Saturday, December 27, 2008

Christmas Day at Emirates Palace

Sargon and Co. were staying at the Emirates Palace (I think our house was just too posh for them..ha ha.)  We took Marilyn, her sister, Winnie, Brad's parents and Cairo to see the place and enjoy the adventure pool.  Only guests can get past the lobby so it was a great opportunity for some of us to take advantage of the benefits of the life of luxury.
We sat for a few hours and enjoyed snacks, drinks, watching Cairo and soaking up the sun.  The 75 degree, clear skies didn't really feel like Christmas but it sure was fun and memories will last for many Christmas' to come.
There were fun activities for kids around the pool.  Cairo made this T-shirt.
Cairo LOVED being the only one of the kids who wanted to come to the hotel. (The boys wanted to stay home and play with the toys Santa brought.) She challenged Brad to a pool side game of chess.
We loved having Sargon and his family with us to share in our Christmas Eve traditions.  Sargon's father, Ron had come from San Francisco, Sargon from Afghanistan and Virgil and his wife Chee were here from Dubai.  Brad's parents were here from Amman, Jordan and Marilyn was with us too. We all had a wonderful, magical, memorable evening.
Sargon was our guest reader of The Last Straw.  The story of Hoshmakaka, the grumpy camel who, in the end, found the true meaning of Christmas.  Cairo used our camels and our nativity scene to act out the story while Sargon read.
Our traditional dance party on patio took place.  We danced to the Cheeta Girls-Cheetalicious Christmas and Rockin' around the Christmas Tree by Hannah Montana.  At one point Charlie got so into the dancing that he got down and tried to spin around on his back!