The 2018 BSAK 7s tournament

We spent this Friday morning on the sidelines at Zayed Sports City watching... nope, not rugby this time - but football! Linnea participated with her Raha Raptors U12 Girls Team, and she played the tournament as their goalie.

They played four games in the pool play, and unfortunately lost all of them. Linnea had some tears at one stage, it's hard being the goalie and feeling responsible when you let goals in - but, it didn't help that her team didn't score one single goal throughout the four games either...

In their final game, when they played in what they themselves called "The Loosers final" (ha, ha!) - they had to first play extra time. Finally after 0-0 even there in the end it had to be decided by penalty shoot-outs. Such a shame, as Raha had actually totally dominated the play in that game, they just hadn't been able to finish off their attacks and actually score.
Linnea did two heroic saves in the shoot-outs, but unfortunately the other goalie managed to save three - so they lost that game too. A bit of a sour loss for sure after such a good game otherwise.

At the end of the day Linnea came home still proud of herself, having improved for each game and learned a lot of (hard) lessons on how to play under pressure in a big tournament. Good girl!

Phew...

Back home in Scandinavia where the weather is a bit more diverse than here, everybody talks about the weather, always and every day.
Actually, even here in the sandpit we have talked weather this passed week, as it has been abnormally warm, for the season. (Yuk, by the way!)

Before we went to the Seychelles it was still only 12-14 degrees in the morning, and just barely made it over 20 degrees during the day. Last week it all of a sudden started over 20 degrees on the morning school run, and went to well over 30 degrees in the middle of the day... nooo..!
It felt far too early for the beautiful winter days to end!

So, I was so happy when this morning the temperature was back down to at least 18 when I took the kids to school, and only hit 25 as a max this afternoon. Phew, I think we might still have a good few weeks of pleasant temperatures before the big numbers hit us again.

Back to work

We landed half an hour before scheduled time on Tuesday night, and we slid through the airport so fast that within an hour of touchdown we were back home, both suitcases unpacked and washing machine already running. Super efficient!

Wednesday morning it was back to school for the kids, and straight back to work for me. I decided to wear a nice white shirt to show off my fresh tan while taking another lovely group of Scandinavian Apollo-guests around Abu Dhabi.
Here having a coffee break while the guests were discovering the Louvre Abu Dhabi:

I love my city tours with the Scandinavians, every tour is different. A few weeks back I had one bus full of only Swedes, another of only Danes; this day it was the full mix of both Finnish, Danish, Norweigan and Swedish guests, both adults and kids. So much fun to show them this great city.

Seychelles, Time to go home

We had four nights (one afternoon, three full days and one morning) in the Seychelles, such a perfect little get-away. If we come back again, we will probably go explore some of the other islands as well.
On our last morning we just stayed by the pool at the hotel and absorbed all the greeeeeen we could before it was time to go. Some last snaps of our view..:

A Coco de Mer coconut, look at its size:

Goodbye Seychelles, thank you for this weekend! Such a paradise!

Seychelles, Last full day

Our last full day we enjoyed the early morning again by the pool at the hotel after another yummy breakfast. Just look at these eggs, so incredibly yellow!

Lush life!

I loved the view from our hotel, all the greenery, the fruit bats, and the sea... aaahh!

There is not many sights as such in Mahé, but I had read about something I wanted to experience: the giant tortoises in the Botanical Garden in the capital, Victoria. So off we went!

We got a map at the entrance of the gardens, but I can't say that it helped us much... ha ha!

We did find the Coco de Mer palm trees though, an endemic to the Seychelles. Its seeds are the largest and heaviest in the world, they are double coconuts which can weigh up to 30 kg each.

The Botanical Garden was pretty, but the main attraction for us was getting to feed the tortoises. It ended up being an expensive happening with the entrance fees and extra feeding cost - but it sure was worth it, I loved meeting the tortoises and the kids thought it was excellent fun feeding them and getting all up close to them.

After our visit to the Botanical Garden and the tortoises, it was time for a swim. The kids wanted to go back to the beach with the big waves, so we drove back across to Beau Vallon, and stopped in at the Boathouse for lunch before swimming. Nathan and I shared a seafood platter, which was one of our best meals on this holiday, super yum!

The weather this afternoon was quite weird, big clouds built up over the sea, but the rain never came so the kids happily swam and played in the waves even though the skies were dark.

 Another nice beach afternoon, holiday for the win!