Our first Abu Dhabi Halloween

So no, Halloween wasn't really a surprise, duh, it kind of comes along the same date every year. But I feel like it just came around so quickly this year, as we've just been away. I smacked up our decorations very last minute (this morning!) to at least get a little bit of Halloween feeling!

We had purposely bought some candy, and we had decorated outside and kept our outdoor light on (common "ok-signal" around here apparently), but to our big disappointment nobody came to trick-or-treat us at all.

I feel like a really bad Mum, as I hadn't really organized any costumes for the kids, nor anywhere to go trick-or-treating... Linnea was keen, of course - always when it's candy involved! Lucas didn't mind not going anywhere. I think the combination of getting older (he backed out already last year) and him still being on (and being seriously tired of) the crutches put him off.

Instead Linnea and I spent some time this afternoon making a Halloween cake, with ghost meringues! How cute?

Then we took our ghost cake and went to some friends in Al Reef this evening, who had invited us over for a BBQ. Lucky us!

Even though we didn't go trick-or-treating, we got our fair share of Halloween candy; a few knocks on the door from spooky visitors while we were there - and yummy dinner, with ghost cake! Not a bad Halloween at all!

Return, reunion and celebration

Linnea lost her favourite Pooh-bear teddy that she's had since she was a baby, after a trip to Dubai back in March/April. He went missing together with a plastic bag with Nathans uniform, so we suspected Pooh had been showed into the bag, and that we had thrown it out with the rubbish by mistake...

When checking in for our return flight from Rome yesterday, Nathan could feel that there was something in the front pocket of his roller bag, and - guess if we were all happy when we discovered it was POOH! Yay!

It was fab that the flight departed just before lunch. No need to get up earlier than normal, no need to rush to the airport. No need to sleep on the plane. Instead we all watched movies and enjoyed the inflight service, a bunch of lovely food (and wine!) up the front. Great trip.

It was also a celebration trip, as it was Lucas' 200th flight!
Can you believe it!? He's only 10!

Rome 2014 Day 7

Our last day, and another big one. We had "booked" Carin to take us around Ancient Rome, the Forum Romanum and the Colosseum.
We had decided to meet early to avoid the crowds, but again Lucas in his wheelchair proved really useful - didn't need to queue at all! Ok, prepare for photo bomb. I just couldn't choose.

 We started at Forum Romanum by the Arch of Titus:

Carin wanted to try to use her iPad a bit during her guiding us. It's something many guides do nowadays, and of course especially here in Rome, having pictures of before and after is really a help. Often it got a bit hard to see in the sun though, and we all rather just listened to what she had to tell.

I got serious flashbacks from my high school trip to Rome. This was my Latin professors favourite spot in Forum Romanum, the Castor and Pollux Temple.

The excavations never stop in Rome. This marble floor was actually discovered not so long ago, and we stood a while and watched while they were working at this site.

Then we walked inside the Colosseum. Before going into the arena, Carin gave us a bit of an introduction. She normally guides in Swedish, but this time she had to do it in English obviously, and she did an excellent job. Hopefully this gave her the confidence to take on more English groups from now on. (If you want your own Swedish guide (she also can guide in English, French and Italian if needed!) while in Rome, please check out her home page here!)

Linnea had bought a new book about Rome earlier on the holiday. It shows pictures of many famous sights in Rome, before and after. We used it a lot to compare how this arena used to look like to how it looks now.

The steep stairs:

My gorgeous family:

After the morning visit, and another pasta lunch together with Carin - she left us to go pick up her children from school. We decided to go back to that "150 different kind of gelato"-place for our last ice cream experience for this trip. Feasted on three scoops each this time!

In the evening we felt that we had had enough of pizza and pasta, so we rebelled and went to a steak house for dinner. And that concluded our holiday for this time!