Anastasia's early Abu Dhabi birthday celebration

Cute, delicious cupcakes made by Taylor

Gareth, our school's director, was an immediate draw

Opening a hippie mobile- dog, dude and lady included

Misrak gave her an Ethiopian traditional dress and a push toy

Misrak with a tired, hot (pre) birthday girl

The traditional cake grab: she was very lady-like about it (surprisingly :)

Grabbing at the chocolate cake exactly as she does the soil in Abu Dhabi's flower beds

Another weekend in the Emirates

We had a good weekend. Thursday, Christine took Anastasia to a middle school girls' sleepover party at school. The next morning, I took Anastasia for an early-morning walk (at 6:30 am, the temperature was only 90*F; by mid-day, it increases 20 to 25 degrees); she loves playing in the parks along the Corniche, running around, flirting with people, etc. Then we came back home and got ready for breakfast with Rhonda, a typical Friday morning activity (probably once a month).

Saturday, our nanny Misrak came over with one of her friends/roommates, and we drove up to Dubai. We went to the Dubai Mall, the world's largest mall, which sits at the base of the Burj Dubai (the world's tallest building). After eating at the world's largest food court, which sits next to an indoor waterfall 4 stories high (not sure if that's the world's tallest or not--but they do have the world's largest dancing fountains outside), we browsed around a huge bookstore (nope, not the world's largest) and then visited a pretty cool aquarium in the mall. While not THE largest aquarium, it DOES have the world's largest viewing panel, with a tunnel running through it so you can wander into the fish bowl yourself. Anastasia seemed to love the fish, the stingrays, the sharks, the otters, the penguins...Why wouldn't you have a full-scale aquarium in the mall? There's also a huge ice rink there. Of course! This is not the Mall of the Emirates, though; that's down the road about 5 kilometers, and it has the indoor ski slope.

Just the type of things we have come to expect here...