After Thanksgiving Chiara planned a really fun activity to do. We made caramel apples. The adults dipped the apples and then the kids got to decorate them however they wanted. It was great fun, our only regret is that Papa and I forgot to eat our apples and we really wanted to do that. Since I was helping the kids, someone else was taking pictures with my camera. Here is what I ended us with.
This is Chiara making the caramel with Marissa helping. This is Marissa and I seeing how things work. Here is Kenny with his apple. This is Landan, sorry about the missing head, great apple though. This is me helping Nathan with his apple. Way to go Chiara, maybe next year we can make gingerbread houses as an activity.
We arrived in Houston after a 31 hour trip, this included an 8 hour layover in Frankfurt, very tired but excited to see the kids. Ken picked us up at the airport and we headed back to the Yeates home. James still remembered his Eppie. I was really thrilled about that.
He also loved to play with his Papa.
We relaxed for a bit and visited before heading to Jon & Cassie's for a short visit.
There we had a great time with Hailey. She loves books and conned (haha) Papa into reading to her. He love that.
Thanksgiving Day we had a wonderful time with the kids and grandkids. This picture is the best I could get of most of the grandkids on the sofa. Marissa brought hats for the boys to wear. They were really cute. It was so much fun watching them enjoy themselves and each other.
Hailey and Norah were so cute together reading a book.
We gave the kids our Christmas presents while we were there. This is the only picture that I got of them opening their gifts. Mostly they received Arabic stuff from us.
Mike surprised me this Christmas with jewelry. I totally love it, he is the best. Thanks Honey, I love you.
Here is a picture of the set he bought. A necklace, earrings, and ring. This is a close up of the necklace. This is a picture of me showing the necklace.
Tonight the doorbell rang and this is what we saw. Our door step full of carolers. Michael surprised me by arranging for them to come by. It was great fun. Here is a short video of part of Silent Night.
We have a Christmas Tree in our home. We didn't brings any decorations with us so didn't expect to have anything up for the holidays. But a friend was leaving for the whole month and said that we could use her tree. So we started with a tree that had lights on it.
I remembered that I had some silver ribbon and tied bows and some of the branches, also I had been given one ornament by a friends so that was put on top. And this is what we had. Then another friend said she had a very small tree and more balls than she needed. She loaned them to me and I took some more ribbon to hang them with and this is what we have now. I also had some Christmas fabric that I put down for the skirt and there you have our decorations for the holidays in Saudi Arabia.
We are back in Saudi Arabia now after a wonderful 2 week vacation to see our kids and grandkids. I have lots to post and tell about. Right now I am still trying to get over the jet lag thing.
I used to think it was just an excuse people used. Not true, IT IS REAL!!! We found that flying from here to the US is easy, no problems. But it is a whole different story flying from the US to here. Hopefully I am back to normal by tomorrow, then I can begin to update my pictures and post what is happening.
This morning when I opened the curtains I noticed it looked different. This was why. There were clouds in the sky. In fact it was an overcast day completely. This may seem a strange thing to take a picture of, but when you live in the land of eternal sunshine it was quite an event.
The house across the street has had these guys over for the last few days painting, I 'm not sure what. Mostly I see them mixing paint and sitting in the shade talking. Today at lunch this is what I saw.
The nights have gotten cooler here lately. So what do you do when you don't have a blanket to add to your bed. No problem. Just use a curtain. Works great.
I have been asked if I like it here and what I do all day. A friend here said that a man once told her that if he believed in reincarnation he wanted to come back as an Aramcon Wife. Well here is a sample of what I did this past week, maybe that is why.
Saturday-cleaned house; took nap; sewed; took nap; chorus practice for singing the Messiah
Sunday-Khobar shopping with friends; took nap; Arabic class with Mike
Monday-cleaned house; sewed on quiet books; Quilt Guild Meeting; took nap
Tuesday-sewed Block of the Month for Quilt Guild; went to lunch with friends; took nap; cut out drapes for living room; Arabic class with Mike
Wednesday-went to private (garage/yard) sale with friend; sewed; read; took nap; line dancing with Mike
As you can see I manage to stay busy. The best part is I do what I want when I want. Oh, I did manage to cook dinner a couple of times and clean house a bit and do some laundry. You know the mundane housewife chores.
You tell me what there is not to love about living here.
The above picture is a workshop I took at Quilt Guild. I am really proud of them.
This has become Mike's latest hobby. He spent last Thursday (our Saturday) buying plants and planting this cactus garden. Of course his "hobby" is still the yard even though we have a gardener to take care of it on a regular basis for us. For Mike the best part is the planning and planting anyway.
Today he is off to see the row of nurseries along the road north toward Ras Tunura (a sister compound). I elected to stay home so he had "more room for plants".
This ship the "Saudi Diriyah" is the cargo vessel carrying our shipment here. Yesterday we discovered the name of the ship and I have been doing some tracking. On Oct 7, 2009 the ship was in the port of Said, Egypt. It is due to dock in Dammam, Saudi Arabia on about 24 Oct. Customs can take up to two weeks.
So we should get out things in about 3 weeks from now. Yea!!!!!!!!!!!
Tonight Mike and I are going to play Rook with some friends. I thought I would take some cookies along as a snack. This first picture is of the Baking Soda and Vanilla that I use here. Yes the vanilla is powder. Here is a picture of my "cookie sheet". Yes it is the bottom of my cake pan. This is another example of invention. The cookies taste great, wish I could share them with you. They are Chiara's recipe.
Our first couple of weeks here I was reminded how inventive and creative we can be when required. Aramco furnishes the house and kitchen with the basic things you need until your shipment comes. That usually takes about 3 months.
So in my kitchen we were given 1 sm sauce pan with lid, 1 medium sauce pan with lid, 1 large skillet and large stock pot with shared lid. Also we were given the basic set of untility items, spatula, large spoon, large slotted spoon, ladle, meat for, and potato masher. And then there is the basic dishes, 8 each of teaspoons and forks, 4 each of table spoons and butter knives. Then they include a set of 5 knives of various sizes from paring to carving and bread size. Lastly there is a 4 place setting of dinner plates, salad plates, cup/saucers, and bowls; and then 6 SMALL juice glasses for dinking.
About the second night here I decided to make spaghetti for dinner. We had purchesed a can of spaghetti sauce. I took the large pot and began to boil the noodles, no problem here. Then I took out the medium sauce pan to heat up the sauce. That is where the problems began.
We didn't have a can opener. Now what do we do. Well this is where the inventive part comes in. I had a very small pocket knife and samll scissors in my luggage. I used the scissors to puncture a hole in the can then proceded to cut it open. Not the greatest but worked fine.
We knew there were a few things we would need from the store. So we took the bus to the mall the next day and purchased a can opener, while there I thought why not buy a 9x13 cake pan, just in case we needed one. Also we picked up a cheese grater. With these items we thought we were set for the next 3 months. WRONG!!!
I thought I would make a list of a few meals we would like to make and get the ingredients next time we went grocery shopping. One dish I wanted to make was "Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole" (thinks Chiara, we really love that dish).
We get to the store and I am telling Mike what we need to pick up. When I tell him that we need ham he just gives me a funny look and says, "Really, ham in Saudi Arabia?" Thats when I remembered that there is no pork here. Well not to be out done we went to the deli counter and found some smoked turkey and bought that. This worked perfectly, you can't even tell the difference.
The recipe also calls for instant rice, couldn't find that either so we bought regular rice and decided to substitute there also. Then on home(see Grocery Shopping in Khobar).
When I began to make dinner I realized that I didn't have any mixing bowls. No problem, I would just use the pot I boiled the chicken. Worked great. For the rice I cooked it for only about 5 minutes then added it to the casserole, that worked great also.
Now came time to put the dish in the pan. I had made only a half recipe as we didn't need a so much for just two people. So I only needed an 8x8 pan. Well, we don't have one. Once again the old brain begins to work on how to solve this problem.
No problem, I had aluminum foil. I lined half of the cake pan to make into as smaller size. This also worked great. We had our dinner and loved it. It has become a favorite of ours.
Sorry I didn't take any pictures, that part of my brain was not working that night.
Since then the RS Pres gave me access to a couple of tubs of things that had been left by people who had left and didn't want to take them home. I have added a few extra things to make the kitchen a little easier to work in. But the adventure still continues and we love it all the time.
Yesterday the SAEA (Saudi Aramco Employees Association) had what they call the "Fall Mall". This was held in one of the main buildings on camp and various shops from the area were invited to come display their wares for people to shop.
Mike and I decided to go check it out. We had a good time, we kept running into people that we know. There were some people from camp that set up their own booths, we purchased baked goods from a couple of them.
The one thing we did do was spend a great deal of our time there looking at and talking to the owner of the display with carpets. We have wanted to purchase a couple of carpets for the house. You can get much better carpets here than at home at a better price.
We found about 3 or 4 that we liked but couldn't feel good about the price, or were not completely sold. Then the owner started bringing out other carpets for us to see. About the 3rd one that he showed us I fell in love with.
It is a silk carpet with a cotton base. It feels so wonderful under foot. We ended up purchasing this one. It is about 6 feet by 4 feet in size. We currently have it in the entrance to the living room.
We will decide where we want to put it after our shipment comes and arrange our furniture. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of our newest addition to our home.
The reason for the difference in color is the direction the carpet is viewed from. Also from one angle there is more light shining then from the other.
Our first week here we decided to adventure into Khobar and go to the grocery store. The camp has a bus that goes to downtown Khobar with a stop at Tamimi (Safeway) at the end. I got a ride from a friend to the dining hall where I met Mike. We ate dinner then went to catch the shoppers bus into town.
We liked the store better than the commisary on camp. It was a bit cheaper and had better meat choices. We finished our shopping and went to catch the bus back to camp.
Since we didn't have a car we had to carry all our purchases in our hands. I had taken a large canvas beach bag to help carry things. We put about half of the groceries into this bag and I carried it while Mike carried about 3 or 4 other bags. They use a much thicker plastic here so all the bags are very sturdy.
When we got back to camp we realized that neither one of us had brought the numbers for the taxi service on camp. So Mike decided that we would just walk home. Nothing on camp is really very far so under good conditions this could be a very pleasant walk.
Of course this night was not pleasant conditions. First it was still hot, I wasn't wearing shoes for a long walk, we were not completely sure of the way home, and to make matters even more interesting I had to go to the bathroom really really really bad the whole way.
We started out fine but the farther we walked the heavier my bag seemed to get. I didn't understand why since we had divided the bags up evenly at the store.
Just before we got home, I looked closer at the bags Mike was carrying. His bags had, crackers, cereal, bread, a couple of cans of good, some pasta, and chocolate chips, etc.
My bag had all the meat, all the canned goods. So it ended up with me carrying most of the heavy good and Mike with most of the lighter ones. What an experience.
Needless to say we learned a lot that evening. After we got home, Mike got out the map and realized that we had missed a turn and taken the extra long route to get home. At least we had groceries for a while.
Life here runs very different from life in the US. First the work week runs Saturday through Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are the weekends.
In all Muslim countries Friday is the Holy Day, so here is Saudi they use Thursday and Friday as the weekend. Most other Muslim countries use Friday and Saturday as their weekend. there is prayer call 5 times a day. We don't here them except for the last two of the day the one at sunset and the one at night.
There is what is called a work haul bus that picks employees up in the mornings and takes them to work. It also runs in the mid day to take they who wish home for lunch. then it brings them back at the end of the work day. Mike gets picked up and dropped of right in front of the house. He leaves about 6:30 in the mornings and is home by 4:30 in the evenings.
There are circuit buses that run on a schedule to carry people around the camp, but we haven't have much success with them as yet. Alos they have shopping buses that take you off camp to the shopping malls and groceries stores in town. Women use these mostly during the day as we are not allowed to drive in town. We can drive anywhere on camp we need or want to go.
There are also taxis that are very cheap to take you around. They only cost about $2.50 for a single trip.
We are on the eastern edge of the time zone so it gets light every early in the morning and dark by about 6:00 at night. we are also right beside a Saudi Military base. The planes fly right over our house when they take off and land. So sometimes during the day I hear these jets screaming overhead. It really adds to the exotic feel of the place. But I love it here. It is a really great life for me.
This is the outside of our new home here in Saudi Arabia. It is much more house than we were expecting. Those are date palm trees in front of the house, the one on the right is loaded with about 5 bunches of dates. Mike is hoping to get them harvested for us. When you enter the door the first thing is the large living room on the right. Right now it is furnished with Aramco Furniture. As you can see this furniture is from the 70's. It feels a bit like a cabin in the woods but works fine until our shipment comes.
On the left inside the door is the dining room. It is plenty big enough for our table and hutch. I will be glad when I finally get to put my furniture in here.
Behind the dining room is the kitchen. It is so much bigger than the one in the apartment. I do like it. Not much in there right now. We get very few dishes supplied here but we are making do, more on that later.
Off the kitchen is a family room. We plan to put a loveseat, two chairs and my computer in there.
There are three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. The master bedroom is quite large, with avery large walkin closet. We have plenty of room for our bedroom furniture and also my glide rocker here in this room.
One of the extra bedrooms with be Mike's office. We plan to continue renting a single bed from Aramco to keep in there. The other bedroom will be my sewing. It is large enough to hold my sewing machine, craft table (even opened up full) and the day bed. I am really excited about that.
Both bathrooms are quite large, with tub/shower combos, toilet, bidet, and double sinks. The master room had a linen closet it it.
We feel very lucky with the house we were assigned. We didn't expect quite that much space. We do enjoy the house a lot. We have been spending the last couple of weeks painting come of the rooms to make it more personal to us, more on that later.
Now to continue our trip with arrival in Saudi Arabia. Sorry, but I was not allowed to take pictures at the airport but it isn't much different than any other airport you might see.
We landed about 8:30pm local time, I was glad because finally the long trip would be over. Little did I know that there was still another 3-4 hours before I would be at my new home.
After we deplaned we had a very, very, very, very, very,(get the idea), long walk to get to immigration. This was our first stop in the airport. Here there were only about 3 windows, 1 window for Forgein citizens, and the other two for everyone else. Of course we were in the single window line.
It seemed that most of the flight was in our line. After about 15 minutes another window was opened for each side and our line was split. That put us closer to the front, about 5 people back. Yea! maybe this won't take long at all (my misguided thoughts). we were still there for at least another hour or more waiting our turn.
I don't think the official wanted to be working thebooth, because he spent most of his time on the phone talking while he was processing people. When it was finally our turn Mike was processed rather quickly, but they had trouble getting the computer to read my fingerprinits.
Yes we were fingerprinted at the airport. They have this really neat optical reader that you press your fingers on, a green light shows if the fingers are pressed properly. I had all green lights but for some reason the computer wasn't cooperating. Finally we got my fingerprints and moved forward.
The next section we were met by a representative from the company who was our driver. A porter came and helped us load our bags on a cart. With immigration taking as long as it did there was no wait for our luggage. It was already through and removed from the carosel. We loaded our luggage on the cart and headed for customs.
I thought this part would take a long time because they would have to inspect our luggage. Well, all they did was x-ray it and we passed right through. Our porter put the luggage on the conveyor belt and picked it up on the other side. There were no problems. That was great.
Our next stop was the Aramco offices at the airport. We had paperwork to do there. We turned in our passports, reeceived our temporary ID badges. These were yellow and only good for about 3 weeks. We were given the papers we needed to begin the process of getting to permanent residence status. Our visa's were a one time only visitor visa.
This took about 30 minutes. Then we were ready to leave. We followed the driver to the car, loaded our luggage, paid the porter and headed for Dhahran Camp where we were dropped off at our new home.
We went inside, unloaded our luggage and finally went to bed at about 12:30am. Mostly the time at the airport was hurry up and wait. But we finally got to our home. But more about that tomorrow.
I notice that blogger is still showing the time of my posts as Houston time, not Saudi time. Just so you know, I am not up in the middle of the night posting, it is 8hours later here than the time shown. I haven't figured how to change the time stamp on the blog yet.
I finally have internet at home. It is dial-up and slow, I can't use my webcam or VOIP yet but at least I have internet, for which I am glad. Now I can begin to update with our adventures here.
I have a hard time remembering that we have only been here for 3 weeks. Sometimes it seems much longer and other times it seem much shorter. I have so much already to post, so I will start from the beginning, our trip.
On Saturday, August 8, 2009 we left Houston Intercontinental Airport about 7:30pm for the first leg of our flight to our new home in Saudi Arabia. Our flight on KLM was an all business class flight. It was a 737 plane that had been outfitted with only business class seats. It only held about 48 seats total. Out flight wasn't quite full so there was lots of room and a very relaxing flight.
Our flight was almost 10 hours to Amsterdam, our first and only stop. One of the first things after takeoff, was they brought a drink and cup of mixed nuts, also a menu to make our choices for dinner and breakfast.
Next they brought out individual TV's with headphones. These had music videos, some TV programing, and regular movies to be watched. Michael and I were watching movies when they brought our dinner.
Dinner was a three course meal. It started with a salad and lobster appetizer plate, followed by the main course of your choice, then a choice of desserts. It was a very good dinner which we enjoyed very much.
After dinner we settled down to try to sleep. These seats reclined to make it easier to sleep. They didn't lay quite flat though. Mike was able to sleep for a while, I on the other had couldn't so I finally watched a couple episodes of MASH and then another movie.
About 2 hours outside of Amsterdam they brought hot towels to wipe our faces and hands, and then breakfast. It was again a very good meal. When done, it was time to land in Amsterdam.
We only had about a 45 minute layover here and had to change planes. Luckily we didn't have to recheck our luggage as it was checked all the way to Saudi Arabia. We did have to walk a ways to the next gate and then go through security again.
This leg of the trip was on a Airbus 330 and lasted about 6 hours. Even though the business class could hold up to 16 people there were only about 7 there. But the coach section was packed. I don't think there was an empty seat anywhere.
I liked these seats much better. After lunch I felt like I could sleep a little and was able to take a 2 hour nap. This flight fed us lunch and then a very good snack. I didn't care for the appetizer on the lunch but liked my meal very much. I also had a quesadilla for snack before landing and it was quite good also.
Finally we landed in Dammam Airport. I thought that the hard part of the trip was over but little did I know that the fun was only just beginning.
Hello folks. I have not fallen off the face of the earth yet. I just now have access to the internet. sorry no pictures of details yet. I am at the library using the computer. We still don't have internet at home yet but are still working on that. I can now use the library to access email and read your blogs.
Just wanted everyone to know that I am here and settling in just fine. I have been keeping a journal to blog about, so when I finally get home internet and can add pictures you will see a lot of entries.
Just wanted to say I haven't forgotten anyone and miss ya'll lots. Keep looking for more information later. I will do what I can until I get home internet.
Tomorrow we head out on our newest adventure. We leave tomorrow night for Saudi Arabia. It had been a very busy last few weeks getting ready to go. Because I have to ship my computer, I will not be able to post for a couple of weeks. I will put up pictures of packing and the move when I get settled.
We get to travel on KLM airlines. We have about a 10 hour from Houston to Amsterdam. There we have about a 45 minute layover to change planes, then another 6 hours to get to Dammam. The thing making such a long trip a big more comfortable is that the company is flying us Business Class. So we will have more room to hopefully get some sleep on the flight over.
The past 17 months have been a real roller coaster ride for us. For a brief recap, Mike's company went into a joint venture with Basell in January 2008. This added a lot of traveling for him the first half of the year. He spent a lot of time in Europe, mainly Germany.
By January 2009, the company ended up in Bankruptcy. This put a new twist on our lives. Not sure if the company would survive or if he would have a job, we began earnest prayer to know what we should do. Well, we ended up selling the house and moving into an apartment.
When the company began to offer voluntary severance packages we had new things to think about. Mike began thinking about looking for another job. Late January I heard about a job fair for a company that was hiring in his field. I suggested that he consider it. The only possible hitch was that the job is in Saudia Arabia with Aramco Services.
Well he ended up with an interview with a promise of another interview with the boss. After the interviews time passed and nothing happened. Then the company offered another severance option. Mike decided to take the severance on faith, even though we didn't have a job to go to. The very next day we got a contigent offer from Aramco.
After a few weeks of getting tons of paper work done we have a job. We are moving to Saudi Arabia on August 8th to work for Aramco.
I am really excited about the move in so many ways. It will be a wonderful opportunity. We will have the chance to travel, see so many exciting things. Also we will be able to get ourselves better prepared for retirement and going on missions.
Our plan is to stay until mandatory retirement at age 60. That means about 6 1/2 years there. We will be able to travel back a lot to see family.
The main down side is that we will have Chiara, Ken and boys; and Jon, Cassie and Hailey living here in Friendswood area, Marrisa, Kevin and boys in Austin, David, Katherine and Norah in San Antonio. Mike and Ashlyn and girls will be in Phoenix. I will miss spending time with the grandkids here in Friendswood, but plan to come back very ofter for visits.
So once again things are getting very busy for us. We only have about 6 weeks before we leave. There is sorting stuff, giving away stuff, storing stuff and packing stuff, that needs to be done. Since the move will essentially be in three stages there is a lot of sorting of the things we are taking.
First we have to decide what to take on the plane with us. This won't be very much as we are limited by the amount of luggage we can take. Mainly these things will have to last at about 3-4 weeks. At that time we should receive our e-boxes.
We get two e-boxes to ship. These are small boxes that are considered unaccompanied air freight. They should arrive in the 3-4 week time span. This is where we put things we need to make life a little more comfortable. But we can't ship very much in them. Mainly, computer, sewing machine and projects, etc. These boxes aren't very big.
Finally the main body of our things will be shipped surface freight. This means a ship. We are allowed to ship up to 10,000 lbs of goods. This will be all our furniture and things to make life there more like home for us.
Even though there is a lot of work, I am looking forward to this new opportunity. I plan to take as many pictures as I can and post often on what our life is like.
This week I embark on a great adventure. Chiara wants to go visit Mimi and Papa since Ken can't go with her and she doesn't like to drive, I voluteered to be the driver. So on Thursday, we all pile into her van, Me, Daughter, 3 grandsons, ages 6, 4, and 4 months.
It should be a fun trip. It had been a while since I have made a trip with little kids. I used to travel with all 5 of my children every year. Mike would have to work, so I would take the kids and go visit my parents each summer. We always had a great time.
I remember packing each child individual backpacks with special toys just for the trip. I would put a cooler in the car with drinks and snacks to help also. We sang song a lot to help pass the time before they were old enough to read or play other car games.
Of course we listened to my music a lot. They all grew up knowing my favorite singers/groups. John Denver, Marty Robbins, Simon & Garfunkel, Neal Diamond are just a few of that we listened to on the trips.
So now Chiara and I are preparing for a another two day road trip with three little boys. The preprations are a bit different though. She had a DVD player in her van. Therefore in addition to new books, toys, snacks, drinks, and music, we have added DVD's for the kids to watch.
The beach at the resort was beautiful, but there was a problem with erosion. The solution was the following picture. those are not rock or boulders in the water. They are giant sand bags. Most of the beach infront of the hotels along the area had these huge sand bags. We did take a walk father along the beach where there were no resorts and found this area without the sand bags. I spend the entire week resting on the beach in front of the resort, either sleeping in the hammock or on the beach couches. Of course I also did a lot of reading. Finished 2 books during the week. This is a view of where we spend our days. Quite a comfortable place to relax. We would go to the beach, reserve our chairs/couches, then go to the buffet for breakfast. After eating we returned to the beach to relax. There were waiters that spent their day bringing cool drinks so we didn't have to get up for anything. At lunch time we went to the buffet for lunch and immediately returned to the beach to relax until time to get ready for dinner. Not a bad life really. Of course Mike's idea of relaxing was either walking up and down the beach, playing beach vollyball, or..... checking his email at work on his Blackberry. He did manage to relax some and get a little reading done.
Every night we went to a different restaurant at the resort for dinner.
After the busy January and February that we had (selling the house, sorting our things, cleaning the house, packing the house, moving to an apartment, helping our daughter recover from having a baby) we took the first week of March and went to Playa del Carmen in Mexico for our annual vacation. It was a great trip. Very relaxing which is what I wanted most. Here are some pictures of our trip.
These three are our hotel room, the balcony to our room, and the view from the balcony. Very nice. Beautiful weather too. These iguanas were all over the place. They came out during the morning to sun. They were absolutely everywhere, and there were lots of them. This is an animal that only came out at night. It was very hard to get a picture, they were very skittish. Their fur almost looked like feathers sometimes. They had no tails. There were quite a few of them also. There was also a beautiful peacock but the only time we saw it I didn't have my camera of course.
This is Marissa and I seeing how things work.
Here is Kenny with his apple.
This is Landan, sorry about the missing head, great apple though.
This is me helping Nathan with his apple.
Way to go Chiara, maybe next year we can make gingerbread houses as an activity.
He also loved to play with his Papa.
We relaxed for a bit and visited before heading to Jon & Cassie's for a short visit.
There we had a great time with Hailey. She loves books and conned (haha) Papa into reading to her. He love that.
Thanksgiving Day we had a wonderful time with the kids and grandkids. This picture is the best I could get of most of the grandkids on the sofa. Marissa brought hats for the boys to wear. They were really cute. It was so much fun watching them enjoy themselves and each other.
Hailey and Norah were so cute together reading a book.
We gave the kids our Christmas presents while we were there. This is the only picture that I got of them opening their gifts. Mostly they received Arabic stuff from us.
This is a close up of the necklace.
This is a picture of me showing the necklace.
Tonight the doorbell rang and this is what we saw. Our door step full of carolers. Michael surprised me by arranging for them to come by. It was great fun. Here is a short video of part of Silent Night.
Then another friend said she had a very small tree and more balls than she needed. She loaned them to me and I took some more ribbon to hang them with and this is what we have now.
I also had some Christmas fabric that I put down for the skirt and there you have our decorations for the holidays in Saudi Arabia.
We are back in Saudi Arabia now after a wonderful 2 week vacation to see our kids and grandkids. I have lots to post and tell about. Right now I am still trying to get over the jet lag thing.
This morning when I opened the curtains I noticed it looked different. This was why. There were clouds in the sky. In fact it was an overcast day completely. This may seem a strange thing to take a picture of, but when you live in the land of eternal sunshine it was quite an event.
The house across the street has had these guys over for the last few days painting, I 'm not sure what. Mostly I see them mixing paint and sitting in the shade talking. Today at lunch this is what I saw. 
I have been asked if I like it here and what I do all day. A friend here said that a man once told her that if he believed in reincarnation he wanted to come back as an Aramcon Wife. Well here is a sample of what I did this past week, maybe that is why. 
I decided to have blueberry muffins for breakfast today. This is what happens when you don't have a muffin pan to use. They taste just a great though.
This has become Mike's latest hobby. He spent last Thursday (our Saturday) buying plants and planting this cactus garden. Of course his "hobby" is still the yard even though we have a gardener to take care of it on a regular basis for us. For Mike the best part is the planning and planting anyway.
This ship the "Saudi Diriyah" is the cargo vessel carrying our shipment here. Yesterday we discovered the name of the ship and I have been doing some tracking. On Oct 7, 2009 the ship was in the port of Said, Egypt. It is due to dock in Dammam, Saudi Arabia on about 24 Oct. Customs can take up to two weeks. 
When you enter the door the first thing is the large living room on the right. Right now it is furnished with Aramco Furniture. As you can see this furniture is from the 70's. It feels a bit like a cabin in the woods but works fine until our shipment comes.
On the left inside the door is the dining room. It is plenty big enough for our table and hutch. I will be glad when I finally get to put my furniture in here.
Behind the dining room is the kitchen. It is so much bigger than the one in the apartment. I do like it. Not much in there right now. We get very few dishes supplied here but we are making do, more on that later.
There are three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. The master bedroom is quite large, with avery large walkin closet. We have plenty of room for our bedroom furniture and also my glide rocker here in this room. 
Tomorrow we head out on our newest adventure. We leave tomorrow night for Saudi Arabia. It had been a very busy last few weeks getting ready to go. Because I have to ship my computer, I will not be able to post for a couple of weeks. I will put up pictures of packing and the move when I get settled. 
I received this quiz link in an email from my sister. It really is fun. the average correct is 7 out of 25 total questions. I got a 23. Good Luck
This week I embark on a great adventure. Chiara wants to go visit Mimi and Papa since Ken can't go with her and she doesn't like to drive, I voluteered to be the driver. So on Thursday, we all pile into her van, Me, Daughter, 3 grandsons, ages 6, 4, and 4 months.
We did take a walk father along the beach where there were no resorts and found this area without the sand bags. 
I spend the entire week resting on the beach in front of the resort, either sleeping in the hammock
or on the beach couches. Of course I also did a lot of reading. Finished 2 books during the week.
This is a view of where we spend our days. Quite a comfortable place to relax. We would go to the beach, reserve our chairs/couches, then go to the buffet for breakfast. After eating we returned to the beach to relax. There were waiters that spent their day bringing cool drinks so we didn't have to get up for anything. At lunch time we went to the buffet for lunch and immediately returned to the beach to relax until time to get ready for dinner. Not a bad life really.
Of course Mike's idea of relaxing was either walking up and down the beach, playing beach vollyball, or.....
checking his email at work on his Blackberry. He did manage to relax some and get a little reading done. 
These iguanas were all over the place. They came out during the morning to sun. They were absolutely everywhere, and there were lots of them.
This is an animal that only came out at night. It was very hard to get a picture, they were very skittish. Their fur almost looked like feathers sometimes. They had no tails. There were quite a few of them also. There was also a beautiful peacock but the only time we saw it I didn't have my camera of course.
