaits.