Happy Halloween!

We had a surprisingly great Halloween.  I had had no idea what to expect but KAUST put on a nice little party for everyone on the 28th.  This was a Thursday so it was the "Saturday" of our weekend.  The party was from 4-6 and then we went trick or treating.  Houses that welcomed trick or treaters put a Jack-O-Lantern sign on their door.  At the party we got to decorate cookies, make guesses for candy filled jars, paint pumpkins (which were actually very large gourds), and do Halloween arts and crafts.  There were other events happening, but these were the ones we chose to do.  The girls really enjoyed themselves and since it was located in KAUST's day care building the twins got to play on some fun toddler sized play equipment. 

Marcella and Theresa made their beautiful fairy costumes.  All four kids wore green, which believe it or not we did not plan; it just happened, so I guess we had a particularly "go green" Halloween this year!  How fitting since the fairy costumes were made from a recycled school posterboard and other recycled house items like foil. 

My only complaint about the whole thing was the heat.  The evening was actually quite cool but the party was held in and enclosed play area and there were so many people.  Everyone was sweating and practically gasping for air.  I was drenched.  There was just no air moving.  It was so refreshing to be in the open air when we left.  Hopefully next year the festivities will be held in a field or someplace where air can circulate better. 

Casey took the girls trick or treating and I stayed home with the twinners to hand out treats.  There were so many trick or treaters that we actually ran out of candy and had to raid our pantry.  The twins loved running to the door to see the next batch of kids all dressed up.  The girls brought home a nice stash of goodies- KAUST families were very generous!

Two sweet little fairies biking to the party!

Twinner Party Hang Out

Marcella has a loose tooth!  She is so excited about this-it is her first loose tooth.  She has actually "graduated" to a new Arabic class and as a reward her Arabic teacher let her pick a prize.  She chose a little fairy and immediately made this fairy a little fairy house:

Theresa has become quite the little puzzler!  She loves them and now does 100-150 piece puzzles.  She gets home an hour before Marcella so she and I have about 30 minutes of one-on-one time.  We usually play school with her being the teacher.  I love this because she has such a cute little teacher voice and I get to be the good kid.  Sometimes we do puzzles and baking too.  It is a very nice quiet time.  Casey and I really have to work at making alone time for each of the kids so this time is very precious to me.







New Moon

Tomorrow we will have been here a month!  These past few nights we have been enjoying the gorgeous full moon.  All the dust in the air makes it especially dazzling.  Speakng of dust, this is the time of year in SA for dust storms.  They are actually called sand storms here and last week we had two.  Both days we woke up with the weather clear as usual but at 10:00 am each day in blew the sand.  It is literally a cloud of sand that lingers for an hour or more depending on the size.  The first one was the worst.  It brought a tremendous heat with it and so much sand that the pool closed down.  The sand coated everything.  It also dried out the air which in a way was a blessing- we were not sweating so much- but then again we also could not breath due to the smothering heat.  I have never felt such a heat.  It was like opening an oven but not being able to close it.  We were constantly putting on lip balm.  The second sand storm was not so bad and actually blew away the heat so now we are back to the humidity which I prefer.  While most people welcome fall with cooler weather and the changing of leaves, we welcome it with sand storms!  Actually other than that first sand storm day, the temperatures have dropped to the upper 80s and mid 90s and in the evenings it is very nice.

We were not aware that the pool had closed so when we arrived for a swim we had to wait for the finishing cleaning touches.  Luckily the gym was open so we had some fun with balls:

                                                        WOW..that's our Mommy!

                                                               Theresa has a sit.

We finally got to go swim and I could not resist a few pool shots mainly to show off Eleanor's USA suit.  It actually bothers her a lot for some reason.  I think she does not like being the only girl in a two-piece and there was this little string hanging down in the front.  Little strings hanging down can be such a bother!

 Here is a good shot of Eleanor and the bothering string.  It had been cut off in the previous two pics.

Every Wednesday evening we go down to a place called "Discovery Square" and eat out.  We would never do this in the States but here it is a nice place for families to gather and get out after a work week.  We always see other families we know and after dinner we treat ourselves to delicious Baskin Robbins.  The BR here is way cheaper than in the States.  Our whole family can have icecream, large scoops for $8.  This is even cheaper than buying a half gallon of vanillla at the Tamini since in the store the icecream is about $9 for a half gallon.  This past Wednesday we ate at "Pizza Inn."  Note the founding city of Pizza Inn!

Also note Marcella's new look.  She is really working at "blending in with the natives here."

On Thursday while the twins were napping we got real crafty.  Theresa made about six beautiful water color pictures which I will show at a later date.  Marcella made some cute little ghosties and a black cat.

I worked on decor for the twins' room.  Their room is so bare and I have been struggling with what to put on the walls.  I did not want to spend a lot of money but also wanted something meaningful for the twins to look at.  Casey came up with the idea of book characters.  We do soooo much reading here without our toys.  Well, we do a lot even with the toys, but since our arrival I would say reading is what we do the most.  Luckily I brought quite a few books with our luggage and we have been frequenting the library.  What I am doing is copying the twins' favorite book characters from the books we have spents hours reading.  This weekend I did Rosie from "Rosie's Walk" by Pat Hutchins and Dingo Dog from Ricahrd Scarry's "Cars and Trucks, and Things That Go."

"I just can't believe that Dingo.  He is so naughty."

                                                                    "Run Rosie!"

Here are some cute reading pics.  Eleanor loves this dress.  She calls it her Rosie Dress because it has little blue chickens on it (they are actually roosters but gender does not matter here).  The dress was actually made by my Gonka (mom's mother).  It is almost 40 years old since it was sewn for my older sister.  Eleanor is so cuddly in it.

                                       "Here Eleanor, let me blow dry your hair while you read."

Two favorites with Daddy, "Go Trucks" and "Baby Dear."

We wrapped up our weekend with a KAUST sponsored "Kite Festival."  This was another well attended and fun event.  They had face painting, more jumping castles, characters to pose with, and even a trampoline.  Casey's boss' family was there (from Austin area) and his oldest daughter was wearing the same shirt as Eleanor!

                                             Eleanor has a little rest from all the festivities.

Before I go I wanted to update everyone on two things.  First our zinnias have sprouted!  We made signs so that the gardeners won't pull them up and placed an Inukshuk near them. An Inukshuk is a rock pile traditionally built by Native people of the Far North as a landmark for guiding their way home or marking a special place.  Second my story time last week was a success and I am hoping for more people this week.  Casey helped me obtain a $500 grant from Recreation Services as well.  This much needed money will go towards purchasing a cd player, puppets, and other supplemental materials.  I am really enjoying setting this up for the KAUST families.  It is my way of helping build a community here.

Waiting for Our Shipment

Our sea shipment is still not here and from what friends have told us, it may not come for quite awhile.  We shipped it in the beginning of August.  People say it will be like Christmas when we finally do get it and I am beginning to think it will be Christmas when we get it!  I think that the shipment did not leave the States until we actually arrived here.  Casey's coworker and her daughter Jasmine have let us borrow our second batch of toys.  We are so grateful to her.  Here are some of the things we do to pass the time in a community that did not exist 800 days ago:

We have been frequenting the Harbor Public Library each Friday afternoon.

 
I am actually going to start helping out with the storytimes here beginning Tuesday!  I am very excited about this.  The age group is 0-3, so Eben and Eleanor will join me.  My hope is that we will be able to hold two storytimes for this age group a week.  There really is not much in KAUST for this age other than storytime and what we call "The Playroom."  The Playroom was established by the first year moms.  They arrived last October after spending nine weeks in a hotel in Jeddah.  When they finally came, there were no pools or playgrounds so at first they all donated their old toys and eventually got funds to purchase toys for this room.  I take Eben and Eleanor here about twice a week.  We have met two other families from central Texas here.  One comes from Austin and the other San Marcos.  It's truly a small world!

Luckily all of our children are avid readers.  They will spend long periods of time just reading or looking at books.  Both older girls love to read to the twins.

The house is so open and full of tile which makes it quite echo-ee.  I hope that the echos dissipate after all our things are here.  The echos really upset Eleanor in the middle of the night when we first arrived.  Their room in particular is very bare and when she would wake up her screams would be increased due to all the echos.  After a few nights of not being able to console her, we decided to put the maid room mattress in the twin's room.  What a difference this has made.  Their room is way less echo-ee and has a great "plumping" mattress to play on:

We love reading and just having little relaxes here.

There are many nice parks and open spaces here as well. Each play area is surrounded by either soccer or cricket fields.  Unfortuantely all the playgrounds are as of yet under the open sky, so we only go play on them in the evenings after dinner.  The building with the "playroom" actually has two covered playgrounds but alas, we have a slight issue with these.  The playgrounds here have some sort of untreated recycled tire mats and the kids get covered in black when we go there.  I do take the twins to these once or twice a week in the morning and then we go home to bath.  The schools also have these recycled tire mats on their playgrounds and Marcella and Theresa need their shoes washed frequently.  

The open air playgrounds do not have the tire mats.  They either have the sand that I love so much, straight from the beach with nice sharp coral and shell pieces or grass.  We tend to play on the grass playgrounds the most.

Below, Marcella is demonstrating the handy "pout benches."

Since we mostly go in the evenings it gets dark while we are playing.  All parks/open areas are well lit.  The kids love playing when it gets dark.  By the way, it gets dark here at about 6:00 in the evening and light at about 6:00 in the morning.

Another thing we do a lot of is crafts.  The twins love drawing with crayons and markers.  We usually do this while Marcella is working on her homework.  After she gets home from school we have snack and then do homework.  It is a nice time when the kids and I are all at the table doing our work.  Sarah and Mary helped us to establish this good habit.  Sarah and Mary walk home to Oma's from school and after snack do their homework.  We would work with them while we were staying at Oma's for the month before we came to KAUST.  Thank you girls!  I actually found plums for the first time at the Tamini (they came from Italy). We had some for snack the other day and it reminded me of our snack time with you two!

Now back to our crafts....the girls have made so many wonderful creations.  An alphabet wall and sock dolls are a few:

The sock doll idea came from the Nuckels.  They had a friend who made Katie a sock doll. Marcella remembered this and asked if we could do the same.  The dolls are made from five socks and are stuffed with three of Casey's old T-shirts.  Their clothes are made from some old shirts of mine.  We plan on making some more clothes with bandanas.  Marcella is sewing shoes for her doll in the above picture.  Theresa named her doll Charlotte, but has been known to change this to Rose.  Sometimes the doll is a boy too.  Marcella calls her doll Annabel.  The day after we made the dolls we went to the library and found a great book on making things for your doll!  We were not even looking for such a book, but there it was on top of a shelf.  Incredible!  The book is called Things to Make for Your Doll by Kathy Ross.  The ideas are simple and can be completed with mostly common household items.  Some of the neat ideas are a doll picture frame from flip top lids, a hermit crab for your doll (perfect for us), and a wardrobe and hangers. 

Beach Fun

On Friday we went to the beach again and had a fabulous time.  The tide was low and there were so many new things to see like jellyfish and crabs.  We saw so many hermit crabs in all sizes and we saw larger crabs.  We were all ready to depart and had made the trek to the showers when we discovered they were not working due to too much sand that the plumbing could not handle.  The attendants ushered us to the lovely beach bathrooms; typical of a public beach bathroom in the states only newer.  Well, neither the men's nor the women's showers were working.  I take that back, they were working but spraying water all over the place.  Instead of walking all the way back to the sea we decided just to go for it.  I must tell you Marcella had just given herself a nice sand bath before leaving the beach.  Anyways, we did a remarkable job of getting sand all over the bus and our house and ended up showering at home so I am expecting a nice plumbing overflow anyday now.  We also had to rinse the toys in our utility sink at home because our house (and all others in the Island District) have no hoses...

For some reason all the sand made me a little irritable and I just needed some time to myself so Casey took the kids to do some site seeing around campus.

Afterwards he made a fabulous Middle Eastern dinner of Red Snapper, Couscous Tabbouleh Salad, and fresh green beans with almonds.  It was fantastic- one of the best meals we've had.  After putting the kids to bed we watched another Star Wars episode.  We are making our way through all the episodes, in chronological order. 

We also went bowling for the for the first time this weekend.  It turned out to be a lot of fun and all the kids enjoyed it for about 45 minutes, which we thought was pretty good.  Casey and I actually got to play a real game in between helping the kids.  Eben and Theresa had the most fun, but Eleanor scored the highest.

Eben LOVED the shoes

Here we see Theresa anxiously watching her ball while Eben does a dance we call "The Theresa" because she initiated this move as a toddler.

Family Fun Night

Last Thursday night KAUST hosted a Family Fun Night.  It turned out to be a lot of fun and gave us a chance to see more of our neighbors.  The night was very well organzied.  There were four jumping castles, many characters walking around, and three acts: a magic show, fire show, and acrobats.  The entire time they played kid family music like Hokey Pokey, Disney songs, and even the Chicken Dance!  The magic show was very well done by a professional named Chris Boom from Jeddah.  Two men did tricks with fire sticks.  They were actually putting kerosine in their mouths to do their tricks; it was unbelievable.  The acrobats were amazing.  It was actually more like breakdancing.  Most impressive was when one of them skid aross the stage on his head!  It was so funny because when the acrobats were ready to start the music playng was Twinkle Twinkle and the announcer had to repeatedly ask the DJ to change the music to something a little more acrobatic appropriate, "They cannot do acrobatics to this Twinkle, Twinkle." 

This is a picture of the rugs put out for people to pray when they needed to.....

                 .....just kidding (that was bad, but I had actually thought that was what they were for).  Really they were for people to sit on and eat or just take in the sites. 

The trash cans were cute little characters like this dolphin.

This was a crazy alliagator jumping castle.  Marcella was very brave and went in it.  The mouth opened and closed; no way would I have gotten in that thing.  Talk about claustrophobic!

                                                                           Bye-Bye

My Birthday

Thank you sooooo much for all the sweet and cool cards and wishes!  Casey and the girls did everything to make sure my day was perfect and it was, even despite our second plumbing leak...

The pipes installed here are evidently not large enough and the workers disposed of items like concrete, plastic bags, and T-shirts in them while building the houses.  This is baffling to me, but true.  Apparently the first contrator has been dismissed and the new houses have a different contractor.  We have had two overflows downstairs so far.  Other families have the same and say it will get less as time goes on.  After the first one we were asked if our kids "put T-shirts down the toilet?"  Ummmm, noooooo.  A huge mound of sand and other gunk was pulled out with this overflow.  The second overflow happened on the morning of my birthday and after this one we were told not to flush toilet paper down the toilet.  Okay everyone, we are not flushing TP anymore.  I much prefer taking out a plastic bag than having to deal with overflows.  The workers say it is only washing machine water, but the smell tells us otherwise.  They are actually quite prompt in responding to our calls for overflow intervention and we get a free cleaning after the event. 

Since the fourth we have not had another overflow (knock on wood).  Theresa is excellent at checking toilets and declaring whether or not Marcella put the TP in the toilet or the trash.  She also is great at reporting that she always puts it in the trash.  Marcella is having difficulty remembering this new procedure (can you blame her?) and likes to tell us that Eben keeps putting TP in the toilet when she is in there....

Anyways, here are birthday pics sans any overflow pics.

The girls made me an adorable rolling pin and cookie sheet with cookies!  I loved it.  I also got zinnia seeds which we will be planting soon.  My sister, Mary has the best luck with these and if we are successful in our planting we hope to bring people we vist or know a bouquet, just as she does in Texas. 

We're Here!!!

Wow, and that's about all we can say...Wow.  How do we begin to describe our experiences here?  Our move has encompassed so much, it is hard to organize one's thoughts now that I am finally beginning my blog.  The purpose of my blog is to provide a written record of our adventure for family, friends, and ourselves.  After we are done here I plan to "publish" these thoughts and pictures into a book for us to remember this all by. 

I'll begin with the flight.  We left Austin at 11:30am on Sunday, Sept. 26th.  Casey's brother, Cody, kindly dropped us off at the airport and we made it through the checkpoints without any problems.  Eben was the only one who got most disturbed during this first flight to Washington D.C.  The problem was he wanted his own seat, but that was not possible.  Eventually he fell asleep in the back of the plane with me.  Eleanor napped in Daddy's arms and Marcella and Theresa enjoyed PBJs and goldfish.  In DC we had about an hour and a half before boarding the big jet to Saudi so we spent that time being awed by other planes and enjoying a pricey milkshake or two. 

We were afraid at first that the next flight was going to be disastrous but this was not the case.  In fact we could not have asked for better behaved children!  Eben was a little anxious at first, during take off, but settled right down once we were in ther air.  Our first flight had been crowded and we had flown coach.  This flight we were in Business and what a difference!  The seats recline all the way, we got warm, moist towelettes, dates, tea, and our very own baby care set and travel bags.  These latter two items provided our girls and twins with much to do.  We really did not use anything we had brought on board "to do" other than books and toy cars.  The trip was just not that eventful.  Our dinner was served on china, we could choose our own movies and games to play, and had plenty of room to get up and stretch.  After about three hours of flying, the kiddos were ready to sleep and sleep they did.  Eben was graciously given an extra seat to sleep in while Eleanor was given her own "plane crib."  An airplane crib is a little collapsable box with a pillow and blanket.  She slept like a doll with her little popo up in the air.  I could kick myself for not taking a picture but hopefully she will sleep in one again at Christmas. :)
We made it through customs no problem in Jeddah and then were driven to Kaust and by 2:30 we were in our new home!  During the drive to Kaust we actually saw a herd of camels and unbelievably- lots of sand!  During a game of "I Spy" Theresa spied, you guessed it, something brown!  Here we are on our way to Kaust.

Our first two nights in Kaust were actually quite fun.  We had some great "midnight parties" due to jet lag.  The kids went down both nights at about eight and each night we were greeted by first Eleanor's screams and then Eben's, followed by curious, and wide awake sisters!  After an hour of trying to get everyone 6 and under to understand it was not dinner time, we resigned ourselves to a few hours of fun: popcorn, chocolate milk, music, and games.  We finally all retired "for the night" at about 3:00 and got to sleep till around ten!  When's the last time you got to sleep till 10:00?????

Our sea shipment still has not arrived and is not due to arrive till next week or later.  We entertain ourselves with swimming, school (more about this later) and toys from a fellow Austin coworker, Kelly and her daughter Jasmine.  These two have been so helpful.  Kelly worked with Casey at Sematech and has been here for about a month.  She is very knowledgable with regards to bus routes, shopping, and events.  They chaparoned our first beach trip:

The beach is adjacent to a coral reef actually.  We are only allowed to swim in the central part to help preserve the coral but in the future we would like to take at least Marcella out to snorkel in the coral.  There were no real spectacular shells to be found, but we did find a teeny tiny hermit crab and some neat coral pieces:

Kaust provides these great umbrellas and beach chairs; essential due to the blaring sun.  All the sand has been brought in and another swim beach will be opening within the year.  This beach was about a ten minute bus ride from our house and is supposed to be more of a water sport beach.  The new beach is supposed to be more "family oriented."

Bus ride to the beach:

I'll end today's entry with a few thoughts on food.....The store here is called Tamini.  The girls are so cute and keep calling it HEB.  It is actually about a quarter of the size of HEB.  Some items like spices, are super cheap.  Others like Pepperidge Farm are outrageous.  It is real random in what it provides..the saying here is "you never know."  One week they will have something, like goldfish, and then it's gone, poof, not to be seen for days.  Overall, the store provides all the essentials and we are able to make do.  I actually am enjoying not having everything at my fingertips.  It makes us more creative.

Our first trip there was completely crazy.  We are much better at it now though.  We went as a whole family and actually filled two carts being our first trip.  We thought we would be able to push the carts home and return them later.....well SA does not have the ADA Act.  There we were with four kids, two in a double stroller, and two shopping carts, full.  So funny.  It is pretty much impossible to push the carts around and even the stroller due to all the curbs.  Many people actually do take the carts home, but most of these live closer to Tamini than us.  We live almost a mile a way and of course, it's 110 in the shade here!

It's hard to see, but this is us returning the carts later that night.  So much fun and a little bit cooler.