Monday 26 February 2018

All legs

Nathan took Lucas for a bike ride the other day and they were nicely coordinated in the same Etihad outfits, very stylish.



He might need a bigger bike quite soon. Look at this photo, this boy really is ALL legs..! Nathan's Grandma Lu would say it's "those Watson legs".., but I know that he got his legs from his Mum, of course.

Sunday 25 February 2018

Our TV star

The Abu Dhabi Tour 2018 is in full swing again here in the capital. Last year we went to see one of the stages live down at the Corniche, and Grandma and Grandad were here. This year Nathan has watched most of it on the TV, apart from Friday's race, the 133km long Stage 3 "Nation Towers".

He was invited VIP to the event - AND to take part at the prize giving representing Etihad and hand out the black jersey to the winner of the intermediate sprints, Nikolay Trusov.



He took our friend Rory with him, who is also madly into cycling, so I am thanking him for all these photos:





Meanwhile the kids and I were watching the race from the sofa, eagerly awaiting to see Nathan on TV at the prize giving ceremony - only to realize they didn't transmit from the prize giving in the end... sigh... Maybe there is a clip on the internet somewhere..? I'll keep looking.

Raha International Day 2018

Yesterday it was time for International Day at school, and the Raha School Global Village. This year bigger than ever, 48 countries were represented out of the 80+ nationalities RIS is made up of.

Our Swedish stall was not as elaborate as last year, for example no 'fiskdamm' this time. We were only four Swedish families organizing this year, as most of the other Swedes had declined helping out, so us four made it easy for ourselves. Thankfully IKEA agreed to sponsor us once again, so we could offer 'lingondricka' and 'pepparkakor' to all our visitors.




International Day has always been my favourite day in the school calendar. It is always amazing to see how the whole school community comes together to build up this Global Village, and everyones pride in dress up and presenting all things special from their home countries.

Australia had stepped up the game this year with a big hospitality desk, ha ha!


A Zumba friend, Indri, representing Indonesia. Each year she is in a new amazing outfit!


Yummy homemade sweets at the NZ stall. Nathan with one of the Kiwi teachers, Mr Ken: 




Lots of countries had live cooking, like Lebanon:




I love all the colours of this day!



Italy had rolled in a big gelato freezer, just like last year:


There were many different activities on the field, like Canadian hockey, Finnish Viking Chess and Greek dancing:



Ireland had live music:


Our location this year was a bit off, so it wasn't as busy around our stall as previous years. On a positive note we had a bit of a breeze coming through where we were, so we didn't feel the heat at all.
As always I was so impressed with all the kids of the school, and how polite and well behaved they all are. It was a pleasure representing Sweden, and a great morning with a lot of interesting meets.



Saturday 24 February 2018

The Year of the Dog

A few weeks back I met another one of our neighbours at a Thermomix event at Karins house. Lisa, the neighbour, was there because she was curious about the Thermomix and wondered if it would be helpful for the big Chinese New Year party she was about to host. One thing led to another in our conversation and all of a sudden we all were invited to her party too!

I got so excited! I have really missed all the CNY celebrations and happenings since we left Brunei. I sure didn't get disappointed, our neighbour Lisa had gone ALL out both with decorations, yummy yummy food and entertainment. Such an awesome party!!

Our hosts:





The outside bar:


The kids (not ours though, they were back home) even had their own corner around the back, where they were watching Kung Fu Panda and Mulan:



Karin and I in the little photo booth corner:


It had been a while since I did this back at the hash in Brunei, it was so nice to get to take part in this "ceremony" again: the Yusheng, or Lo Hei (Prosperity Toss).







Lisa and I:


There was even entertainment, a fan/umbrella dance, a kung fu demo, and a fire thrower!




So much fun! Happy Chinese New Year!