Three Continents in 24 Hours

Continent #1 - Asia

The kids were done with school, Mark got home from work, I had wrapped presents and packed all day and we were ready to head off on our first adventure from KAUST.  We were all excited except for the fact that our plane didn't leave until 11:05 pm.  A friend from church had offered to let us park our car near his home because the Jeddah airport doesn't have long term parking - weird but true.  So we left somewhere around 6:00 and headed south to Jeddah.  I dislike driving in Jeddah because it's so crazy but I particularly disklike it around rush hour.  So this was not a pleasant trip and my eyes were closed quite often.  But we made it safely!

We were all hungry but thought we'd stop somewhere on the way to get some food.  I've probably said this before but it's kind of hard to get around Jeddah and if you want to get to something on the other side of the road, you often have to drive a couple of km to turn around to get there and then do the same thing on your way back.  So as we drove, everything of any interest in the food category was on the left hand side of the road.  We knew there was a McDonald's close to our friend's home so we decided to just stop there and as we pulled up...guess what time it was....prayer time....and we were sad because we wouldn't be able to get any food for 30-40 minutes.  Hungry kids stuffed in a car for 30 minutes was not a good idea so we drove to our friends house, dropped them off and headed back to McDonald's.  We waited in the drive thru line until they opened again, got a bunch of cheeseburgers and fries and went back.

Then off to the airport.  It was a little later in the evening and our friend Alex, knows better ways to get places since he lives in Jeddah and he got us to the airport easily.  We checked in and headed off to wait for our flight. 

Continent #2 - Africa


We landed in Cairo about 1:00 am local time (2:00 Jeddah time).  Our flight to Athens didn't leave until 10:30 am the next morning so I had booked a night at the Marriott so we could sleep a little better and not be exhausted before we left.  Our luggage was checked all the way to Athens, we had gotten a shuttle from the Marriott scheduled, got our VISAs easily and went through immigration quickly.  It was probably only about 45 minutes after we landed that we were checking into our hotel! 

The hotel was gorgeous - decked out for Christmas.  We were sad that we weren't able to enjoy it very long.

Alex at the JW Marriott - Cairo 

Christmas tree at the JW Marriott - Cairo 

 A view from the window in the morning

A funny thing happened, our friends the Ketcheson's ended up being at the same hotel as us in Cairo.  They came down in the morning to see us at breakfast.  They were headed to Peru for the holidays when their flight through London was cancelled due to the terrible weather that Europe was experiencing.  They had to totally refigure out their flights and then ended up still leaving Saudi Arabia on Monday and spending a few days in Cairo before flying out on Christmas Eve on the rest of their journey.  We enjoyed seeing them and it was fun to know someone else so far from home!

 All of us with the Ketcheson's - David, Belky, Elena and Victoria

We headed back to the airport and boarded our flight to Athens.  A few things that I've noticed when we're flying internationally rather than in the states are:

• Often there are no jetways - you take a shuttle to the plane and then up the stairs to board.
• No fees for luggage
• Meals are always served and you don't have to pay for them

Continent #3 - Europe

We arrived in Athens about 12:30 pm local time and got our luggage easily after going through immigration - nice that no VISA is required for US citizens! So the next step was to find our apartment. I rented an apartment though VRBO.com which we always used when going to Florida. This was our first experience using it internationally and it was definitely acceptable. We found our way to the metro station at the airport and got our tickets.

Alex in front of the picture of a "hot dog" plane

near the metro station in Athens airport.

We knew which stop we needed to get off the metro but once we got off we were a little lost.  Our street maps never quite matched the street signs because of the Greek letters.  We knew we were near the President Hotel and a nice man nearby told us the general direction.  We headed that way and were soon walking down tiny little streets with 5 kids, backpacks and 3 pieces of rolling luggage.  While we had been at the airport, we decided to buy a couple of SIM cards to use in Mark's and Megan's phone while we were in Athens.  It was relatively inexpensive (5 EUR for the sim card and we put 20 EUR credit on each).  This was very handy because I ended up calling the gentleman who had rented us the apartment.  He came down and met us and we were soon there.  In hindsight, it wasn't that bad, but in the middle of all of it after a long trip, we were all a little cranky.  We soon got over it though.

The apartment was located in the Ambelokipi area and was fairly close to the metro stations, some shopping and restaurants also.  It was a small 3 bedroom apartment and I mean everything was small!  There was enough sleeping space, but the dishwasher was tiny with only one rack and there is was a small washer/dryer.  I'll tell a little side story now even though it happened later in the week.  I always pack for our family like I will be doing laundry somewhere in the middle - it is difficult to pack for 7 people everything you will need for a week without taking tons of luggage which we don't like to do.  So I "assumed" that the dryer would actually dry the clothes but our rentor informs me when we get there that the dryer doesn't work very well and he would never use it.  Well, when he said it doesn't work very well...he meant that it doesn't work at all.  I left clothes in there for maybe 3 hours and they were still very damp.  Everyone must hang their clothes out to dry but I was not happy because for a family of 7, that is A LOT of clothes.  Plus to really get them dry, it took like 2 days!  I'm pretty sure I could not live like that :-)  We washed the minimum that we needed and that was that.  Most of the light switches were outside of the rooms and there were no electrical outlets in the bathrooms so I had to use my curling iron in the hallway while using the bathroom mirror - kind of amusing.  All in all, the apartment was nice enough and had what we needed plus it was less expensive than 2 hotel rooms in Athens - so I would do it again but I would pack more clothes!

Here are some views from our apartment balconies (there were 2 balconies)

Our first night in Athens, we headed out to find some good food for dinner.  We headed up to the shopping area near our apartment and we were finally invited in to a restaurant (we would soon find that is standard practice in Greece).  Neither of the two men working there spoke english, but luckily the menu had english information on it so we communicated well enough.  We ordered many things, Megan really enjoyed the french fries with cheese and BACON on it :-)  The little kids ordered hamburgers which were nothing like hamburgers in the states and they didn't really like them.  I had souvlaki which was awesome and I can't remember what Mark and Spencer ordered.  The funniest thing was that we were sitting waiting for our food in this little restaurant and all of a sudden the waiter walks in the front door from outside and brings in the salad.  All of the food ended up coming in that way and we finally figured out that the kitchen for this restaurant was actually next door. 

For those of you who have been to a Greek restaurant in the Detroit area or in Greektown, you probably have experienced saganaki where they light the cheese on fire and yell "OPA!".  Well, we asked about saganaki here and they do have it but it's basically just fried cheese (which is still very tasty) but no fire and no "OPA!".  They looked at us like we were a little crazy when we asked about it - hahaha!

Greek salads in Greece do not have lettuce -

veggies and a big chunk of feta - YUM!

 Rachel and the hamburgers she didn't like

but the fries were good!

The sign outside the first Greek restaurant we ate at -

we have no idea what it says!

Well, that was the end of the first 24 hours....more to come soon....thanks for reading!

Al Balad

Last night Mark, Megan and I, along with our friend Belky, headed into Jeddah tonight to go shopping at Al Balad.  This section of Jeddah is near the city center and contains lots of these little shops called "souks".  Mark left work early at about 4 pm so he could drive us down to the city.  This shopping area is only open late in the day so there is no point to head down there any earlier than this.  In general, it is not acceptable to take pictures with people in them unless you have permission to take them so we don't take a lot of pictures when we go into Jeddah.  So here is a little blurb and a picture from a publication here at KAUST about this area. 

Known by many as a shopper's paradise, the various souks of Al Balad ("the town" in Arabic) offer the adventurer everything from gold to frankincense and electronics to abayas.  Starting at Nassief House, look beyond the shops and meander through the narrow alleyways lined with three- to five-story buildings harking back to the days when Jeddah was a walled city and just four gates allowing restricted access.  Constructed of coral and clay, the height of the centuries-old buildings provided the residents daytime shade on the ground and rooftop breezes in the evenings.  Unique wooden shades on the balconies provided ventilation and privacy while still affording those inside a good view of the street.

On the way down, we spotted an On the Border and since there is not a lot of Mexican food here, we had to stop and have dinner.  We arrived right at the end of prayer time which was perfect and we were seated and had a really nice dinner. 

That's our car in front of the restaurant.

Some of the guys that Mark works with recommended that we park a little ways away from Al Balad and take a taxi in.  The streets are very narrow in that section of town and it's hard to find parking.  Although Megan really didn't want to take a taxi (even though she had never been in one), we decided that it was the best option.  So we asked our very nice Philipino server where was the best place to get a taxi.  Next thing we knew, he was out on the street trying to wave one down for us.  Although he was not successful (very busy street), we thanked him generously.  He recommended that we drive down a little further where there was a mall and we would easily be able to find one there.  When you get a taxi in the city, you bargain the price before you leave for your destination.  The servers at On the Border told us that they will try to charge you 20 SAR ($5.33) but we should only pay 15 SAR ($4).

So we hopped in the car and drove down the street a little ways to a mall - I can't remember how to pronounce the name of it and definitely wouldn't spell it correctly so I'm not even going to try.  We got a taxi and bargained for our ride to Al Balad, hopped in the car and off we went.  Our taxi driver was Pakistan and was a very friendly man asking us where we were from.  He spoke a little english but not very much.  It was a little bit of an exciting ride as it always in Jeddah and he dropped us off in front of the Corniche Building which houses a bunch of shops on the bottom floor.  You walk through and you are in this amazing shopping area.  It is definitely NOT a mall.  The streets and walkways are concrete and very uneven.  And all the shop owners are trying to get you to come and look at their wares.  They will call out to you "Sister, this one is...." and show you what they are trying to sell.

A rack full of abayas

Our main goal was to purchase Megan an abaya as she has been wearing one that we borrowed from Belky.  She wanted something that had tighter sleeves around the wrist and something that looked "young".  We must have looked at 9 or 10 different shops until she found one that she liked in a small size.    She finally picked one out but it was a little long so the shop owner cut and hemmed it for her while we waited.  We paid 80 SAR for her abaya ($21) which was WAY less than what I paid for mine at the mall.  I snapped a picture of Lizzie wearing it this morning because Megan wouldn't model it for me.  She liked the colors on the sleeves and you can see the sleeves have a sheer black with the pattern continued underneath it.  The scarf comes with the abaya and is trimmed in the same colorful fabric although we haven't ever worn the scarf.

After we purchased the abaya, we just did a little more shopping for the holidays.  I bought a couple of presents to send back to the states, some additional presents that I can't mention in case my kids read this, a cute yellow pair of shoes for Megan for 35 SAR ($9.33), and tennis shoes for Spencer 45 SAR ($12).  We were approached constantly by many different men selling the exact same cologne and many beggar women asking for money.  You have to say a firm no when you're not interested in something but the shopkeepers will keep showing you different things they want to sell.  And you always need to ask for a discount.  If they say no, you can start walking away and they will usually give you one.  I'm not that great at the bargaining yet but Belky does really well so she helped us out!  I will have to learn this fine art.

So when we were done shopping, we had to find our way back to a place that we could pick up a taxi.  We found one and again bargained for our ride back to where we parked our car.  At first the driver wanted 30 SAR and we said no and he came down to 20 SAR.  This ride back again was interesting.  We went on all these backroads to get back to the mall and then had to cross a street with no light and cars coming in all different directions.  Thankfully we made it across safely - yikes!  We stopped in the restroom at the mall and then got in the car to head back to KAUST.  We stopped on the street on the way out to snap a picture of King Fahd's fountain which is the largest fountain in the world.  It shoots water 1024 feet above the Red Sea.

Not a great picture because we weren't that close but you can see a couple other pictures on wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Fahd's_Fountain

I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season!  It still doesn't quite feel like Christmas here.  We have a small tree and stockings hung up but no snow or cold weather just is very different (not that I'm complaining).  Only a couple more weeks until the kids are out of school for winter break and we head off on our holiday to Athens!  Can't wait!

Thanks for reading!!!

Variety Night at KAUST

Tonight was the 2nd Annual KAUST School Variety Night put on by the Harbor Secondary School here on the KAUST campus.  The Secondary School is grade 6 through grade 12 and is the school that Spencer and Megan attend.  They didn't participate but we all attended to show support for our school and our community.  It was a very nice evening.  There were 12 acts - both musical and dance.  The kids did wonderfully despite some small problems with the microphones.  The kids were from all over the world which made it very interesting - everything from Hip Hop to Indian dancing to lots of songs that you all would probably recognize from current popular music.

I guess the most interesting thing for me tonight wasn't so much the acts - although they were fun and very enjoyable - but it was a nice feeling being part of this community.  The Variety Night was held at the cinema on campus which also has a stage.  Megan left early, rode her bike and met up with some of her friends to attend.  Spencer had Scouts tonight so he met up with them and they rode their bikes up to the cinema.  Mark rode his bike over from work and met us and my friend Belky met up with me and the triplets to enjoy the show.  I think it's so funny that the triplets seem truly amazed when we are out and about on campus that they know people.  "Hey Mom - that's so and so from my class" ...."Hey, I know that guy."...it's pretty funny.  Campus is not all that big and you see people you know everywhere you go - the market, Discovery Square (our little "downtown" area), the Sports Club.  So for as difficult as it is to live here sometimes, I do really like the small community feel here and the wonderful people that I've met from all over and am really enjoying getting to know!

Hajj / Eid

Very recently was the Hajj which is the Muslim annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which all Muslims are expected to make at least once in their lifetime.  If you are interested in more information about Hajj, Wikipedia has some good info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj.  We are currently located about an hour north of Jeddah and Mecca is a little east of Jeddah.  Due to the Hajj and the corresponding Eid holiday, Mark and the kids had the week off of work and school.  Since we arrived early in October, we really didn't have time to plan a trip during the holiday so we stayed on campus.  Most people left on vacation for the week which I'm sure we'll do next year.  It was very quiet here on campus during the week - even quieter than normal.

Our sea shipment arrived on the Monday of our holiday week so that was nice since we got the kids bikes and a lot of their other belongings.  We still haven't unpacked everything but I don't have bookshelves or very many places to store things here.  I'm glad to finally have my kitchen equipment though (tupperware mostly).  Since Rachel's bike didn't get shipped over, we decided to head into Jeddah to get here a bike.  Just Mark and I and the girls went since we needed to have room to put the bike in the car.  So off we went about 5:00 in the evening.  You don't go in during the day when it's a holiday because most stores don't open.  The shops and malls are packed and traffic is crazy in the evening with all the visitors to the city.  As we were driving into Jeddah, it became prayer time (Muslims are commanded to pray 5 times a day and the times are very specific).  One of the most interesting things that we saw was the people that would pull over to the side of the road, get out their prayer mat and say their prayers on the side of the road.  Since we're driving through the desert and there aren't a lot of places to stop, you often seen men stopped on the side of the road "using the restroom" also :-) 

So we went to the Roshon mall (one of the many malls in Jeddah) because it has a Toys R Us.  Before we looked for a bike though, we spotted a Chili's and craving something American, we went in to have dinner.  If there weren't women dressed in Abayas, you would have thought you were in the states.  The menus were in English - no arabic to be found - and the food was pretty much the same.  There was also a Fuddrucker's right next to it.  Here's a picture of me and the girls in front of Chili's - Megan and I are wearing our abayas.  Mine pretty much looks like a black graduation robe but I've included a picture of the back of it so you'll see that it's not so plain.  A lot of abayas are decorated with designs and stones and they now have white abayas that are becoming popular in Jeddah.  I think I've said this before, but Jeddah is more liberal than other cities in KSA, such as Riyadh.  We still do see women with their faces partially covered (you can see just their eyes) and some even with a full veil where you cannot see any of their face.

We also looked for a dishwashwer that same night.  The dishwasher that is provided in the home is really just pathetic.  If you talk to pretty much anyone on campus, noone uses it.  Now, doing dishes by hand, is probably my least favorite chore in the whole world.  And there are 7 of us, so there are a lot of dishes and cups.  I think I told Mark that if I didn't have a good dishwasher, I was going to go back to the states :-)  So the next night, we went again to Jeddah to look for a dishwasher.  This time we took everyone but Spencer - he's not a shopping fan!  We were looking for a few other electronic things also - a transformer (convert 220 to 120 so we can use our American applicances) and a mouse for Spencer's MacBook.  We did a little shopping and then prayer time started.  At this particular store, we did not have to leave, but they dim the lights, you can still shop, but you can't check out during prayer time.  We needed to talk to someone about the dishwasher so we waited through prayer time and then got my new Bosch dishwasher!!!  Yeah!  It even fit well in the car with all of us so we could take it home that night.

After we did that, we headed to the attached mall to get some dinner.  We ate in the food court at a place called Al Baik (pronounced al bake I think) - it is a chicken place - comparable to KFC but not really the same.  Mark likes to call it "al beak" because it's serves chicken - hahahaha.  After dinner we went in search of an iPhone for Megan.  We still have yet to track one down - the iPhone 4 is still new here and kind of hard to find.  We made one last stop at a place called Ice Land.  I was hoping that it would have a nice rink and possibly someone that could work with the girls for skating.  I was pretty disappointed - it's another mall type place with an ice rink in the middle - it's not very big and not even as nice as some of the other malls.  So I don't think we'll take them there to skate.  There are other malls that are closer that have rinks for the girls to try out. 

On the drive home, we stopped at what would loosely be called a rest stop near the secuity checkpoint outside of Jeddah.  It is really like a shopping area with little restaurants and shops - some open air and some in buildings.  I do not like driving past this rest stop in general because there are no on and off ramps for it. You just pull off and on directly from the freeway and when it is crowded, it is absolutely nuts.  Well at Ice Land, we had gotten the kids a treat for the ride home and they were all thirsty and I had no water in the car (which I should have all the time).  So Mark stopped at this area to get some water bottles.  He pulled up to this area that looked like a parking area - there are no lines for parking and people just park anywhere but there were 4 or 5 cars in a line so it looks like a parking spot.  We stayed in the car while he got the water.  In front of us there was a lane for cars that were leaving to get through.  This guy pulls up in front of us in this lane, stops, puts his car in park and gets out of his car to shop, effectively blocking the 2 or 3 cars behind him that were leaving.  They all started honking and this guy just totally ignored them.  I was just cracking up but what's funny is that kind of behavior doesn't seem to be out of place.  Anyways, I could tell tons of driving stories (they have way too many round-abouts here) but I won't bore you with them.  In general, if I never had to be in a car in Jeddah, I think I would never miss it.

One morning during the break, Mark got up early and headed out on the road to Madina because he heard that there were baboons out that way and he wanted to get some pictures.  Lizzie wasn't feeling well and I didn't want to get her up early and the other kids didn't want to get up early either - although later Spencer said he would have gone - oh well.  So here are some of the pictures. 

Someone in another car had given this baboon a bag of potato chips.  He liked them and was not going to share with the other baboon. 

Momma and baby

A baboon crossing sign

Another morning of the holiday, we took a breakfast cruise on the Red Sea from the KAUST marina.  We didn't go very far, but it was nice to be out on the water and we got a nice view of the campus and neighboring Thuwal from the boat.  I was surprised at how shallow the sea was so far from shore.  The boat had to be very careful to go on a specific route to avoid all the sand bars that were in the water.

 The KAUST Beacon

A view of our beach

A silly picture of Spencer (he doesn't like to have his picture taken and

he'll probably be mad that I posted this one) 

 KAUST Campus

The marina building - there is a good restaurant here too!

I think that catches you up on our life over the past month.  The kids are back to school and Mark is back to work.  We're looking forward to spending our Christmas in Athens, Greece.  I am excited to see all the history in that city.  Thanks for reading!!

Where to start???

It's been quite a while since I last posted.  I've been extremely busy with work (it's our busy time of year) and I think I'm having a hard time getting adjusted to living here.  I'm feeling a bit frustrated with how difficult it is to get things done and to get things I need for the house.  The house is another bit of contention as it is way too small for 7 people and we're waiting to move to a bigger home somewhere on campus.  No one can give us any idea how long it will be before one is ready and we may be able to move.  So I wait patiently (or not so patiently).

But even though there are difficulties, there are some wonderful and interesting things here also.  So I will try to share some of our experiences over the last month.

Let's start with Halloween...Halloween is not normally celebrated here in KSA but here at KAUST, there was an organized Halloween party and trick-or-treating for the kids.  It's mostly for the younger kids so Spencer and Megan didn't really participate.  It's funny because the kids kept asking when we could go "get" their costumes and I had to keep reminding them that there was nowhere to "get" a costume and that we had to be creative.  The girls had their skating outfits so they were pretty easy.  Alex couldn't think of anything so I suggested he be "static cling".  He wasn't really happy about it but it was different and easy so that's what he did.  He ended up winning the prize for most creative costume in his age group...I told him that his mom doesn't always make dumb suggestions :-)

One morning I received an email from one of the triplet's teachers requesting parents to help out on a field trip to the KAUST Museum.  Since I've never had kids in school before and been on a "real" field trip I offered to go with them.  I didn't have high expectations for this museum because the university is so new and still pretty small.  I walked away though being highly impressed.  It's a small museum that covers the history of Science and Technology in Islam and was very interesting and put together nicely.  There were a lot of hands on exhibits and an interesting interactive movie also.  Lizzie was in my group with one other little girl named Aya and we walked around and found answers to the questions that the teachers had put together for the kids.  It was a very enjoyable morning!

On the day of the field trip, Spencer and Megan had parent/teacher conferences and acutally had the day off.  Mark and I headed over to the school that afternoon and got to meet all (or most) of their teachers.  They both seem to be adjusting well and are catching up with what they missed at the beginning of the school year.

One of the biggest things that we did this past month was to buy a car - finally!  Buying a car here is really an experience.  Mark and I had gone down to Jeddah and we visited a couple of dealerships and finally decided to buy a GMC Acadia.  We had considered a Suburban but since it was more money, I didn't really want to drive a big huge car around campus and we won't be taking many major road trips.  It's interesting because the dealerships here are not run on commission so no one is in a huge hurry to sell you a car.  We spoke with a salesperson to find the price and then we left.  You can do financing through some dealerships but it is not the norm and you usually bring cash or a check before they will order the vehicle.  So deciding how to get the money here was difficult - we had thought about transferring money from the states and then when we found out that that took 5-10 business days we thought that was too long and Mark went to the bank here to get a loan.  We didn't need to finance a whole lot because we had quite a bit of the amount we needed but we thought, let's get the loan and just pay off in a couple months.   Well getting the loan took almost 2 weeks :-)  Like I said - nothing is fast here.  Finally we had cash in hand and headed to the dealership.  We arrived there on Thursday (think Sat) at about 1 pm - right when they close for the afternoon.  I was not happy!  There were some people still there shopping and talking to salesmen so we waited a little bit and then headed out.  As we got into our car, a salesman came out and asked if we needed help!  Yeah!!!  So we went back in and paid for the car, registration, window tinting and insurance (all to the same person).  We walked away with a paper saying that we would have our car on Monday - en shallah (God willing).  God must have been willing because Mark went down to Jeddah to pick up our new car on Monday evening!!! 

That same evening, Mark decided he wanted to get us some food from this Pakastani restaurant called Zim Zam in the city of Thuwal which is the closest city (if you can call it that) to KAUST.  He has gone to this restaurant many times with his coworkers and had really enjoyed it so he wanted to have us try it.  We couldn't go to the restaurant because it is not a family restaurant (meaning no women).  So he went there to order "take away" (this is what they say for carry out).  This place is pretty much a dive and I don't think I would want to eat there anyways - yikes!  Note the backhoe at the front of the restaurant which Mark said drove away before they left :-)

We invited our friends David and Belky and their little girls over to eat with us.  The bread was incredible when it was warm - not as great after it cools down.  The food was really good - I'm not sure exactly what the spices were but it was rice, chicken and lentils mostly.  It was very greasy though and I woke up in the middle of the night with heartburn and couldn't sleep.  So even though it was tasty, I'm not sure I'll be eating that again or maybe just the yummy bread!  Here's a picture of Victoria with the bread that's almost as big as she is!

This is getting long so I'm going to continue on in another post.  If you're still reading, I hope you're enjoying because it is fun for me to write and document our experiences on this adventure!

Red Sea and Juice

First, the Read Sea...it's Thursday (meaning Saturday) and Mark wanted to head over to the beach to do some wind surfing.  It ended up to be a little too windy for a beginning wind surfer so Mark and the kids just spent some time in the water.  I snapped a few pictures before the battery on my camera went dead.

Mark, Spencer, Megan, Rachel and Alex decided to walk out to this "island" that is really like a large sand bar and not difficult to get to.  Lizzie didn't want to go so we were going to start heading home since the wind picked up.  Lizzie and I had gotten about 1/2 way back to the scooter when Rachel and Alex came running back to us because it was getting windy and a sand storm was picking up.  So I sent them to the car and had to go back to the beach to get our keys.  While I was there, one of the Coastline guys (the company that runs the beach) asked me if I needed help because they were getting everyone off the beach.  They had told Mark and the kids that they needed to come in.  He drove me back to the car where the triplets were hiding their faces against the car to keep out of the sand.  They looked so pathetic that it was kind of cute.  We hopped in the car and the triplets and I waited for the rest of the family. 

Luckily, another nice Coastline guy picked Mark, Spencer and Megan back to the car.  It was pretty much full sandstorm winds now and the people that worked there were all wearing face masks so as not to breathe the sand.  Since we still have a rental car and it only seats 5, Mark had to ride the scooter back to the house.  It was pretty windy and sandy but he made it just fine.  The rest of us smushed in the car to get home. 

So now on to the juice.....one of our favorite things about moving to Saudi Arabia is all the great juices that you can find her and how inexpensive they are.  These are only a few of the juices you can find in our little grocery store on campus.   In Jeddah, there are big stores that only sell juice, we've will defintely be visiting one of those soon!

Strawberry and Mango are our favorites and these big bottles cost 9 SAR which is  $2.40.

Megan is sad that these are empty :'-(

These little (single serve) bottles are

orange, mango,

mixed berry, mixed fruit

and apple and cost 1 SAR

which is about 27 cents.

Sandstorms and More...

It's been a while since I've posted and a lot has happened and nothing has happened too.  We're still getting settled into KAUST and adjusted to our new home.  The kids have started school and they are enjoying their new adventure.  They seem to be making friends and getting used to being gone all day and then having homework at night.  I think I'm having the hardest time adjusting since I'm home by myself most of the day.  I've started working out which is good and I'm trying to get used to a new work schedule.  Here are some pictures of the first day of school.

Spencer started 8th grade - we weren't extremely about them putting him in 8th grade but they base it only on age and the cutoff is Sept 1.  There was no evaluation on where he stood as far as academics so we're just keeping an eye on him so he doesn't get bored.  He tells me right now that Science is really easy and Math is review for him right now.  After a few more weeks, I'll see where he is doing and then approach the counselors if we think we need to.  Megan started 7th grade and is making friends with a lot of the girls.  They had a birthday party for a couple of the girls this week at the Rec Center and Megan went and had a great time.  Rachel, Alexander and Lizzie started 3rd grade and all have different teachers.  So they have time alone but then get to be together during lunch and recess.  They seem to like it so far which I'm very happy about. 

Mark and I have been shopping for a car.  I think we've decided on a GMC Acadia - it will seat all 7 of us but isn't huge for me to drive around campus (and fit in the garage).  We're working on getting all the money together since they don't do financing here like they do in the states - it is a very "cash" society.  I've barely touched my credit cards since I've been here which is odd because at home I would not carry very much cash, put everything on the card and pay it off at the end of the month.  Hopefully, we'll have a car here in the next couple weeks - that's probably wishful thinking on my part as it seems to take twice as long as you would hope it would! 

We've been to church twice now.  We meet at a home in Jeddah so it is an hour drive there and back.  We are allowed to meet here in KSA but we are not allowed to invite non-members to our meetings.  There are a list of rules that are read at church every quarter to remind everyone about how we should conduct our meetings here.  It is a nice ward - mostly Philipinos but a couple American families also.  The first week we went there was a primary activity right after church.  The kids baked cookies with their moms and we all had a treat. 

Alex, Ethan and Lillibeth 

 The woman on the right is Belky and she lives on the KAUST campus.

 Lizzie and Elena (Belky's daughter) on the right

Rachel, Abby and Erin (I don't know the little girl's name on the left)

Last Friday, we had what is called a Family Day after church which is basically a pot luck.  I have never been to a pot luck like this!!!  So much food - there was turkey and all sorts of rice and "something" dishes which were probably mostly Philipino.  Tons of desserts and Lillibeth made homemade spring rolls that were just so unbelievably good!  She is planning to teach my friend Melissa how to make them after she has here baby and they invited me to come!!!  I've never seen so much food for the people that were there.  It's nice though because a lot of the members of the ward are single men or men here without their families - so they get to fill up a plate and take it home with them.  I think they probably could take home 3 or 4 plates!

Today, Lizzie didn't have a great morning before she went to school and Mark was trying to get her to cheer up.  He snapped this picture of her on the way to school.  She's so cute when she has an attitude - I'm hoping that the attitude cleared up before she got to school!



And now....sandstorms....they are not quite what I imagined.  The weather here has been really hot and actually not as humid the past 2 days.  That's probably because of all the sand in the air.  Yesterday afternoon the kids didn't do some of their outside activities because of the sandstorm.  I went to work out this morning and on the way home, I stopped at the grocery store, Tamimi's, to pick up a few things for the day.  When I came out, we were in full sandstorm mode.  It's not like you can't see anything (and maybe this isn't a real bad one) but it's just kind of creepy looking.  It's really hazy and you have to be careful not to get the sand in your eyes.  I snapped these pictures when I got home from the store.

I've promised some people pictures of me in my abaya and I promise that I'll post that next time - I don't have any pictures yet.  We miss all of our family and friends and hope you are well!

Thanks for reading!