This weekend we headed to the airport for a birthday surprise
The best part is that we were the surprise.
Our friend in Oman was having a birthday and we got to be the gift (part of it anyway).
Several families headed out to the desert for the weekend. Just like old times.
wild camels
This is what we love about Oman — wide opens spaces and beautiful sandy dunes
back to one of our favorite places: 1000 Nights desert camp
Where we sleep better than the bedouins did.
Our kids in a line, climbing the steep dunes
taking a break 1/2 way up
Made it!
Slide down and climb back up. A few trips up and down will give you buns and quads of steel.
Dinner and laughing and games with good friends
and food, of course!
It was over too quickly.
We’ve gotten extra rain this year and the desert is greener than we’ve ever seen it.
Happy 4 wheel driver
And the kids love bouncing around
Look at me, all calm and relaxed. No need to panic that we’re going to lose control and roll down the hill
(unlike that first trip out here)
The sand is gorgeously zebra striped in shades of orange and red — the entire desert is in pattern
at the edge of the desert.
heading back to Muscat
and back to Bahrain that night
full of desert sand and mosquito bites.
(she gets an weird reaction to the Omani mosquitos — I had completely forgotten until we got to the airport and she started swelling up. She’s fine now, but they ate her up!)