Our own cars

Finally, after a month - we are finally car owners.  Well, Bobby is since both cars are under his name.  He is the one with the UAE visa AND driver's license, where as I have been carrying my passport around and my Oklahoma driver's license around.  Hopefully I don't get stopped by a cop and have to explain to him where Oklahoma is!
So funny enough both our cars are silver in color and both are 2012 models.  They are very different though.  I ended up sticking to a minivan.  I guess I really don't mind that "soccer mom" thing :-)

Plus, I think I mentioned about that sliding door with the minivan.  Just so much easier with the kids when these parking spots are a little bit narrower. I've actually been having a tough time parking this minivan.  Thank goodness for these all-around sensors that beep when I get to close to something.  That would have come in handy in the VW minivan when I bumped it into our neighbor's SUV back in Tulsa!

And here is Bobby's car.  It's a VW Jetta. I think he was hoping to get a Mercedes or at least something a bit fancier since his title is now a little higher up in rank.  But the combination of the price and low mileage on this car was hard to beat.  Plus, we bought both cars from the same guy so he was able to give us a really good price/discount.  Both cars cost us less than one brand new 2014 mid-range Honda Odyssey!

After getting Bobby's car in Dubai earlier this week, we decided to drive to Dubai Mall.  There it is again, the tallest building in the WORLD - the Burj Khalifa:

And after maneuvering around the massive parking lot in Dubai Mall, we finally found Bobby in the mall as the boys and I were split up from him while driving separate cars.  And so Bobby says "I'm in front by the dinosaur".  And there it is - right in the middle of this atrium, a Amphicoelias Brontodiplodocus (try saying that 3 times fast! ;-)

I guess I should have taken a better picture but anyhow, "Dubai Dino" as it is dubbed was discovered in 2008 in Wyoming, USA!  And the skeleton is 80 ft long and 25ft high.  Pretty impressive! Crazy enough, I think the next thing we saw was even more impressive - this MASSIVE fish tank! I think Dubai Mall even out did Disney World when it came to this fish tank!

Charlie was super happy with this fish tank.  He loved seeing the fishies. And I guess the sharks are small by his standards because a big one swam by and he said "baby shark!".

And so this part of it is public viewing.  You can pay to see the aquarium itself.  Now that I'm browsing through the website (www.thedubaiaquarium.com), there is also the Underwater Zoo. Oh, here we go... "The 10-million litre tank located on the ground level of the mall is the largest suspended aquarium in the world." See! They did out do Disney! And they are Dive packages too where you can learn to dive, there's a cage snorkeling package, and you can also be a "shark walker".  What does that even mean??!  Anyhow, needless to say, there will probably be numerous visits to this mall in the near future. Thankfully Dubai is only about a 1 1/2-hour drive away.