Monday, January 7, 2013

A Long December...

"It's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass" - Counting Crows


In reality, it seems like every month is short nowadays. If you blink, you might miss 'em. Where did December even go? It flew by... but we did manage to squeeze in a bunch of fun. Hopefully we can hold on to the memories of all the fun moments.

Here are a few highlights: (December may not have been long, but this blog post sure is)

UAE National Day - The month started with several celebrations of UAE National Day. Basically it is the Emirati version of the 4th of July. It's extra fun because even though they don't really celebrate Christmas here, two colors of their flag are red and green. So, everything gets decorated in red and green ... what better way to get in the Christmas spirit? Plus, we got to dress up like the locals.

  



Camping and Snorkeling - We had a long weekend for the National Day celebrations, so we decided to head to the East Coast with some friends for some camping and snorkeling. It was a crazy, noisy, crowded weekend, but we still had fun. We also saw a LOT of baby jellyfish.





These are all baby jellyfish washed up on the shore


Holiday Excitement - The kids get so excited for the holidays they can barely contain it. They loved decorating the tree and counting down the days until Christmas. It sure is fun to see the magic of the holidays from their perspective.




Performance! - The girls put on a winter performance with songs and dance at their school. They are so shy it was an achievement just to have them stand and mouth some of the words. It was cute to watch... and almost as much fun to watch all the parents in the crowd. Can you say photo/video overload?


Abigail




Saylor


Nativity - On Christmas Eve we had some friends over for a yummy Christmas dinner and a re-creation of the Christmas Story. We had a Mary (Saylor) and Joseph, a donkey, sheep, some shepherds and 3 wise-women (Abigail). It was a fun time with good friends.





Ho Ho Ho - Even in a Muslim country in a house without a chimney, Santa found us.







White Christmas? - The day after Christmas (otherwise known as my birthday), we took the kids for their first real experience with snow. I may have turned the big FOUR-ZERO, but I felt young as ever sledding and having snowball fights with the kids.









AND MORE... - We also went bowling, jumped in a huge wind tunnel to do some simulated skydiving, enjoyed a picnic and water fight at Safa Park, ate WAY TOO MUCH candy, and rung in the New Year with a visit from Karen and Brad.  It was a great month!






3 comments:

  1. Great post Matt. You guys are having way too much fun. NO FAIR.

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  2. Wow, this was so much fun to see such awesome pictures of you guys! Mason got a kick out of your naked santa by the christmas tree! Impressive writing skills with your girls - tell them Aunt Michelle thought they did an awesome job writing their letters to Santa. So much fun and such a cute family!

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  3. What an awesome birthday! I remember seeing that place on amazing race and have been waiting and waiting for you guys to go there. So glad you finally did after 3 years of waiting:) Christmas looked magical your kiddos are so cute. I LOVE the jellyfish video-genius! How long did it take you to figure out how cool it would be to do that? It was awesome!

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