The first weekend of 2011.

Took my ‘in lieu’ New Years Day holiday on 6th Jan and made my first weekend for 2011 a long one. And what a weekend it was! To begin with, I procrastinated my ‘regimen resolution’ and then took the boys outdoors, where they had a great time.

The ‘regimen resolution’ breakers, all of which we tried for the first time were:

• A late (North Indian) lunch at the Taj Palace next to the Mannai Roundabout, which was just okay;
• Cone pizzas and Pasta from a Hands Pizza Cart at Dream Park inside the Doha Zoo, which were good: and finally,
• A dinner comprising of one of the best platters of assorted Kebabs and Barbecued Ribs that I have ever had in my life from the Take Away Restaurant at Al Sadd. They have great tasting Kebabs and even greater tasting sauce along with it. A must have. 

On Thursday evening, we were lazing on our 'one of those usual' boat rides at the Doha Corniche with some peppy Hindi music playing on the stereo when we got this wonderful surprise. We were thrown right into the mouth of one of the best fireworks shows launched from the little Palm Tree Island. At one point of time, the pyrotechnics was right above our boat and the Coast Guard had to come by to shoo-shoo us away. The show was great. Yohan, who usually is very animated on a boat ride was awestruck and Kevin eventually got possessed by some wild energy and was seen making weird parikramas in the boat. Each one of us except for our two year old Yo, who was taken agape enjoyed it, thoroughly.

Although Yohan didn’t enjoy the fire crackers, he had a field day when we took the boys to the Doha Zoo the next day. The temperature outside was just around 20 °C and what a day it was for outdoors. Yohan was running around helter-skelter throughtout the Zoo screaming "Zebaa", "Giaff", "Mukky" in his sweet kiddy language and Kevin on other hand had two firsts; he posed with a snake and took his first ever solo paddle boat ride (albeit it was in a 2x2 pool!) . All in all, another good outdoors for the boys.


The last point worth mentioning is the lady's achievement. She posed with an Ostrich.

:-)