Track and Field Day

Teddy's favorite day of the entire school year is Track and Field Day.  He loves the competition!  This year the kids in his class were on the purple team.  Here are a few pictures of him with his best friends at the event.

Ripley's First Week at DAA

Thankfully, Ripley had a great first week at DAA.  His art teacher is a good friend and she sent me this cute picture of Ripley in art class.  

First Day at DAA

The UAE government changed their laws at the beginning of the year so Ripley has to move from preschool to kindergarten in January.  Since he is a late November birthday, he was one of the older students at preschool and now he will be one of the younger students in kindergarten.  We are hoping that this transition will be a smooth one!  

Christmas 2017: Zagreb, Croatia

We had 24 hours in Zagreb before flying back to Dubai. Just enough time to see some Churches and enjoy the most famous Christmas market in Europe.

We started by eating a traditional Croation lunch - beer and a dish similar to lasagna with ham, mushrooms, and enough cheese to give anyone a heart attack!

Then it was off to the most famous cathedral in town, the Zagreb Cathedral.

There was even a Cardinal "sleeping" (as we told Ripley) in the Church. At least it kept him to a whisper! 

Just as we were leaving the sun was starting to set and it seemed like a great time to see the lights at the Christmas Market, called Zagreb Advent.

Yup, that's about right!

The next morning we had a few hours before our flight so we took another stroll around the city.

I loved this statue outside of Zagreb University.

The opera house.

City streets with the tram tracks running down the middle.

We came across a WWII bunker. Which had been turned into a Christmas wonderland.

On the other side of the tunnel, we found this wonderful little chapel right in the middle of a stone bridge with a street running through it. The pews were on one side of the road and the altar was on the other side of the road. There were plaques all around the tunnel that said "thank you."

On the top of the hill was St. Marks, one of the most famous churches because of its roof. Cool, huh?

We then walked down the hill to our hotel, stopping to admire the view and take one more pass at the amazing food at the Christmas market.

The old city walls.

And a quick stop at the Croatian football museum.

Christmas 2017: Ljubljana, Slovenia

The day we arrived in Ljubljana was really rainy and cold so decided to spend the day in our little neighborhood eating Italian food and watching movies. The kids were thrilled!

Today we took a taxi into the old town of Ljubljana. The city is home to only 300,000 people and we were told it would take a day to see all the major sites and the Christmas markets. We started with the Castle. 

Instead of just buying a ticket to the castle, we bought a ticket for the dragon escape game which would allow us to see the castle but also to have some fun with the kids. The object is to find the clues around the castle to free the castle's dragon. The earliest known mention of a dragon is from one thousand years ago in Ljubljana so dragons are very important to this city.

The game took us to the wine cellar...

The tower for a beautiful view of the city...

And a view of the castle courtyard...

And the super cool double spiral staircase...

With a dragon on each stair...

And to a beautiful chapel...

And under the castle...

Until we finally got to enter the codes to unlock the door to the dragon...

But the dragon flew away before we got to see it. Here is a photo of our scavenger hunt clue sheet.

We then went to the creepy puppet museum in the castle. Nice Hitler puppet, right? Yikes!

After the castle we walked down into town to the famous Dragon Bridge.

We were hungry so we walked through the Christmas markets to find some food. This Christmas market was in front of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius Church.

I fell in love with these dragon man hole covers.

And to the Christmas markets.

We also passed this strange statue called "Awesome Baby Jesus Stabbing a Dragon."

By now the sun was starting to set and we decided to go ice skating. There was this amazing multi-tiered ice skating rink which was connected by little iced pathways.

With amazing night views of the castle.

It was getting cold and late so we wandered back into the Christmas markets before heading home.