Month: July 2012

Of being exhausted.

Of wearing a sweater when it’s 115 and humid.

Of feeling sweaty (see above point about sweater).

Of Camille waking up in a foul mood and screaming at me (related to general lack of sleep, not enough exercise, and an irregular schedule).

Of moving to different foreign countries–really, of moving in general.

Of feeling short-tempered all the time.

Of knowing I have an easy life, but not feeling grateful for it.

Of not having anything interesting to blog about. (Josh says I felt the same way last summer after moving to Oman. It’s true that this whole experience has sort of a deja vu feel to it . . .)

Of feeling disorganized and disconnected.

Of never having anything good to watch on TV (I’m currently watching a special on how Justin Bieber became famous — Oh! He’s flying around on heart-shaped metal scaffolding. Something else I didn’t need to know).

Of not having a purpose to each day.

Of Ramadan and all the restrictions that come with it.

Of complaining. So I’ll quit now.

Have I mentioned the HEAT?

 

We have to walk a ways from base to the car — far enough that poor girlie fell asleep in the stroller. 

  

Waiting at the longest stoplight in the world on our way back to the hotel. She’s not in her carseat because I burned her (and myself) on the buckle as I tried to put her in. She went from sleeping to screaming and ended up with a blister on her leg. I’m going to have to get a towel to keep in the car to cover it up while we’re out. 

  

It’s Hotter than Hot, but we’re not letting that stop us!

My girlie thinks the bidet in our hotel room is a toddler size drinking fountain.
Disgusting.

 

 We did something really fun today, but I’m too tired from being out in the heat all day to post all the pictures of our boat trip. The boys (the younger two) start VBS tomorrow at the base chapel, so hopefully I’ll have some extra time to write about our cruise out to an island in the middle of the ocean. 

The boys and I ventured out today to go to a “friend’s” house. On the way the boys were asking things like:
“So where did you meet this lady?”
I haven’t.
“But I thought she was friends with you on Facebook?”
Well . . . I have messaged with her on Facebook.
“So why are we going over to her house?”
Because she invited people over for coffee.
“So why do we have to go?”
Urgh! Be quiet while I’m trying to figure out where I’m going!
“How do you know where she lives?”
Because she sent me her address and Daddy showed me where it was on Google Maps. 
“So, who is this lady?”
I have no idea.

Yeah, you know how people tell you to be careful about meeting strangers from the Internet? I’m happy to tell you that these strangers are now friends. The moms had fun chatting over coffee while our 13 kids played Wii and swam in the beautiful pool in her backyard. We shared house hunting stories, housekeeper stories, and military life experiences. The kids left saying, “Thanks Mom. That was great!”

Perfect day, until the drive home. I am the only person I know who can get lost while using a GPS. The house we visited was only about 5 minutes from our hotel and Josh pointed out our “future house” as a landmark, but somehow I managed to drive around for almost an hour before getting back to the hotel. I didn’t use the GPS at first because I thought I knew the general direction I was going . . . and then I ended up on the back side of the base, nowhere near the hotel. Not a big deal, I know how to get home from here . . . oops, I was supposed to turn right back there. . . . How did I end up on the freeway? At least I know NOT to go over the bridge. Let me get off the freeway and pull out the GPS. XXXX Suites is the same as XXXX Hotel, right? Huh, as we’re getting closer, things aren’t looking familiar. What sort of crazy roundabout is this? Good grief, this tiny car has no power. How am I supposed to merge? Yeah, I’m sure this is not our hotel.

Let’s try again: GPS, take me to the Grand Mosque. I can find the hotel from there. Wow, I was way off before since GPS lady is taking me in a completely different direction. After a few minutes, Calvin notices the time on the GPS and says, “Is this thing still on Israel time? Cause it’s saying we aren’t going to get there until 5:56pm.” Say what now? I zoom out, out, out and discover that my destination is The Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia.

Time to call in the pros. I pull over and call Josh and ask him if he set the XXXX Hotel in the GPS as a favorite location. Of course he didn’t, because normal directionally challenged people can plug in the name of their hotel and actually get there. He tells me to go to “Hotels” and type in only part of the name to see all the options. I select the one that seems the most promising and then proceed to drive on 3 different highways and through several roundabouts until finally pulling into the parking lot here at “HOME.” The worst part about the detour wasn’t the driving, but that Camille fell asleep in the car and we were on the road long enough that she counted that as her “nap.”

This is a rough recreation of where I drove: The party was in the area marked ‘A’ and our hotel is near the other red circle. Somehow I managed to turn a 5 minute trip into a tour of the island. I think I need to go back to walking.