Long time friends of ours live in London as expats and needed to escape the cold and dreariness…. so they headed south for some sunshine! We were excited to host them in Abu Dhabi and show them what the UAE is all about. We somehow comfortably squeezed their family of five into our villa with us but were only really there for showering and sleeping…. We had lots to do and only 4 days to squeeze it in. They arrived around noon on Wednesday… I picked them up from the airport and got them settled into the villa and then picked up Audrey from school. I had planned on staying up at the school with all our kids, but our London friends were not acclimated to the heat just yet so we opted for some indoor play at Marina Mall. We put all the kids in Fun City with Espy and spent a couple hours catching up and strolling the mall.
Later that night we ordered Lebanese Flower, had it delivered and ate until we were stuffed!! it is so delicious, you just don’t even know!!
The kids loved having extra friends around! We put a movie on and hoped they’d just fall asleep 
The next day we headed down to the corniche for a morning bike ride and some ice cream at Cold Stone. I wish we would have known that our desert safari would have been cancelled so we would not have rushed out… the weather was so nice and it was just a relaxing time watching the kids collect sea shells and play in the sand. A fun little outing!
The Chapmans! ^^ We left the beach and headed to lunch at Fudruckers. By this time a bad sandstorm blew in and as a result our desert safari was cancelled. We moved some stuff around and hit the Hiltonia instead. The kids did not mind swimming with the cool temps and hazy overcast a bit. They had a blast and Christine and I just got to sit by the pool and visit. We got home just before dinner time and decided to stay in and just throw stuff together. The logistics of feeding 9 people at the same time was tricky at times, but I got the hang of it – here is a picture of all the kids breakfast plates.. so cute – it reminds me of shows like Jon & Kate plus 8, but on a much smaller scale.
After breakfast we headed to the airport to pick up a big van (rental) that we could all fit comfortably in and headed for Dubai! We strolled the mall and pigged out on junk before our reservation to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa (world’s tallest building).
We waited in line forever – it was a super busy day at the Burj… but it was totally worth it when we got up there the views are magnificent. We had done this once before when my sister came to visit – but it was just as great the second time around.
After the Burj Kalifa – we headed out for dinner to the TEXAS ROADHOUSE!!!!! y’all it was a bit eerie – it was so IDENTICAL to the ones in the states. the food was insanely good and to be honest it felt like we just walked into pure American awesomeness.
They had the country music playing – waitresses doing line dances and everything. It made me even more ready for our trip home this summer. it is almost TIME!
Some of the menu’s were in arabic and some in English – Taylor (oldest chapman child) got this menu and was a bit confused!
We left dinner totally full of warm rolls, cinnamon butter and Grade A American beef, just in time for the water show outside (sorry no pics) and headed back to the hotel apartment we stayed in… if you remember kari’s visit it was the same place.. Only place big enough to accommodate our crew!
Charles took the kids on 4-wheelers (something we didn’t get to do last time) and they LOVED it. Since I’m preggers, I sat out of the dune bashing, camel riding and 4-wheeler riding…. I’ll make up for it next time. It was totally fine with me though since we had 5 kids to tend to between the families and there was lots to do!
Audrey and Will got henna painted on them.
This ink doesn’t stay black, you wipe it off after 15 minutes and it is a brownish orangy color. like this: (*pulled the pic off the web so you could see)
This woman did not speak a lick of english… but she was sooo kind and patient with all our kids. I’m a bit afraid of how much Audrey loved this… oh please sweet girl, no real tattoos in your future!!
Later on, she helped the kids get dressed up in their Arabic attire!
Just Hilarious! They were so authentic! The night went by so fast and before we knew it – it was time to get back on the bus and head out. Within 10 minutes they all looked like this:
We got back to the villa and the Chapmans only had about an hour or so to get packed up before heading out to the airport to go back to London. Talk about a whirlwind! The kids were such troopers and we enjoyed introducing them to the Middle East! Lots of fun was had by all!
Please check out Christine’s Blog about their experiences… her blog is much more thorough than mine is – she was great about capturing every adventure
in Abu Dhabi:
http://chapmanfamilyoffive.blogspot.com/2012/04/abu-dhabi-reunion.html
and in Dubai:
http://chapmanfamilyoffive.blogspot.com/2012/04/oh-my-dubai.html
and Desert Safari:
http://chapmanfamilyoffive.blogspot.com/2012/04/desert-safari.html
Abu Dhabi Time
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