December activities

December is always a very short month at school as we usually get a couple of days off for National Day and the kids get three weeks off at Christmas.  And it's a busy few weeks - with winter choir concerts, Christmas activities, sports and more.

Meredith is part of a school group called "Roots and Shoots" which is a community service club.  They worked to save gammons (?) the first quarter and this quarter they learned about the laborers who come to the UAE for jobs, their challenges and how to help them.  They are selling popcorn here after school to raise money to help out the workers who are building onto our school. 

Elementary winter concert.  Anna is basically in the middle in a red sparkly sweater.  The concert was just wonderful!

Here are all the KG1, KG2, 1st and 2nd graders doing a little jingle bell dance.  Adorable!

Happy Anna sipping hot chocolate at the annual Swiss Christmas Market

Jane's choir was invited to perform at the Swiss Market

Jane in front of the Swiss Market/ Park Rotana Christmas tree

Regan on her way to her first cross country meet.

Look who got 3rd place!  Personal best time of 17 minutes for a 3K!!

We bought a wine tasting event at our school auction last year and are finally cashing in on a great event.  Our friends hosted and brought in a sommelier.  Wonderful time with new and old friends.

If you live in Abu Dhabi, then you definitely spend a bit of time putting together IKEA furniture!  Jake snapped a few photos of a family project working on some storage boxes and a new bed in Meredith and Anna's room.  We thought about moving last summer to a new villa but it didn't work out.  Since Anna and Meredith still have to share a room we agreed to update it a bit.  More photos later!

Regan hard at work to help keep the girls organized with new storage boxes.

Reading and rereading the perplexing directions.

Even Anna is helping out!

Meredith came early with me to keep me company on my shift of pancake flipping at our school's famous Breakfast with Santa event.

Jane's choir serenading us with Christmas carols

Meredith's festive "Oh, deer" shirt.  It's her favorite phrase so I loved finding this shirt for her.

A little visit with Santa at our school

Happy, happy birthday Ms. Leah - our steady housekeeper who has become indispensable in keeping our home running - especially now that I am back to work

Regan's winter choir concert

Meredith's Roots and Shoots club getting ready to hand out care packages

There are 140 construction workers building our school's relatively small three story, 8 classroom building.  Is it just me or does that seem like a crazy high number of workers?!?  Here they are lining up to get care packages from the 3rd-5th grade Roots and Shoots club.

Meredith passes our schwarmas (Arabic sandwiches) while classmates hand out bags with toiletries and fruit.

The kids all tell the workers thank you for their work at our school.

The Roots and Shoots team.  They also got to tour the under construction new building.

I have a new job!  Here is the view from my office.  You can see the Burj al Arab (aka "Sailboat Hotel" a little to the left of center and if you squint, you can see the Burj al Khalifa (tallest building in the world way off in the distance) - it was a bit hazy that day.

If you remember from Meredith's birthday, she asked that friends bring a youth-sized winter coat instead of a birthday gift. Her friends really delivered and some brought several! This is Meredith in Munich with three (stuffed!) suitcases with 30 winter coats for Syrian refugees in Germany.  Sweet girl giving up her birthday gifts to help others who have so much less.  It was cold in Germany, too, and the organization was thrilled to get them!