Hello everyone!  

We hope you had a great Easter weekend and are ready for summer.  With the recent snowfalls for our friends and family in Canada, it may not feel like summer is ready for you.

We just hit our 6 year mark in the Middle East and are still loving every bit of it!  Hard to believe it has been 6 already.

Most COVID restrictions have now lifted, which is great news for people like us who want to travel more and not have the hassles and restrictions!  Dangerous on the pocket book however!

Some news we are so excited about...we are getting our first visitor to Saudi!!!  Our friend Anita will fly back with us from Canada in July, get to experience our Saudi life for a couple weeks, and then will join us in Africa.  You can not even imagine how pumped we are to host our first guest here!!!

This blog shares some of our spring 2022 highlights - Dubai a couple of times, an awesome T&A trip to Cabo San Lucas, Miami, and lots of fun in Saudi & Bahrain.

Enjoy the pics and videos...

We had a great time bringing in New Years in Bahrain.  We did a brunch at McGettigans with friends Devin & Michelle.  Food and drinks were flowing....a great way to kick off 2022 in style!

Spring in the Middle East is beautiful weather so it's nice to get out and enjoy times with friends.  Here are pics from some brunches, and amazing hat, an outdoor nursery in Saudi, and cuddles with the cat!

We went to Dubai for a long weekend in January and had an amazing weekend.
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The weekend started off with a rooftop patio, dinner and drinks with friends Nigel & Jayne.  Once again, it is amazing how you meet the best people.  Met them at a Maldives resort in October 2020 and have been able to connect a few times since.  Great people with amazing stories after living in the Middle East for 20+ years!

We spent a day at the Expo 2020 - amazing job with this Dubai!  WOW!  Incredible pavilions from every country - the architecture is stunning.  The place is massive (check the video below) so could not even come close to seeing everything.  Had to come back for another day - see the March section in this blog.

We went out for a brunch at STK...quite possibly the best brunch we have ever been to - great food and drinks and an awesome vibe!  After that, we met up with friends Frank & Sherri (Americans in Dubai) and ran into Gabriel & Dorina (met them on the Croatia cruise in 2021...they are a fun couple from Montenegro).

​Dubai...we can't get enough of you!

T&A 2022 went back to where it all started...Cabo San Lucas on the west side of Mexico at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula (south of California).  Our hotel was the Riu Palace Baja California.

2022's cast of characters included us, Mark & Gayle, Meghan & Joe, Marilyn, and a newcomer - Marilyn's sister Stephanie.  
There was also a special guest appearance by Kevin, better known as "KP", who we both worked with in Winnipeg.  Great to see him again after many years!  For anyone who was at our wedding 15 years ago in the Dominican, you will most likely remember KP as the person giving my aunts "sexy rides" in the pool.

There were the usual shenanigans - pool drinks, dance parties, Super Bowl parties, threats from security after "borrowing" a bike, and crashing a wedding.  Well, actually crashing the first dance.  Whoops.  

We did a fun excursion - whale watching, boat trip, pub crawl in Cabo, and then a few beach bars, before a rowdy water taxi ride back to our hotel (check the video below for some Grammy award winning performances).

Once again, the bartender foiled any sexy Valentine's Day plans by getting Lisa drunk.  She went to "sleep" early so Jeff flew solo for Valentine's Day dinner....or did he?  
​Luckily, he found a date (a huge piece of bark from a palm tree) that Joe brilliantly named "Leafsa".  So Leafsa joined Jeff for dinner, did a photo shoot with her new man, and had shots with Steph (video is below).  Lisa was quite surprised to wake up with Leafsa cuddled up next to Jeff.  If I recall, the words were "What the fuck??"  And then Leafsa was gone.

Always a great time seeing the T&A gang.  Hoping we can get more out for the next T&A adventure in spring '23.  Stay tuned for details...

Off to Miami.

We stopped in Miami for a few days on our way back to the Middle East.  Always a great time in this city, as we love the beaches, the food and drinks, the shopping, and the overall vibe.

We thought we would do a few things we had never done in Miami before:
- Hop On, Hop Off Bus - saw some new areas of Miami, including a new area that looked really cool (Wynwood...more on that later), went to a favorite of ours - Bayside Marketplace for mojitos, and then ended in Little Havana for drinks, shopping, and some Cuban food (Lisa LOVES Cubano sandwiches).  It was so cool to enjoy drinks there while listening to Cuban music and seeing the cigar making shops.
- Wynwood Marketplace - after driving past it on the bus, we went back to this very cool area of Miami.  It is the arts district and has amazing signs and painted buildings plus the incredible Wynwood Marketplace, a 60,000 square foot outdoor complex with art, shops, food trucks, and bars.  Great music all over.  (see the video below).
- Hollywood - we cabbed to Hollywood, just north of Miami to check it out.  Found a cool little restaurant (Le Tub Saloon) that had a cool vibe, amazing burgers, and was along the water.  

The rest of the time we spent in South Beach, enjoying the bars (the Clevelander still rocks!  See videos below), restaurants (Havana 1957, Sandwicherie...yum!), shopping, and the great beaches!

Can't wait to get back to Miami!

We went to Dubai for a March long weekend with a bunch of our friends (appropriately named "The Shitshow") from Saudi for another fun weekend.

We met up with Ian & Nikki (our Portsmouth friends that we met in Bangkok), who were on their way to Maldives.  Kept them out drinking until 3am and they had to leave for the airport at 5am.  Ouch!  (or did they keep us up drinking??)

We spent another day at Expo and saw a few more pavilions.  It was so hot and busy so spent most of our time having cold beers.  A really cool thing - our friend Nicky got a pic from the Ukrainian pavilion showing memos from visitors showing support in their fight vs the Russians (see pic below).

Had some live music, pool time, and a great brunch with the Shitshow gang....also great to see Frank & Sherri again!  Videos are below.

Here are some of the dates for upcoming travel...always happy for anyone to come and join us!  Stay tuned for pics, videos, and more stories...

April 29-May 4 - Maldives.  Heading to Hard Rock Maldives for a few days.
June 2-6 - Cyprus...checking out Ayia Napa - supposed to be the 2nd wildest European party place next to Ibiza...let's do it!
July 8-18 - Canada...back home for a few days to see friends and family.  Also get to see the Zac Brown Band and Calgary Stampede.
July 31-August 10 - Zanzibar and Tanzania ... so excited for this trip with Anita.  A few days all-inclusive on the beaches, then safari in the Serengeti with the Great Migration.
September 11-October 5 - Spain.  excited to visit Ibiza and then spend a few weeks visiting cities along the coast of Spain.
November 9-14 - Berlin.  Going to see Alan Doyle play in Germany!  (only 27 euros per ticket!)

Spring 2023 - T&A trip ... details coming soon!

As you can see, we've had a busy spring...looking forward to what summer has in store for us.  
Looking forward to seeing everyone back in Canada in July.

We will update the blog after the Maldives and Cyprus trips.

Ending off with a few pics, including an awesome wall sign our friends Jeff & Sara gave to us. 
6 years..."What an Adventure"

​Love from L&J...

Hello friends,

We are now back and recovered from 3 weeks of mayhem with our friends in the US and Caribbean.  Wow!  We visited a place we've had on our bucket list for some time, New Orleans, Louisiana.  What a cool city!  Can't wait to share stories and pics.  Then we were off to Cancun for T&A's 10 year anniversary....can you believe it's been 10 years already??  It was so amazing to see everyone - we love all of our friends!  And we met some amazing people this trip from all over the US and some new friends from the UK.  Had a pretty wild excursion that we will tell you about while we were in Cancun.  It was extra special to have two friends from our Saudi compound, Hayden and Christy, join us in Cancun and Miami.  Miami was once again a great stop before heading back to Saudi.  Stay tuned for stories, pics, and some pretty cool videos.

​Enjoy...

We did a couple brunches in January, both at an Irish pub we love called McGettigans.  The first was a random "20BD ($53 US) all you can drink from 5-8PM" deal, and the second was for Hayden's birthday.  There was a large group of his friends who were there for this one, and as you can imagine, it got a bit out of control!  Mixed in these brunches were visits to a few other pubs with friends!  Damn we wish our Canadians friends could experience these gong show parties!

We finally made our way to New Orleans.  Also known as "The Big Easy" or "NOLA", this incredible city just celebrated it's 300 year birthday.

We stayed in the French Quarter right on Bourbon Street and had our first introduction to how wild the street is on our first night.  10:30PM, after travelling for over 30 hours, our cab suddenly stops and says Bourbon Street is under construction and he can't go any further.  We will have to walk the next 3 blocks to our hotel.  That doesn't sound too bad, but try rolling 2 suitcases each through a packed mob of drunks on Bourbon Street, all while trying to roll the luggage wheels over the empty glasses, bottles, and random beads lying on the streets.  Jeff decides he wants to go experience the party but Lisa has other ideas, like sleep.  Jeff submits as we try to fall asleep while the shit show is happening right outside our window.

We get up the next day to go experience the city, and quickly realize that a party of that stature leaves a hell of a mess on the streets - see some of the pics to see the carnage.  Yes, every morning people were out moving all the garbage off the streets and pressure washing who knows what off the street and into the drains.

We did lots of walking and one day even took a tour of the city.  Here are some highlights:

• ​we loved the city...does not feel like an American city - it has more of a European feel, probably because the city has mandated that they won't change some of the building and street styles to maintain the French or Spanish influence and architecture.
• this city can party!  The drinks flow all day long and go deep into the night.  We do not remember going to bed one single night.  NOLA's influence was greater than our control!
• the food is out of control here.  Unbelievable creole and cajun food.  Where to start?  Chargrilled oysters at Acme Oyster House were absolutely amazing.  Imagine oysters in a shell, filled with butter, garlic, spice, and parmesan cheese and then blackened over a fire.  Unbelievable!  Lisa even tried a bite and anyone who knows her would be shocked.  Can't even blame the alcohol.  Gumbo soup was another favorite, as well as Po'boy sandwiches and fried chicken.  And you can't forget about the beignet pastries from Cafe du Monde.  Pics of all are included below.
• drinks are impressive as well, with all the standard drinks plus a couple specialties for NOLA, the Hurricane and the Hand Grenade.  The Hurricane is 2oz light rum, 2oz dark rum, 1oz lime juice, 1oz orange juice, 1/2oz passion fruit puree, 1/2oz simple syrup, 1tbsp grenadine.  Tasty.  The Hand Grenade packs a knockout punch - 1.5oz gin, 1.5oz rum, 1.5oz vodka, 1.5oz melon liqueur.  Tasty.  Out cold!
• St.Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square were nice areas and you could feel the European influence.
• a walk along the Mississippi River was pretty amazing - just to see how wide this river is and to see it's powerful current.  Pretty impressive!
• we toured through the Garden District and saw some of the large antebellum homes.
• we saw a very cool wedding ceremony with band and parade - check the video.  Friggin' cool!
• New Orleans Saints fans are incredible.  In protest of the blown call in the NFL Championship Game, the city didn't show the Super Bowl anywhere, and instead hosted a huge parade for the "Boycott Bowl" - thousands of dressed up fans all marched to an area and had live concerts and a massive party instead.
• Lisa researched before we went and read that we should do a cemetery tour.  Cemeteries are very unique in NOLA and are known as  "cities of the dead".  Because the water table is very high, quite often if you dig a foot down, you reach water.  When coffins were buried, they would often float up and come above ground which caused problems.  Their solution was to 'bury' people above ground in tombs.  These tombs can hold up to 200 family members and often you will see many names engraved on plaques outside the tomb.  How does this work?  They leave the body in a coffin for the time of mourning (1 year + 1 day), then they take out the body remains and throw it into the tomb and dispose of the coffin.  Due to the heat and humidity inside the tomb, it acts like cremation and the body rapidly decomposes into bones within a year.  Pretty impressive - never seen anything like this before.  Pics are below.
• We drove through the 17th Street Canal area, the largest and most important drainage canal in the city & the cause of much of the destruction by Katrina in 2005.  It was mind blowing to see the devastation and if you look at a couple pics (below) closely, you will see where the water line went to on the homes and the stop signs.  Also check the spray painted circle or "x" on the homes.  This is called a "FEMA X".  FEMA is Federal Emergency Management Agency.  The information has a meaning - the left part is the task force/rescue squad who visited the home, the top is the date they visited, the right lists any hazards, special notes in acronyms, and the bottom is how many bodies they found, listed 'alive' and 'dead'.  Pretty sobering to see what it looks like 14 years after Katrina.  
• we drove by Lake Pontchartrain, an estuary to the Gold of Mexico.  It is also home to the 24 mile Causeway Bridge. 
• we saw a carousel bar.  Yep, a real carousel with a bar built into Hotel Monteleone.  Pretty cool!

Loved NOLA and will be back.  This time with friends.  And for round 2 of the party...

We left left New Orleans and had a couple days in Cancun before the T&A gang showed up.  Had a great couple days hanging out at the resort and enjoyed a fun catamaran with some wild people.

Saturday - time for the T&A gang to arrive.  10 years of shenanigans.  It started in 2010 in Cabo and has wreaked havoc all over the Caribbean (and even Vegas & Nashville).  See the pic of the coozie for locations.

The T&A crowd started arriving, starting with Dan & Marilyn from Chilliwack, BC.
Then Joe & Meghan arrived from Chicago, IL.
Mark & Gayle from Kansas City, MO.
Vern & Noreen from Humboldt, SK.
Hayden & Christy from South Africa, and now Saudi Arabia.
Anita and The Chart from Edmonton, AB.
Carl (The Chart's husband) from Cincinnati, OH.
Sara (Leduc, AB) and Nicole (Calgary, AB) arrived later in the week.

We also met some amazing people along the way.  Hopefully, we didn't scare them away from future T&A trips.  We even tattooed a little baby.  She was very impressed by the group and wanted to join right away. She will most likely be leading the charge for T&A 2040. 

The week went by so fast - tons of laughs along the way.  Jeff was abandoned and had to eat Valentine's Day dinner by himself.  Fuckers!

See below for stories, pics, videos on the foam parties, Coco Bongo, and the now infamous Isla Mujeres catamaran nightmare.

Enjoy....can't wait to see these awesome friends again soon!  LOVE T&A!  

Foam Parties

Who doesn't love a foam party?  There is absolutely nothing like seeing a bunch of grown adults play with balloons, throw water balloons, all while dancing and playing in foam to a bunch of music.

​Fun times!

Catamaran Day to Isla Mujeres

We planned on a nice sunny catamaran excursion with snorkelling, an island shopping/bar trip, lunch on the island and then a cruise back to our hotel.

Unfortunately the weather gods had a different plan than us!

We all arrived at the lobby for the pre-arranged time and saw that it was drizzling and we couldn't tell if the sky was going to clear up or get worse.

Hmmm...what are our options?
a) stay inside and play games/drink and stay dry
b) go to the swim up bar - drink and get wet
c) go on the catamaran and see what happens - we're going to get wet anyway and the catamaran has unlimited drinks for us

The group decides to go for it and live life!  Off to the boat we go.  Rain gets stronger as we walk the pier to the boat.  We all get on board and sit at the front out in the open so we're ready for the sun (when it shows up!)

We start sailing - we sail in between Cancun and the island Isla Mujeres - we can see both quite clearly, especially the massive hotels along the Cancun coastline.  We can also clearly see an ominous black storm cloud straight ahead where we are going snorkelling.

No problem - the captain must know that all will be good & safe.  

We quickly see heavy rain coming in the distance...so much that we can barely make out the large hotels in Cancun.  Captain points and drives us straight ahead...straight into the black cloud and the rainfall.

Waves pick up, as we think about the movie "The Perfect Storm" and imagine Mark Wahlberg guiding his boat into the storm.

Suddenly the rain mist hits us.  Then the heavy rain hits us.  Then the rain gets harder and it feels like it's ripping our skin off.  Luckily, some of us had the snorkel flippers to protect us (a bit!).  The wind picks up and we all start getting cold.  We now can not see anything but rain, crazy ass waves, and a bunch of cold people...all while the captain is pointing straight ahead and driving further into our death trap!  We all move, single file from the front of the boat into the inside for shelter and what could very well be our last beers before dying.

Finally he says that we may not be able to snorkel.  NO SHIT!  

Then there is a bunch of yelling in Spanish as one of the ship mates jumps in the ocean with a bit machete and is swimming around.  Turns out they dropped anchor to allow us to snorkel and the line is caught on something.  We are stuck in the middle of the storm and can't leave.  More beers please!  Finally they cut the line and we are free to escape our imminent death!

We direct the ship mates to keep pouring the beers and direct the captain to get our wet asses to shore onto the island.

Relief!  We make it to Isla Mujeres, walk through the flooded streets (see the video) and venture off to the first beach bar where we see that the sun is out.  And it is warm!  Awesome!  Buckets of beer arrive before the clouds quickly roll in and we run inside for shelter from another downpour.  Yes, we did rescue the lonely beer buckets so they didn't drown!

The excitement was not over.  We met Katrina & Sean the day before in the pool and invited them.  They joined the catamaran and while we were drinking in the shelter bar, nobody noticed that Katrina had wandered off to go buy her daughter a warm jacket.  A while later she walks in, accompanied by Hayden & Christy, with her arm all bandaged up.  She had slipped on the wet floor and fell on her arm.  Poor girl - turns out it was broken in 4 places and she had to get it operated on once she returned home.  What is it with T&A and broken arms?  Well, nobody said it would be safe!

We boat over to another area on the island for lunch and then back to our hotel so we all can sober up, dry up, warm up, and so Katrina can go to the hospital to get some proper attention for her arm.  I am sure the Riu hotel lost over 100 gallons of hot water with everyone rushing off to shower and warm up.  Somehow, we passed out in our hot tub but luckily woke without drowning!

Yep, this day was way more memorable than a normal, shitty catamaran sunny day trip.  
Who remembers those???  Just another great T&A story!

Coco Bongo

We finally visited the famous Coco Bongo bar in Cancun.  $195US for the show and unlimited drinks and it was worth every single penny.  Incredible atmosphere and music plus the show was amazing!  So many flying acrobats and almost everyone of them had no safety harnesses to protect them.

Quite an experience - enjoy the videos below!
​

We spent a few days here with Hayden & Christy, staying in our old "stomping grounds" in South Beach.  This is our 6th time and 3rd year in a row staying there - love the beach, shopping, restaurants, bars, and people watching here.  If you're ever going to visit South Beach, reach out and we will share some "must do" places for drinks and food!  We were happy to enjoy the breakfast from the Diner, the famous Cubano sandwich, and  a great lunch at La Sandwicherie.  As for drinks, I think the extra large mojitos, the bulldogs (margaritas/daiquiris with Coronas), and the Tropical Jungle Juice were crowd favorites!  See the pics and video of the Tropical Jungle Juice.  This was a beast of a drink!

We also took advantage of the NHL schedule to go see the Montreal Canadiens play the hometown Florida Panthers.  The Habs got their asses kicked even though it felt like a home game with all the retirees from Canada in the area!

After a few weeks of 30 degree Celsius weather, we got ready to fly back to Saudi while H & Christy were off to Las Vegas.  We checked the temperature in Vegas before leaving and lucky we did - they were flying into snowy weather with temperatures ranging from -2 to +7 Celsius.  Poor guys quickly dug into their luggage to grab pants and jackets!

What a trip!  Poor liver.  Heading back to the sandpit.

Here are some of our upcoming travel plans - as always, please let us know if you'd like to join us on any of these adventures!

April 26 - Bahrain Tribfest - we love this great day out with friends and live music!  Looks like another kick ass lineup.  Really looking forward to seeing Pink again!

We hope you enjoyed the stories and pics.  We loved seeing all of our friends in Cancun and hope to see more of you on our future adventures.

Better get this uploaded and start packing.  It's almost the weekend - another long weekend and we're off to Bahrain for a nice beach getaway.  

Cheers and love from the sandpit...
Lisa & Jeff

It's been a while since our last update and we've been pretty busy over December & January with friends in Saudi and also over in Bahrain and Dubai.  We've just recovered from jet lag after our big trip to Jamaica and Miami to see friends.  Here's some stories and pics from our past couple months...enjoy!

Reminder - scroll your cursor over the images to see captions and click to enlarge.

We kept ourselves busy in December & January, having some Christmas celebrations and cocktails around the fire pit in Saudi and then heading across the causeway to Bahrain for drinks and brunches.  Here are some pics...

We went to Dubai for a weekend in mid-January, as Lisa was getting certified to teach a Les Mills spin class.  She was tied up Friday & Saturday working out and teaching spin 8am-4pm so Jeff had to find a way to entertain himself.  One guess as to what he did?  Lisa kicked ass in the class and now teaches at our compound.  In Dubai, we found a cool area called Irish Village - an awesome pub with live music.  We also found the Madinat Jumeirah souq, which has many shops and cool pubs along the water.

Random pics

Our T&A group ventured to Negril, Jamaica for our 9th year!  We stayed at the Riu Palace Tropical Bay.

We were joined by the following great people:
- Jeff from Vancouver
- Mark & Gayle from Kansas City
- Shane & Kelley from Kansas City
- Vern & Noreen from Humboldt, SK
- Nicole from Calgary
- Dan & Marilyn from Chilliwack, BC

As usual, there were a ton of laughs as we enjoyed the pool and the beach with our various sunglasses, outfits, and wigs.  The pics tell the story...

Foam Parties

We joined in the fun on foam parties at our resort and the sister Riu.  It's incredible to watch adults act like kids in such an environment!

7 Mile Beach, The Caves, & Rick's Cafe
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A few years ago, we visited 7 Mile Beach in Negril with Jeff's brother and friends.  It is mind-blowing how clear the water is.  So easy to see fish, crabs, and sting rays!  We always wanted to go back and made sure to do a couple Beach Crawls this time, stopping at the vendors and bars along the beach.  Lobsters for $20 and Red Strips for $2...tough to beat.

After the walk down the beach, we water taxied to our cab and stopped at the Xtabi Caves, which is a resort built into the caves along the Caribbean Sea.  Incredible views.  You really have to be careful in the caves, as the waves come crashing in and can knock you around.  Our friend Jeff got hammered by a wave and blasted into the rocks....lost his iPhone to the sea but hung onto his Red Stripe.  Veteran move!

Then it was onto Rick's Cafe to visit the famous location - great food, drinks, combined with one of the best sunsets you can see and some wicked cliff jumping.  Lisa worked up the nerve to cliff jump, thanks to hours of liquid courage she was fuelling herself with.

The great day was topped off with a pit stop at Burger King on the way home so we could feast on Whoppers after a day of sun, drink, and other.

We went back to Miami for the 5th time.  We love this city!  Amazing people watching, good shopping, and kick ass restaurants and night life.

Every other time we've visited, we kicked ourselves for not going to the Everglades so we made sure to book a trip this year.  Loved the experience and the gator show.

We also enjoyed watching Lisa's 1st NBA game - Miami Heat vs Los Angeles Lakers.  Was a great time and even got to see Marc Anthony in the front row.

The rest of the time was spent on the beach, the pool, shopping, and sampling some of the great dining and nightlife of this awesome city!

We hope you enjoyed some of the stories, pics, and videos.  

We're home for another week before we head to Jordan to visit the ancient city of Petra and also to float on the Dead Sea.  Will post another blog once we return.

Hope you're all doing well and hoping that spring FINALLY comes for our friends in Alberta & Saskatchewan.

Love,
​J&L

It's been awhile since we last posted so we figured we better provide an update just to prove we're alive...
​

Well, we made it through our first winter in the desert!  

It is amazing how quickly you get climatized to temperature.  We both know cold, having grown up in Saskatchewan and Ontario, but living 8 years in Vancouver turned us into wimps when it came to winter temperatures.  3 years in Winnipeg and 3 years in Edmonton changed that.  After our summer heat here, we knew that we would find it tough when we eventually transition back to Canada or the US.  Our average temperature May-October was around 35 celsius, with many days in July-Sept between 40 & 50.  We dropped down in January to highs of 15-18 which felt cold.  I know that sounds stupid when we are used to way colder winter temperatures in Canada, but we have indeed turned into official pussies.  We had a day where the low was 3 degrees too.  No snow, however.  We did miss all the rain and flooding while away in the Caribbean.  Saudi didn't plan for any drainage and they can flood quite easily.
The good news - today was 32 degrees and it's still in the high twenties at 7PM. 

So, what did we do over Dec-Jan?
There was a great Christmas brunch put on at our compound restaurant with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc.  Jeff worked on the 25th and that week so wasn't staying out too late.  He also worked on Jan 1st so our New Years was pretty lame.  We made up for it, though, with a few trips to Bahrain.  Enjoyed some pool time, cocktails, and some amazing meals.  Found some great restaurants - Calexico (good Mexican food) and a South African restaurant called Meat Co. that has the best steak we've ever had.  
On that note - Lisa is now eating and even craving steak.  Also gin & tonic.  WOW!  Maybe sushi is next (fingers crossed).
We also enjoyed some cocktails around the fire pit at some friends homes.  We just bought one for our back yard.  Oh ya, we also moved into a bigger villa - enjoying it...a few steps from our pool!
We also got in a few rounds of golf, taking advantage of the cooler weather.  It's enjoyable golfing when you're not sweating from 40+ degree weather with 90%+ humidity!
Lots of evenings were spent playing pool, BBQ'ing, and having cocktails outside by the swimming pools.

Lisa has been very busy - jogging, spin class, strength training keeps her going in the morning.  Setting up the new place and keeping it clean keeps her occupied in the afternoon.  She has been very busy researching and trying new recipes as well.  
​Jeff was busy with getting certified for his courses.  He's now working on Project Management Essentials, which will make 100% certified for all the courses his team teaches.  Others include 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Situational Leadership, Leadership Challenge, Introduction to Leadership Challenge, and Motivating Employees.

​Here are a few pics from our "Saudi Winter"...

WOW!  You can not believe how excited we were for this trip!  Every year, the T&A trip is a classic, but this one was over the top!  27 great friends all gathered for an amazing trip!  We met up with all of these awesome friends (in order of # of T&A trips):
    - Mark & Gayle (from Kansas City, MO)
    - Anita (Edmonton, AB)
    - Vern & Noreen (Humboldt, SK)
    - Jeff & Nicole (Vancouver, BC)
    - Tami (Asheville, NC)
    - Heather (Indianapolis, IN)
    - Rob & Khole-Ann (Calgary, BC)
    - The Chart (Edmonton, AB)
    - Avi, Michele, Mya, Jade (Calgary, AB)
    - Shane & Sara (Edmonton, AB)
    - Dan ("Dusty Rider") & Marilyn (Chilliwack, BC)
    - Nicole & her 2 daughters (Calgary, AB)
    - John (Indianapolis, IN)
    - Jen (Asheville, NC)

We also met some great new friends from Alberta, Ontario and PEI - hopefully they will join us next year!  Let's make T&A2018 the biggest group yet!  Save up now and start buying your sunglasses, masks, and kick ass mullets!

Anita from HR was also there to hand out violations (penalty = a shooter) for anyone ordering drinks at the swim-up bar without wearing the sunglasses.

A few great excursions...

Damajagua Waterfalls in Imbert - after an amazing 45 minute hike up the mountain, we jumped into the cold water - many cliff jumps and slides later, we all had an amazing time.  The Chart even donated some extra money when her pocket ripped and a few fifties floated away.  She's loaded anyway so she wasn't worried.

Sosua - always a win!  Great beach and water.  Snorkelling.  Beach shrimp & fruit.  Boat rides.  Boogie boarding.  Shopping.  Massages (almost saw Vern get 'the complete' right in front of us).  Set a beach record as well with 127 beers purchased.  I blame that on Mark.  Oh ya, and Gayle got pounded by a wave and lost her sunglasses.  We all watched.  Then laughed.  Then went to see if she was OK.  She was.  Her glasses...not so much.

​Here are some pics.  Amazing times with amazing friends.