A few of my favorite things...

The end of November/beginning of December is a fun time here in the UAE, because of a combination of holidays. We get to celebrate Thanksgiving, then almost immediately jump into National Day celebrations - lots of time off work and school, what's not to like?! As this is my last year celebrating this combo here in country, I thought a lot about things I was grateful for, and tried hard to notice and remember some of the things that make the UAE so, well, UAE… Here's what I came up with:

Thanksgiving - we were lucky enough to have Grandma and Aunt Gene arrive that day, and they got right to work making decorations with the kids. I sure was grateful to have them! Family makes everything better.

We had a lovely dinner full of some of our favorite people, ones who have become our family. This picture cracks me up because everyone looks so natural... [please pay no attention to the fine table settings, I think once I grow up, maybe I will have things like fancy, matching china and serving platters. Until then, ikea paper products rock :)

I'm grateful for the days we have clouds - quite frankly, any change in the weather is a pretty exciting thing around here!

I'm grateful for our health! Just a couple weeks before Thanksgiving, we had a nasty bought of strep run through most of the family. Nothing like a lot of sickness to help you appreciate your health.

I'm thankful for chicken samosas with chocolate milk. Many a day has been saved from utter catastrophe with an 11 pm run to the grocery store behind our house to get our hands on these beauties!

Now for the UAE - there are many things that are different from "home" and they work together to make me smile/sigh in exasperation/laugh/bang my head against the wall. I hope the following pictures are self explanatory - let's say they are things I might not see in Virginia... next to the strawberries

As we were stopped for food at a mall, this band marched right in and started playing the national anthem. Cool.

Why celebrate Black Friday when you can celebrate White Friday?!?

I really have wondered what to call these contraptions - coolest name ever :)

No playing going on here!

I love all of the national pride I see around here during the holiday. I think I need to step up my Fourth of July celebrations!

Happy 44 UAE!