Emirates A380!!!

Welcome to the Airbus A380!!

Just took this shot at the supermarket :-)

Lego in F.A. Schwarz, NYC

Pho Dac Biet in NYC - Quyen is jealous!!

Big smiles!

After Mandi for lunch in KSA

Riyadh view from hotel

Bath time!

Bath time!
Originally uploaded by TheSnakeMan.

Lady Bug!

Lady Bug!
Originally uploaded by TheSnakeMan.

You're under arrest!

You're under arrest!
Originally uploaded by TheSnakeMan.

Spare tyre?

People carry anything and everything in there cars in Dubai. I have seen these guys a few times on the road - this time I managed to grab a shot of them - well Quyen did, coz I was driving....

Snapped this at LuLu today!

Quyen's Mum Has Arrived!

After 14 hours in the air and 1 hour in the car to our home in Dubai, Quyen's Mum has arrived. She is the first grandparent to nurse Uland and is very excited and won't put him down! It's been 15 months since we saw her so it was wonderful to meet her at the airport. Yay.

Frankie Dettori

This photo was on the Gulf News website. I had to post it.

The interview quoted him saying:

"That is the moment we all wait for. It comes just once a year and all of us like to make it special"

"I think they are getting ready for the climax on March 29 pretty much as expected of them."

"We need to get to Europe later this summer and then we will know whether they are in a position to hold on to their promise,"

It's a Boy!

Princess Fiona

We had another ultrasound yesterday - a more detailed one to measure the weight and size of the baby. All looks OK (so far) for a natural delivery as far as all the important measurements go. We will have to wait and see now as to how Mum and Bub feel on the day. The feet are swollen, the belly is big... not much longer to go now. The machine estimated the term so far to be from 39wks and 3 days to 40wks and 1 day! Woo hoo!

Fly Girl

Aidan lost his sunnies in a mosque pit in Egypt 3 months ago and I am still forced to wear my emergency pair of sunnies. He has finally ordered some sunnies online and they should be here within the week... we shall see!

Not happy Jan!

HappyBirthday Aidan

Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes, emails, sms messages and what not. If you forgot, thanks now for remembering! The baby held tight on the 16th, refusing to share a birthday every year SHE grows. I had it all worked out though....I would have turned 50 when She turned 21. That would have been one hell of a bash! Not to be. I had a birthday lunch on Friday at Shang Palace at the Shangri-La hotel. Yum Cha was the order of the day - unlimited. Yee haa! Sam, Belinda, Vic and Andy rocked up with us for a nice cosy group. Had lots fun and laughs.

Global Village

We touched briefly on Global Village in an earlier blog with the fireworks site. Winny and I headed across to this year's event for the first time the other day and had a great time!!! There are 40 countries represented and each has food stalls with traditional cuisine as well as selling stuff from that country - carvings, statues, paintings, bags, herbs, spices, sweets. We had a great time! There are rides for the small and big kids and a whole bunch of other stuff to see and do. The only ride we could go on together was the ferris wheel - safe for pregnant women. Great view from up there, pics of the view didn't really turn out But you get the idea.

We covered all the pavillions - from Afghanistan to Vietnam, and the Saffron stands in India.

Fireworks ready to go

Winny and I have been entertained every Friday night since Dec 20 to a pretty cool display of fireworks - as part of 'Global Village'. The event is just around the corner from our place and we duck out onto the balcony every time to check out the show. We were hunting for the setup site and we found it! In the middle of the sand dunes, there they were, ready to go for last night's show!

Public Holidays

Just when we though all of our public holidays were over, another one was announced last week - this time for George W. Bush's visit to the UAE. That brings the holiday count since December 10th up to 8 days. OK, it's great that there are so many public holidays in this part of the world. George Day was announced at 4:30PM on Monday, to have the Tuesday off. No-one knew a thing until that point.... aarrgghh. Notice please, notice.

This week we are expecting to work the first full week since the first week of December. Then, wollah, the baby will come...i betcha!

Practice.....

We headed on down to our old neighbour's place in Al Barsha this weekend. Had a cracker of a time! They are an Egyption family and have been in Dubai for about 6 months. The little girl, Habiba (holding the teddy), celebrated her fourth birthday. There were sooooo many children... aargghh!! but, hey, we had a great time. Nice food and music. It was good practice and helped tune in our ears for the days to come.

The little boy in the picture is Yousuf - Habiba's little brother.

And the dude in the video played a bent looking guitar. - Egyption style... he was good!

Let me out!

We had a visit to the Doc yesterday and the baby is engaged.... and we're not talking about proposals or rings (boom, boom) Woo hoo! Not long now...

Clearly, the little one wants out and is fed up with the cramped space on offer in Quyen's belly. We captured a few moments of movement on video and thought we would share with you all since you are all so far away and can't see it for yourselves.

Oh, and please suggest some song alternatives for the next video. The soundtrack for the birth has been chosen by Quyen - 'Break on through to the otherside' - The Doors. Any other suggestions are welcome??

Dubai Meets Aus

Emirates Airlines has announced the first six star resort to be built in Australia- 100 million bucks worth! Click here for the SMH article.

Maccas with an Arabic twist

McDonalds Dubai
Originally uploaded by TheSnakeMan.

We haven't tried McDonalds here in Dubai yet, but there is an Arabic angle as you can see here on this menu...