Month: March 2011

   

My mom bought this castle for her girly grandbabies right before we came home from Egypt. She didn’t imagine that Camille would get to play with it for another year, but lucky for us, this princess came home to her castle.

The boys are big fans of it too – the pink doesn’t keep them from playing GI Joe storms the castle when they play with their little green Army guys.

as of today we have

2 weekends
1 payday
17 days
too many hours to count before we leave.

It feels just like the last time. Sitting in church this morning I was thinking, “only 2 more Sundays before we’ll be going to church in Oman.” The most frequently asked question when people see us now is, “when are you leaving?” rather than, “how does it feel to be back?”

I’ve started wondering if we have enough luggage (we only have 1 suitcase each now) and how I’m going to fit everything we need in those bags and wondering if I need to buy more clothes before we leave which would mean buying more suitcases, but then do we really want to have to haul more stuff through an airport than we already have? The exact conversations I was having with myself back in November, only the destination has changed.

There are last appointments to make, more goodbyes to be said, many more “this is the last time we’ll _______ before going to Oman” over the next 2 1/2 weeks. More consoling to do as the kids say things like, “I’m going to miss _____” or “I’m nervous about moving.” The same goodbyes, the same worries and fears, the same unknown stretched out ahead of us, but a different spot on the map as our landing place.

And then, the same first walks around new neighborhoods, first drives down unknown roads, new friends to make, restaurants to become fast favorites, first impressions to form again. I’m experiencing Groundhog Day, 2011 style.

The boys were helping out in the yard and found some big sticks — cue the marshal arts demonstration.

***No one was hurt in the making of this movie. (shocking, isn’t it?)

Now that we have our tickets to Oman (March 30th) I was thinking about my blog and wondering if I’ll even have anything to write about once we get to there. The great thing about Egypt was there was a wealth of material everywhere I looked. There are still blog posts kicking around in my head about the Egypt way of doing things that I never got around to writing. Like how in an emergency we were told not to call an ambulance. Since no one yields for one (you see them sitting in traffic along with everyone else) you’re much better off calling a cab and having them take you to a hospital. There might also have been something about how the ambulance crews weren’t known for having the greatest emergency skills either, but I might have made that part up. But a country that has an emergency system that you’re not supposed to utilize? That’s comedy gold — unless you’re the one actually having the emergency. Then you better hope you have an awesome cab driver.

But from everything I’ve read about Oman and from all the pictures I’ve seen, it looks so normal. I’m a little afraid it might be boring in comparison. Since it’s an absolute monarchy and the Omanis actually like their king (yea for them), there are laws that everyone follows, the streets are clean, and except for the fact that lots of dudes wear dresses (just kidding, they’re actually called dishdashas and they are awesome and we’ve already promised Carter that we’ll buy him one when we get there) everything looks so orderly in comparison to Cairo.

I got a taste of it when trying to create posts about our trip to SF. Without the trash eating cats and the thrill of a successful street crossing, my stories all felt mundane and ordinary. What once was, “I saw a lady almost get hit by a car as the donkey she was riding stepped out into the road in front of a car driving the wrong way down the street” turned into: “We found ourselves standing at a street corner, waiting for a green light and Carter asked, “why are we standing here? There aren’t any cars coming!” Yawn.

But I’m sure the Chartier boys arrival in Oman will shake things up. There’s got to be an elevator waiting to break down. Just for us.