I'm leaving, on a jet plane

Thursday night (Houston time) Friday morning (Saudi time) I will be getting on an airplane to head for Houston.  I haven't been to the United States since June 30.  Needless to say, I'm very excited.  However, I must first say that I will definitely miss Micah and of course Gizmo.  Hopefully they will take good care of each other while I'm gone.  That being said, I'm so excited I can't really grasp what I'm most excited about. So here is my list of what an expat living in Saudi misses the most:

-Family & Friends- I feel like this just has to be #1
- Church-  I miss my church and the people that go along with it
- FOOD- food needs its own list
       - Papasito's or any Tex-Mex in general
       - Chick-fil-A - yes, I miss this place A LOT
       - Margaritas and Diet Dr. Pepper
       - Buffalo wings and a good beer
       - Sonic Rt. 44 Diet Dr. Pepper
       - Tex Mex again
       - Cajun food
       - Fried Shrimp
       - Eskimo Joes
       - Good BBQ
-Getting to drive my car whenever, and wherever I like. Maybe with the windows down singing really loudly.
- Wal-Mart and Target - I just know I will hear the "Hallelujah" chorus when I walk in
- Malls with dressing rooms and not having to worry about prayer times and US prices of course
- Wearing normal clothes in public
- Going to the movies
- Not being stared at everywhere I go
- Freedom!!!
- Hobby Lobby
- Eating pork...I have to admit that I only miss this at breakfast

The more I look at my list I realize how simple most of these things are and how often most Americans including myself take these things for granted.  How many of us actually think about how lucky we are to get to eat at Chick-fil-A?  How many of us really appreciate the ability to drive a car?  Typically we just get mad at other people on the road or at traffic or at being tired of sitting.  How many people walk into a dressing room and are SO excited just to have the opportunity to try something on before buying it? Mostly, most Americans don't fully understand the value of their freedom.  Living in Saudi definitely helps me understand how valuable our freedom is and how much I would never want to loose that freedom. I know that one day I will move back to the US and that all these things I'm so excited about will become normal and commonplace again.  I know that once again I will forget how precious the simple things are.  But for now, I will treasure these simple things.

Paradise

That is exactly what our trip to the Maldives was...paradise.  Micah and I were also very excited that our friends Dan and Heather decided to join us on our trip.  We arrived at the Male airport on Sunday February 27.  From there our dive boat picked us up to take us to our larger liveaboard boat. One of the first things they did was take our shoes.  Thats right, no shoes for the entire week!!  On a "liveaboard dive trip" all you do is eat, dive, relax, dive, eat, dive, relax, eat, sleep, wake up and do it all over again.  I think you have to be a pretty avid diver to really enjoy this type of trip which we are so we LOVED it!

The boat we were on was called the "Ocean Dancer".  This boat is apart of the Dancer fleet which is a very well known and reputable dive operation.  Our boat was everything I expected and more.  We had great outdoor relaxing space on the front of the boat which is where we spent most of our time.  Our room was big enough for what we needed and a full size bathroom.  The food was excellent and I rarely had time to even feel hungry before meals.  Here are some pictures from our boat:

Hallway to our rooms. 

Inside living area

Our favorite outdoor hangout. Notice the 3 iPads. 

Ocean Dancer has its own separate dive boat that followed us around and stored all of our dive equipment for the week. The dive boat was FULL service.  Every morning we would get up and walk onto the dive boat and all of our equipment would be set-up and ready to go.  I never once hooked up my own regulator or anything.  Also, the moment I would have any trouble getting my stuff on such as my wetsuit there would be a guy there to help me.  I was very impressed with the service on the dive boat.

"Get ready to Jump!"

Jumping off the boat

Now for the actual diving.  It was...I'm having a hard time thinking of a word to accurately describe.  It was one of those moments when you look around at 60-100 ft. under water and wonder how people can believe that there is not a creator.  That all that appeared by accident or "big bang".  That being said, I guess I would say the diving was incredible.  On most dives we could't look anywhere without seeing hundreds to thousands of fish.  It was also the best coral life I have ever seen. The colors in the coral were amazing. 

We were also very lucky in seeing some large life such as whale sharks and manta rays.  On one dive we went to a "cleaning station" which is a place where Mantas go to get cleaned by other fish.  Once we were by the cleaning station we all just held on to the rock coral and watched as the Mantas were cleaned and swam RIGHT over us.  Pictures cannot capture the size of these animals.  Try to look at the other fish swimming around them.  It literally felt like a car swimming over us. 

Whale sharks are very large as well and they just seemed to swim along at their own pace.  Sometimes coming closer to the surface so that while we were snorkeling we could get good pictures.  In the first picture I am swimming down to get a picture and someone else snapped a picture of me doing it.

When we weren't diving we were hanging out on the boat chatting to people.  We met two other couples that we  got along with well and had some fun entertaining conversations.  Thanks so much to Greg and Chris, Brad and Kim for making our trip one that we won't forget.  I think we all hope to see you again sometime...maybe on another liveaboard???  Both couples are way more experienced divers than us and we ended up having to borrow stuff from them often such as liquid skin band aids, ear drops, and even a camera.  Yes you read that right.  I lost my dive camera to the big blue about half way through our trip.  Thats enough about that...  Amazingly, Greg was brave enough to let me use his smaller camera for the rest of the trip. That really helped me not be so depressed about loosing my camera. Thanks Greg.  Hope you guys don't mind that I stole the picture of you 4. 

Kim, Brad, Chris, Greg

Although we never really left the boat we went onto land a few times.  Sometimes we just walked the beach and returned to the boat.  One night our crew actually set-up dinner on the beach and we had a great romantic meal on a deserted beach. They even made a whale shark sand castle. 

Our crew

I could say so much more about this trip and post a million more pictures but I think I've rambled on long enough.  If you want to see more pictures follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2461192&id=17101285&l=ffb623210f

~Steph

It's Official....

I'm 70 years old.  That's right.  If you were to listen of a description of my current life you would probably think I was a 70 year old woman.  I go to "coffee mornings", play cards, cook, walk my dog, and now I can add quilting to the list.  Yep, quilting.  In general, I have no desire to be a quilter.  However I do have the desire to learn how to use my sewing machine and just generally know how to sew.  There is a Saudi lady, Nora, that lives here in Jubail and is an excellent quilter.  She occasionally teaches beginner quilting classes and some of the other ladies here were nice enough to invite me along for the class.  I was the only one in the class who was a true beginner.  I couldn't even get my machine out of the case the first day.  The class was 2 days a week for 3 weeks.  We would work from 9:00am- 1:00pm.   In the class we learned how to pick fabric, cut fabric accurately (hopefully), and sew things together.
I was lucky and had a fun group of ladies to take the class with.  There were 7 ladies in the class, 5 of whom are Chevron wives like me.  Of course I was the youngest in the class.  I am the youngest with most things that I do during the day.  All of these ladies are so much fun to be around and the helped make my frustrations with sewing more enjoyable.  Here are some pictures of our class.

Judy and Lori

Cindy and Lonna

Me pretending to sew 

Lonna

 One evening I received a "Flat Stanley" from a relative in the States.  I decided he needed to go to quilting class with me and get a picture with a real Saudi lady.  Nora was so nice to agree to put her full covering on and take a picture with "Flat Stanley".

3.5 weeks later and many hours of cutting and sewing I had my first quilt (almost) finished.  I really liked the end result.  Since we had worked so hard in class Nora decided our last class would just be a party time.  Cindy hired Lindsey to bake us a really cute cake and other ladies brought some snacks.  We were also able to show off our finished projects. 

Lindsey's cake

My 1st quilt

Our class: Lori, Nora, Christianne (?), Lonna, Cindy, Else (?), Me, Judy

Happy Quilting!

Who done it?

A few years ago on  a whim I bought a Mardi Gras themed murder mystery game.  I haven't ever had the opportunity or inspiration to actually play it until recently.  Now for the making of a Mardi Gras party in the Magic Kingdom....


First of course, I started with the game. 

Then I had to pick a date that didn't fall during our vacation, Micah's birthday, Brooks and Lindsey being gone, etc.  So we ended up with February 17.  After picking the date I carefully chose characters for everyone and sent out the invitations. 

Over the next couple of weeks I started shopping for Mardi Gras decorations....in Saudi Arabia.  It wasn't as difficult as I had expected.  We have a large craft store in Khobar that actually had masks, and mardi gras colored tinsely garland stuff (not sure what to call it).   We also have a store called "Party Land" that has all the normal party store type things where I found table clothes and other fun items.  

A typical Mardi Gras item is a "King Cake".   I absolutely love king cakes but there is no way I was going to get one here.  So I decided to try to make my own.  Maybe not the best decision ever but I learned a lot about making bread and baking.  I learned so much that I was fortunate enough to make two different cakes (enter sarcasm here).  Here are some of my cake making adventures:

As you can see, the second one turned out much prettier.  So I decided to proceed with that cake. Now to poor on the icing and add the sprinkles.  I had to make my own colored sprinkles so my purple didn't turn out very purply but you get the idea. I would say in the end it tasted....ok. 

The morning of the party it was time to decorate.  Instead of explaining I will just show some fun pictures. 

While I was decorating my wonderful husband was cooking his fabulous gumbo.  I helped with the occasional steps such as deboning chicken and chopping up onions but other than that dinner was all Micah. I would have taken a picture but he was cooking shirtless... ;)

Now for the best step of all.  Having amazing friends who completely played along and played their parts very well.  I can't even explain how grateful I am for these people.  We had a great time trying to figure out "Who done it?"

Cherie- Gothic writer Connika Gothika, Heather-Queen of the ball Alexis, Me- Las Vegas cocktail waitress Mrs. Dupree, Laura- Bourbon DuPre's wife, Lindsey- French maid Elise 

Matt- Lawyer of the deceased Mr. Peek, Dan- Law school student/cajun "Gator", Micah- didn't really have a part so I made him Hugh Hefner, Brent- jazz musician Bourbon Dupree, Brooks- chef Cayenne Pepper

Playing through our parts over a wonderful dinner of Gumbo

Just to be clear, all drinks served were alcohol free ;)

Me and Hef 

Thanks everyone for making the party so much fun!