Charlie's cavity finally fixed!

Again, I am so SO proud of Charlie!  He did not hesitate one bit when the dentist asked him whether he could get up on the chair.  And after filling up the other side of his molars, the doctor decided we had some extra time to finally fix up his cavity.  I was so happy because that meant we didn't have to come back (at least not for a little while longer)!  We brought Leo the Leopard along, of course :-)

What a brave Charlie! He didn't even flinch with that big needle:

Charlie kept doing something funny with his tongue in and around his mouth when we were done.  I bet that numb feeling must have really felt weird to him that first time.  Nonetheless, no complaints!  And he did so well that the doctor gave him another "Happy Tooth" pin!  This time, it had flashing lights. So fancy! Charlie was more than thrilled!

Obviously Charlie didn't feel any pain after the dental visit because about a couple of hours later, we were already eating ice cream :-)

Hopefully we won't have another dental visit for a while. We have racked up quite a few bills.  Phew! And hopefully the insurance won't take too long to reimburse us. Would be nice to have it in time for Christmas.
Hooray again for Charlie!!!

Charlie loves to draw

Charlie is quite the artist!  Here was his interpretation of the Rainbow fish in school. I was very impressed!

And then, at home - he drew another family portrait but this time, in butterflies. Daddy, of course was the bigger blue butterfly this time.  Mommy is the tiny one on the left, Charlie to the right, and Graham is at the bottom.  Too cute!  And that's a little multi-colored heart to the left.

And here is Charlie's puppy,... or should I say "Chalie".  He is able to write his own name now but he keeps forgetting his r's!  Bobby spelled out "puppy" for him and he wrote it all by himself:

Now, if we can only work on his potty skills.  This is what I get for sleeping in during the weekend!

If it was any consolation, he did tell me that he didn't poop in his pants.  Can't win with this kid!

Kamil and Leo

It was Graham's turn to finally bring Kamil the Camel home for the weekend!  Unfortunately, poor Graham had such a high fever:

Oh, before the hugging came the washing!

The next day when Graham felt a little better, we took a little drive to a friend's house.  They wanted to borrow our crib - I know, still have it!  But it's just in the boys' playroom:

In return, lots of new jigsaw puzzles and books. Quite the swap!

Next day, temperature is down even further and we are all able to go out and watch the Trolls movie.

What a cute movie!  I think Kamil enjoyed it too:

At the very end, the boys were dancing to the credits with some other kids. Haha!

Charlie on the other hand, got quite obsessed about drawing camels.  Quite creative, I have to say!

Charlie is still quite attached to Leo.  He made a bed for him the other day, with wooden dominoes :-)

Oh, can't forget his blankie!

And a portrait of Leo as well:

Charlie spotted another stuffed animal at the mall after the movie and is already asking for it.  I told him to write to Santa!

Graham had to finally write his part in the Adventure book for Kamil at the beginning of the week. I wish he loved to write just that little bit more!

More trips to the dentist for Charlie

Honestly, I was a bit concerned if Charlie was going to be difficult at his next dental visit, as it was just going to be me and him.  You just never know with this kid and his mood swings!  Thankfully, all went really well. I wonder if Leo the Leopard had anything to do with it!

Needless to say, I was more than thrilled when Charlie didn't make a fuss about getting on the dentist's chair.  And what a trooper he was when he got his molars cleaned and filled.  I thought it was funny though how he had his legs crossed and even his fingers crossed!

In the end, the dentist presented Charlie with a "Happy Tooth" pin and really praised him about being such a great patient!

Hopefully this pin will keep him motivated because Charlie is due for his next appointment again tomorrow. The dentist only cleaned and filled the molars on his left side so the right side still needs to be taken care of. And the dentist hasn't even addressed Charlie's cavity yet! I am really hoping this will be the last trip.  Guess we will find out more tomorrow!

Visit from the Punchers

We had some good family friends come by and visit us last week.  Graham and Charlie were so excited!  But first, we need to clean up a little!

By the way, on a side note, I had Graham vacuum out his school bag after a school trip to the beach. Yikes! What a mess when I opened up his bag!!!

Okay, I digress - back to the visit from the Punchers.  The boys jumped right into play time!

Eventually we will make one bracelet loom!

We weren't quite sure yet what we would do this weekend.  As I had missed the cut for the Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open, we were free to do anything!  I decided to look into our HUGE coupon book and after just turning a couple of pages, I found a boat ride along the Corniche that seemed like fun.
A quick view from the Emirates Palace Marina. Who knew this place even existed!

Here's the crew! Charlie's Leo the Leopard had to come along of course:

And here's our Yellow Boat!

The adults have special life jackets that inflate automatically if and when we hit the water. Pretty neat! You'd think the kids would have the same ones too, but nope - just the traditional ones:

Somehow, Charlie does not seem very enthusiastic!

And gosh, our guide was going quite fast!  I think poor Charlie was pretending to be brave. But nonetheless, he hung on - literally as well!

We went by the fishing village - never really knew this place existed too! I know people come to the fish market by the port for good prices but I don't normally cook fish. Perhaps I am missing out!

A peek at the tallest flag pole in the UAE. It stands at 122 meters (just a little over 400ft) and was the tallest flag pole at one time in the world when it was completed in 2001.

It's too bad the UAE flag was not flying during our boat ride.  The water, however... was splashing about and poor Daddy on the back right of the boat got quite wet. Salty!!!

As you can see, the water is quite choppy out in the open.

Except for when we are more towards the inlet.  We found out that there is this stone wall that was built along part of the corniche to prevent flooding in Abu Dhabi!

As you can see, so much calmer here!  Almost the end of our tour.  Here's a view of the Emirates Palace and some sky scrapers in the backdrop - the 3 glass ones from the left (there's actually a group of 5) are the Jumeirah at Etihad Towers.  These towers were used during the 2015 movie filming of the Furious 7:

By the way, our guide loved taking these turns where the boat really leaned on my side!

Family photo op!

Hope the Punchers enjoyed it as much as we did!  And to top it off, some ice-cream at the revolving restaurant at the top of the tower by Marina Mall.

The boys really miss the Punchers.  Please come back and visit us again soon!

Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open

My first sponsor's exemption into a Ladies European Tour event!

I found out just about 10 days prior to the event.  Probably would have been nice to have a little bit more time to prepare (mentally more than anything else perhaps!) but thankfully, I had been practicing. It was just this past September when I headed over to Kuala Lumpur to try and qualify for the Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia.  At this point, I had also started taking some lessons from the local pro here.  It's been working really well with Danny!

During practice one day, just as we were coming back towards the clubhouse, I noticed a familiar face.  No way! But sure enough, my eyes were not playing tricks on me. It was Annika Sorenstam!

For some reason I thought she would have been taller/bigger/bulkier but she has probably slimmed down from not playing full-time.  A legend no less!

Soaking in the atmosphere.  Malaysia Boleh! :-)

Well, Day 1 rolled around with a 11:05am tee time.  I really didn't think I played all that badly.  By the end of the day though, all my bogeys added up pretty quickly as I couldn't get up-and-down for par all day.  I ended up shooting a 79.  Our group was also put on the clock for like 4 holes when we made the turn, which didn't make much sense as we had been waiting on the prior nine. Anyhow...

It was an early day the next morning. I was in the first group out at 6:45am on #1 tee.  The alarm rang at 4am. It felt like a nap!!!  After getting the boys' school lunches sorted, I fed myself and packed my snacks and headed for the course.  It was not as windy as the day before and I started out with 2 birdies!  In the end, I ended up with a score of 69, with 5 birdies and 1 double bogey (ouch!).  Still, it was a great day for me considering this was my first LET event! Some scoring stats from the LET website:

Here are the comparisons for both days.  Front nine:

Back nine:

A 10 shot difference!  I ended up tied for 102 out of 126 players. Obviously lots of room for improvement!

By the way, I had one of the staff from Abu Dhabi Golf Club on my bag.  Funny enough Rodolfo was starting up his vacation time just as the tournament week begun so it worked out perfectly!

And here's the official score board.  I obviously need to work on my pointing skills. I blame the photographer for this one (i.e. Bobby :-P).  Speaking of Bobby, I would have loved to have seen his face when he saw my score of -5 at one point on Day 2. The excitement! :-D

What a great experience!  The Ladies European Tour will be back in the UAE later this December for the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters.  I just submitted my request for another sponsor's exemption spot. Let's see what happens!

Charlie, our dream child

We recently had the parent-teacher meeting and looks like Charlie is quite the teacher's pet! She referred to him as the "dream student" where he would sit quietly and listen to her teach with his big round eyes.  And she has nothing but great things to say about Charlie and most recently awarded him with the "Pot of Gold" for good behavior!

And I have been very impressed with his drawings lately.  The teacher was showing a video of step-by-step on how to draw a castle by using shapes.  I thought for sure that Charlie was being assisted with this one but the teacher said it was all him!

By the way, did I mention? No more crying during drop-offs!  Charlie really enjoys school now.  The class is working on phonics and he's been singing the phonics song and making letter sounds in the car and at home.  Soon enough he will be reading!

All Graham wants for Christmas is...

His 2 front teeth!  Well, Graham has dropped 2 teeth in the last couple of weeks!  It's his upper left central incisor and also upper left lateral incisor.  I'm looking at diagrams of the teeth anatomy and looks like these lateral ones aren't suppose to drop until ages 7-8 and Graham is only 6 years old!

Anyhow, the poor tooth fairy has obviously been very busy in this household lately - to a point that she has forgotten not one, but two nights in a row.  Oops! We have been telling Graham that it's been sort of windy outside and the tooth fairy has been struggling to fly in :-)

I don't know how this kid eats or talks these days but he is managing really well!

By the way, the tooth fairy was very generous and gave 2 coins per tooth this time. I guess she was feeling quite guilty about being so late :-)