The last three weekends have been busy, but very fun. They included tennis, lots of it, and my first ever mile swim in the ocean. The fun began on February 14, also known as Oregon’s birthday, with the Lumineers concert in Dubai. It was a very good show! I had no idea they played so many different instruments. They had tiny keyboards, accordions, xylophones and so much more. They were wonderful. If you have the chance to see them, you must.
The following day I headed to the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Center for the first day of women’s qualifications. I specifically went to see Flavia Penetta and Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who were of course playing the first and last matches, respectively.
Flavia is a solid player and made it to the quarter-finals where I got to watch her again, unfortunately she was beat by Venus Williams.
Bethanie Mattek-Sands is easy to identify with her “rock star” persona. You won’t see many people on the tour with purple hair. (By the way, if anyone knows where I can get some tops like Bethanie’s, I would really love to know!)
I returned the following weekend to watch some more tennis. This time catching both Williams sisters, Caroline Wozniaki and a few others. There were some amazing matches.
Venus played beautifully, she went on to win the tournament. 
I was lucky to be sitting close enough to hear Serena scold a line judge for not calling a ball out, when it so very clearly was. 
The women’s matches were great! I have a new favorite player on the tour as well, Alize Cornet–keep your eyes out for her, tennis fans!
The following weekend (also known as weekend #3) saw the men in action. I was excited to be able to see both Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and Roger Federer play.
Tsonga has some great ball handling skills, I was lucky to catch this shot as he was bouncing the ball on the rim of his racket.
Federer was flawless, played a classic game of tennis. He was just too good, and went on to win the tournament. 
To cap off these three amazing weekends, I participated in the Mina Mile. You may recall, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, that I did this race in the fall. But due to a conflict I was only able to swim the 800m and 400m races. This past weekend however, I skipped the shorter two races and only swam the 1600m. I set my goal time as 35min. But, when I saw everyone was wearing wet suits and I decided to wear long sleeves too, I thought I may not make that time. But I did! 34min 19sec was my official time. It was a good race.
From ojalá to insha'Allah 
Hi Andrea there is a very big horse event in your area have been watching live stream wow what a venue! CHI Al Shaqab Doha 2014 Al Shaqab International Equestrian Festival Have you heard of it?
Hi Saralee! Nope, I haven’t heard about that. But glad you can watch!