good times

I could write a novel about maintenance requests, but no one wants to read about hot water heater drama and my efforts to pantomime my problems to the non-English speaking maintenance workers and my frustration that they tell me everything is "fine." For example, one of my AC units stopped working and 2 different people came, got up up on ladders, and because they can feel the gentlest whisper of air passing through the vents, they claim "it works." No matter that it's been set at 20 for two days and the room hasn't gotten below 25, while the rest of the house is like a walk-in freezer . . . finally some people went on the roof and saw that the lines are blocked so they are going to come flush them out tomorrow. I'd love to say, "I told you so," but they wouldn't understand me.

Sadly, that's my favorite room in the house right now because I can sit on the couch without a sweatshirt on. Josh did improve my life quite a bit after I had a dramatic fit and complained that the AC was "assaulting me." His response was to get on a chair and manually adjust all of the interior vents in my bedroom so they don't blow down directly on me. Now I'm just chilly, but I'll take that over frozen.

After 4 days of waiting on multiple repair teams we finally took off and had some fun on Saturday evening. Five minutes from our house is the coastline and a large national preserve of mangroves perfect for kayaking and paddle boarding. We threw on swimsuits, headed to the launch site, and rented 3 double kayaks.

Once Josh and Carter stopped treating it like an Olympic event, we had a very nice time. (Yes, that's them waaay out in front of us.)

I think we were there at high tide -- high tide gives better access to the mangroves, but less wildlife to be seen. 

But the kids found plenty of crabs

We paddled around and found a beach where we could come ashore and swim. 

The water was warm, like a bathtub, and super salty. 

I think it's the first thing we've done since arriving that wasn't moving related (other than eating out). We needed it!

Paddling back -- thankfully with the current and with the wind this time. 

Camille was halfway decent with her oar/paddle. 

The kids want to buy their own kayaks and go every weekend. It was the highlight of our first week --  I can't believe 7 days have already passed. The days were long, but the week was short. 

church

Since we're in a new country, it's time to find a new church. I hate that part of moving. It's like walking into a family reunion where you don't know anyone and trying to fit in: "Yeah, I'm part of the family too. No really, I am."

Thanks to the internet and a few personal recommendations we tried our first church today. It was fine. Big congregation, very multicultural. They had newcomers stand and introduce themselves (which we avoided because we try and keep a low profile until we decide to commit somewhere) and just the few people who stood up were from Syria, Pakistan, and 2 other places that I couldn't understand because of their accents. That's the thing, I love the idea of a multicultural church, but I'm lost half the time because I can't filter the English fast enough. Thankfully the pastor was American and I could understand every word he said, but I only caught about 20% of the announcements and the prayer. (South African and Filipino accents) And I guess the person who announced the offering either didn't or he said it and I didn't understand because that wooden handled velvet bag came out of nowhere.  

So the church service was fine, but I wasn't feeling much of anything. I'd rather just have someone tell me where to go and make the best of it. I don't like being critical of congregations who are doing their best to worship and follow God, but I also want to find a good fit for our family. When we lived in 29 Palms I refused to go church hunting (and I had just had a baby the week before) so I told Josh to visit as many as he wanted and to let me know when he had found a place and I would go. That worked out pretty well for us. Maybe I'll try one more week and then let Josh explore the rest with the kids.

Anyway, I was sitting in church, half listening to the sermon and half in my head when I looked down the aisle and saw all 3 boys had brought their bibles to church and all 3 were following along with the passage as it was being read. This is why we do this. Why we drag ourselves out to church the moment we land somewhere, even when it's hard and the last thing I want to do is find a new church family to belong to. Because I want them to know that this is important and no matter where they go in life they need to find a community of other believers to make friends and worship with.

At least that part of my morning felt like a success. I have no idea what we'll do next week and I was too tired after service to talk about how everyone else felt about it. I went home and crawled in bed (to get warm) and fell asleep for 3 hours. By accident.

This evening we had a party to go to with all the guys that Josh is working with and the few families that are here. It was nice to meet everyone and the kids had a great time. 

She's pouting that it's time to go home. 

One of the Marines is a balloon artist and he brought all of his balloons and his pump and spent all evening making the kids balloon animals and teaching them how to make them. 

They loved it and now I have more balloon creations in my house than I ever thought imaginable (and spares so they can make more of their own). Aside from the random balloon popping that set everyone's PTSD on edge, it was a fun time for everyone. 

mistress of the manor

Today my job was managing maintenance calls to the house. Super exciting. One AC unit was out making Carter's room an oven (he had to sleep in the hallway last night) so the repair people came to work on it today. Meanwhile someone blocked up a toilet requiring another repair call and I have no hot water in my shower so someone else came to look at that problem. Technically I have some hot water, but it's only the cold water that gets hot from the tank being on the roof and and since my faucet has the hot and cold switched the guy and I went round and round about whether I actually had a problem or not. 

Another quirky thing about our house: the doorbell rings in an odd location so it's easy to miss. I would blame it on my poor hearing except the kids and the dog can't hear it either. That makes waiting for house calls an adventure. Ironically in Bahrain service people who came to the door would lean on our very loud bell and ring it non-stop until someone came to the gate, behavior that made me want to strangle them. Here it seems that the cultural norm is one short push on the bell and then nothing else. I hope they learn to ring twice or come and knock or they'll be waiting a long time for someone to come to the door. 

The kids have been doing a lot of this. 

Lying around, looking at books, watching TV or playing games on their phones/ipads. Today was more laundry, more Gilmore Girls (I'm almost done with the good seasons and haven't decided if I'm going to torture myself with the later ones or not), and our new nanny/housemaid/personal assistant/organizer/sanity saver came over to meet us. She's very young and quiet, but was sweet with both Camille and Micah. She's going to move in with us this weekend which stretches me way out of my comfort zone. but I think it will be a good thing for everyone. 

Camille has been busy taking selfies to send to Josie. She misses her a lot. 

When Josh came home from work tonight we went to the mall for dinner and to pick up a few more things for the house. 

No alcohol here -- only juice dressed up to look like cocktails. 

We ended up at Chili's so we could have bottomless tortilla chips and salsa. And because it was the only warmish spot in the mall. I'm going to need a parka to go shopping here. It's like they're trying to recreate Ski Dubai here in Abu Dhabi. 

Kind of fancy: the glass elevator travels up and down the side of an aquarium. 

Shopping for more house stuff. 

I need to remind myself that this part of moving is always hard. There's not much to do, I feel out of place, we spend more money than I want to, and even if I'm making the best of it, I can't help that it doesn't feel like home. I have to wait it out. I didn't love Oman upon arrival and I certainly didn't adore Bahrain. The only place I fell in love with right away was Egypt and that's because it was first and was our long awaited adventure. I gave it a lot of slack because it was only "temporary."

After we came home from the store the kids took the pets outside and ran around our yard before bed. This is what we wanted.

A hot summer night -- the kids playing soccer in our yard. It will feel like home soon enough. 

Waiting

Yesterday was a terrible day, but today was uneventful, so I'll take that as a win. Carter (reading over my shoulder) would like to say "it wasn't that bad" and he's probably right. We just started the day stressed and fighting and I threatened to skip all the meetings that I was supposed to go to because I was mad and I knew that would make Josh crazy. But after 18 years of living with me he has learned a few tricks and when I said, "You can't make me go" he knew the right answer was to swallow whatever it was that he wanted to say, and reply, "You're right, I can't."

I decided to go and we got through it (meetings about our housing, embassy information, safety briefs, ID badges, etc) and now that's behind us. Today Josh went to work and we all stayed home since we don't have a car that I'm allowed to drive. My car is still sitting in Bahrain even though we shipped it over 2 weeks ago so who knows when I'll be back behind the wheel. I'm sure we could rent one, but I am trying to stop the financial bleeding rather than increase it. Thankfully the house is furnished and comes with some basic appliances (coffeemaker, microwave), dishes, and linens so I don't have to buy all of those while we wait for our stuff to arrive, but I need wastebaskets, a kitchen trash can, some laundry baskets and other basic household items (cleaning supplies, paper goods, pantry items, etc).

To take care care of some of those needs, we headed to IKEA after Josh got home from work. For the past 4 years I had dreams of going to IKEA in Saudi dressed in my abaya, but they never materialized (no way to get a visa into Saudi). At least now when I actually need inexpensive household storage items, I can go whenever I want. No abaya needed.

Passing the Grand Mosque as we cruise down the highway. It always makes me laugh when I think about our trip to Istanbul and the famous Blue Mosque. Carter walked through it and said, "Eh, it was OK. The Grand Mosque was better." When you come visit, you can see for yourself why he likes it best. 

All IKEAs look pretty much the same -- even when we haven't been inside one in years. 

But this was new to me -- a handmade Persian carpet section?! I'm home!

Not the same quality as the ones we have, but they are definitely handmade and in the traditional styles and patterns. I've missed that wooly smell of all the carpets stacked together. 

No need to buy, I have plenty of beauties and I'm already scoping out places in our new house where each one will look the best. 

We got home and my favorite part of the day was that I didn't have to put a single thing together. The boys and Josh figured out how to stream the CrossFit games onto the TV so they watched and pieced my shelving units together. Our kitchen is small, but there's a small room off the kitchen that we will use as a pantry/storage room once we get the shelves put up. 

They figured out this one all by themselves. 

Tomorrow looks to be more of the same. Josh will go to work. We will stay home and take turns going to the gym in our compound (I make myself go and they beg to go), cleaning the house, watching TV, and waiting around for him to come home. Josh slipped right into his place in the world and now we have to figure out where we fit. For now, we wait and settle. 

New house, new quirks

I’m ready to crack. The house is great, but we have to figure each other out. Middle Eastern houses all have their own special features and learning how to navigate my way around them takes a bit of patience. I don’t have much to spare these days. 

My bathroom has the hot water and cold water switched (not that unusual in this area of the world). I got stuck taking a lukewarm bath because I didn’t figure it out until the tub was 1/2 full. The next day I took a shower and felt like I was being molested by the shower curtain because it was right on my backside. My old shower may have had a droopy curtain and the shower head held up by a zip-tie, but I had plenty of breathing room and endless hot water. Oh, and it actually kept all the water in the tub instead of funneling it onto the floor in a glorious waterfall. I think this tub must be installed on a slight backwards slope because any water that hits the walls or sides of the tub runs to the back and along a line of grout onto the floor. Enough to flood the entire bathroom. 

And the nonstop blowing air from every vent in the house. It feels like I’m in the Arctic. I am wearing layers as write this. Yes, I want the house to be cooler than outside, but I can’t figure out how to keep from feeling like I’m under a blast cooler without turning off the AC entirely. Which I have done and feel marvelously comfortable for about 10 minutes until the air starts getting sticky and stuffy from the humidity creeping in under the doors and through the window cracks. Our old house had separate AC units that would drip water and I could never find the remote to adjust them, but I could angle the vents toward the ceiling so when they were working properly I didn't feel cold, just comfortable. 

I'm trying to figure out how to feel comfortable. 

The longest short move . . .

It's a good thing this flight is only an hour long because I don't know how much stress management I have left in me. In my head, when we land, I'm done, off the clock, finished. That might be a foolish assumption and I'll be sure to update if it turns out to be a fallacy, but I have been prepping for this move for months and when we hit the ground in Abu Dhabi, we will have moved. It will be behind me. My work completed. 

The money I begrudged the pet importer is looking like the best $$ I ever spent. We picked up the animals from the kennel in the morning and dropped them at the cargo terminal at the airport. They were not happy. 

It's going to be a really  l o n g  day for them. 

Thankfully I don't have to see them again until the importer delivers them to our house sometime later in the evening. 

They were not enjoying their ride on the forklift. I'm not sure if they'll ever fully recover. 

Then it was back to the hotel to pick up the kids and all of our luggage. I didn't ever publish the post about our excess baggage fiasco and trying to mail items to ourselves and the headache involved in stuff management this past week, but I was proud to say that I got it down to 6 suitcases that weighed 55-60 lbs each, 6 carry-on pieces, including a guitar and ukulele, and backpacks for all. A friend who agreed to help haul us to the airport walked in and all he could say was, "Wow." 

We made it out -- expired visas and all! (we knew they were past date, but the word on the street was as long as we were within 30 days, it would be fine. Glad that turned out to be true, with only a little extra paperwork). 

We checked with the flight attendant to make sure that the animals had made it on board and she said, "Oh yes, I can hear them barking down below!" Oh great. Not only was he barking, but barking enough for 2! 

Coming in over Abu Dhabi -- not the best first impression, but for the last 2 weeks Bahrain has been covered in a sandy humid haze as well so it didn't look that pretty from the air either. 

Stop watching your screens and look at your new home! 

Wow, it's really brown. It almost makes Bahrain look tropical . . .

Ah, we made it!

I was right. The work was done. Everything after landing went flawlessly. No line at passport control, our luggage was waiting on the carousel, and we all piled into two cars and headed to our new home. At this duty station we were assigned housing, hallelujah. All we had to do was show up with our bags. A friend had even bought groceries and stocked the refrigerator for us. 

I haven't constructed any thoughts about our new house, neighborhood, or life in a different country yet. I've been too occupied with unpacking all those suitcases, figuring out where each kid is going to sleep and put their clothes, and running the washing machine (which takes 3 hours for each wash cycle!) non-stop. It's not hard or stressful, just busywork. Which turns out to be a nice change from the stresses of the unknown of the previous weeks. 

We did get to run out to the shopping center behind our house to grab cat litter, pet food, and a few more groceries. Did I mention how thankful I was to have hired the pet importer? While we were getting settled at home, picking up food, and getting SIM cards for our cell phones, the pet importer supervised the process of getting the pets inspected and authorized to enter the country. We landed at 6:30 and the pets didn't make it to us until after 11:30. If we had been stuck at the airport until almost midnight, waiting on the vet's approval, this blog post would be a hand-scribbled note on a napkin: "make it stop!" 

But the pets are here and getting used to our new home and yard

making themselves comfortable

We're all trying to settle in. 

This is the end . . . (and a Budapest day)

I don't think there is anything else for me to do. The move is finished except for the actual travel to Abu Dhabi tomorrow. Every detail has been hashed out and if we forgot anything, it's too late now. I have an afternoon ahead of me with no suitcases to pack (I got them zipped and NO ONE BETTER TRY TO TAKE ANYTHING OUT), no errands to run, and no car to go anywhere. I'm going to sit and do nothing. Absolute bliss after our schedule the past 2 weeks.

So I should probably write a bit and then I can marathon Gilmore Girls without feeling completely unproductive. I've been wanting to write this post about our trip to Budapest's Zoo Cafe before we leave for AD, but have been too brain dead to do it until now. 

When I was researching things to do in Budapest, a friend said a must see place was the Zoo Cafe. She warned me that it's weird, but that the kids would love it and that would make it worth it. When looking at a map I found that the Zoo Cafe was only about 3 blocks from our apartment so on Thursday morning we set out to have a mid-morning coffee and see some animals. 

That was the plan. Camille is pretty stubborn at times and decided that she didn't want to wear a pair of purple corduroy pants that I had packed for her because they were boy pants. I don't know where she got the idea that they were boy pants, or why that would even be a problem for her, but she had a bug up her butt that morning and refused to wear them. 99.5% of the time I give her free reign of her clothing choices, but for reasons I can't remember now, those pants were not negotiable that morning. 

It could have been that her other ones were in the wash, or maybe I had a bug up my butt, but we ended up in a face-off over those pants. Somehow, eventually we got them on (I'm pretty sure it involved both Josh and I putting one leg in each side). So as she's crying on the floor (in her boy pants) I have this thought, and she evidently had the same thought, because I said, "You better not angry pee!" And she yelled, "I already did!" 

She thought if she peed in her pants then she wouldn't have to wear them. Well, we proved her wrong. 

Oh, vacations are so much fun! 

Yes, we made her wear the angry pee pants. Josh and I quick conferenced and decided she was wearing the pants until she got over wearing the pants and because her daddy is nice, he packed something for her to change into. As we were walking she sniffled, "I'm cold and wet, but it's my fault because I angry peed." (She rages, but snaps out of it really quickly.)

In the end it didn't matter that she was wearing pee soaked pants because the cafe smelled like everyone peed their pants. Cats roaming everywhere, birds and other reptiles on display, and even a small alligator in an aquarium. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that the Zoo Cafe smells like a zoo. 

We had coffee and hot chocolates, but when lizards and baby hedgehogs run and poop all over your table, it kind of takes away the appetite. At least there was hand sanitizer everywhere! We kept giggling how the restaurant health inspectors in the US would flip if they saw this place. 

Cats lounging and shedding where people eat

The hedgehog was adorable, but he left droppings with every step . . . 

and he was in danger of walking off the edge of the table. 

Everyone else was scared of the snake and refused to hold it until mama showed them it was safe. 

The cat making friends with the snake?

Caleb got the cockatoo to spread his wings and flap along with him. They had us rolling. 

The cat teasing the alligator -- quite bold. 

In spite of the rough start, we had a great morning. Yes, it was crazy and yes, we loved it. 

And yes, Budapest in winter is cold!