The end of November is wonderful outdoor eating weather so this year I moved our Thanksgiving celebration to the outdoors. We have a very small garden so we used the carport for the main gathering area. With fairy lights hung and kids' crafts on the walls, it turned out to be pretty festive and but it was still a carport!
We hosted our usual cornucopia of people from all over plus a large group of students from both NYU as well as Kings Academy in Jordan where the son of friends in the US is studying. He brought a few friends, too, to stay with us for the weekend so it was fun to have a few college-aged students around to mingle with the NYU students we usually host as a part of the American Women's Network program. Our NYU students this year were from the UAE, Bulgaria and the Ukraine. The Kings Academy students were all from the US but several had backgrounds from other places, too - China, Egpyt and Russia. Our friends hailed from the US, UK, South Africa, France, Canada and Pakistan.
We also had lots of little ones running around on Thanksgiving, too. Luckily a favorite high school babysitter is Canadian and doesn't celebrate American Thanksgiving. She brought a friend and they helped keep the kids busy with Thanksgiving crafts.
A fun, busy celebration for all the right reasons as we pause to be thankful for all our blessings.
Following the celebration, we sure enjoyed having our five teenaged visitors from Jordan. We used to having little ones around so it was fun to be around some teenagers for a change. Robert's little sister Currie came with us to Turkey last year and we loved getting to know one of the other siblings a little better, too. Their family (also four kids) were our neighbors in Charlotte and we love staying in touch with them. Robert and his friends were lovely visitors. They explored Abu Dhabi mainly on their own (desert safari, Corniche and they took Regan with them on the kayak tour). All but Robert left on Saturday morning so we were able to get him to Dubai to explore there a bit during his visit.
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| Day 1: I had them up bright and early (four of them arrived at 4 a.m.!) for a mangrove kayak tour. They graciously offered to take Regan along on the kayak tour and she loved being included with the big kids. |
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| Robert and Regan |
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| Off they go into the mangroves with the skyline behind |
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| The littles working on Thanksgiving crafts at our house |
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| Noche, Laura and Jennifer |
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| Host and hostess |
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| The yummies! I still make my sister-in-law's yummy sweet potatoes and chocolate pecan pies she introduced years ago. |
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| Regan, Yu kyung and Anna |
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| Festive - but don't mind the garage door! |
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| Most of the clan - a few left before this photo |
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| The students |
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| James was the 2nd kid down (Jane was the first) |
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| On Saturday we took Robert to the Sheikh Mohammad Center for Cultural Understanding to learn a little more about Emirati culture and foods. Our yummy breakfast spread. |
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| Learning about traditional dress |
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| Meredith went to the top of the tallest building in the world with Robert |
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| Checking out the Dubai Mall aquarium |
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| Brave ones! |
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| Some serious rounds of tic tac toe went on at dinner |
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| Dubai fountain show |
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| Abu Dhabi art exhibit |
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