Sabahar

My favorite shop in Addis is Sabahar.  WWW. Sabahar.com They are a member of The World Fair Trade Organization. It is owned by a Canadian family who have been here in Addis for 20 or so years! They make beautiful textiles from Ethiopian cotton and silk.  They have their own silk worms and visitors can watch the worms doing their thing! You can also enjoy watching the spinners and weavers at work. They make blankets, towels, table coverings, scarves, shawls, and the list goes on!  Brittany picked up a beautiful scarf from here.

This is where the magic begins....Silkworm larvae 

Next up, hungry worms 

Waiting to finish drying then on to the spinners

The weaving room

Some finished product drying

Hanging scarves in the showroom

We took The Jeungs here before we left for Kenya together.  Brenda loved this little shop and so I will use it as bait to get them to come back :)

Kyson is obviously still trying to figure the whole silk worm to scarf production :) 

Brittany's visit :)

We were SO excited to have Brittany here for a couple of weeks.  We spent time going to the gym, walking her through different parts of the city showing her the sites.  We did our first trip since we moved here to a different part of Ethiopia. I think her favorite thing to do was just relaxing in the sun!

We were sure glad to see our girl!!!!

Cameron skipped school and we went to the Sheraton for a day of swimming and sun :)

We spent a morning making homemade salsa, hummus and pita chips

We took a day trip to a little town called Debra Zeit.  It is surrounded by 5 crater lakes and is a popular tourist stop as there are several resorts there. We spend the day at one of the resorts and did some relaxing in the sun, some kayaking, and of course eating!

Delicious Brownie!

Sunday time together

Our last day together we spent visiting my favorite fruit stand enjoying fresh fruit smoothies. 

 Goodbyes are always so hard....

Happy New Year !

Happy New Year Everyone!  Officially the new year begins in Ethiopia in September so when the rest of the world rolled their calenders over to a new year on January first 2014 it was December 22 2006 in Ethiopia.....go figure

We had the privilege of spending Christmas day to New Years Day in Dubai UAE.  We really enjoyed the time spent with friends.  I would have to say that the natural excess we saw in one week gave me materialism indigestion!  Dubai has the world's biggest, tallest, mostest, fastest, shiniest EVERYTHING!!  For example:

The World's Tallest Building : Burj Khalifa.  We were told the elevator climbs 10 floors per second.  Considering all my  nightmares include heights and elevators I was not tempted to go in this building!

World's Fastest Car (I actually have no idea if that's true haha) at the Worlds Largest Mall: Dubai Mall.  This would be fun to drive on the world's largest highway with 8 lanes going each way and a speed limit of 220 km/h.  Dubai also has the world's WORST taxi drivers.  They all think they are professional F1 drivers....but when you add in gas pedal spasms and narcolepsy we only almost lost our lives twice!!

Gold Souq at Dubai Mall:  Area in the mall that sells just jewelry 

Worlds only skating rink and ski hill in a mall

Worlds sweetest candy store...maybe possible

Worlds longest taxi line leaving the Worlds largest Mall....seriously it went on for miles....

Worlds largest aquarium

                                          

With the worlds smartest otters.....

We also spent some time at the Mall of Emirates.  Another completely over the top display of retail offerings! With the world's glassiest windows, world's most sparkliest trees and world's most tinkliest fountains

We also wasted (only in my opinion LOL) some time in a mall called Dragon Mart.  It has the worlds largest collection of Chinese made items for sale in one place...I don't think even China has this much Chinese stuff for sale.  I became quite sullen after spending 4 hours there and was ready to join all the children I saw there, throwing themselves on the floor crying, screaming and kicking their feet.....Warren LOVED the place. 

 Now on to the best part of our vacation.  Spending time with friends!!!

One night we went to the sand dunes and did some "dune bashing" in our friends trucks.  When it got dark we built a fire and had a BBQ

Our Friends and children in the distance

On another night we enjoyed a  wonderful supper and evening with Gaith and Glenda Kadir 

Glenda trying to catch supper.....just kidding! We were trying to catch a semi sedated wild cat that kept coming into her house and take it to the vet as it was also sick

 Before supper we went for a quick walk to the beach.

Cam with his new bud Jay.  Cameron ended up spending a few days at Kadir's place.

Beautiful sunset pictures of the Mosque and the Burj Al Arab Hotel

An evening out with Kadir's and also Chris and Jennifer Uzzel.  Uzzels are expats from the States living in Dubai

 The "children's table"

Another quick trip to the beach.  This time with Geraldine Naidoo and her parents.  Kevin was at home cooking us lunch :)  I've met my match in height with Geraldine!  She is actually a few inches taller than me so I made her stand lower on the beach for our picture together haha

Sam and Dheena Govendor

We enjoyed a fun evening playing games and eating at Uzzels on New Years Eve.  It was a mask party :) 

Here is a link to the worlds largest fire works display.  It made the world record...of course!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddGzqO255PI

And last but certainly not least!  We had not had McDonalds for 4 MONTHS! Warren was going through withdrawal haha.  

Our first meal in Dubai

and our last just before we flew back to Ethiopia.