Visitors from Sweden!

Finally the Simms came to see us and the girls were so excited! Isabelle and Daniella played like they´d never been apart. They are so alike, it´s amazing. Wether it's that they´ve both got English football-fishing dads or beautiful Swedish scatterbrain mums I don't know...
Unfortunatelly the weather wasn't at its best, but what can you do? Of course the kids still swam in the pool and of course we went on a dessert safari, freezing our b-s off. But the kids loved it, they rode camels, held falcons and had henna painting on their hands.

We also had a lovely day in Safa Park, playing cricket and relaxing in the quite warm sun. After a lovely lunch at Sizzlers, I drove through a red light when I was following Jon home. One week later Jon got a text saying our vehicle (black beauty) was wanted for impounding for 2 weeks! Can't believe it! I won't be doing that again.....

Best of friends!

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Tuesday means Tennis

A beautiful morning, 15 degrees and sunshine. Started off with tennis lesson, today playing with my new racket. Sorry, I should say my own racket, cause I never had one. I've always been borrowing one from the coach. It felt good and it's really fun. There were five of us today, 2 from Turkey, one from Korea, one from Scotland and me. Never knew Turkish was such a cool language, never heard anything like it before. It doesn't sound like Arabic, not like Greek... fascinating and quite beautiful.
Now it's time to prepare the beds and rooms for our guests from Sweden. The Simms are coming tonight and we´re all so excited!

Sickness and a royal visit - Dubai in a nutshell

Dear family and friends,

again it has been a while...anyway, I can't keep making excuses everytime my life turns upside down. Of course it's also about priorites.
The last two weeks can only be described in one word - medicine. James has been sick and Jonathon has been sick. Good job the women in the family are so strong...James started off with stomach sickness and fever, then after a weak, only fever and cold, but really high fever and bad cough. One night I was listening to his breathing for hours, watching his chest going in and out like a baloon. I knew he would have to breath ventoline again at the doctor's. So after ten days of sickness he had to have penicillin again. And Jon has been to the doctors maybe 3 times, no four in the last two weeks. Breathing problems as well, asthma and yes, chest infection and penicillin. He has also been for a chest checkup with a specialist, to find out more about his asthma problems. Anyway, now they both finally seem better, which is great. And I have been a wreck the last few days, so tired. James has kind of turned his days around, so he goes to bed at 10pm and sleeps until 5am. It's great that he has slept all night the last few days, but I don't reallt get much done in the evening. He doesn't sleep much in the day either, only 3o min here and there. Anyway, today I feel a lot better, I went for a run yesteday and today, which is not the norm, I promise. But it's made me feel a lot better.

In the middle of all the sickness, of course, was last weekends sandstorm! Me and the girls were supposed to leave the sick men to take care of themselves to go camping with the girls scouts. We only got there to experience a terrible and terrifying sandstorm. The camp was cancelled and we had to go all the way home again. Since I am also a co-leader with the younger girls we had to stay quite a long time to make sure they were all ok. It was a scary experience for them.

Here you can read about it:
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/weather/sudden-storm-brings-life-to-a-halt-in-uae-1.753793

Here are some pictures that one of the scout leaders took, before and after the storm. You see why we had to go home...

Before!

After! The palmtrees look like sticks in the storm! And where did the tents go!

Of course I also have to share another important topic with you, no doubt Jon will have told you all by now...but anyway, yes, he met the Swedish princess two weeks ago, on his birthday as a matter of fact. Before he became critically ill that is...Jonathon was actually brave enought to go up and talk to her (as of course you knew he would do...) The only thing is, he was a bit too English about it, after the formal greeting he said something like: "And it's actually my birthday today, so if you want to give me a hug, that's ok..." He said her bodyguards looked slightly stressed at this point, so he left the princess slightly bewildered by the very charming Englishman who tried to steal a hug...let's just say it didn't work. Here is a great picture of the two :)

That´s it for now...

Next week we finally get to welcome friends from Sweden! Jason, Marie, Olivia and Daniella arrive Tuesday night, jippi!

Love Anna