First part of Feb

Hello!
I'm slowly getting caught up. If we would just sit still for a bit this would be easier... I left off at the end of Jan so I guess the first interesting thing in Feb was the news paper. We have a small free local paper called 7Days (it is now only published 5 days a week). It gives a synopsis of of local stories and happenings as well as international news. I pick it up whenever I can find it. Every Monday they feature a "Top 10" from a internationally published residence guide for Dubai called Explorer. The topics range from things to do in Dubai for under 100aed to day trips from the city. A few weeks ago I found the Top 10 to be quite interesting:


Then I found this:

This paper is famous (to us) for extremely poor article/photo placement. Almost daily they have at least one article with an eye-catching headline paired next to a completely different photo with its own small caption. I'm beginning to think that maybe the editor just has an incredible sense of humor. Evidently The Hoff did visit one of my local malls--YAY!

On the 12th we joined some friends at a black-tie charity event for the local feline rescue center. The boys were all going to rent a tuxes and then decided to bite the bullet and just purchase their own. (good for me, I got a new dress!!)

In honor of the cause Mark blinged up my ankle kitty:

We all met at our apartment to have a few drinks before the event. Since we were all dressed up we decided to take some photos - and I of course had to photoshop some of them... :)
This our 'James Bond' pose:

We had a really good time and were happy to be able to support the cause!! The rest of our photo shoot will be on our Photo Page as soon as I get it operational again.

This year had us celebrating our 12th anniversary - Wow!! Luckily Mark was working from Dubai this week so we were able to take a long weekend and go back out to Fujairah for our first dive trip together. We stayed at the Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort and it was fabulous!! Fujairah is about 1.5 hours from Dubai on the east coast of the Emirate, thru a little desert and a nice rocky mountain range which butts right up to the coast of the Gulf of Oman. The area is absolutely beautiful and the drive isn't too bad either.

Here is a free range camel. They were everywhere. No fences, no herders, just walking around grazing where they can.


View of the awesome hotel from the waterfront:

View from our balcony:

Unfortunately the area has been plagued since Nov. with the worst, longest running case of red tide in recent memory. Although it seems to be waning unfortunately the water condition is a daily crapshoot. Our dive day was on the ugly side:
(The water is usually crystal blue)
Evidently it takes more than some crappy water to deter us - we went diving!! Once you got down a couple meters it cleared up quite a bit. Still not up to par I hear but still enjoyable for a novice! Here are a couple cuddle fish we saw:

These photos are all taken with a cheap 35mm camera. After developing we realize that one of our rolls of film were expired and all had a purple tinge to them and the rest were mediocre at best. We have since purchased a proper digital underwater camera- pictures from here on out should be of much better quality.

heehee - I'm a scuba diver!! :)

The highlight of our two dives was getting to swim with sea turtles! We probably saw about 7 of them in this particular area. They were incredibly beautiful and didn't seem bothered that we were around. Very cool!!

We were totally bummed to have to leave. We will definately be back!!
(Again, as soon as I get our Photo Page up and running I will post all of our photos from the trip)

Well that's all I've got in me tonite - Its late. Hopefully I'll get another post up tomorrow.

Cheers!!
xoxox

Wow - where have I been??

We are entering March and it appears I haven't even opened my own blog since Thanksgiving. Shame on me!
2009 has started off well... It seems like Mark has been home quite a bit more than last year which has allowed us to spend some great days together roaming Dubai and some surrounding areas. As usual I'll catch you up via photos - get comfortable, you know its going to be long!!

January was a little slow - he did some traveling and I worked on getting us settled back in life here. We did take one outing to explore The Palm Jumeirah. It had been awhile and construction moves quick out here.

The drive up the palm:

In the tunnel that takes you to the head of the palm:

Atlantis Hotel: at the very head of The Palm (no public beaches):

<--- view of The Burj Al Arab & Souk Madinat Jumeirah area

City Skyline from The Palm

With the launch of the annual, month long, Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) the city was abuzz with activity. We mostly frequented JBR's Walk due to the continual live art exhibits.

There was sand sculpting:


3D chalk art:



Rock Balancing:

Just to name a few. I'll post more pictures of the sand and chalk guy on a later post.

One night as we were out walking we found ourselves down by the Marina Yacht Club and were invited to tour one of the bigger ones! It turned out to be for sale/charter so the live aboard crew invite people on board to try to get some interest. Whatever, we were on a yacht and it was sweet!!!

view of JBR from the Yacht Club:

The Leopard 31:


<--Jet engines propel the 'boat' Well that about sums up January. I'll try to get February knocked out this week as well - that was a busy month!! Until then... xoxoxox OH! P.S. I almost forgot; I finally finished my PADI Open Water certification on Jan 30!!! We are both now ready for diving adventures!