Well, I made it to the states and back with our dog; and I'm finally over my sinus infection and jet lag and ready to send my blog drafts which have been piling up! Here is our blog from September 15 through October 6.
Thursday, September 15
It's the weekend again (desert Saturday)! We had a nice dinner of shawarmas and pizza at the rec center last night. Brooke and Jordan decided to split a pizza from the snack bar and said it was really good! I'm sure the pepperoni was turkey (no pork allowed.) We shared a table with our friend, Paula, who was also there for a shawarma. We met Paula at the horse farm last spring when she let Jordan ride a horse for her birthday. Paula told us about a group of jr. high kids that meet on desert Sunday nights for fellowship. Brooke will have to check that out tomorrow!
Brooke got a part as a policeman in the Pirates of Penzance! The teachers were not aware that she didn't attend the Jr. High, so they're going to check with the principal to see if she can be in the play.
After shawarmas, we were invited over to our Indiana friends' house around the corner from us. The kids watched a movie while Bruce and I enjoyed some adult conversation. I was surprised how much I missed just sitting and having a conversation with a friend... it's been a while! They are just the nicest people, and we feel very blessed to know them and live on the same street. While I was there, I learned how difficult it is to get a house on the park in our neighborhood, so we feel very blessed to have gotten a house in this neighborhood as well. Bruce has a friend from work who is from Scotland, and his family was placed at another compound and so he has to drive 45 minutes to work each day! They have their own schools, commissary, movie theatre, etc., in that compound. At first the friend was not happy, but I think he has adjusted to it after a year, and his family has settled in. I might be temped to move there only because golf carts are allowed as daily transportation there!
When we awoke on desert Saturday, we surprised the girls with a drive to Bahrain and a day at a water park to celebrate Brooke's 13th birthday! Bruce got discount tickets through the company and we figured that would be a great way to beat the heat. It's a 45-minute drive with several checkpoints to cross the border. We filled up our gas tank for $7 (approx. 45 cents a gallon!), and headed to the border. Bruce knew his way after driving to the airport a week ago. We had to drive across the never-ending causeway and stop at the man-made island in the middle where we had to show our passports, buy insurance, and pay a fee to cross.
http://g.co/maps/9mpb6
Here are some pictures from Saudi to the causeway.
Here are some pictures from the causeway.
We have no idea what this is! At first I thought it was a cup of coffee, but maybe it's oil - ? I don't know.
Everything went smoothly until we hit one of the border checks at 2pm with the lines moving steadily We only had another 20 minutes to drive before we should be there.
But, for some reason, only about 6 cars away, all the lines of cars came to a stop -- for 20 minutes in the unforgiving sun! Our air conditioning started having a hard time and we all began to sweat as we waited... and waited.
And waited...
And sweated... But finally! The cars in front of us start moving and we can see the check point! We haven't made it to the shade yet.
Finally, we're in the shade... a little relief.
Here is what we saw when we finally arrived. A closed window with paper covering it. We couldn't figure out what we were supposed to do. Should we knock? No, they've got to know we're out here! Should we just wait? Let's just wait and see what happens.
After we waited some more... the window opened! We handed the man our passports and watched, as he didn't say a word to us.
We got our passports and we were on our way! Free to drive again!
We're not quite finished yet... here's another check point. We're not sure what this one is for, but I guess we'll find out when we get to the window. It says passports, but I thought we'd already had our passports checked.
There are pictures of the King everywhere we go.
I think this is really the end! Look McDonald's!
Nope, it's another check point. We had to park our car, but only Bruce had to get out.
One more checkpoint?
WE'RE FREE!
Now we are driving off of the island and on our way to Bahrain.
I can see Bahrain now.
We're hot and sweaty and exhausted from the drive!
I love the picture of the family in this advertisement.
You can barely see it, but look at the giant picture of the king (& princes?) on that building!
The water slide! We can see it! It's at the top of this mall.
We are ready to get out of the car and PLAY!
In the mall...
Wahoo Water Park!
Checking in...
We're HERE!!
Into the changing room.
Look at the play pens! You can put your child in here while you change into your swimsuit.
Here you can buy corn instead of cotton candy!
I love the variety of swim wear!
My camera battery died, so I didn't get any pictures of all the cool rides outside; but we had a terrific time here and it was ALMOST worth the drive... not really.
We ate dinner in the food court in the mall, and we were looking forward to all that we'd heard about Bahrain being so different than Saudi and being more westernized, but I didn't get that feeling at all. Almost everyone we saw was dressed in abayas and thobes, and not very many people were wearing western clothing. Bruce thought it might have been because we were in the mall on a desert Saturday night. I felt people staring at our clothing, and we felt very under-dressed. I think I'll bring my abaya next time, just in case. My desire is to share Jesus' love, and that's hard to do if I'm being offensive.
On the way home, we ran into more problems at the check points. It was dark, so the heat wasn't a problem, but the traffic was outrageous. We would try to stay in one lane, but a lane next to us would end and everyone in that lane would try to merge into our lane, but no one would let them. As soon as Bruce would try to let someone in, the cars behind them wouldn't let Bruce go, and then our lane was cut out. It was madness! There were no lane markings at all. At one point, a man actually got out of his car, walked over to us, and asked Bruce to roll down his window. He and Bruce exchanged some angry words, so Bruce rolled up his window. The man was so angry that he hit our window really hard! The girls and I were so afraid. I was wondering if we'd make it home alive! We were so shaken by the time we got home that we had a hard time going to sleep! But... praise God... we're safe and sound, covered by His protection.
Friday, September 18
We enjoyed Friday school today and asked around and found the jr. high evening fellowship for Brooke. She was able to go with a neighbor girl. Jordan goes to the high school group at 10am. She really enjoys it and gets to see many of her school friends. She even sees several of her teachers there.
Saturday, September 17
Here, we are celebrating Brooke's actual birthday after Bruce got home from work, starting with her birthday dinner.
Then cupcakes...
We forgot candles, so we stuck a match in her cupcake instead.
Then opening presents.
Beautiful necklaces from Hawaii.
Brooke loves her new chair for the school room!
Sunday, September 18
Today is Dhahran High School's open house. This is the door to Jordan's weight training class.
Her teacher, Mrs. Gerber, is on the left. That's Kelsey's dad on the right.
The open house was at night, so it was hard to get good pictures of the school grounds.
Here is her foreign language class - Arabic I.
Here is the coffee shop - Joffreys. Only seniors can dine inside during school hours.
Here is her math class - Algebra II. This is her teacher, Mr. Rundell.
Afterwards, Jordan and I went to the dining hall for dinner. I can never get over the prices for food here. Jordan had pasta for $2.67!
The budget meal is always the best deal.
Soup, salad, main dish, side dish, and dessert; all for $3.07! Tonight it was beef stoganoff on rice. It sure beats cooking!
Monday, September 19
We got word that Brooke was not allowed to be in the play at the junior high school, so she had to give her script back, but today she is going for an audition with the Theatre Group here on the compound. This group is for all employees - adults and kids. They are putting on a "panto" of Aladdin. I wasn't sure what a "panto" was, so here is what I found on the internet: Pantomime (informally, panto)—not to be confused with a mime artist—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the Christmas and New Year season. One of the most popular Panto titles is Aladdin! I've also heard that it includes audience participation. So, here is Brooke, in the bright yellow shirt at the audition.
Here's the theater. We're told that all the shows sell out!
Brooke and Reese and I will be flying to Atlanta tonight after Brooke's audition. We're hoping that Shadow's paperwork is waiting in our mail and we won't have any problems bringing our dog to Saudi with us. We're going to have to leave Jordan here this time so she won't miss any school.
Here we are at the Dammam airport in Saudi Arabia. Our flight leaves around midnight. We'll get into Amsterdam around 6am and change planes there. Jordan and Bruce will have to stay and go to school and work. I sure wish we could stay together... we've never had to leave Jordan for so long before.
I've seen Arab men hold these beads and finger them. I wonder if they are some sort of prayer beads.
Tuesday, September 20
Here we are roughing it in Amsterdam at 7am. This is the Delta Sky Club. They even have a shower and a sleeping room with beds (which we often take advantage of.) We're eating breakfast here before we go to our gate.
When we got on the Delta flight in Amsterdam, the girls were asked if they would like to go up to the cockpit before we took off.
Those Delta retirement benefits are coming in handy! There were business class seats available for us!
After our long journey, our dear friends, the Dewlens, gave us a ride home from the airport. It was so nice to see their happy faces! And it was good to be home again... it didn't feel like we had only been gone for a month. We missed our little country road too.
They even had babies while we were gone!!
Our new gate is working just fine.
The first thing we did when we got back, was go and pick up Shadow at our friends' house. We were sooooo happy to see him!
We weren't sure how long it would take to get all of Shadow's paperwork, so we took care of haircuts and the orthodontist right away. We brought enough school work for three weeks, just in case, but Bruce had already started Shadow's paperwork on August 30, so we were sure it wouldn't take more than a week.
New hair cuts...
Reese donated her hair to Locks of Love.
A bit short, but now it will last longer!
At the orthodontist, Brooke was told that she would have to have her tooth pulled! Ouch! Look at that thing!
Fall was definitely in the air. The bugs were out to play...
And Brooke's watermelons were growing big!
Too bad, the watermelon isn't ripe yet. I guess we'll have to leave them to rot. We hope the neighbors remember to pick them.
Reese made a squirrel trap.
...but she didn't catch any squirrels.
And Shadow is relaxing at home.
Since Jordan had to stay in Saudi Arabia with her dad, she had to make sure she was ready to catch the school bus each morning at 6:50am after her dad left for work, and come home to an empty house each afternoon, and fix dinner with her dad, and take care of Zoie. But she enjoyed it and has really loved getting to know her new friends, Danielle, Kelcy, Angie, and others that I can't remember. She loves going to school now because she has so many more friends than when she home schooled. She says that no one at school is mean; just some kids are a little cranky. She feels very blessed to have found the group of friends that she has, and feels like it is just a perfect fit. Her homework is long and hard, and sometimes she doesn't have any free time for several days, and can't even take the time for swim practice, but she's very excited about working toward getting accepted in the Air Force Academy, and she loves the weather over here.
While we were in Georgia, we found out that Brooke got the part of the Genie in the Aladdin panto!!! We're so excited for her. She will open the play with a monologue and move into a solo with the first verse of Firework and the rest of the cast will join in. We can't wait to see the show in December.
Brooke and Reese and I spent exactly two weeks in Georgia. Everything seemed to go wrong with Shadow's paperwork. It was the most stressful time for me because I barely had time to visit with anyone or have any fun, and I spent every day making phone calls, keeping appointments, and wasting money on Fed Ex to rush another piece of paperwork to no avail. I started to wonder if we were ever going to get Shadow to Saudi! I was also stressed because Brooke was missing drama rehearsals. I wish I'd known it was going to take two weeks, and then I could have relaxed a little bit. But we had to coordinate our three standby seats with Shadow's reservation and everything changed constantly. Then we realized that we had to change airlines in Amsterdam or Frankfurt from Delta to KLM or to Luftansa, and no one seemed to know if employees could do that with a pet. I spent hours on the phone with the airlines, trying to find out what was allowed, but I came to the conclusion that I was the first person, ever, to try this!
Rather than take the chance of being stuck in Amsterdam without the European paperwork or, worse yet, being sent back home, we ended up hiring a very expensive pet moving company to ship Shadow on Luftansa all the way, and we found out that they would have done all the paperwork that I worked so hard completing! Then I got a sinus infection and fever on the way to Saudi, so I spent the first week here, in bed with my worst case yet of jet-lag! I honestly felt like Job, where everything I did went wrong. It was very depressing and lonely. I'm so glad it's over, and boy, were we happy to be back in Saudi and all together with Shadow! I never thought I'd be so happy to get here--but God has his mysterious ways, right?
Wednesday, October 5
And I just can't tell you the wave of joy that swept over me when I first saw Shadow in his kennel in cargo in Dammam. So many little things kept happening, that I geared myself up for the worst, and was ready for him not to make it alive. Not one of our six pieces of luggage made it for several days!
The worst wasn't over when he arrived, either! My flight was scheduled to land an hour earlier than Shadow's because he changed planes in Germany and we changed in Holland. So our good friend Harry took the girls home with our carry-on luggage, while Bruce drove me to cargo to wait for Shadow. We thought we would wait for an hour, but not only was Shadow's flight delayed 30 minutes, but we had to wait for everyone to get off the plane and for all the luggage and cargo to be unloaded before they brought anything at all to our side of the airport. It was 3 HOURS before we even knew he made it on the plane and was doing well. I had my abaya on, and even though it was dark, it was still hot. I was constantly walking outside the cargo office, just to listen for the faint sound of a dog barking. Finally, a man pointed me to a heap of rope, and when I looked, I saw Shadow's kennel barely peeping out of all the rope, with Shadow inside. I can't tell you how overjoyed I was! I had brought him some water and when I poured it into his dish, he lapped up every drop! I was glad to see that the food I had taped to the top of his kennel had been opened, and I squeezed a few pieces into his dish at a time, while he ate every piece. He had been in that kennel for 24 hours and I was anxious to get him out. When I saw how much water he drank, I was afraid he would need to go to the bathroom soon! I found Bruce in the office and told him that Shadow was outside. He tried to find someone to speed up the process, but there was not going to be any speeding done that evening! They slowly removed the rope, but there were plastic ties locking the door. I used Bruce's knife to cut the ties, but I didn't dare let Shadow out until I got the okay. The cargo workers were all fascinated by Shadow and his size. To them, he was like a lion in a cage. Some of the men were very kind and got more water for Shadow. I was so tired from my 24-hour journey that I began to fall asleep waiting for everything to be completed. Finally, after 4-1/2 hours of waiting, Bruce was told that we were missing some paperwork; so he had to get the veterinarian to look at Shadow and then give us some paperwork. Fortunately, there was an on-site vet! After that, Bruce was told to go to some window inside and pay a fee. When he went in, they said they were closed for 15 minutes because it was midnight and they would have to wait for the new day. We patiently waited until the other man who was waiting for our paperwork came inside to see what was keeping us. He knocked on the window and told the man to open up, so Bruce put his money up to the window and this hand slid out of the slit in the window from a dark room, took the money, and then handed him a paper. We finally took the paper back to the other man and then he made Bruce promise to get some missing paperwork in Khobar after the weekend was over and bring it back immediately. So, five hours after I landed, we opened Shadow's kennel. You should have seen all the cargo employees scatter! It was like a wild animal show to them. They all gathered around to watch, but if Shadow even looked at them, they scattered! I had Shadow on a leash, and I thought they wanted to pet him, but I was wrong!
Shadow made himself at home in our car and we drove the crazy drive home... at least it was after midnight and there weren't very many drivers on the road!
Thursday, October 6
We woke fairly early to give Shadow a walk through his new neighborhood before it got too hot. Also, our friends and neighbors had all heard so much about Shadow that they were all excited to meet him and it seemed that there was constantly someone at the door. Shadow even got to meet the Wilkey's dog, Dakota, who came over for a quick chase around the house.
Here are the Wilkey girls, excited to meet Shadow.
This blog is getting too long, so I'll send the other drafts later.
-- Pattie --
