Moving to Saudi

Our days are becoming busier as we settle into life here in Saudi. We're learning to make this feel as much like home as we can, but it still feels a little strange to all of us, and we miss the familiarity of Georgia, our friends, and our home.

Here is my favorite thing to do: Each desert Friday night, we walk to the pool and eat shawarmas.

Our friends, the Reynertsons, usually walk with us. They have a house in Arizona.

This is my favorite shawarma guy. You can see all the people gathered around waiting for their order to be filled. He's calling out a number.

Reese and Bruce are saving a table for us. The background looks dark because of the flash.

Here you can see better without the flash, but it's a bit blurry. It's a nice little park and playground where we eat.

This is the game room.

Jordan is dressed like a ninja because she's going to her school Halloween dance tonight. She was on the decorating committee because it's a fundraising dance for Habitat for Humanity.

This is mubarak. It's basically an Arabic quesadilla. You can get it filled with all kinds of stuff. I asked for one with meat.

This is what's inside our shawarma - chicken, lettuce, tomato, garlic sauce (mine doesn't have any pickles.)

Ummmmm, good!

Reese's friend, Lana, is here too. She just finished her swim practice and is getting some dinner.

After shawarmas, Bruce drove Jordan and a friend to their school for the Halloween Dance. Here are Jordan's friends at school.

The students are congregating at the entrance after they've gone through security. I didn't think I was allowed to take any pictures of security, but you can see a little bit of it in the background. I have to put my purse through the x-rayer and show my company ID to get in.

Danielle is a phoenix.

This is the entrance to the auditorium.

The little sisters are peeking in at the dance.

These are jack-o-lanterns... aren't they cool? Jordan was on the committee that made these.

This is what they look like at night.

This is what they look like in the day. They're really watermelons spray-painted orange! (It's very difficult to find pumpkins here.)

Reese and Stephanie leaving the dance (she lives across the street from us.)

I took some random pictures of costumes at the dance.

More decorations.

They're waiting in line to go in the haunted house.

Jordan got to bring her pumpkin home after the dance.

October 27, Desert Saturday:

Here is a nearby park. The grounds here are kept very well, and are so pretty.

This is the big walking path that goes around the golf course and around this park.

Since Brooke and Reese miss their Georgia woods, they've discovered this area of trees next to a park. They love to go here with their friends and play make-believe, running around barefoot. They call this Terabithia, after the book.

Brooke is very excited about her part in the Aladdin Panto. Here she is at practice. They are working on some of their dances at the middle school.

As I was walking through the middle school, I took some pictures of the school grounds. It's a pretty school.

This is their library.

While Brooke was at drama practice, Reese and Jordan were competing at their first swim meet this year. There are walls around everything, and this is where we enter the pool for the swim meet. You can see the water slide just inside. Normally, we're not allowed to take pictures at the pool, but today we were. I wonder if it's a modesty issue.

Reese is getting ready for a race. The kids have to sit in the numbered chairs depending what lane they will swim in.

On your mark...

Get set...

And she's off!

There are two pools, and only one is used for the swim meet. Reese doesn't have another race for quite a while, so she is visiting with her friends at the other pool.

Here is Reese swimming the butterfly.

Here is Jordan swimming the butterfly.

Bruce is helping the team out by timing.

These are our good friends from Indiana.

Brooke and Grace are waiting in line to go down the slide.

Here is Reese swimming the backstroke.

Here is Jordan swimming the freestyle.

October 28:

Brooke and Reese are ready to go trick-or-treating at the Hobby Farm (that's where employees keep their horses on camp.) For a couple of dollars and a bag of candy, the members of the Hobby Farm will have games and trick-or-treating as a fund raiser.

Reese remembered to bring her costume from home, but since Brooke wanted to be a genie and we couldn't find a pattern, we used this fabric and put one together today. We wish she could have worn her genie costume from the panto.

October 31, Desert Wednesday:

Here is Jordan getting on her school bus. It's stops in front of our house now to pick her up, and other kids have started coming to our house to wait for it.

We looked out our window this morning and were surprised to see a man climbing our palm tree!

He is trimming our palm trees!

Now for our little palm tree. That trunk is sharp and he's barefoot!

Let's see... what can we do with palm frawns? Well, it is a bit windy today. Leave it to Brooke to be unconventional!

Now they've figured out something else they can do with them... they're going to make an Indian village like they've made at their other houses. Here they are dragging these heavy palm frawns to the rocky area beside our house so the trash men won't throw them away.

It's almost time to trick-or-treat, so we're ready to carve our Indian pumpkin.

Jordan and Nathan are going to Angie's house to hand out candy. Nathan just moved here too... he's from Chicago and lives across the street from us.

This is Nathan, Jordan, and Angie. Angie's been here a while and lives near the pool.

We've been told that we don't live in the popular area to trick-or-treat, but we're ready just in case. Bruce has been in Tanajib for a couple of nights and is flying home today. He'll hand out candy while I go trick-or-treating with Brooke and Reese.

We're ready. There are kids just everywhere! We're going to start walking toward the popular area (it's by the pool.) This is Reese, Tasnim, and Grace.

It was amazingly crowded.

This is Grace, Tasnim, Reese, and Brooke.

Here the security guard is making sure that cars don't drive through the blocked-off streets.

Some kids had amazing costumes. And a lot of kids (not Americans) had no costume at all. I tried taking pictures of the mothers in abayas, but they were just black... you could barely see them. They need to put lights around themselves to be seen!