Sooo Long 2011...The Year in Review...

If you have read my blog you probably already know about our year, but I thought I would write a re-cap...maybe it will be a cathartic experience and I can fully let it go and go in to 2012 with a renewed outlook!

After a rough year of moving and change, our year started out well.  January 2011, we were living in Bahrain with Madeline and Janie and Alison was visiting/home from Texas A&M and Sarah (Walker, although she might as well be a Watkins) was also visiting.  We spent a week excitedly showing them around our new country that we loved and then another week in Dubai for Christmas.  With the exception of the fact that someone stole a large chunk of money out of our bank account the night before we left for Dubai, it was an awesome time.  It was nice to get away and see some more of the Middle East.  Dubai was a lot like Bahrain in that there are quite a few Westerners living there, there is alcohol there, but I think you can only get it in hotels and at the airport, Abayas (the black choir robes) are not required.  In fact, I think Dubai was much more liberal than even Bahrain in the dress code.  The girls actually wore shorts and summer dresses in Dubai...in Bahrain that would just be an invitation for creepers to WHOOT at you or follow you around and ask for your phone number.  Dubai had an awesome public transportation system.  It really was much more modern and green than Bahrain.  I loved it there!  They have a lot of American stores and restaurants....we were in HEAVEN when we saw P.F. Changs!

Christmas in the Desert 2010

The Beginning of the End...

After New Years, Alison and Sarah went home and the girls and I went back to our lives in Bahrain.  The girls absolutely loved Bahrain...it was our home. We had volleyball, basketball, friends, sleepovers, etc. just like in the States.  In February we started seeing on the news the rumblings about the Arab Spring in Tunisia...then Egypt.  We lived on a daily basis with "protests" in Bahrain...and tire burnings.  Everyone just shrugged it off as that had been going on forever...literally.  Every week from the day we moved there we would get a list of planned demonstrations...we just knew to steer clear of that area.  Quite honestly, we never really paid too much attention to the postings because it was usually confined to areas we didn't visit.  I even stopped to take a quick picture of a burning tire one night on my way home from the gym....We just weren't scared or worried.  After the Egypt protests became such a worldwide event and they got such worldwide coverage, Bahrainis decided to follow suit.  They started to congregate in the Pearl Roundabout (a big huge troublesome traffic circle with a pearl statue) and called it their "Tahrir Square."  It wasn't until the government fired on their own people in February that we started taking a keen interest in the situation.  Our company requested that we temporarily relocate to Saudi Arabia (they do a better job of keeping their people down ;)), but we couldn't because the girls and I did not have Saudi visas.  Most of the families relocated for a week or two...things calmed down...and everyone came back.  The company started work on a visa for us just in case. 

We still lived our lives pretty much the same.  We determined whether to keep the girls home from school that day by whether the school was open and whether Janie's arab friends told us.  By the middle of March, things started getting a little more violent.  We never ever felt scared or in danger.  The girls school closed off and on due to protests.  The danger wasn't where we were living or going to school necessarily...but it was on the way to school.  The military was scared that we would get stuck in traffic due to protests...I guess the thought of a bus load of military/DoD and American kids stuck for hours in traffic is not the ideal situation.  Each bus had a trained Nepalese Gurkha (or at least we think they were...no one really knows, but they are the ones that guard the gate in to the school) and they carried a briefcase with a gun, but the bus caught in a four hour traffic jam is still a sitting duck.

After a few days where things seemed to be escalating, John called and said to get ready to go because the company was making it mandatory that we evacuate to Saudi Arabia...I was just coming out of the grocery store and I was obviously not happy about the situation as we did NOT feel unsafe.  We weren't being naive...we were being realistic.  We would not leave our children in a place where we felt there was eminent danger.   BUT, we weren't given a choice so in four hours we each packed a suitcase and waited for John to get there...he had to sit and wait for two hours at the border for all the Saudi military to cross over in to Bahrain to help keep the peace.  We each only packed a suitcase because we thought it was going to be just like the previous evacuation and be for just a few weeks.  We got in to Saudi and waited.  The school was closed for a week or so, but then re-opened.  For two weeks we sat in Saudi with nothing to do waiting for the company to decide when it was safe enough to go home.  And we waited....and waited...On March 27th they called the families together and told us we could never go back to Bahrain.  So in the middle of the school semester the company officially moved us.  They gave us two choices:  stay in Saudi and put your kids in school in Dhahran (an hour and a half drive one way on a very dangerous highway) or go home.  We cried and agonized over the situation and we chose to go home.  Given only those two choices, it was the best decision for our family.  It was a gut-wrenching decision.  Within 6 hours of our decision we were on a plane home to Texas.  We wanted to keep life as normal as possible for the girls who were just uprooted from their home, life and all their friends.  The best way we could think of was to put them back in to their previous life. 

Back to Texas...

The evacuation back home was an easy in the sense that we moved back to our old house, the girls went back to their old schools, Alison was there, and I got to see my sister and my parents...but it was also a bit difficult.  There was no closure for the girls.  They had a life in Bahrain and in a blink of an eye they had to leave everything behind.   We came home and did a few renovations to the house before realizing that we were not going to be staying.  John was in Saudi and loved his job there...our choices were stay in Texas and see John once every three months, or move back to Saudi and live with him.  The girls were clear that they wanted to go back to the Middle East as soon as they could.  John and I weren't sure what to do.  Janie was going to be a Senior, Maddie would be starting high school....Once we found the home school program for Janie through the University of Texas, we decided we could move back.  So we enjoyed our summer in the States spending time with friends and family before moved back to Saudi on August 23rd.  We got to go see Wicked on Broadway and the Alexander McQueen Exhibit at the Met AND the girls got to shop in New York in June.  It was an incredible vacation....we LOVE NYC!

From Bahrain to Texas to Saudi...

The transition back to Saudi has not been easy.  We moved in to a huge compound with all the other Chevron Phillips families.  The compound is like a luxury resort...it is so beautiful that you almost forget that it is smack dab in the middle of the desert.  Compound living has proved to be difficult for us.  There is little privacy, the people here have been here for a year so they already have their friends/groups, and we are unable to drive so we are completely dependent on the use of a company driver and car.  If I'm being honest, I was still harboring much resentment towards the company (and a little anger towards God) for uprooting our lives without really a chance for us to plead our case.  There were no considerations made for those few families that had high school aged kids...they made a blanket rule and we had no recourse.  On top of being an resentful, not having many friends here, and having to start all over again, Madeline got sick.  We had been here for a week or two when she started feeling sick.  She has always been hypoglycemic, but her symptoms changed.  We spent the first two months of our stay here going back and forth to the hospital....it is an hour and a half drive to the good international hospital.  She ended up having to stay for three or four days in the hospital to no end.  We did blood tests and ultrasounds and more blood tests.  It was a long and tiring two months....It is very draining to drive to Khobar every day and see doctors all day and never get a diagnosis. 

After months of tests with no diagnosis we decided to take a break from doctors.  That is when I heard about a woman here on the compound that had just gotten a PhD in Natural Medicine.  She had a lot of diagnostic equipment and machines that could help us.  After having seen her for a few times we finally got the diagnosis of Epstein-Barrs Virus/Mononucleosis.  Which in hindsight, I could have figured out....I remembered that Madeline had been exposed to a friend with Mono right before we left for Saudi.  Long story short...she is doing better.  We have been here for about four months and she has had about two to three weeks of good health.  She is still exhausted, but she is starting to improve.  Her mood is improving as her health improves.

The other sticking point in living here, Bahrain still being closed to visits, has now been rectified...sort of.  Last week our company finally decided to start letting us visit Bahrain on a very limited basis.  We are allowed to go on day trips only with the company vehicles.  So hopefully as the year progresses we will be able to go more often and for longer periods of time.  Unfortunately, many of our friends have been reassigned and have moved on without us getting to say good-bye.  BUT, we will take what we can get!  We feel less like caged animals now that we can go to Bahrain and have a few hours of freedom a week!!!!!  We are happy about that.

What's next...

Well, who knows what is next?  John is off for the rest of the year and we have been discussing some short term goals as well as trying to decide about long term goals.  In the short term, Janie is attempting to finish her high school classes by February or March.  We are going to Istanbul for Christmas for ten days.  There is NO celebration of Christmas in Saudi so it will be nice to go somewhere that isn't so strict about that....Bahrain has quite a few Christmas decorations so it is fun to go there, but we are excited about getting out of here for ten days....

We are in discussions about where to go for spring break.  Alison will be spending her spring break in London...her Shakespeare class at Texas A&M is going as part of the class....it should be awesome.  Her spring break doesn't coincide with ours so we wouldn't be able to spend it together anyway.  We are talking about Jordan, Beirut, London, or Cyprus for spring break.  We cannot decide.  We want to see as much of the Middle East as we can before moving somewhere else in a few years.

Because of Madeline's situation with the school, she has decided to go to boarding school next year.  Her school of choice is in New York...just outside of the city on the Hudson River.  It has a great Fine Arts program which is what she is looking for.  She is hoping to take voice lessons and go to some acting camps and workshops this summer.  It is so difficult for me to let her go...my idea of having three years left with my youngest at home with us is shattered.  I am mourning the loss of proms, homecomings, etc.  I know that it will just be a new normal for us, but it is still difficult to let go of her so soon.  I have been praying about this situation for the guidance to do what is right for Maddie.  She is excited because she really wants to live in NYC (and who doesn't!?!?)! 

Janie is planning on attending Texas A&M and living with Alison in College Station next year.  She is going to enjoy her last few months in the Middle East before heading home to the States.  We are planning on selling our house in Sweeny and buying a house in College Station.  Our home base will there for the forseeable future.  We will make the decision on when to sell it within the next few weeks.  BUT, if you know someone in the market for a 4-2-2 detached garage with new tiles floors, updated bathrooms, a new paint job,  and a new A/C on in Sweeny...let me know :)

For me, with no kids home, it will be hard.  I can't even think about it without getting sad.  I will have some freedom to go back and forth between the States and Saudi because they won't be here...I will definitely be home more!  I will get to see my family more and I want to go to parent's weekend at A&M in October, go to an Aggie football game, go to Parent's Weekend at Maddie's new school in October.  BUT, ultimately, my home is here in Saudi with John. 

It has been a year of changes and adjustments, but we are doing well.  We really are blessed beyond belief.  We have so much to be thankful for.  I am so thankful for my husband...I still get butterflies thinking about him.  I am thankful for my girls...they have been such a blessing and they have been so easy to raise.  They are amazing children and I love them so much.  I am thankful that we have this opportunity to live overseas even if it hasn't always been smooth sailing.  God has kept us on our toes to say the least.  I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!