Christmas in February

Most of you know that my Aunt Louyse was supposed to come visit me for Christmas and her flight was cancelled so she couldn't come.

She was here this past week and we had such a blast! It was even better than Christmas would have been.

Here is what we did in pictures:

Aunt Louyse turned 59 while she was in the air and lost 9 hours of her birthday because of the time change. She had her passport stamped on her birthday! Jessie and I (mostly Jessie) made this really good chocolate cake from Bon Apetit)

We made it to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque where you have to be fully covered to enter. They provide you with an abaya and sheila when you get to the entrance gate.

We made it down to the beach where we sat at a coffee shop. One of the things Aunt Louyse and I both love besides travel is the ocean and the Gulf counts in this as well!

The top of Jebel Hafeet- the tallest mountain in the UAE is right here in Al Ain. It's more like a hill to most Americans it is 1294 meters high.

We went off-roading at our friend's farm. She was having the grand opening of a new tourism branch of her business. Aunt Louyse was braver than me and Jessie she didn't seem to be nervous about it at all!

We made it to the pool and did a ton of shopping and my favorite day of all was Aunt Louyse's second to last day where we got to watch the fountain show at the Dubai Mall. I think I could sit there for hours at a time!