Sea World

 
And then we went on to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with family. Our present this year to the children was a trip to Sea World - perfect when you have to travel and are concerned with the number of suitcases you travel with. And perfect because we ALL had the best day there!

Such amazing shows: Shamu and the other killer whales were of course unbeatable, but the dolphin show and the seal/otter shows were also fantastic. To top it all the children went to train a dolphin with one of the instructors - not IN the water but close enough. I am now the only one in the family who has never touched a dolphin....

 
I think we will be back here one day - it really is a fun place for the entire family!

 

Back in Boston/Easton

 

After exactly one year we returned for a quick visit to Easton. What a treat! Our amazing friends had arranged so many fun things for us while we were there and although we didn't get to see too many of you we loved every minute of the time we did get to spend with the few. 

 

Girls had so much fun getting their nails painted, doing crafts, practising dance moves and well, doing what girls do best: have fun together!

The boys had a blast too - playing outside as much as possible and of course nothing beats playing in the snow with friends!

We visited Moreau Hall and Madeleine spent the entire days with her wonderful teacher and class mates from last year while Mathias spent lunch and recess with his "old" class. Thank you tachers for helping arrange this very special treat for us all!

Halloween in 30C and Flip Flops

Luckily, we have enough american families in our compound to celebrate Halloween! Not quite the same as we're used to - but lots of fun nonetheless. The kids all did a small parade around the compound and then proceeded to trick or treating and "hayrides".

Alex had decorated the front of our house with candles and had dressed up to scare the kids.

No worries about anyone being too cold or having to wear shirts underneath their costumes. However, not so much chocolate as it would melt in the heat.

 

Everyone had a BBQ afterwards, kids were all sugared up and in general: a FUN evening. In that way - no different from Halloween in Easton!

WTA Semi Finals in Doha

 You are not going to believe what kind of evening we had last night! We all had tickets to watch Caroline Wozniacki play in the semi finals agains Vera Zvonareva and what a match. As you can tell we did our part to support the Danish player and our dancing combined with the face paint secured os a spot on the big screen twice during the game - much to the kids delight (OK, I thought it was great fun too:)

The tennis was amazing and Caroline won so we were all happy. As we were leaving the stadium Carolines dad and coach passed us thanking us for the support and we of course had to take a picture of the kids and him.

Later, when we were watching Caroline being interviewed for TV a man came over and asked us if we were fans of Caroline (no idea what gave him that idea....). He then gave us a signed tennis ball and made our night!

 And to top it all off we managed to get Carolines signature on one of our flags as she was leaving the interview.
 
What a fun experience for us all! Madeleine wants to bring the ball to school to show her class....I hope Stuart manages to talk her out of it - can you imagine if the ball got lost???

Final is tonight against Kim Clijsters (don't mention the US Open please).....we will be watching it at home unless I sneak out and try to get a ticket for myself. Although, honestly, I think it will be more fun watching it with the kids at home and share the excitement with them.

Tennis lessons here we come.......

Victoria turns 4!

Victoria is now 4 and she had a wonderful day with her two cousins from Denmark as well as Morfar and Merete who were all visiting from Denmark.

Lots of presents in the morning......

Fun at the pool............





Enjoying the rides at "Jungle Zone" (we had the enitre place to ourselves.....I have no clue how the kids managed not to get sick from the multible extended rides!)

And of course the traditional layer cake to finish the day!

Celebrating once is of course not enough when you turn 4 so Victoria also had a party for her friends.

We have asked Victoria to stop growing which she seemed quite happy to promise....until she realised it means she can't turn 5.....then she started protesting. She is now constantly reminding us that she will NOT stop growing and is already planning her next birthday. It could be a long year!

Desert Safari

I was invited on a desert safari with the university - and was allowed to bring the children except the oldest one (Stuart), but even if we missed him we had an amazing day!

You get the idea of driving on the sand dunes from the pictures - we were driving quite conservatively much to the disappointment of our driver but because the university had organized the tour we couldn't take any risks. This didn't stop the kids from screaming with excitement each time we went sideways down a hill.

We stopped a few times before we reached the Inland Sea which is on the border to Saudi Arabia. Breathtakingly beautiful with the sand and water and the sun about to set.

  Before returning to Doha we stopped at a camp where we had dinner, played soccer, and drank arabic tea prepared the traditional way....in my oppinion it has nothing to do with tea but it's delicious and as sweet as dessert.

We're going again in 2 weeks when my dad, Merete, my niece and my nephew are coming and then we will bring Stuart as well......although I have a feeling the driving will be a lot more scary with Stuart encouraging the drivers. I'll be voting for guys and girls in separate cars!