Monday, November 5, 2007

Fall in Dubai

According to the calendar, it's Fall. To us, it feels like a never ending summer. Although, this last weekend, we got a taste of some "wintry" weather (according to a local radio announcer). The skies were cloudy and there was a trace of rain. This was the first time we had something other than sun and blue skies. We were all excited. And, the temperature stayed just below 90 degrees, which was quite lovely. We know nobody really cares, but we just had to include our cloud and rain pictures.

So, along with Fall, comes the typical Halloween stuff. The kids carved (very expensive and hard to find) pumpkins. They dressed up for the school parade and trick or treating, which, they did do here in our neighborhood. Someone was thoughtful enough to pass out papers with info on trick or treating, which we have learned, is mostly an American and British thing. If people were going to participate in trick or treating, they would leave their porch light on and hang this piece of paper on their door. Surprisingly, we had a lot of traffic, maybe a little less than what we had in Sugar Land. Our three bags of candy lasted about an hour and a half. Our Pakistani neighbor across the street, was outside walking around passing out chocolate bars to the kids. She came over and asked more about Halloween and if kids in the US ask for money. I told her to just give them candy and that they shouldn't ask for money, unless this is a British thing I don't know about.

Bret dressed up as the Emperor from Star Wars and Cole was a skeleton. And poor little Drew, we looked hard to find any baby costumes here, with no luck. Costumes are hard enough to find, especially baby costumes. We have plenty of boy costumes from about age 3 and up, but our baby costumes we put into storage because they were all for cold weather. Nick had a great idea of dressing him up like a future Dubai American Academy student, tie and all. We had all of the supplies on hand and since I was at the school for most of the day helping with Halloween parties, everyone there would know what he was. It was a hit. Lots of people were taking pictures of the future student.

A couple of days after Halloween, the school held it's annual Fall costume carnival. The crowds were out of control, but the kids had fun doing the games and big bouncy slides. At one point, I waited in line for 45 minutes for some cotton candy. Once I finally got it, I had to search through the masses to find Nick and the kids. By the time I found them, the cotton candy was a sticky, drippy, melty mess because (surprise!) it was hot. The kids enjoyed it anyways.

2 comments:

Marti said...

I don't know what I would do without my crisp fall days. Love the costumes! I'll bet Thomas would have loved to be a skeleton. Maybe next year...

Sally said...

It seems weird to see kids trick or treating in flip flops. I had a yard full of pumpkins this year, I was begging people to take them home. Maybe I could grow pumpkins with wings. See you in a couple of weeks. Santa is coming.