Pet project

One of the perks of living in this region is that we are entitled to Funded Environmental and Morale Leave (FEML) -- a nice way of saying that no one can live here for two years without needing a respite. They will pay for plane tickets for us to go somewhere, we just have to pick the place. We are nearing the end of our window of opportunity since it can't be used during our last 6 months here. (Are we really moving that soon?!)

We were thinking of forgoing it since the plane tickets are not the only expensive part of traveling when we have to pay for shelter and feeding 4 kids and we're trying to be responsible and save up for the expenses related to our next move. But the other night I was going back through my blog, looking for posts about our trip to Jordan to pass on to a friend who is traveling there for their FEML. I pored through all the posts about Petra and Jerash, floating in the Dead Sea, visiting the Jordan River . . . how could I give up another opportunity to travel with these kids?

Amman

Jerash

Petra

Petra

Dead Sea

So we'll be traveling this Christmas. 

Deciding where to go was a little more difficult. We wanted to maximize the amount of money we were allotted by flying somewhere that would be too expensive for us to travel to normally, but I didn't want to fly very far and eat up 2 days (or more) of our vacation with traveling and jet lag. So no New Zealand/Australia or Bali. We also wanted to travel to a country where we could eat and sleep on the cheap, so we could vacation with as little expense as possible. That ruled out most of Europe -- Paris, Spain and Italy. Besides, if we get orders to Germany (fingers crossed), we can hit those countries next year. So that pretty much leaves India. 

I'm sure traveling to India would be very similar to how I feel about eating Indian food. I never crave it, but when we end up having it I always enjoy it more than I thought I would. But no, I'm not going to India for my Morale leave -- I've seen enough episodes of the Amazing Race teams in India breaking down in the middle of masses of people to know that that's not what I need for a vacation. 

Sri Lanka is supposed to be really nice, tropical, close, inexpensive . . . I settled on that location until I started researching. 20 bazillion rupees is about 35 US dollars so it might be cheap, but 5 minutes in and I realized that I am too tired to run all those big number currency conversions over and over again. And I was reading something about how you have to hire a driver and they stay with you and you either have to arrange for lodging and food for the driver or just leave your trip in the hands of the driver and he will book lodging for you that has a driver's room included. My brain can not figure out another country right now and add in the fact that it's a totally different culture than the one we've been immersed in for the past 3 years? Too much work. 

So we're going back to the country that we've talked about returning to since we visited the first time. The location that was my favorite in our year of travel. The place that we spent several weeks and could have spent another several. Now we get to. 

Yep, Turkey.

Hagia Sophia 

Galata Bridge crossing

Grand Bazaar

Turkish bath

Hippodrome

Galata bridge 

And these are just the photos from Istanbul. I've ordered my guidebooks and have been living on TripAdvisor for the past 48 hours, dreaming of possibilities. It will be Christmas and cold, so definitely different than last time! And yes, we're going back to Cappadocia and staying in another cave hotel. It's the first question the kids asked. Christmas in a cave. Merry Christmas to us.

mish-mash

Another week down, and we're almost to November. This time of year the weather cools off and time speeds up. Before I know it I'll be packing for our (still to be determined) next duty station. Unreal.

I did a lot of things this week in my attempt to make the most of the time I have left in Bahrain. I went shopping with friends (both old and new), toured a museum, went out to lunch at a new restaurant, and showed a new crop of Bahrain gardeners where my nursery is. I didn't take photos of it all, but this is what ended up on my camera. 

This shirt -- so wrong. It may be pronounced "cor," but it's not spelled that way. Add in blue camouflage, and some rank stripes and that's a perfect example of "not quite right."  

Riot police on the corner -- they gather every night waiting for stuff to start up.

Another belt test -- the boys were all promoted to green belts

Josh was sick this week. Zeki made sure he didn't sleep alone.

I guess this is what she was doing during the boys' basketball games

Working on her Mylie Cyrus imitation

First trip to the dentist: She didn't want to sit in the chair and let the hygienist clean her teeth until I told her that if she didn't get her teeth cleaned she couldn't have birthday cake at the party we were attending later in the day. She replied, "I want cake" and hopped into the chair without another complaint. 

Warm Bahraini nights

It appears the Nutella Fairy left handprints all over my kitchen floor -- hmm . . . .

On our way to ballet class. She fell asleep just as we got on base and it was like trying to wake the dead. She eventually rose and danced her heart out. 

Showing off her new necklace from mama's shopping trip. 

We had to buy some fancy clothes to go with the new necklace, of course! (This one was too small)

A winner!

More pretty saris

Shopping for Indian clothing means Indian food for lunch

$2.60 gets you a huge pancake, potatoes, and several curries and sauces to dip them in. 

Beaded dresses look even better with rain boots. 

Long week -- we're all tired out!!

sari shopping

Here in the Gulf we're right next door to India (I'm looking at you, Wendy), so there are not only a lot of Indian workers here, but also opportunities to explore Indian fashion. For dressy events some of the expat women get saris made for a fun twist on formalwear.

I'm not one to go for costumes, but for this upcoming Marine Corps ball I decided to take the plunge. Josh is going to be traveling, so I'm taking Calvin as my date to the ball and we might as well stand out. (Several other friends are wearing saris as well so it's not like I'm a trendsetter or anything).

The thing about saris is they are just one ridiculously long piece of fabric that gets wrapped around the lower part of your body twice, then the next section gets folded into pleats at the waist (see the draping of the white one in the above photo) then the last length is wrapped around the body and across the front and over the shoulder and it's all held together with pins (or the tailor can presew parts of it and then you create the folds and draping using tiny hooks that the tailor has added). Either way it can be a production to put on and often one of the Indian housemaids is called into help people into them. Does that sound like me? Walking around with yards of fabric hanging over my shoulder? Nope. Fortunately there is a "minimalist" version for those people who want Indian style without all the work. It's called a "choli" and there's an example of one in the above photo. (Sari on the left, choli on the right. I don't know if that's the actual name for it, but that's what they call it here). The choli is a skirt with a zipper and a top and the drapey scarf/sash can be wrapped across the chest and over the shoulder, loosely draped over your arms, or left on the back of a chair (I forsee option 3 in my future). 

The thing I love about the choli skirts is the dressy ones are heavily ornamented with beads, rhinestones, and embroidery. This is a close-up of the skirt from the above photo.

My choli (autocorrect keeps wanting to change this to "my chili.")

When shopping for both saris and cholis the salesman pulls the packets of fabric off the shelves and unfolds them. They all come in sets. The sari comes with matching fabric for the small shirt that is worn under the wrapped fabric and the choli comes with fabric for the top and the matching wrap. He pulled this pink and brown one off the shelf and I decided it had to be mine. 

I also really liked this one -- the millions of rhinestones sparkled like crazy under the shop lights. 

Close up of the sparklies

The next step is to take the fabric to the tailor and he will sew the skirt for me (It comes completely open on one side and then is sewn to fit), and create a top. The traditional Indian tops are cropped so the stomach is exposed, but I'm not going for that look. I'm going to have it made so the top hopefully meets the top of the skirt or I am going to want to have the wrap draped around my middle all night. 

This would be considered a long top. I'm going for even longer than that, but I do like the shape of her skirt. Pretty, huh? 

Busy day with church and Taekwondo belt testing (everyone moved up another level to green belts). Josh has been sleeping all evening because he's sick with a cold/crud and the kids are all across the street playing with friends (the reason he's been able to get so much rest). Zeki and I are hanging out watching NCIS and knitting. He slows down my knitting because he picks fights with my yarn, but his soft rumbly purrs agains my neck more than make up for that. Happy Weekend!

divergent

I like Pink. Not the color (though I'm kind of a fan of that too), but the singer. I don't listen to all of her songs, but the ones that click with me? I love them. They are windows down, volume up, singing along, watch out other drivers because here I come songs.

Unfortunately, Pink doesn't always choose the cleanest lyrics to express her passion so I have to be careful when making selections from Spotify (internet music) to look for the "radio version" because my 3 year old loves Pink too. One day she kept asking for "a little bit," "a little bit" over and over again until she started crying because I had no idea what she was talking about and kept exasperatedly asking "A little bit of what?" It was only later in the car when I put on the music and I heard these lyrics:

Just give me a reason
Just a little bit's enough
Just a second we're not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again

When it finally clicked: "Just a little bit" like in the song? That's what you wanted?! She nodded and beamed at me from the rearview mirror.

There's something about driving around this island with Pink cranked up that makes me feel powerful. Maybe because religious Muslims aren't allowed to listen to or play music so I'm a rebel? Maybe because I'm in a big old car with the windows down and that makes me stand out even without the music? Maybe because the music makes me forget where I am when I'm sitting in traffic? Whatever it is, the weather cooling down (low 90s) has made living here much more enjoyable and driving around with the wind in our hair has become our thing.

(The tank top isn't exactly appropriate wear here, but I took off my sweater for driving). 

So the other day we were driving along, playing my favorite song and we passed a Saudi family. 

I'm presuming Saudi based on what he was wearing and the fact that the women were completely covered, including veils over the face. (I have no clue if it was mother and daughter or 2 wives.) Their maid was covered too, but her face wasn't veiled. Just as we passed them, the chorus of our song started blasting and I can only imagine what they were thinking (or would have been thinking if they understood English) of us singing loudly:

So raise your glass if you are wrong
In all the right ways
All my underdogs, we will never, never be

Anything but loud and nitty gritty, dirty little freaks

Yep, Meelie and I sing our hearts out to maintain our sanity. This is actually a two way street. Tough luck to you if you want to come the opposite way during certain times of day. This is definitely a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" kind of situation because if I stayed to the right I would sit there all day long while everyone else uses the left lane for merging. 

See my green light? Does it look like I'll be going anywhere anytime soon? This happens because one block to the right there is a major intersection where they have a guy manually switch the lights during peak periods. He gets sidetracked either texting or chatting and the traffic backs way up. Then people start honking and then he remembers it's time to switch the lights and then the intersection clears until it happens again a few minutes later. This is when all the songs with swear words seem appropriate (just kidding). It's no wonder that people run red lights here because it might be 5 minutes before the green comes around again. Time for one more song!

Mom of boys

This week the boys have vacation from school (Happy Eid! Time for sheep sacrifices!) so we're playing catch up doing all the things I couldn't bring myself to do before school started -- doctor visits, dental appointments, etc. Today I took the two older boys for their sports physicals because they have to be cleared by a doctor before they are allowed to try out for the school basketball team. What kind of world do we live in where as a parent I'm not allowed to vouch for my child's health? To make it doubly ridiculous, they've been playing basketball with the base league for weeks and running up and down the court for an hour at a time. Whatever, doc has to sign off on their paperwork, so off we went.

I actually really liked their doctor today and it was great practice for them to manage their own health care -- check in, turn in paperwork, answer questions about their health history (or listen to my answers if they didn't know), good reminders for taking care of their bodies with diet, exercise, hydration and my favorite, making good choices. Like she said, one bad decision can change their future in a matter of seconds. Always a good reminder for teenage boys to hear. And even better is that I didn't have to be the one saying it this time. Big surprise, they were cleared to play sports.

After the appointment, they ran into some youth group friends and joined them for lunch while I ran errands on base. When I came to pick them up I saw one of my boys writing down his email address and then as he stood to leave, the girl he was talking to gave him a hug and said goodbye. This is a familiar scene for us as friends are always coming and going, but I hadn't realized these friends were moving so soon. As we walked to the car I asked, "So the XXX family is leaving?"

"No, why?"
"Well, I saw you writing down your info and she gave you a hug before you left so I figured they were moving."
"Oh, she just likes hugs."

Mmm-hmm, I'm sure she does . . .

It's the little things

There are things that I take for granted living in the US -- like mail delivery. I get that there are tons of people who live in rural areas who have to jump through similar hoops to get mail, but for this city dweller, mail is supposed to be dropped off at my house or at least on my front porch. For the past year mail that comes to me (let's be honest -- packages, I don't get physical letters too often) is routed to Josh's work and he has to haul all the boxes from his building at the back of the base to my waiting car in the parking lot where he has pre-arranged for a ride home. Or he unboxes it all and tucks everything into different pockets in his backpack and bikes it home to me. Let's just say he was super excited when 24 large cans of cat food arrived along with the 40lb bag of dog food.

I am fortunate that Josh really doesn't care about getting a family's worth of mail delivery at his desk. He cheerfully shuttles home diapers, grapeseed oil, cat and dog toys, clothes and shoes and anything else my heart desires without complaint. At the beginning, when we were one of the first families here, one of the Marines in charge of picking up the unit mail from the post office said, "Wow sir! That's a lot of boxes! Why do you have so much stuff?" He replied, "I have 4 kids to buy clothes and toys for -- this is nothing." 

For some families though, the mail delivery issue is a source of conflict. Wife is waiting on a package that has arrived, but husband keeps forgetting to bring it home. Husband gets annoyed with the amount of packages he has to handle. Husband travels for work so wife can't get mail for a few weeks unless she wants to try and gain admission to the secure building and ask someone to go check the mail for her. Wife orders a gift for the husband, but there's no way to keep it a surprise when it ends up being delivered to his desk. I'm sure the same problems exist in families where the wife is the active duty member and the husband is waiting for his mail, but I'm generalizing based on the majority. 

But this week? I've got mail.

The base just installed post office boxes for families that would like to avoid all the above described mail delivery problems and now I feel like I'm back at Westmont College. Spinning the little wheel back and forth until the lock clicks free, peering into the the dark narrow space, hoping to see a piece of paper saying that I have a package. Today I did have a package and the guy at the window was very excited because I was the very first person to test the new system. Yay me! I got a package! And then it turned out to be sunglasses for Josh. Boo. 

I better start ordering. 

girls just wanna have fun

Flash back about 30 years ago and you're looking at me in my favorite hairstyle. I was in 3rd or 4th grade, rockin' an awesome 3/4 length t-shirt with a rainbow on it. The side ponytail was perfectly angled -- not straight out to the side and not straight back. 

I didn't intentionally style her hair like this. I put her hair in pigtails and she pulled one out. She discovered the magic of the side ponytail all by herself. 

Sometimes I look at her and know exactly how she's feeling. Most of the time I don't have a clue, but on rare wonderful occasions I can see myself in her, as her, and it's like looking in a mirror. I can see the thoughts in her head and know exactly what she's thinking. Today it's I look awesome.