Ras Tanura

About 45 minutes away from us is another Aramco community - Ras Tanura.  It's on the beach and it is beautiful.  It's much smaller than Dhahran but the beach makes it a really fun day trip!

 It's beautiful.

 And there were seashells to collect - bonus!

They have this splash pad above the beach where you can rinse the saltwater and sand off.  It's black.  

Pooped out on the bus ride home.

Unrelated...

This was on our way to the beach another day.  I just love this picture.

This is at the playground near our park.  They use sand instead of rubber mulch.  Elisabeth insists on wearing her swimsuit everywhere and has taken to making sand angels.

Big and Strong

Tonight life spiraled into chaos right before bedtime (this is normal for us).  Calvin was really tired and, as is his habit, he got more and more wound up until I finally told Talmage to sleep in my bed and made Calvin sleep alone in his room (gasp!).  This did not go over well.  Completely distraught he pulled out the big guns...

Calvin: I no want to grow big and stwong.  I wan to stay smawl and eat lots of bad food...I eat candy and wolves (?) and bugs.  I not goin to eat bweakfast! I goin to stay smawl FOEVER!!

Apparently, he is under the impression that the idea of him staying at this stage forever is enough to push me over the edge.  He might be right.

What you've been waiting for...

The house...

This is the front room - right off of the entryway.  We'll probably use it as a living room.  Don't you love the sea-foam green curtains?  I'm thinking about keeping them.

The laundry closet.  It's fine.  It's in the front room so it's the first thing you see when you come in the front door.  Awesome on laundry day.

Front hall.

Garage.  Andy's hurting for his Texas garage.

Powder Bath.

Stairs and storage closet.  We were surprised at the amount of storage space we have.

Family room.  The people who lived here before us added on a huge bonus room in the back that we didn't expect.  It doubled our living space! Usually, when you move the company makes you remove any additions or changes you make but they left this one alone...yay for bigger spaces!

The "dining room".

Kitchen.  It's actually bigger than it looks. 

The bonus room!  It goes the width of the house...and will give us a lot more options with the space.  However...

Because of the addition this is our pathetic little backyard.  This is the only area of the house that is sad for me :(  Luckily, there are a lot of parks close by so we'll make it work.

Stairs :)  Is this boring?  

The study.  Little bity room - I'm glad we don't have to use it as a bedroom.

Kids bathroom.

Kids bedroom.  Are you loving the curtains too?

First night in our new house.  

We've started to get settled.  We've painted and gotten a new rug and gotten rid of most of the green curtains.  But I'll wait to post after pics until we get our shipment.  I like this house.  It's small, but that means a lot less time cleaning and maintaining and a lot more time playing! 

Our Journey Begins

On our way to the airport...the first time.  Notice how clean, well-behaved and happy they look.  Fast-forward 12 hours after we miss our flight (well, technically we didn't miss it we arrived at the gates 10 minutes before departure...which apparently isn't "15" minutes before departure so they gave our seats away) and the picture wasn't quite so pretty.

This is about half of the luggage we took to Saudi.  It was a small nightmare.

Conked out after waiting 12 hours for the flight.

In the airport on our way to SA.  Although Beti looks slightly possessed here the flight went much better than I had anticipated.  Maybe it was the hundreds of hours (okay, it just felt like hundreds) we spent in the car the week before.

This is living baby.  We flew Business Class (on the company)...it was amazing!  The attendants were so good with the kids the seats were comfortable the food was good...it's still not worth paying $1000's of dollars for but I'm glad I got to do it once. 

Saudi Arabia

Tal wrote this book at the end of school this year.  I think he does a pretty good job summing up our story. (I'll translate it for you)

All About Moving to Saudi Arabia

Hey, my name is Talmage and my family is going to Saudi Arabia.  My Dad say's it's crazy.  I'm a little scared to go.

My family's names are Calvin, Naomi, Beti, and Mom and Dad.  Calvin is really funny.  Naomi gets tired a lot.  Beti is bright.  Mom and Dad are serious.

We need lots and lots of boxes.  We had a garage sale a few years (weeks) ago.  I earned 4 dollars.  My sister earned 1 dollar.  She whined that I got 3 more dollars.

Saudi Arabia is at the other side of the world so it's going to take like three days.  But before we get there we're going to visit our grandparents and go to Disneyland.

That pretty much sums it up.  Yep, we did something crazy and a little scary and moved to Saudi Arabia.  But, there are things (at least in a 7 year-old's mind) that are just as important...like earning more money than your sister in a garage sale and of course, Disneyland.  It turns out that even in Saudi Arabia the bulk of our life is a lot like it has always been.  We still fight a little, laugh a little and love a lot.  Our adventure has just begun but we are settling in and getting our feet under us and enjoying the ride along the way.

Utah

Our last week in the States was spent in Utah where we were able to do some of our favorite things and visit some of our favorite places (like Cafe Rio, The Pie, and Cafe Rio)

We didn't take our camera out much so these are the pictures from my phone...

Boating.  So. much. fun.  I need a boat.

Beti - she's kind of a big deal in the angler world.

Okay, so she's just kind of a big deal.

We celebrated Naomi's 6th birthday!  I can't believe how old she's getting!

Poor girl...she always gets the birthday party shaft because we're in Utah.  It was especially poignant this year after Calvin's Chuck E. Cheese bash.  But she was happy! Such a sweetheart!

National Parks: Finale

Yosemite!  What a great way to end our National Parks tour.  It was beautiful - we didn't have enough time to take it all in so we'll have to go back someday - but the kids loved it and it was a nice way to wind things down.

Calvin and Beti sharing a dum dum...these suckers have incredible powers.  They are a must-have on any road trip we endeavor.

It was pretty hot in Yosemite so we decided to go for a nice glacial dip in the Merced River.  The look on Naomi's face tells you a little about how "refreshing" it was.

On our last day we were able to make a side trip to visit Andy's grandma in Sacramento.  We had such a good time!  She lives in a beautiful place and the kids loved being with her.

The lake right next to her home.

At Leatherby's a family tradition. Check out those banana splits :)

All 4 kids bunked like this both nights we were there.  They were pretty tuckered out.

And, by the way, they traveled wonderfully all the way home.  It was a 10 hour stretch that gave me nightmares all week but they were pros.  I think all the car travel prepped them for the 32-hour long trip to Saudi Arabia.