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Winter in Danbury

We made it back to the house in Danbury for a nice little winter break.  Kai and Nora have been eagerly awaiting the whole range of winter activities – sledding, snow hikes, snowball fights and even shoveling snow – followed by hot cocoa of course.   There was not much snow when we arrived and it was dwindling fast.   I love the picture of Nora trying to make a slushy snow angel on a small patch of snow left on the deck.    Now it is still in the mid-30’s with ran falling.

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End of November 2014

Here are a few more photos from random November events.  With temps approaching chilly and already a couple of rain showers it is starting to feel like Christmas approaching!

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November Pictures

Here are a few more picture posted from November events.  Enjoy…

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Halloween 2014

This year we brought back vast quantities of stateside candy from our recent trip to Florida and were a hit.  We ran our just as trick or treating was petering out and gave out over 1000 pieces.  Another fun Aramco Halloween.

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Nora’s Pirate Birthday Party

Last weekend we held Nora’s 8th Birthday party.   Due to the holidays stacked up we just hadn’t had a chance before now.  The original plan was for a cowgirl theme and we had brought back red bandanas from the US.  At the last minute this shifted to a pirate theme which worked well since the bandanas could be repurposed.

We even managed to make a pinata in the short time between coming back from Disney and the party.  It was a very humid week so drying the paper mache was an issue – the final layer was dried just in time in the oven.

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Disney Coasters

If you’ve been to Disney you know that there are Disney photographers everywhere.   You can ask any of them to take your photo and then later you can look them up online and see which ones you want to buy.  This year we did the MemoryMaker photopass which gave us access to all of the photos taken including those on the roller coasters.   The ride would read our wristbands and know which cart we were in and automatically add the photos to our account.   We ended up with a lot of roller coaster pictures.  Crystal started it but pretty soon everyone was trying to make some sort of face for the camera when the car streaked past.   The “bored” look was popular and I think Kai perfected it.

Enjoy the pictures!

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Disney 2014

With a week off from school and work thanks to the Eid Holiday we packed up and headed to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando.   It was a long series of flights to get there from Saudi Arabia but all of our connections went smoothly.   We all had a blast spending 6 full days in the Disney parks and even managed to spend some time with Lea Ann, Nina and Sara Post who happened to be there at the same time.  Enjoy the photos.

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Swimming with dolphins at the Atlantis

The Atlantis resort boasts a dolphin habitat called, creatively, Dolphin Bay.   It offers the opportunity for a variety of experinces ranging from watching dolphins to swimming with them in shallow water all the way up to deep water encounters.   We opted for the shallow water since Kai and Nora were too young for the deep water.

We were a little bit hesitant about the dolphin program with memories of depressing and exploitive “tiger zoos” in Asia where poorly kept animals are made to do silly tricks.   This program, in contrast, was very well run and professionally managed.   Based on how much we paid for the professionally taken photos below the only people being exploited were the visitors – so that was good.   Sort of.

Anyway, we had a great time with the dolphins; enjoy the pics!

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The Atlantis – Dubai

An abnormally long Saudi National Day holiday gave us the opportunity to travel to the tip of the Palm Jumeirah artificial island in Dubai to stay at the Atlantis resort.   Complete with its own aquarium and water park it is a pleasant place to spend a few days.   It was, of course, about has hot and humid as it can get on the planet earth and any visit to Dubai is a bit surreal given that is it a caricature of unsustainable excess.