Best Nine

Just like many others I have used the app 'Best Nine' to find out which of my Instagram posts have been the most popular this year.
Here are the Best Nine of 2018:

A nice mix of self boosting, work, holiday memories and family.

Christmas Day 2018

The kids very patiently waited Christmas morning, until the adults were up and had got their coffee ready. There was so many presents under the tree, I don't know what happened...

This is the face of someone really excited, waiting to see our reactions having chosen all by herself some great gifts for us:

Daddy got a Batman mug and some new Batman socks:

And I got a beautiful book I'm looking forward to reading:

Lucas got fewer but bigger and more expensive gifts, a couple of new games, new gaming headphones, a gaming subscription and an American football:

Both the kids got Airpods, and "intelligent" toothbrushes. They are connected to an app via wi-fi, so no more cheating on the brushing! 

Linnea got some baking things, jewellery, stationary, a netball, clothes and other little things she likes:

We had Christmas Lunch together with our ex-neighbours Chad, Kristen and Aiden who had come up from Dubai, and a couple of their friends with some family visiting:

We sat outside so we could enjoy not just the turkey lunch but the sun:

Merry Christmas from the Watsons!

Julafton 2018

Staying here in the sandpit for Christmas and being without any own traditions anymore (still miss our Brunei Christmasses...), I wanted to do something special on Christmas Eve to at least try and get into the Christmas spirit a little bit.
We started the day with 'Santa porridge', for breakfast:

Then we took a trip to Dubai, and the winter wonderland which is Ski Dubai, in Mall of the Emirates. We had bought tickets for their snow park, and also booking in for a discovery skiing lesson!

We have visited Ski Dubai once before, which was in 2011 when we didn't even live here in the UAE. It was also on Christmas Eve actually, while we were in Dubai to spend Christmas with the Dehlis. Wise from that time, we remembered to bring gloves and hats this time, to withstand the cold a bit better!

We all loved our ski lesson! Nathan of course have been skiing before, but for the rest of us it was the first time. Even though it was just a taster type lesson, it was a lot of fun.

Linnea caught on really quickly, and was rather disappointed we only had an hour booked on the slopes. She was keen as.

After our ski lesson we took the chair lift a bit further up the hill, to have some lunch and hot chocolate at the 'Avalanche' café.

The different slopes here are actually rather impressive. We all agreed that we need to get back again soon (when it's not so many people...) and have another lesson and try to advance a bit higher up next time!

Rather than taking the ski lift back down again we opted for a slightly faster route, and took this 'Mountain thriller' back down in 45 km/h instead!

We finished off our day at the snow park with watching the March of the Penguins. They were so super cute, all of them!

In the evening we had Swedish 'Julbord' and watched 'Kalle och hans vänner' - almost can't get any more traditionally Swedish!

Från oss alla till er alla - en riktigt God Jul! ❤️