Aunt Murf!!!

We were beyond thrilled to welcome our second visitor, my Aunt Murf!!!  The girls were so excited she was coming! We had a total blast while she was here.  I love her sense of adventure and willingness to do anything and everything.  She is game for just about anything!

LOVING her Duty Free spoils!!  Rosé for days!  Aunt Murf and I share a love for Rosé champagne

 Puzzles in the playroom

 Olivia had Thursday and Sunday off, so we decided to go to Dubai the first weekend she arrived.  Of course, we had to take her to brunch at our favorite, Spectrum on One.

 Cotton candy!

They all had the sillies

 Cheese!

 Checking out the view from the top of the Fairmont

 A little table dancing in the lobby and she wasn't the one who had bottomless champagne!

 We went to the mall after brunch (of course, what else is there to do in Dubai!).  This was the children's designer department.  It was totally insane: Gucci, Dolce and Gabana, Burberry, Armani, Fendi.  Dresses started at $600!

They found the carrousel and after I told them I thought it was just for decoration, Aunt Murf said, come on lets do it!  After bottomless champagne, Mama decided to sit out on this one!

 The next day we got up and took a day trip to Hata, a neat little city about an hour outside of Dubai.   This was the only picture I took!

 That night we got back and walked down to the Marina area.  

 That is us up there!  It was hot, but we walked and walked all around the Marina, which was actually enjoyable.  It took us a while, but we found a great restaurant that served alcohol.  I am so glad we held out for "Buddha Bar".  The food was incredible, atmosphere was fun, view was amazing, and we had such a great time.

                                                                Very cool restaurant!

 Olivia and Eliza loved the steps and put on quite the show

 The view from our hotel room!

 Us with the Burj al Arab in the background, taken from the Palm Jumeriah Island

 Then we went to Madinat Jumeriah and had fun in the bubbles!

Birthday Parties in Abu Dhabi

Birthday parties in Abu Dhabi are nuts!  I thought Memorial was bad, but I was wrong!  People go all out and spare no expense!  This last one was for Olivia's good friend, Tala.  It was at the RITZ CARLTON!  It was "Frozen" themed and ridiculously cute.  It had painting crafts, crystal bracelet making, a buffet, a ballet instructor, ice cream from the ice cream parlor, cake...Olivia had a ball!

 The ballet instructor teaching dances to "Frozen" songs

I love this pretty picture of Olivia and her friend Molly, who sadly is moving to Albania this summer, doing the Frozen themed word search that was in their goodie bags, while waiting on the valet.

Fun Park

This awesome little park is right by our house.  A few weeks ago, we decided to brave the heat and go check it out.  This was back in mid April and despite getting there really early, it was unbearably hot.  We look forward to spending more time here when the weather is a bit cooler.  Hopefully this Fall we can get those training wheels off of "Miss Cautious'" bike.

 Eliza ditched her tricycle and preferred walking

 It has a great playgournd

Easter Sunday

Because the work week is Sunday-Thursday, Easter Sunday was a work day for Mike.  Olivia didn't have school, but Eliza did.  That meant Olivia and I were on our own!  It was actually really fun for us to have a "Mommy and Me" day.  We rarely spend a significant amount of alone time together.  She was so excited for our day and thrilled to get to take Eliza to school.  Mike went to work late,even missed an early important meeting to watch the girls wake up and hunt for Easter eggs.  We took video, but didn't take any pictures of the hunt.  It was so sweet, they were giving each other eggs and helping each other find their favorite color eggs.  It made my heart sing :)

 Taking Eliza to school!

 On our day together, Olivia said she wanted to go to Chili's, her favorite.  We called Mike to see if he wanted to go to lunch with us and he could.

 This is what we saw on the drive back home from lunch :)

 Home from school, checking out their eggs

 Sweet girls!

 I had to tell them I would let them have a treat from their basket if they would cooperate (and SMILE, Eliza) for a few pictures.  Here is her attempt.

Olivia helping her smile!

 Eliza then decided she wanted to be the photographer

 

 Olivia's turn to be the photographer

Then we went inside and enjoyed some of the glitter eggs we dyed

 Enjoying her new Barbie slushy maker from the Easter Bunny

Gardening

We decided to beautify our backyard!  We had  a landscape guy come and do the sprinkler system (oh so needed here!) and the bougainvillea.  We went down to the plant souq (little market area) and got some annuals (a few purple ones as per Olivia's request) and a couple frangipani trees.  They had a ball helping Daddy plant them...for a time.  After a while, I came downstairs and saw the girls sitting by the window watching Mike plant the rest of the flowers all by himself.  They said it was too hot to sit out there any more and it was much nicer inside.  I couldn't agree more!

Sevilla

After days and days of sightseeing like crazy people, Sevilla could not have been a more perfect place to end our trip in Spain with.  There are several sites, fewer than the other cities, but the best part of the city is the fact that it is just an alive place with so much charm.  We could have spent hours just sitting in the little cafes and watching the city go by.  This was our favorite city; we loved it and so did the girls!

 The amazing bell tower

 The first night while dealing with a good hassle with parking the car (again, streets too small to park a 9 passenger van), Mike had seen some of the nightlife getting started and really wanted to get out in it.  That night we went out in shifts, Nonna and Papa went first while we put the girls to bed and then we went out after they got back.  We just walked around until we came to this little tapas bar.  We loved all the date nights we got, so much fun!

 The next day we found our favorite little breakfast place that we went to at least 2 mornings (by this time in the trip, we were all a little tired of cereal at the apartments).

 Total stinker with pictures!

 Beautiful bell tower

 Getting ready to see the sights!

 Love her

 Trying to not give me a good picture...

Caught ya!

 Playing with Nonna

 We went on a fun carriage ride

We went to this little square twice it was so neat

 Eliza wasn't feeling well, so I stayed back with her while the rest took Olivia to her first Flamenco show.  They first went out to eat before the show.

To say she loved it would be an understatement!  She told me all about it the next day over and over again :)

 Christopher Columbus's elevated tomb inside the cathedral

 The absolute highlight of the entire trip for Olivia.  She climbed to the top of the amazing bell tower (which actually was the minaret when it was a mosque).  As soon as we reached the top, the bells rang and Olivia just couldn't believe her luck that it happened right when we got up there. 

 Eliza actually had a little fever, but with the help of some Advil, just powered through it all.  Total vacation rock-stars.

 Olivia wanted to start taking pictures

 Totally done!

 The courtyard of our incredible little apartment.  We saved the best for last.  It was perfect!

 Back at our favorite breakfast place, saying goodbye to Nonna and Papa.  They left a day early to take the train back to Madrid to catch their early morning flight the next day.

 Yes, I was pushing an empty stroller!

 We went to the bull fighting museum.  Sevilla is one of the most famous cities for bullfighting.

 It was really really  interesting. 

 Ice cream and pizza break for the girls

 I had to take a picture of this to commemorate ALL of the laundry I did in Spain.  The four of us packed in ONE, albeit very large, suitcase for the entire 13 day trip.  This was only possible by staying in apartments that with a washer (no dryer!).  I was the laundry queen.  I have never been more excited to get home to a real washer AND dryer.

 The Alcazar in Sevilla, another example of stunning Moorish architecture.

 By this time, the girls we tired of looking at the sights and just got silly everywhere

 Now Eliza was trying her hand at photography.  She made us stand there for a good 10 minutes while she took our picture over and over and over again :)

Beautiful!

 We had been to this restaurant the night before with Nonna and Papa.  It was the best food we had in Spain and we couldn't help ourselves and went back for our last meal in Spain.  Best food ever! We thought Olivia was just tired, but when we got home, we found out that she too got struck by fever.  We knew it was just a one day thing, nothing Advil couldn't fix.

 Total sweetness

 Finally, a good picture!

 You can't really see this picture well, but I had to include it.  Like I said, the streets were too small for our giant van, so we had to park it in a garage a few miles away from where we were staying.  Our last morning in Spain, we had to get up at 5AM in order to get on the road to Madrid (5 hours away) to catch our afternoon flight.  We went to bed the night before not exactly sure how logistically we were going to get two sleeping girls, two strollers, and our bags to the car.  Mike went out at about 5:30 to see if there was a place to park the van somewhat near.  About 15 minutes later, he busts in and says there is a taxi outside waiting for us.  We run upstairs, get the girls up and dressed and start hauling it all to the taxi.  We shove our stuff and ourselves into this tiny taxi, all four of us in the back (no carseats!!) with some man in his pajamas yelling at the taxi for being loud, to go find our van.  It is dark and we are vulnerable (we had already had Mike's backpack stolen and 2 attempted pick pockets).  It was a heart pounding 30 minutes!  But, we made it and we were off to Madrid, so sad to be leaving.

Tired superstar travelers on the way to Madrid...so long Spain.  Thanks for trip of a lifetime.  We hope to return very soon!

It took us almost 24 straight hours of travel to get back to Abu Dhabi.  Our sweet housekeeper, Gina, took care of Maya while were gone.  After being gone for 13 days and 24 hours straight of traveling home, walking into a SPOTLESS house and fresh and ironed sheets were amazing!