Our community....New in town

Not sure what I've shared on here but we have been a part of several communities during our time overseas. There is a lot of shifting of people from around the globe and much of it is connected to the fact that one of the few language schools that teaches the local spoken dialect is located in our little town.

As a result...we have started seeing the world tromp through our little town and it is growing more and more.

We believe in working in community and that we really need each other - this is even more so when living overseas. Consequently, we have a small community with some friends who gather for dinner, play-dates, general emotional and work support.

Currently in our community are W+E who have four kids the same ages as our kids. They are Dutch and we stayed with their family in Holland this summer. We totally love Holland and Layla wants to move there permanently (=  They moved from one house in town to another one nearer to us in June...that was move #2 of 4 that we helped with this year.

F+J moved here this Spring (the 3rd of the 4th people we helped to get set up) and he is teaching English at a university in town. They have two small boys.

S+K are brand new since August and are attending language school full time. This new couple don't have any kids so that simplifies things. Ryan is completely in love with both of them so we might have to set up separate playdates for him! We did the rounds of house set-up again for the fourth time in ONE YEAR!

Just a flash back SEVEN YEARS ago this January!! We had a guitar, a full keyboard, a box each of computer stuff, a computer screen, books, house stuff and clothes for each of us. It was wild. Someone told me to just bring whatever I could I was so grateful for the advice! We didn't have any kids though (=

 So this last 12 months have seen two international trips totaling 5 months, moving house ourselves and helping three other families. That is a LOT of trips to the real estate agents and carpenters and plumbers and electricians and so on and so on and so on (=

This is a photo in front of our new house as of August last year. We are so happy that God provided such a great place to live....I grumble about certain aspects of it but we are SO HAPPY to have good electricity, money for enough water and AC and food and two have to working (mostly) cars. We love that it is situated on a huge dirt lot away from roads.....the kids have tons of space to run around outside and get really really dirty. Awesome. The second floor you see on top is the surprise room - a nice large office for Tom to work. We haven't seen this before in a house so it is really unusual and is a great fit for our family.

Summer Photos!

We are HOME!

We've been gone for about 5 weeks this summer. It was a big treat and also a lot of work! Traveling with a three and five year old have a whole host of challenges and you need to stay a few steps ahead....which I'm not sure we did.

Here are some random snippets because I can't think of how to weave them all together in one story:

It was our FIRST TRIP IN SIX YEARS without a car seat or stroller or baby crib. Big news people. Inshallah we won't have to lug those items around ever again.

Ryan had no idea of the difference between a sidewalk and a street. Go figure....he walks around on sandy dirt all day or is in a car. Walking on sidewalks is not something we do. Sidewalks are not common where we live! We had four days in Paris. Totally stressful for me...remember we did not have a stroller this time!

Throw in the fact that we stayed in Holland for three weeks which has bike paths EVERYWHERE....and Layla was also equally ignorant of the constant danger of wandering around on the sidewalk. For a mom this was a major stressful part of our entire summer. I was not at all expecting to be dragging them away from streets and bike paths the entire time. Not so fun.

We loved Holland. Go there and go there with kids if you have them. We had a sweet deal of staying in the home of a friend the whole time and were able to borrow bikes and a car so it was AMAZING. They have great playgrounds, gorgeous scenery and great food (see below).

Apparently it is very Dutch to eat bread with "toppings" for breakfast and lunch. Toppings can include butter, thin slices of meat OR slices of cheese (they don't mix!), or apple butter, honey and best of all CHOCOLATE SPRINKLES. They even have licorice sprinkles! There is an entire section in the grocery store that is dedicated to "stuff you eat on bread" in the meat AND dry goods sections. So interesting.

We loved biking! Layla is not one for strenuous physical activity unless she is really motivated. But she got on that little bike and went for an HOUR with Tom. It was amazing to see. She is totally wimpy when walking around a mall but can bike like crazy apparently. Note to self: she is all about internal motivation.

Rain is so so fun.

Amsterdam is best seen on a bike for sure. Cheap, great exercise and "exciting" at times as you negotiate traffic. Bring along a spouse who can strap BOTH kids to his bike, read a map and remember it and take you around town.

Yes....we took a WRONG turn at one point and saw some ladies standing in window in their "swimsuits". Tom didn't notice (remember he is the only one paying attention to directions) but I sure did and apparently Layla did too. I didn't really know what to say but we started talking about swimsuits instead. sigh. This almost-6-year-old girl doesn't miss much. It made the trip much more interesting in that she wanted to point and ask about everything....blue hair, pink hair, tatooes, funny looking women etc etc etc.

We ended our time at a Family Camp which was really lovely. Great great kids program, good stuff for adults and just beautiful green hills with rain and clouds. It was really encouraging all in all.

I'll put some photos together soon but we are still dealing with the last bit of sickness we all contracted from Ryan's little class. I was the last one to get it AFTER we got home which was great.

It took us 24 hours to get home!! How did that happen?!!? We've started thinking family vacation in Europe is the better choice because it SO MUCH cheaper to fly there than the US and if we stay with friends it is way cheaper than that US. Add in the time change of a mere two hours....it is an all around winner. However, somehow it took us 24 hours door to door on our return path. Ugh. And Tom was sick the entire time we traveled. Poor guy.

So. We loved Holland. It was Intense Parenting to be sure (my new phrase for having young kids out of their routine and out of their normal space!

Pictures to come later.......

We went to a cheese farm.  was very informative and we had a lot of fun. The kids were able to feed the cows for a long time which they really enjoyed.

the comments for these photos are all wacky and I cannot correct it so just consider it a game tonight everything together!

ut fanniversaryr 11th anniversary! We went to a pancake house with our dutch friends who we luve near in the Gulf.

 last few days our friends house here in Holland. We have had a wonderful time taking bike rides, visiting the lakenear the house, seeing the little old towns nearby and their Castles so forth.

I only have my smartphone with me so typing is tedious but I wanted to include some.

we found some water guns for them to use at the lake so fun! 

this lake is really a trailer park camping site. They had lits I

 if fun here! !

11th anniversary!

Add caption

We have been on holiday for almost one week now.we are staying at the orderthe brother of one of our friends while they are on holiday. we are loving Holland because it is so green we have bikes to ride and a lovely home to stayin. now we need to figure out how to cook and eat differently since the food here is much more experience than at home! Today tom came home with a 4 pound bag of potatoes and said "this is our new rice!" At home we usually eat rice everyday for lunch but potatoes are much much cheaper here so I am looking recipes up on the computer. I have never really cooked potatoes!

please excuse the lack of punctuation! I am doing this on my phone and it is tedious ! I will include a few photos and update a bit later but we are all well and enjoying the reduced responsibilities. Tom still has to check in at work and stay on top of all sorts of things but it is still a holiday!

gorgeous gardens!!

bikes!! This is elsbeth our friend from home. We are dtaying I

 in her hrother in law's house. The kids had so luch fun playing together all day!! They missed each other for sure.

Enjoying european breakfast pastries!!

I would not survive without my packing cubes!! Keeps all our stuff in order!

ordru

Family Holiday!!

We are taking off in a few hours! We need to be in Germany for a work things for Tom in August and we are SUPER excited. Our last trip to Germany two years was fantastic. It was hands-down the best holiday/work trip we've ever had....green everywhere, walking trails, cheap place to stay, great food etc etc.

We are excited to spend a few days in Paris before taking the train to Holland to stay in the home of a relative of one of our friends here in town! They are on family holiday themselves so we are again VERY privileged to be able to have a free place to stay for THREE weeks! We are looking forward to just walking and biking around Holland and trying all the food.

Can I also say that just about everything in Paris and Holland is free for kids under 18? How COOL is that. My amazing deal-hunter of a husband found teeny tiny hotel that will let the kids sleep on the floor for free! I thought Paris would be too expensive but apparently, the hotels are much cheaper than other international cities because they are older and smaller and more...uh...European in their amenities as opposed to flashy American.

So anyway - I doubt I'll be posting as much for the next few weeks but we'll have PLENTY of pictures to upload afterwards!!

Summer VBS

This summer....just before Ramadan started last week, a friend of mine wanted to run a VBS style thing for her kids and the children of some neighbors of hers. We were all grateful for someone organizing something for so many kids!

Her theme for this day was learning to forgive and learning to give good gifts to each other. So she pulled together some play kitchens, plastic food and kitchen items, lots of playdough, pretend menus and such we sat and ordered food while the kids made it.

She is very talented as a script writer and so she told a story which was translated by Elsbeth. I was furiously cleaning all the playdough off the floor before our next activity (= She told the story of Joseph told over the three days of activities.

     Someone donated some VBS-type stuff to her and she is happy to create different "modules" and to help others to implement them. What we can help her with is the translation into Arabic so Elsbeth and I feel like it is a great trade off!

And here you can see my two redheads playing kitchen (=

Perfect Example of the 1st World/3rd World dynamic

 
I've been dying to take a photo of this at the right moment. That means I'm not driving quickly, I have my phone, I can actually make it work and click without wiggling too much. Not an easy task (=

So I was thrilled when I got this right outside our front door the other day. This is what I mean by the clash of 1st and 3rd world in this previous post. Here is a perfectly modern garbage truck so you make some assumptions about garbage collecting being familiar to you.  And yet what actually happens is that there are large, metal, square containers with no bottoms to them and folks just throw stuff in or near or close by. You can find furniture, tree branches, cow carcasses, goat heads, community donations of working toys and clothes set a bit farther away from the pile.

So the modern garbage truck pulls up to the pile/container, 5 or 6 guys get out and flip the container on its side and then proceed to put the stuff in the garbage truck by hand. Hmmm. The first time I saw this I thought the container had slipped off the truck so all those guys were having to clean up the mess. Then I realized that was the SYSTEM. hmmm.

Do you see what I mean?.....one of the stressors of living here is seeing one thing and making assumptions only to realize it isn't the case. Once in awhile it isn't a bit deal.....but multiple times a day it can happen so often it gets draining.

Pool Time!

Living in a place that is SO HOT for so many months of the year, you realize that you have to figure out ways to entertain your kids other than just TV....unless you are okay with that.....
So we do the following:
Bedtime is now 930 or 10pm
Going to the park is from about 730 to 930pm
We build elaborate forts and let the house get SUPER messy
We cook all sorts of things
and Pool Time is ANY time because it is shaded!

 

I can't get the comments to work again. SO IRRITATING.
The pool is in the back corner of our house so Tom decided to cover an L-shaped portion which gives us enough space to sit next to the pool.
It was SO COLD the first few days because we didn't have a cover for the pool. We just had to make ourselves sit down in the freezing water. It was wild to have 120 degree wind blowing your hair and have your legs FREEZING in the water!
     

Ryan and Layla have gotten so much better in the water just in the last 2 weeks. It is amazing. We are so grateful for the pool.

 

Jael is our Dutch friend's son. He is the same age as Ryan and is SO CUTE. he makes this face all the time Wish you could see him dance. He and ryan are best buds. 

Wait a minute....is this a 1st world country or a 3rd world country??

We tell folks this is one of the random stressers of living where we do...you just never know if you are in walking into a third world or first world situation.

Ambiguity and unpredictability are supposedly some of the most difficult things for us to live with for long periods of time. hahahahahaha. This really makes me laugh when looking at our lives. I can't even tell you if there will bananas at the store let alone things that rank a bit higher than that. True, I can cross the border and go to the shiny French department store where they usually have everything in stock but that takes mores time and effort and it isn't where I live. And really, I can get what I need on a regular basis without crossing the border.....but you just never know and that is unpredictability part.

You might think the idea of "second world" would apply to our area, but I did a wee bit of research and found out that the term "second world" was for the centrally planned governments of the communist era. We definitely live in a country with that type of dynamic - central power that is sort of planning....hmm. never mind.

Anyway here goes for the things that tell you it is a third world country:

There are some very rich people and then everyone else....not tons of poverty (due to the government that gives lots of subsidies)
Kids don't wear shoes most of the time
Dirt roads are everywhere and even if you have paved roads they are optional
Road rules are very erratic...drive 10 miles an hour? no problem. See a friend by the side of the road? pull off...no problem. See a friend driving near you? Pull up next to them and block both lanes while driving and chatting. No problem. Well maybe if it is a two lane road.....but then everyone will figure out to just drive on the dirt.
Older generations of people (ahem....like mine!) have not gone to school past 4th or 5th grade
Gender segregation and roles are the bedrock of society and pretty inflexible
Houses are still sort of tents....doors, windows and gates are left open and unlocked and all manner of bugs and sand are considered normal inside the house
People often still sleep on the floor with maybe a pillow and blanket....girls in one room boys in another.

And the first world indicators:

They will have more than one cell phone
Often their cell phone is so nice I would never consider buying it
Often their cars are WAY nicer then ours - Lexus, Escalade, Mercedes
They have big flat screen TVs that are on all the time
and several Xboxes and other electronic toys
Differences in families are EXTREME - some members haven't finished high school while others may have done a masters degree overseas.


All of this adds up to some very funny situations at time because you just don't know what to expect. It also lends itself to an attitude of you just don't know what will happen so you need to really just relax and take it as it comes and see it all as an adventure!
We are still learning so many things about this Middle Eastern culture and find it fascinating and confusing and absorbing.