Ali went home in January to visit friends and go back to Aggieland. *sigh* It took me a couple of weeks to recover and pull myself out of the funk that I was in when she left.
January proved to be a month of illness. It started with Madeline being sick the first week and continued with me being sick the second week and I THOUGHT concluded with Madeline being sick again, more severely, the third week. BUT, no, Janie has been sick for about the entire first week of February. Ugh. My children have been sick more in the last five months than in their entire lives! Every time there is a bug going around the school my children seem to catch it. I was told to expect that the first year that we are living overseas, but I just thought that my children had a superior immune system so I wasn't worried...HA! Turns out....they don't! One morning I had to go and pick Madeline up from school because she was so sick she could barely move....thank goodness the nurses aid had the forethought to hand me a puke bag on my way out of the school as Madeline didn't even clear the school's hedges before she was puking. Janie and I stood there and laughed because, well, isn't it always funny to see someone puke? HAHAH! We went straight to the International Hospital where the girls pediatrician is located....and after seeing how weak Madeline was she decided to keep her in the hospital for a while and hydrate her! OH MAN! You should have seen how quickly Madeline "recovered!" It was almost comical. The pediatrician, who is a total pushover, agreed to JUST give her a shot and run some tests to make sure it was just viral and let her go home with me. But Dr. Mona is the most awesome pediatrician...she calls me at night to make sure that the girls are doing well and also to give me test results. It is amazing how fast the hospital gives test results here! In America we would sometimes have to wait longer than 24 hours...here it is never more than 25 minutes (for basic results, obviously)!
January also proved to be the month of villa improvements from hell. We were told that they were going to be removing and re-tiling all of the villas. The time frame from start to finish was two weeks. Now...I have lived in the Middle East long enough to know that two weeks is very often NOT going to take two weeks...it might be more like four weeks...Inshallah (God willing). January 3rd they began bright and early taking a jackhammer to every single 12" tile in our yard, around our pool, on our side patio, and on our front steps...everywhere. It took them approximately one week to remove all the tile...with the jackhammer....then came the week it took for a worker with a hammer and chip away all the tile on the walls and columns. Week three....nothing. Week four....nothing. At the beginning of week five I heard the workers outside again only to look out and see that they were starting to remove the tile from the villa across from ours. I ran in to that neighbor at the mall the next day and she told me that they threatened to move out if the work wasn't done in two weeks like promised. So for the entire fifth week the workers were removing tile from their house. I called our property manager to complain and he assured me that work would be started....a few days went by and nothing....so I called our awesome realtor, Philip, to ask if we could threaten to move or at the very least withhold rent payment. Philip called the property manager and they property manager promptly called me to apologize...again. He assured me that work would be started THAT DAY...which was Saturday. Sunday rolls around and I return home around 2:15 from bible study and lunch to find them TILING THE NEIGHBORS BACK YARD. Many of you who have seen me flash know that it can be pretty ugly...BUT, fortunately I had just come from bible study, so I said a little prayer and called the property manager....let's just say I am not sure that I necessarily glorified God with my words, but I didn't do him any harm....I hope. The conversation was a bit heated as I have been nice and polite for FIVE weeks...he assured me AGAIN that work would start on my villa ASAP. Our watchman then came over to explain the delay only to get an earful of very angry "frustrations" from me. I gave them one day to start work or we were moving out. They workers were here bright and early Monday morning starting on the tiling.
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| Before |
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| During |
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| After...but not completed... |
For the most part, the villas have been very good about meeting any needs and making any repairs we have requested....with, of course, the exception of my dishwasher that took 5 months to get. In all of those five months all I every did was politely request the dishwasher once a week. Five months of polite requests....five months.... I finally asked that John call and take care of it...he did....aaaand nothing. A week later I finally decided to call the property manager myself and politely ask that they hook my dishwasher up ASAP...it was done THAT DAY.
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| Our new long awaited dishwasher |
Unfortunately all the workers in the villas are scared of me now....which I think is a bit unfair as I have been polite and patient for five months! Apparently even in the Middle East the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The girls are back to being busy again. Both Janie and Maddie were playing varsity volleyball, but Madeline has decided that she wants to play middle school basketball with her friends instead....so I will be shuttling back and forth between basketball and volleyball practice...they can never be at the same times as the school isn't big enough to accommodate more than one or two different practices at a time. Ugh.
The varsity volleyball played their first Island League game last Wednesday against the British School of Bahrain....and while their school beats ours in aesthetics with their campus they couldn't hold a candle to our girls volleyball. It was downright embarrassing. I think it lasted 30 minutes and they won 25-3 and 25-6...They have their second game against St. Christopher's today...I think it will be much the same as the last match.
Janie still loves it here. She has completely immersed herself in Bahrani culture. She has a great group of friends and she is rarely home...just like in the States! Madeline still likes it here too, but she misses her friends a bit more...she has a great group of friends and does stuff with them, but really likes to be home with us on the weekends for the most part. Both of them have an awesome group of friends from around the world. They are the ONLY two who haven't lived overseas before...they have friends from the Seychelles, Egypt, Jordan, Japan, Korea, Italy, Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, America, Canada, Denmark, Bahrain, and the list goes on. I love my girls because they don't care where you are from or what color your skin is...they judge people simply by WHO they are and not what race they belong to...
We had planned to go to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Oman for spring break with the girls and Janie's best friend, Allie, but we are kind of waiting to see if John can go with us. Right now he is extremely busy at work and it doesn't look like he will be able to go. I think we are going to go without him, but that really stinks because he loves to travel and he is really our comic relief. They are working on his area of responsibility at work right now and they have so little manpower that he is having to stay in Saudi rather than come home on the weekends just to get his work done. Duty calls. He really loves his job so he doesn't complain...but of course that doesn't stop ME from complaining...he he....
We are looking forward to our trip home this summer. I have a list of things we have to shop for when we get home and I cannot wait! I think we will be home the last week of June or the first couple days of July. Janie is planning on flying to the Seychelles with her best friend, Allie, to visit Allie's family. John and I are having a hard time dealing with her flying all over the world by herself at 17...Ugh...we even thought of taking a family vacation to the Seychelles at the same time so that we would be "with" her in the same country....Janie wasn't really too fond of that idea....LOL! So it is undecided whether we will be coming home to Houston via the Seychelles or not....
We cannot wait to see everyone! We are also excited to be leaving the desert in the hottest months of the year....and this year we will be missing Ramadan! Thank the Lord!
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