Slowly, as the summer progresses, and the UAE eases the travel restrictions, the neighborhood is emptying out of those who wanted to travel to the US or Canada (and hopefully return without problems) but for the tri-cultural families things are not quite as simple as that. So we wait, becoming more and more comfortable with the thought of sticking it out all summer here. Apart from the heat factor it's not such a terrible possibility, really.
Take yesterday as an example. The girls had their friend Eva over for the night. We watched movies the night before and were ready for a day of fun and games. Of course, the computer (and specifically Tik Tok) featured prominently in the free time but mommy did her best to get the kids "off the computer" and focused on more productive ways to pass the time and share their friendship. Daddy started with his more philosophical conversations about balancing consumer behavior with creator outcomes (i.e. something, anything, were we create rather than just follow or watch). And so it was that we decided we would document our day yesterday, and here is what it looked like:
- A great morning wake up and breakfast making (and eating) session, including yummy omelette and cereal, bread, coffee, etc. Downed happily.
- A short preparation period to fix up the kitchen table.- soon to become art studio extraordinaire!
- A big reveal of white cotton shirts/shorts and a set of 15 or so tie-dye colors
- Messiness it full force as they worked away on different forms of tie-dying (who knew it was such a science?)
- A break from the colors to work on some improvised dance moves (below) of the Tik Tok (short and fun) variety.
- An outing to the community pool to cool down and have some more fun (in case we didn't have enough already)
- A short, slightly tearful, sharing of Amalia's artwork and card making to say "goodbye" to Eva featuring a hand painted box, a self-made card and a hand-made photo wall-hanging made of a number of small photos chosen specifically to highlight the friendship between our girls and Eva!
- On, and in there somewhere was a lunch and dinner happily consumed.
So, we supposed that's not too bad a list of things completed in a one day period. If you're going to be "stuck" without the frills of travel we usually share around this time every year, at least we're making a pretty good job of unwinding and fun-loving! Happy summer everyone!
