Home from Dubai...

I'm home! And all I can say is WOW! Everything that happend before I left getting ready for the trip is all a distant memory. The trip to Dubai was so needed.

I needed to get away, have some fun and be with my husband for a few days. Josh's Mom and Grandma arrived on Wednesday Jan.17th in the afternoon. The kids had a lot of fun with the Grandma's. I honestly wasn't worried at all when I left them since I knew that Grandma would spoil them rotten, and she did! I flew out of Norfolk on Thursday around noon. I flew to Detroit, and then from Detroit to Amsterdam. The flight to Amsterdam was 8 hours. It was a long flight, and honestly I didn't sleep at all. I tried, but I really was too excited to sleep. I arrived in Amsterdam at 7a.m. the next day and had a long layover there. So while there I found out there was a little tour you could go on where they drove you around town in a shuttle bus, and they made a few stops and you could see Amsterdam. I got to see how they make the wooden dutch shoes, really cool. I bought a pair for Maddie, which she loves to walk in and then tap dance (or stomp depedning on how you look at it!)on our hard wood floors in the dining room. Here's me in the giant wooden shoes outside the shop.

Amsterdam is definately a place I would like to return to and visit, there were a lot of cool museums I would love to go and spend hours visiting.




Doing the tour definately helped the time pass quickly and then it was off to Dubai.
The flight to Dubai is 6 hours. Oh and if you're wondering, Amsterdam is 6 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone, and Dubai is 9. So, I arrived in Dubai a little later than planned because of some glitch in the check in with security getting on the plane. So we arrived at 12:30a.m. on January 20th. It was so nice to walk out with my bags (we figured out Josh couldn't meet me at the luggage there for some reason!) and immediately see Josh waiting among the crowd of people. We got into a taxi and drove to our hotel. We stayed at the Kempinksi Hotel which is attached to the Emarites Mall. I highly recommend this place, it is so nice. Our room was HUGE! Here are some pictures of our room, the hall, the awesome swimming pool, and the view from our room of some of Dubai.






We did a lot of walking around the Emarites Mall, and around several other malls.


We went because each of the malls are different in architecture, and the designs, which made them fun to go to.


We went on a dessert safari that we got to be driven wildly through the dessert, up and down hills.

Watched the sunset in the desert,

rode some camels,



rode on some 4x4's in the desert, ate a barbeque, and got to watch a belly dancer. We took lots of taxi rides to go around town.

We shopped at the local markets where all the tourists go to make deals for t-shirts, drank drinks that were cold fruit with the top cut off and a straw stuck in it,



and we went to the City of Gold

where if you want to get good deals for nice jewelry this is the place to go. Shops upon shops of Gold. On our last night we went on a dinner cruise,

which had us going up and down the Canal. All in all, the trip was fabulous! We had so much fun together. We ate lots of unique food, and found that they have some of the best fruit drinks I've ever tasted! We also got up at 3:30a.m. Dubai time to watch the Colt win the AFC Championship game... We're going to the SUPERBOWL baby! We probably woke up our neighbors with our shouts of joy!
We also got some news while over there, Josh is now an "Official Olmstead candidate" which means he has a greater chance of getting into the program. His interview is scheduled for Feb.8th!! So we will know after that if he will be in or not.
The kids are so glad to have Daddy home, and of course so am I. Jonas was so cute when he hugged Josh, and said "Daddy I really missed you." I really could've cried when he said that, it was so sweet.
I took Josh's Mom and Grandma to the airport this morning, so we have our little family together again, and it's wonderful.