Easter Bonnet

At the end of each term at Monet's school, they hold a fundraising event by holding a  Junior School disco.  This past term, the school decided to hold their Easter Bonnet parade at the same side.  

Trying to be prepared, I organised a bagful of goodies for Monet to make a Bonnet a couple of weeks before hand.  One afternoon after school she sat at the table and prepared her Bonnet (under a little guidance.)

As the Disco approached and with the hat at the ready....

Can she look any more worried?

 ... we went.  And as the Grade Threes paraded their hats, Monet was awarded one of the winners.  And she was as pleased as punch.  (I must admit I was a little chuffed too.)

I'm keeping the Bonnet for next year.  It is award winning after all.  

Easter Morning

So, I found out that Lily *loves, loves, loves* chocolate and gets very excited (umm, maybe the word is hypo) after munching on too much. I also found out that Monet is very good at sharing and saving her chocolate goodies.

Hope you all had a lovely, relaxing, chocolate-filled day.

What Easter Build Up?

I can't believe it is Easter next weekend. Didn't we just celebrate Christmas?

I guess I can't believe it because over here in the UAE, there is no real 'build up' to Easter. There is no Easter School Holidays (we had 'Spring Break' a couple of weeks back), there are no Hot Cross Buns lining Supermarket shelves (except for some I found in Spinney's Supermarket last week, but are named 'Fruit Buns' with no obvious cross) and only now are shops bringing out the Chocie Egg stock, mostly imported from the UK with a few I have seen imported from Australia.  It is little things like all that, that I do miss from home.

But, Easter Bunny will always be found, wherever we might live.  Even here in Abu Dhabi.

(And if anyone could point me in the right direction for Homemade Hot Cross Buns recipe here on the net, which are easy could you let me know? Cheers in advance.)

Dubai Stay

We spent a night in Dubai on Friday.  We lashed out at on a night's accommodation in a two bedroom apartment in a high rise building on Dubai's main strip, Sheihk Zayed Road, a road that runs straight through Dubai's heart at 14 lanes.  The buildings there are magnificent.

From all our windows we could see the highest building in the world, the Dubai Burj.  (It felt a long way from our hotel room we had in Melbourne back in October, when we were excited to have a view of the Eureka Tower.)

On Friday we spent a little time in both the Emirates Mall and at Dubai Mall before checking into our room.  We spent a bit of time wandering the section of Sheihk Zayed Road we were staying on and we were in awe of the tall buildings which line the road.  

Yesterday after breakfast in a French Cafe, we drove along the main beach road in Dubai, which takes you past the magnificent Al Arab Burj Hotel.  No matter how many times we see the building, our jaws still drop when we spy it.  It is a magnificent looking structure.  There were a few helicopters buzzing around the top of the building, looking like they were going to land on the famous heli-pad but we never did see one land.  

We didn't stop there though, our plan was to have a little closer look at the Atlantis Hotel located on the end/top of Palm Island.

It was very busy there but worth the stop to go and have a little sticky beak.  Unfortunately you couldn't get inside the hotel (not even the foyer) due to it being 'for guests' only, which is fair enough because there were a lot of people milling around.  You do get to see the little shopping area, where the ceiling is truly fabulous...

There is an adventure/water park there, which looks like a lot of fun which we may do sometime down the track.  

We made our way home via the new (but rather ordinary) Dubai Marina Mall.  The view from there was rather cool though.  (I could handle living in one of those apartments.)

That was how we spent both Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  Rather memorable, wouldn't you say?  This morning Monet had me up not long after 5:30am, so I am feeling rather exhausted already.  *phew* Lucky Easter Bunny made an appearance here leaving Chocolate Eggs near the front door.  Happy Easter everyone.

To see more of my photos of our Dubai weekend, I'll be posting them onto my Flickr account soon....

Easter Sky

How is your Easter Weekend going?

Ours is fine, bar the fact that Lyndon and Monet BOTH have head colds at the moment. They both have head colds, but both head colds are different. Where as Lyndon has a runny nose and headache, Monet has a throaty cough. Lucky us hey? But still, it never stopped Lyndon from going to work yesterday AND today. (Deadlines, deadlines!)

Yesterday morning it was only I who got to see the delight in Monet's face after spying what Easter Bunny had left for her. Just how does Easter Bunny work out that Monet has been wanting a 'flashlight' and a 'skipping rope' for yonks? Everything was a big hit. She's been very, very good at sharing her Easter Chocolate with her Mummy-dearest too - without me asking mind you. Sometimes Monet does make me proud...

I swear that horse she is sitting on in the above photo hasn't left her side in the past 36 hours. Nor the flashlight for that matter. It is a wonder it still works.

I have to share the next photo with you of the evening sky (about 6:30 pm) on Thursday night...

See that stripe? The bluest of blues it was. Now that photo is taken from our balcony, facing due East towards the ocean (about a 10 minute walk). East. Not west. Opposite to where the sun is setting. It would make sense if the sun was setting that way, but it doesn't. Lyndon and a friend we had staying the night, went to find out what the stripe was. It ends up that as the sun was setting in the west, a cloud was in the sun's rays and causing this stripe to reflect across the sky into a stripe. Nature never ceases to amaze me at times... I had never seen anything like it...

Easter Sunday, Our Way

Monet slept in this morning, she was a 7:30 am riser today! But when she woke and told her that we thought Easter Bunny had been, well, didn't her eyes light up. They even lit up more when she noticed the trail of six gorgeous little Easter Puppy Toys leading down the hallway to a Dora Toiletries Bag and a Princesses Bowl and Spoon... Her eyes seriously got so wide I thought they might pop out of her head!...

Monet 'woofed' down in quick succession, three Easter Eggs before moving onto her normal breakfast of Yoghurt and Toast, which took her to lunchtime to eat...
Lyndon spent the afternoon painting the feature wall in our bedroom (lounge was done yesterday) whilst I spent the afternoon 'supervising' (someone has to do it!)

How did you spend your Easter Sunday?

Mental Note To Ones Self

...it is a good idea to avoid Bunnings Hardware on Easter Saturday in Cairns.

Cairns has a population of over 125,000 and only has one LARGE hardware store (Bunnings). I think every man and his dog were there this morning. And every woman and child whilst I think of it.

We arrived at 9:45am to a nearly full car park. When we left 20 minutes later you would have been lucky to find a park. Urgh. Don't you hate that.

At least we knew what we were after and weren't wandering the aisles aimlessly. We wanted a paint roller on a long handle, a paint dish and some plastic sheet covers. Maybe you could guess what we will be up to this afternoon....

At least we didn't have to line up to buy the paint there (there were a few in the line waiting for their paints to be made up). We had liked the paint samples from the Bristol Paint store, further down the road....where no one else was (they were all at Bunnings of course!)

Stay tuned to see our results...