RAIN

We are on Day Three of RAIN!  And not just a little rain - a LOT of rain (for here)!  It's been raining on and off for three days now, and when it rains, we get some thunder and lightening, and actual downpours of rain!  It's been very exciting!

The morning of Day Three of rain dawned with the children so excited about it that they insisted on having their breakfast at the little art tables set up by the sliding glass door.  Optimum rain viewing that way, of course.

On the downside, our house is under major construction at the moment.  I have not caught the blog up to this point yet, but for the past five weeks, we have had large metal scaffolding all around our house as they rip off the old siding and put up new siding.  That project is an upcoming post unto itself, but the upshot here is that WE CURRENTLY HAVE NO SIDING ON OUR HOUSE.  Let's see a showing of hands of how many people think it's a good idea to have the siding torn off your house during a rain event.  <cue crickets chirping>  Huh.  Oh well, it's not our house anyway.  (Isn't renting fabulous!)  As long as our stuff does not get wet, whatever. 

Saudi Arabia is not prepared for rain.  It's rather like snow in Alabama.  When it rains here, the entire country gets shut down.  Mostly this is because there is no planned drainage and no storm sewer, so all that water collects everywhere, especially in the roadways.  Traffic is stopped, roads are closed, and sometimes when people drive through bad spots, they get washed away and die like in a flash flood.  Several people were killed a few days ago in Riyadh when this happened.  When it rains here, everyone is advised to stay home and off the roads.  All the schools have been closed for three days except the one here on camp.  Even the British Grammar School just around the corner from us has been closed since Sunday because of "threat of rain."

And I love this.  Bwa ha hahahahaha!  Look at what happened to the airport!  This is the airport we use to come and go from Saudi.  And keep in mind that this is the bottom floor of the airport, the baggage claim area, so all that water had to come in at the roof and down through all the floors above.  Click on the movie, it's worth it.  It's a great demonstration of the high quality building standards here in Saudi.  Always striving for excellence, right?

Video and pictures: Raining inside Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport

Saudi Arabia’s eastern city of Dammam was left paralyzed following heavy rains since Monday evening, and the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam was transformed into a lake after water started pouring in from parts of the ceiling in the international travel lounge, reported local media.

A number of workers were seen trying to work to stop the water from gushing out all over, while others attempted to dry off the floors in the international terminal. The rainfall has also caused a partial interruption of power supply within the airport, specifically in the car rental floor and baggage counters at the international flight departure terminal.  Sources added that a number of offices in the airport were damaged during to water logging.

Gearing Up For Halloween

Right before we left from repat, I went out and bought a bunch of Melissa and Doug costumes to make sure the kids had something to wear for Halloween.  We got them out  with the Halloween decorations, and the boys had a great time trying everything on. 

 Cowboy and police officer.  

I'm suspicious that Lawrence isn't wearing any pants.  Hmm. 

 

Switch to Fireman.  Still suspicious. 

Confirmed!!   Sir No Pants!! 

 

 Switch to police officer. 

Sir No Pants in a gallant fight to the death with Dragon Daddy.  

One of my friends had a baby and while she was in labor at the hospital, we kept her 4 year old son with us.  He is so sweet and precious!  We all had a ball when he was visiting, and we were so glad he got to stay all day.  We ate lunch with the new centerpiece of mini pumpkins that we thrillingly found at Tamimi! (Because there's no food at the com!)

 This is Catherine at a playdate, looking pretty in her festive pumpkins.  

Halloween is almost here!  (Thanks LHS!!  She lives in all the clothes you gave us!)

Miscellany

You know how every now and then you have to do dumb chores on Saturday morning that seem like such a pain?  Like getting your car inspected, or having your oil changed?  Around here, we have stuff like that too, except it usually has to do with your visa and it takes all day. 

Mike got his visa renewed recently, and we had to drive over the causeway to Bahrain to make sure it worked.  So we got up early, piled the kids in the car, spent 30 minutes driving to the causeway, and spent 2 1/2 hours waiting in line in the car to cross the border.  Once we were over the border (but not off the border-crossing island), we ate lunch inside the car from the McDonalds they have on the causeway.  We parked and Mike went in because there is no drive through, which I find ironic because over here, McDonalds has pizza-esque delivery service called McDelivery.  But no drive through.  Go figure.  Mike called it our visit to "McCauseway".  We did let the boys out and they took a picture from the causeway (that's the rest of the causeway to Bahrain in the background), and then we turned around and did it all over again.  Another two hours waiting in the car to get back over the border, and then 30 minutes more to get home.  It took from about 9 am to 3 pm.  The kids were great about it, even if they were miffed that this was how they had to spend their Saturday morning.  I can hardly blame them. 

 

In other news, I had some kids over for dinner one night and I made a veggie skeleton!  I was so proud of it that I took a picture.  That's rosemary hair in a bowl of ranch dressing for the head.

 

Also making headlines is the fact that Everett has finally hit 40 pounds, so he can take the back off his booster!  YAY!!  He is SO proud of himself!

And we took a one of Lawrence's friends to the park one day.  

 

So cool in her sunglasses!  This was mid October and it was still really really hot.  Probably more than 100 when this picture was taken at 10 am. 

With Friends at RT

In early October, we met some friends in RT for the day.  We go there a lot, but we usually come after naps.  This was the first time we went for the whole day.  It worked ok, but I think we'll be sticking to our post-nap routine until Catherine gets a bit older. 

The kids played all morning on the beach and at the splash pad.  We all ate lunch under a cabana on the beach, and then everyone else left.  Everett asked one of his friends to stay, and his parents said yes, so they got to play more on the beach while the little ones were napping. 

 

 Everett and his bud. 

 

Lawrence did beautifully napping on the cabana.  Konked out.   Catherine struggled and struggled and finally did nap in the stroller for about 20 minutes.  Not a fun time for her.  Things were too hot and too exciting to sleep. 

We went from there to the locker rooms to shower and then to the golf course for dinner.  We were home by about 7:00.  A fun day! 

On another day, we took our friend and her son, who is Catherine's age, to RT for the afternoon. We parked near the north splash pad.

Same deal that day - playtime on the beach and splash pad, then showers and dinner.  Catherine barely cut her foot on the beach, and the lifeguards came over and wrapped it up like her toes were going to fall off.  Here she is with her massive bandage.   

 

We love the beach at RT.  We've been going about once a weekend for a while.  It's our fun outing on the weekends. 

Commissary Conundrum

Oh, Company.  Oh, Saudi.  Why must everything be SO crazy and illogical and stupid ALL the time?  Sigh. 

How many pop tarts does one compound need?!

A long time ago, the Company ran its own commissaries.  It even had its own bread department to supply the commissaries.  I suppose this was because the country was so undeveloped that there was nowhere else to get things like bread, so if we wanted it on camp, we had to do it ourselves.

Then, sometime in the 80s or 90s or something, they did away with that and just contracted out to an entity called Tamimi to run the commissaries.  (Tamimi is also the company that runs the Safeway.  Tamimi does lots of other things, too, which are not related to food, but I'm not sure what else.)

Some parts of the com were better for this, others were worse, and that was that.  So for at least 20 years, Tamimi has run the com.  Uh, until they lost their contract this summer.

They lost it to an Indian (dot not feather) chain store called LuLus.  We have one in Khobar.  It's got food and clothes, kind of like Walmart, but not at all the same.  (They do have the most fabulous silk department upstairs, though, for material for saris.  It's gorgeous and not terribly expensive.  My mom bought about ten yards of silk that has one color fading into another and very detailed borders on it for about $100 the first time she was here.) 

LuLus is taking over the com on December 4th.  Tamimi lost the contract this past summer, say July.  And on that date in July, after they laid off all the workers, they STOPPED PLACING ORDERS.  As in, there is no more food coming in.  From July until December.  Fun times!

(Uh, hello?  Some of us still have to eat.  Thanks.) 

Right now, it's November, and the com is mostly empty.  They still are getting produce and dairy, but the dry goods are nearly gone.  There are so many empty shelves that they look for items that are more than one box deep, and just spread them out so the shelves will look populated.  And just about the only thing they have left is.....pop tarts.  Shelf after shelf, aisle after aisle.  Have you ever tried to imagine going into the grocery store and they have an *entire aisle* of nothing but pop tarts?  It's very odd.  You think to yourself, "This can't be real.  Am I dreaming?"

Go figure, one of the last orders placed was an enormous order for pop tarts.  They also have a lot of odd cereals.  And some toys.  And two car seats for sale.  And that's about it.

So breakfast?  Check!  Lunch and dinner?  Uh, yeah, we'll be having breakfast for lunch and breakfast for dinner, too.  Anybody up for pop tarts?  Again?  Ha!

Lawrence's First Day of Preschool

I am struggling so much to get this blog caught up!  Every time I think, "I'm almost there!" life gets in the way and it's another two weeks before I do another post.  At this rate, I'll be posting about Halloween at Christmas and Christmas at Easter.  Ugh.  Just know I'm working on it, people.

So anyway, around the first of October, Lawrence had his first day of three-year-old preschool.  He's at the same preschool that he was at last year, but he has a new teacher.  Here are his pre-preschool pictures.

 Headed out for the first day!

 Showing off the backpack.  And the new haircut.

 Over on the sidelines, Catherine had commandeered a tennis racquet.  

 Tennis, anyone?

"I'm a socks-and-sandals kind of girl."  

(Not really.  Actually, I have no idea why she is in socks and sandals.  Boy, that sure looks weird.  Mother of the Year, right here.)

Lawrence did great on his first day, but I think he really missed his old teacher.  He loved her dearly.  She is still there, but she is again teaching the twos class; so even though he doesn't see her all the time, he can still get a hug from her.