UAE National Day.

This country celebrated it's 37th year of unification, last week- December 2nd.

We enjoyed the celebration as well.  

• kids dressed up- they had a party at Asher's preschool (on Thanksgiving day) and asked the kids to wear National colors (red, green, white and black), or shirts with Emirates or Dubai on them.  Asher has two soccer jerseys so he chose which one he wanted to wear and of course, Ivy wanted to join in the fun.
  

• John got the day off work.
  
• We met friends for a morning in the park learning to play cricket (from our Aussie friends) and teaching to play Kub (a Swedish lawn game that we like to play in my family).
  

• Lunch of our favorite Lebanese cheese bread
  
• Fireworks! We drove down to Abu Dhabi (the capital of the Emirates) to meet up with friends for pizza and a great fireworks display.  We were also entertained by the all out displays of national pride by the locals. Most of their vehicles were totally decked out with flags, fabrics and stickers in the national colors, some were even spray painted. People sat out their sun roofs spraying silly string and shaving cream and thumping their Arabic music on their radios. The streets were packed and I'm sure the partying continued late into the night. It was truly a sight to see and I wish I had some pictures.  The fireworks were great- not nearly as spectacular (so we hear) as the ones in Dubai a couple weeks ago that celebrated the opening of the Atlantis hotel, but pretty impressive and probably one of the longest displays I've ever seen.  They set the fireworks display to music and once Ivy got over the initial fear from the loud blasts, she was dancing her heart out for our little crowd as the fireworks went off behind her- so cute.
  

Happy 37 years UAE!!!

sidenotes:  

Asher thinks that all the buildings and cars "sure do look like Christmas" because of all the National Day decorations (green and red)

Ivy was scared of the fireworks at first, then we put her hat on and pulled it over her ears, gave her something to drink and she got her second wind and danced the night away.

Just because we celebrated here, doesn't mean we love the USA any less.