Today's adventure is brought to you by: CAMEL MILK

Camel milk has kept people in this part of the world alive for thousands of years. My sister had camel milk creme brulee at one of the restaurants we went to out in the desert and it was YUMMY! Camel milk chocolate is also quite good. Today Reese and I thought we would start our summer vacation off with a bang by trying the local milk. Reese was SUPER excited to try the camel milk!

Apparently camel milk is much better for the environment in this area since dairy farming uses up so much electricity and water, whereas camels can survive on very salty plants and do not require as much water as a cow.

The benefits of camel milk are:

-that it is low in lactose compared to cow's milk, so people like me who get stomach aches after drinking regular milk, are totally fine after drinking camel milk!!!!




-It has higher(within healthy normal) levels of potassium, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, sodium and zinc compared to cow's milk.




-Cholesterol levels in camel milk are lower than in cow or goat milk.




-It three times the amount of Vitamin C found in cow's milk! WOW and ten times the amount of iron!!




-Also high in unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins.




-The fat content is similar to that of cow's milk

The average camel can produce around 6-9 L of milk per day and apparently can still produce this even when eating small amounts of food and without water. Camels can go 21 days without water so this makes the camel the winner in the milk division here in the desert and in parts of the world where fresh water is scarce.  Pretty sure the cows would die within a few days without water. 

Reese was so excited and then did NOT like it at all!!!! It had a bit of a different taste to milk and at first I didn't like it either but after I took a few more sips it actually didn't taste that bad and not THAT different from cow's milk.  I finished my glass and Reese's and I probably wouldn't sit down and drink a glass of it for fun, but I'd use it in cereal or baking!!

Another fail- glitter blowing picture in 60% humidity

Yes that's right you read the title correctly. I had this idea in my mind of taking a picture of Reese blowing silver glitter at the camera, fine spray of glitter with her smiling little face behind it so outside we went to give it a try.

What I failed to take into account was the 60% humidity and the sweat that instantly occurs the moment you step outside right now so there's Reese with the glitter in the palm of her hand and when the big capture moment came.................the glitter stuck to the sweat!!!! Charming.

She DID eventually lean down and blow so hard that some of it went flying but it definitely did NOT have the effect  I was thinking of. Guess we'll try again in the winter months because I don't want this shot enough to try it inside in the AC, there would be glitter in ever nook and cranny for years to come!!

Here are some pictures of it :)
So you can see the progression here...... Top Left: you want me to do WHAT!? ok let me think about this. Top Right: GO.....and it doesn't move!!! Bottom Left: ok if I lean down and blow RIGHT at it then maybe it will work and there goes some glitter movement!!! Bottom right: BIGGER BREATH!!!!!

Apparently she needed binoculars so she could look out for flying dinosaurs in the backyard

God bless toilet roll, it has its obvious purpose and then when its empty it has about a million different uses, binoculars being one of them!!!!!

She's got the liner to her trunki on her head for some reason. It's better not to ask some days ;)

The Calm Down Jar or as Reese calls it.....The Feelings Jar!!!

We were on a roll today in our house! This is another Pinterest special which involves glitter glue, a jar, hot water and some more glitter. The theory is that kids use it like a snow globe when they're upset and then they stare at it while the glitter settles to try and help themselves calm down. We made it for fun but Reese was quite serious about the whole thing and had to sit and practice her yoga breathing while alternating between watching it and closing her eyes. Its fun to play with either way!

Here is the link to the instructions for it.
Calm Down Jar

And for the record if your kid is REALLY throwing a tantrum and/or they have a knack for hurling things while upset then this isn't the time to be giving them a calm down jar ;) Reese says she's going to use it if she's sad or angry or "frustwated"

She's showing you how to yoga breathe in the top picture!! hahaha

Rainbow Cake= Epic Fail!!!!

So any of you that are on Pinterest likely have seen the rainbow cake. It looks fun, tasty and I thought Reese would love it. Like so many before me I figured, how hard can it really be?

Now let's look at reason #1 that this was destined to fail

1.) I can't bake. Now anyone who knows me well knows this is true. You've all suffered through my cakes and cookies and the only thing I CAN make which tastes fairly normal is muffins!!! I can bake a mean muffin, but everything else is a disaster. So why the heck did I think I could bake a RAINBOW cake!? Well because it basically called for Betty Crocker cake mix and frosting, as in, I only had to mix it in with the liquid ingredients, how could I possibly screw that up!? Which leads us to reason #2 this was destined to fail.....

2.) I used coloured icing rather than gel or food colouring. I figured it was not "quite" as toxic, but apparently you don't get a good rainbow cake if you don't want toxic....my bad. Our colours were very pastel looking and not bright like the ones in the pictures!

Our "rainbow" cake ended up being a white cake slightly tinted a bit green with some pink and yellow sections to it. The green and the blue colours mostly disappeared during the baking process and then the middle of it fell(as my cakes normally do) and I slightly overdid the top of it.

It tasted like....cake from the box and we ate it but we won't be trying again!!!!!! My body did NOT like how it felt after eating the cake and I think we'll stick to strawberries for dessert instead!

My friend Kelly over at a A Swell Place to Dwell tried this too and it didn't quite work out as planned  From what I remember about when we lived together in college she's a MUCH better baker than I am, so if hers didn't turn out, I'm not sure what possessed me to try!!!! Boredom?? The heat? I'm going with those as my defence :) However if you go and check out Kelly's you can see that her cake definitely had colour!!!!! I didn't even take a picture of mine because it was SO pathetic ;)

Here's the link from Pinterest :) In case any of you are bored and want to give it a whirl. If you make it work PLEASE let me know!!!!!!!

The Rainbow Cake

Yet another Pinterest Idea!! Sidewalk Paint

Well we had another brilliant idea this afternoon to try sidewalk paint. Basically its washable paint, corn starch and water and then you paint it on the sidewalk. I checked, it DOES wash off ;)

Reese had a blast painting the back patio, then the cement wall and then her legs!!!!

The idea came from The Idea Room

We had lots of fun washing everything off too since it was SO HOT out today.

They still have the magic!!

So today we decided to print off some 1950's paper dolls that used to be printed in McCall's magazine every month from 1951-1961. Betsy McCall was the main character and she had her friends and parents to accompany her, along with a fabulous wardrobe of course.
They are now all available to print for free at
Betsy McCall Paper Dolls

Then I printed off a farm type "backdrop" from google image search and Reese played with them happily for over an HOUR!

It made me so happy that the art of playing with paper dolls hasn't been lost. They are such a simple concept that in our society today with all the electronics and fancy toys that beep and talk it's exciting to see that children still want to play with them! I remember playing with them for hours as a child, and lets be honest, I sat and had a go with these too!

Next up on: What the heck are we going to do today..............is sidewalk chalk painting. It could go either way!!!!!

How to drive in Abu Dhabi ( The Unofficial Guide)

I've been contemplating for a while now how to adequately describe the chaos and insanity that is driving on a daily basis here in Abu Dhabi so I decided to come up with a "guide", a list of unofficial rules that hopefully will stop you from getting killed!


1. When the light is about to change amber here it flashes green two or three times. This is to let  you know that you should slow down and stop because the next flash is yellow and then red and there are red light cameras everywhere. Now, the common sense thing to do would be to slow down and stop.............WRONG! DO NOT SLOW DOWN ON A BLINKING GREEN! The reason for this advice is that no one around you will expect you to do it, and it's very likely that you will get rear ended. As my husband (who caused the three car accident behind us when he slowed for the blinking green light) can tell you!!!


2. If you come from Britain, then you are well versed in the round-about and will probably lose your mind driving here. If you come from Canada where we call them traffic circles and they're still new enough for everyone to complain about,  then you don't need to read this rule because you're likely part of the problem!!!
SO...ROUNDABOUTS

• Of course you may exit from the inside lane of a 3 lane roundabout cutting across all other cars to get to your exit. Take care not to look to see if there are any cars in your way before you pull this stunt of course. 
• If you're in the outside lane where you're supposed to exit, then by all means go past the exit to the one that is 2 exits away and cause near collisions at each one as people from the inside lane try to exit. 
• According to a confidential source, who was told this specifically by the police, the only way to not be at fault when involved in an accident in a roundabout is to make sure that the roundabout is clear of all cars before entering.........hmmmmm. So on 15th street I could actually sit and block traffic for hours waiting to be the only car in the roundabout. Meanwhile, a taxi would have definitely rear-ended me while I waited. 
• While someone in front of you is waiting for the right lane to be clear so they can enter the roundabout, please lean on your horn behind them. It will definitely make them want to get out of your way and they won't be annoyed at all.

3. Don't stop at stop signs because no one expects you to! I'm not sure why those big red signs are there with STOP written in English and Arabic but I don't think its anything to do with traffic flow. Same goes with yield as no one seems to understand what that actually means. And if you come to a 4 way stop.......just close your eyes and hope for the best because the whole concept of first to arrive at the intersection is not a custom that is practiced over here! Its all about your place in the social order and its a bit hard to tell that while driving.

4. Change lanes at random intervals, without shoulder checking, while in an intersection and into gaps of traffic that are too tiny for your car to fit. It seems to be a sport over here, the taxi drivers could win gold if  lane cutting was an Olympic sport. 

5. On the highways where the speed limit is already a respectable 140km/hr, you should go about 200 km/hr and fly up about half a meter behind the car in front of you that can't physically get out of your way because of the massive trucks that drive bumper to bumper in the inside lane and you should flash your lights and lean on the horn as a way to let them know that you'd REALLY like to get past.....inshallah. 

6. Choose the most obnoxious colour you can think of and get your Porche Cayenne custom painted in it. Then, remove the boring old Porche logo and have it redone in swarovski crystals, or if you've really got a lot of "wasta" and/or a low license plate number....gold and diamonds.  The rest of us think it looks absolutely ridiculous, but hey, to each their own right!?

7. Now this one is a bit worrying. Accept the fact that if you are hit by an Emirate man or woman, you'll be at fault. This is one of those very annoying aspects of life here in the UAE and one that makes me pray I never have an accident with a local.  I'd like to say I hear stories where the local person takes the blame but I haven't heard one yet.  I have however, heard of some truly horrible situations where people have been blamed for the other car's reckless driving despite there being witnesses saying otherwise. The logic I've heard to describe this is astounding. A friend of a friend was told that the red light that the local man had run(nearly side swiping this other person's car and kids) wasn't "meant for me to stop at"  it was only there for "the others" because if these other people weren't in this person's country then they wouldn't be there for him to hit....therefore its the "others" fault if any accident occurs. See what I'm dealing with here!?! How do you even argue with logic like that? It's so utterly stupid that I can't even think of a good response!

8.Double and triple park where ever you possibly can and then abandon your car, blocking people in. People just LOVE that when its +40 out and their kids are cranky after dance class........LOVE IT.

9.And while we're on the topic of parking, pulling up to the taxi drop off in Khalidiya Mall and then just sitting in the car waiting for your womenfolk to show up is perfectly ok. Those poor taxi drivers who are now stuck behind you don't have anywhere to be of course, except you know.....making money to send home to their poor families. And of course by all means throw a complete tantrum when security asks you to circle around so that the taxis can drop off their fares and pick up the growing number of irritated expats waiting for a cab!

10.Whenever you feel like pulling into traffic is fine, please don't feel you have to wait for a break in traffic, the rest of us who know HOW to drive will hopefully be able to stop in time to not side swipe your car. 

11. Don't even get me STARTED on seat belts. No one here wears a seatbelt. NO ONE. Kids do not use car seats here which would not be so horrific if they were belted in but they aren't. They sit on laps or are bouncing around in the back of the car with their heads out the window. Babies sit on the laps of their nannies or their mothers in the front seat and its not uncommon to see children lying on the dash or the back of the car. I can't even joke about this one because I find it so utterly disturbing. Car seats save lives, seat belts save lives and you're a complete idiot if you don't take advantage of that. The #1 cause of death for children under 14 in Abu Dhabi is traffic fatalities. It actually blows my mind a little because this is a VERY intelligent and highly educated society. Many take their degrees abroad and so must know that the rest of the world restrains their children in moving vehicles, couple that with the fatality statistics and one would think that car seats would have caught on here. It IS law here that a child be restrained but its not a law that is enforced. 

So to sum it all up, at any given time when driving expect those around you to crash into you from all sides. Don't expect anyone to actually STOP at a red light or a stop sign and always be vigilant (especially in a roundabout where its a bit like playing bumper cars).




P.S. Wear your freaking seatbelt. 


**and just for the record the above guide is not seriously a guide on how to drive in Abu Dhabi and in no way should it be taken as such. Thought I'd better throw that out there just in case someone googles this topic and their English isn't quite developed enough yet to recognize sarcasm when they see it!**