Christmas, Dubai and some end of the year thoughts

It is the end of an amazing year. 2012 has been a time of new experiences and friendships, a time of shaking up everything that was comfortable and secure and also to remind us how important our roots in the mountains are. 

As usully happens to me at this time of year I tend to both reminisce and start planning out what resolutions to shoot for. Christmas was fantastic- it is hard to be away from snowy Ski Cooper and sledding, cocoa, Ty and Roxanne's nordic center, wood fired hot tub, tiki torches lining the road, solstice bonfire, etc etc etc. This year we stayed in Doha- no snow but a very nice time- and a trip to Dubai was under the tree! 

Snoop came over for some egg nog.

We went out to the singing sand dunes on winter solstice with some construction wood I found hoping to have a small bonfire. Little did we know there was a christmas bonfire already planned- huge pile of wood that Greg Dennis and Brian Counselman would be proud of and about 1000 people singing songs!

Wilder, Nikita, and Luca at the top.

Ahhhh

Luca catching the sun as it goes down

Usually the bonfire back home was at about 10 below zero- I had shorts on for this one!

Had a very nice Christmas Lunch at our friends the Jays. 

Then on the 26th it was off to Dubai for 3 days. Dubai is way over the top and Lisa and I had to catch ourselves as we would slip into saying things like "think about how many people they could have fed instead of (_____fill in the blank___).  So we just made ourselves enjoy the crazyness that is dubai.

Oh yeah- I remember this- skiing is awesome!

The Isoms- back on the hill.

Wilder went right to the terrain park to hit the jumps. (yes they even have a terrain park)

Hot chocolate tastes good no matter where you are in the world

The next day we went to Atlantis to catch the aquarium and play at their water park- I could have parked myself in front of the aquarium in a lawn chair and watched all day- but the water park was good fun- the lazy river had rapids.

One of the knights of Atlantis.

The other knight of Atlantis

You can sort of see the tube running behind Luca- it goes thru the shark tank at the end of your ride- very cool.

I told the kids not to take my picture when I was holding the swim bag- Lisa says I have bigger things to worry about than the swim bag.

One more day one more mall- the Dubai mall- next to the Burj Kalifa that Tom Cruise climbs in his spare time

They were in awe of this tree.

Wilder said "oh this reminds me of eating with aunt caryn"

One big aquarium

cool little statue

There was a kid park- where the kids could "work" different jobs and get paid- very cool idea and fun to watch Wilder and Luca go around sampling the different options.

I am not a bricklayer nor a bricklayers son.

Phone operator-may I help you?

Wilder as a DJ at the radio station- Steve Leigh would be so proud

Delivering money for the bank.

This one was my idea: "panhandling". I don't think they enjoyed it much but they always need something to fall back on

So a great end to an amazing year- resolutions? Well probably similar to most years- keep trying new things and sharing the positives with our kids- letting them see through our adventures that this planet is an amazing place and worth fighting for. We will be writing these posts from Venezuela next year which will be a whole new bucket full of newness in itself. We love you everyone- have a great 2013.