Sand Dunes and Crescent Moons: Easter Extraveganza

Our Easter seemed spread out this year, since we had to address the question - when to celebrate Easter?! Sunday was a regular work and school day, so we did it mostly on Friday, the day we go to church. The kids seemed pretty happy with their baskets.

We had breakfast with our neighbors, and my wonderfully talented neighbor made this beauty for breakfast - it had real bacon and real sausage on it!! It was ridiculously good.

The dads hid Easter eggs in both yards, and the kids had a blast looking for eggs. The weather was already pretty warm, so they had the extra incentive of trying to find the eggs before all of the chocolate melted!

To be fair, Tyler made everyone line up on the wall between our two villas so that everyone would have equal opportunity egg finding time :) Poor Owen is hoping someone will give him a leg up...

comparing and trading booty

And then I decided to torture myself. You know, try to take pictures of the kids in their Easter clothes RIGHT before we are leaving for church. I know it wont happen afterwards, so I have to try for before. In every picture, at least one person is blinking, sneezing, looking in a different direction, or throwing a royal fit. These are as good as it gets folks.

I was in such a hurry I didn't even move the ikea bag with our beach stuff out of the way. It's there for some extra class in our picture :)

And then I asked for a family shot. Just one. Some neighbors passing by were more than willing to help us out, but Will decided he didn't like them and wouldn't turn around for a picture. No amount of cajoling or threatening would work, so we decided this way, it would actually be a more true representation of that day - great memories some day, right?

On Saturday, we finally got to head over to Fujairah, the emirate way at the tip of the UAE, touching the Indian Ocean. Used to be famous for pearls and pirates. The kids were disappointed to learn there aren't much of either anymore. It was a beautiful beach. We spent a good 7 hours there, and could have stayed much longer, except we had a long car ride home!

This rock out in the background has good snorkeling, part of the reason we were there!

Nap time! Right after this picture was taken, our wonderful friends volunteered to take a turn watching all the kids, and Ken and I went snorkeling together off the rock. It was amazing. It was the only the second time I have ever done it, and we saw so many pretty colored fish. I also saw a shark, and we swam right through a bunch of teeny jellyfish (we just thought we were both suddenly itchy, then Ken spotted them). It was quite the swim, but loads of fun just to be the two of us with no responsibility for a minute!

Our friends brought their paddle board and gave the kids rides on it. Ken also took the boys out to the rock, and they stuck their heads in and looked at the fish. I held Owen while Ken paddled us out, and the water was so clear Ken even saw a shark just from standing on the board. Pretty amazing, and a little freaky, I'm not going to lie!