Dubai kite festival

Last weekend, we decided to drive out to Dubai to check out the annual kite festival.  Wow, it was quite impressive!

So many kites!

I found the shark kite with the diver below quite amusing :-)

Then, there was the synchronized kite flying - 12 people on the ground...

... making all sorts of flying patterns and shapes with their kites in the sky.  How they don't get their lines all tangled is beyond me!

Charlie was more interested in burying his little car in the sand:

Graham was too afraid of the big kites.  I guess it doesn't help when it's the shape of a monster!

It's really too bad the wind wasn't strong enough to support the bigger kites.  As it started to get dark, there were kite flyers getting their night kites ready.  Unfortunately, with dinner unplanned, we didn't stay for too long after to see it.

Sunset by the "Kite Beach":

As we were leaving, there was a laser show - which we thought was a little under-whelming:

The laser lights were then projected towards the crowd. Graham enjoyed "conducting" the show:

It was getting late, so we eventually did leave.  Maybe next year we'll catch the night kite flying show! But can't beat the view from the balcony of our hotel room.  Here's the Burj Al Arab. Pretty cool at night!

And here's the view by day.  Quite an impressive building.

We stayed at the hotel next door - the Jumeirah Beach Hotel.  It wasn't too shabby either:

Check out the property!

And this cool art/map installation.  We're looking up from the ground floor in the lobby:

Here's Charlie checking out the wine and champagne display on the way to breakfast:

Daddy and Graham making funny faces during breakfast.  By the way, Graham dropped his little airplane toy into the water behind them. Thankfully they found a big tall waiter with long arms to fish it back up!

Beach time!  It was a little awkward to be enclosed by the yachts in the marina:

Pan out left and there's the Burj Al Arab!

Bobby and I saw this building back in 2008, on our first trip to Dubai.  Ha! That was us 7 years ago!
 
Ok, back to the beach and the kids.  A staff showed up with orange ice-pops. The boys obviously enjoyed that!

And then, it was off to the pool.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed that too.  The hotel had a great kids pool. So much water coming down from above!

Charlie went up the slide once and sort of slipped. So he was quite happy after that just being in the quieter part of the kids pool:

Ahh... another successful trip!

Two sleeping boys is the best way to travel by car :-)

We are definitely heading back to this location again in the near future. Oh, did I mention the water park next door?  It was closed for maintenance during this trip. So can't wait to check that out next time!