Christmas Mubarak!

...a little bit of arabic 'fusion' on the usual Christmas greetings!

I hope that everyone has enjoyed the holidays. Now that it's boxing day over here (no sales that I'm aware of), I can honestly say we had a wonderful Christmas.

P took off two days from work (the 24th and 25th) and spent them at home with us. Sadly, we spent 1/2 the day of the 24th at the BANK (yes...really) trying to get our credit cards and atm cards all sorted out. It took about two hours, and we will still have to return to get MY cards. I think the banking institutions here still need to work on refining their processes and efficiency.

However, after that, it was all about our little family. We spent some time playing in one of 'our' parks, with A and Phinn. And thanks to our friend Kathy, who has come back for another visit to Abu Dhabi, we had a wonderful Christmas eve supper of salad rolls. We couldn't have made this meal without Kathy, as she brought us the essential ingredient: rice paper rolls. To date, we have not been able to locate these here (although, I'm SURE they are somewhere in Dubai). In addition to the rice paper wrappers, she also brought us a 'care package' made up of gifts and other 'requested' items from back home. Thanks to Kathy, not only are we eating well again (wraps and salad dressing), but we are also smelling fresh organically.

A enjoyed trying to make her own salad roll, and taking 'mouse bites' out of mine. That was our Christmas eve dinner. I went the extra mile and pulled a recipe for peanut sauce to dip our rolls in.

Thanks again to Santa Kathy, we had so many presents to open on Christmas day. A's aunties and grandparents were very generous with her. We bought her one gift: an echo microphone, as she seems to have inherited my love of singing and karaoke. We spent Christmas dinner with at the Cowell's place, along with the Macleod family. Despite the fact that there was no snow, Brenda's beautiful tree, along with her decorations and the fancy Christmas table spread...made us feel very much in the spirit.

Now...for those of you who read my blog..you'll obviously notice that I'm writing this much, much later than the actual event. As there have been 'new developments', I'm going to post this entry and start up a new (more recent) one.