Meredith gets the distinction of bring our first birthday celebration here. She had three "mini" celebrations. We took cupcakes to preschool. Hearing a roomful of 3 and 4-year olds sing "Happy Birthday" is pretty special (and can you tell that Meredith enjoyed it???).
Then we had a quiet celebration at home with our family and a couple of friends just stopped by. More cupcakes (oops - didn't have a candle or matches - good thing she blew out a candle at school). Meredith had a few fun gifts to open from Uncle Dan, Aunt Susan, cousins Zach and Alex, Gaga and Grandpa Carl, Gammy and Poppy and Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Bob and dear friend Betty and her boys. Abu Dhabi is a quite a ways to get gifts here and she loved them all - thanks for making the effort everyone. Really. My mom and mother-in-law's birthdays are coming up and I didn't do as well as you all... And special thanks to friends Abby and Rebecca who popped over to help celebrate.
Meredith's big present was a new bicycle from us. She has Jane's old hand-me-down bike but Meredith is so much taller than Jane was at the same age. Her knees hit the handle bars. So a new bike was in order. And it wasn't that painful to find a bike shop. Of course, there are no addresses here so I just get a rough intersection in the middle of downtown urban Abu Dhabi as directions but surprisingly, I found it without having to circle around the block six times cursing (just figuratively, of course) the crazy drivers. So a relatively painless process all around. And she seems excited (although she didn't really realize that her knees weren't supposed to touch the handlebars so I don't think she knew she needed a new bike!).
And lastly we had an "all about Meredith" day on Saturday. We spent the morning at WanasaLand (basically a small indoor amusement park). The kids had huge smiles on their faces while we tried new rides. They also had a temporary exhibit set up where you could get inside a huge inflatable ball and be like a little gerbil. The kids had a hard time standing up (it must have been harder than it looked as they kept going splat) but they were good at doing somersaults and crawling on their knees. More giant smiles all around.
We ended the day by going to Benihana to see the knifework and the food flying through the air (you know, Benihana, the authentic Abu Dhabi experience :-). I figured our family was big enough to get a Teppanyaki table to ourselves and that we could cruise through dinner a little fast. We did get the table to ourselves but it was still a 2-hour dinner outing which was long for a 1-year old (and 4-year old). But the kids all did great. They liked the entertainment by the chef and except for Meredith dumping a bowl of very hot miso soup on her and her new dress (from Gammy) which alerted the entire restaurant (and beyond) of her distress, it was a fun evening. And the chef even spelled "Happy Birthday, Meredith" (in salt!) at the close of the night.
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