A Day in Dubai

A Day in Dubai

First off – WE MEET GRACIE IN JUST 3 DAYS!!!! 

Second - Libby and Billy slept until 8:30 this morning! YAY! Me – not so much, but that’s okay. Libby was running a fever again this morning, but after giving her some Motrin she broke her fever with a good sweat before lunch and the fever was gone after that! HOORAY!

We ate a late breakfast downstairs in the Market Café. It was delicious! Then we took a walk around the hotel to get a lay of the land. This is a huge hotel with a huge pool area. When Libby saw the pool all other plans were dismissed and we quickly changed into swimsuits and headed into the desert heat. In the shade, it was actually quite nice. We played games in the pool together and went down a few water slides. At noon it was time to go back in to take care of a few things and then take naps. It took all of us about 2 minutes to fall asleep at 1pm. We slept until 3:30 and had to get up and get dressed fast to meet the Arabian Adventures driver for our dessert safari – called The Sundowner.

At 4pm we jumped into the car with our driver and headed to pick up some other guests in other hotels. But our driver was worried about Libby not being in a car seat and he took us back to the hotel and told us to wait there for another driver to come who had a car seat in the car.  Billy and I weren’t really worried about it, but the driver insisted. Well – a few minutes in Dubai is apparently more like 2 hours because the next driver didn’t show until 10 minutes before 6pm. But he did arrive and once we were on the safari in the desert reservation 4 wheeling down sand dunes we were glad we had that car seat. Seriously, there were a few times Billy was convinced the car was going to flip. Luckily, it never did!

Because we were so late joining the excursion, we ended up on a totally private drive so we could make a few more stops for video/pictures. We were a little late for the actual sunset, but that was okay by me. We got some cute pictures of Libby playing in the sand as the sun was going down behind the dunes.

After that we took a short drive to the Bedouin tent area where Libby and I got to ride a camel! Libby was totally quiet the whole time. I have no idea what was going on in her head.

Appetizers and drinks were already being served in the tent area so we joined everyone on the excursion and sat on sand filled pillows at low tables in the desert. It was pretty cool and the food was good too. Libby just wanted to play in the sand. She did join me, however, for a henna tattoo! It was so cool! The lady said, "I can do a flower, butterfly, scorpion, camel....". Libby said, "I want Mickey Mouse."  And the lady did it! I got the flowers on my hand. No worries, dad, it wears off after 7-10 days. And actually, they look really dark in the pictures, but the dark stuff flakes away and it looks more like a lighter orangish ink. Libby did happen to smear mine a little afterwards, but it still looks pretty good.

Libby was also excited to see the belly dancer. Of course, she had never seen one, but we had talked it up as we thought it was going to be a fun show to watch. When the lady came out she had some very odd makeup on and she was doing some crazy belly dancing. I have 3 comments to make about that specific experience: 

       1. That lady was brave to be jiggling around like that in public!

2. Very interesting…..

       3.  About 2 seconds after the lady started dancing she was throwing her head around and Libby cried and said, “mommy, I want to go home!” – Enough said.

So – we found our driver and headed back to the hotel. We are repacking as we have another EARLY morning. Our driver is picking us up at 5:30AM to catch our 8:30 flight from Dubai to Ethiopia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not sure what happens when we get there, but it might be the day we meet Gracie’s birthmother.

We had a GREAT DAY TODAY!

That’s it for today – enjoy the pictures - but they are in backwards order...