Leaving Muscat:
Al Ain. The following pics are at a palace-turned-museum in Al Ain, just across the Oman-UAE border. The palace is from the 1950's or so, before the discovery of oil. It was a beautiful and child-friendly place, with lots of courtyards, rooms to explore, and wooden doors and windows for Ethan to open and shut!
Have you seen David's recipe for stuffed camel?
These lids cover the dates to keep flies out.
"Systematic Class"
"Holy Quran Class"
Entrance to Oasis (farms and park area)
Oasis in Al Ain
Abu Dhabi. This is the emirate that functions as the capital city, and it holds 90% of the UAE's oil reserves. It is a large and beautiful city, which expats seem to find more livable over it's glitzy neighbor Dubai.
Speaking of glitzy, here's a mall we went to. 3-story water fountain, fancy schmancy stores, and an IKEA!
Dinner at Fudruckers with some of our (American) friends living in Oman.
Starbucks. Emirate men wear dishdishas with white headdress. 
Emirate (and Omani) women wear black abayas when they are away from home. Some veil their faces, but most do not. Indian women wear bright Saris. Western expats wear pants and shirts with sleeves (usually). 
View from the Abu Dhabi church building's back windows. A church with a swimming pool?
First of all, tell your kids to stop growing. What happened to baby Claire? Love the pool. It looks so welcoming. Hope you enjoyed your little break.
ReplyDeleteIt's all so beautiful! All the photo's that you take make me drool. :) I think your so lucky!
ReplyDeletehahaha...spent the night in the church building for youth conference last year. Isn't it super nice inside? Hope you had a great time.
ReplyDeleteI have way to much to say about each picture, so I will have to send you a seperate email about these! The Stuffed Camel recipe ended up in our ward cookbook! At the end of the recipe where it says: "serves a friendly crowd of 80-100 people." I put: Great for the next ward get-together!
ReplyDelete