Author: Robin Chartier

Automatic

Discipline is not my strength. I have perfected the art of giving up when things get tough. When I started blogging 2 1/2 years ago I didn’t think I’d still be posting now. One of the reasons I’ve been successful with consistently blogging (vs. say, exercising) is because after we were evacuated from Egypt, I saw how important my blog was to remembering our time there. Then when we moved back overseas, to Oman, I vowed to continue to be consistent in my blogging and set a goal of posting something every day.

I hit my goal (or got close enough to call it successful — I think I only missed 20 days out of 365). In that time, blogging became part of my daily rhythm. And kind of like exercise, some days I felt like doing it and other days I didn’t. I haven’t figured out the best way to continue this blog now that we’re in Bahrain, so while I don’t have the goal of daily blogging right now, I know if I don’t keep at it daily or every other day, I’ll just quit doing it. 
I was thinking about discipline/consistency as we were budgeting for 2013. Before we moved overseas we cut our expenses dramatically to save up for our year of travel. This past year we spent as we wished, traveled as much as we could, and didn’t worry about saving. Now that we’re back in “real life” it’s time to start saving again: for our next car, a down payment on a house (less than 5 years to retirement!), future travel, etc. God bless automatic transfers! We set them all up yesterday and 18 months from now, when we leave Bahrain, we should have the money saved to get started in a new place. If the money didn’t disappear immediately when it hit our account, we wouldn’t be nearly as successful with saving (see the first sentence of this post). Too bad I can’t set up an exercise program the same way . . . program my body to automatically do it, no questions asked. Preferably while I’m asleep.

Happy 2013 from the Bahrain Fort! 
(I know we look like a post-card perfect happy family, but we’re all overtired and crabby and spent the time hiking around threatening to take away all electronics for the rest of Christmas vacation . . .)

tire burning

One of the ways that people protest here is by setting up a blockade of tires across a highway or other heavily traveled road and then dousing them with lighter fluid and setting them on fire. We’ve seen plumes of dark smoke and heard about the chaos they caused, but hadn’t come across them ourselves until this morning, on our way to church. 

Freeway onramp — we were one of the first ones to come up on it. We’re the fourth car back from the tires. The barrier stretches across the highway and the onramp for cars heading our direction. The cars coming the other way have a clear path. We could tell it was newly lit because the backup hadn’t really stacked up yet and because the smoke was still light gray. They set it while we were all stopped at the stoplight before entering the freeway.

As the tires get going, the smoke turns black and thick.

Now I had been kind of nervous about getting stuck behind the wall of flaming tires, but in real life, it was more interesting and entertaining than scary. The perpetrators wait for a gap in traffic, then throw out the tires, light them and run off. Our favorite part was seeing this Bahraini man casually walk around to the back of his car, pull out two long poles that he obviously kept in the back for such occasions and hand them off to some younger guys who used them to rolls the burning tires off to the shoulder to clear the lanes so traffic could continue.  

Another amateur photographer, taking in the scene as a guy with one of the poles tries to clear tires blocking the highway part of the fire. 
 

The cops quickly showed up with fire extinguishers, but by then we were on our way.


As you can tell, the kids were entertained and not scared at all. I thought it would be scary, but it wasn’t. Especially since everyone was so matter-of-fact about it all, as if they clear the roads every day (some of them probably do).

Josh went home after church and found the photos of our burning on Twitter. They usually set the fires, run and hide so they can videotape or photograph the incident and then upload it to Twitter.

Photo credit: Tire burners

Bounty

Today I harvested all these vegetables from my garden. Tonight I write and post this from my iphone from the restaurant at the mall while I wait for Josh to place our order for pizza and pasta at the counter. I will come home to a mostly clean house thanks to Josie who comes and cleans 5 days a week and I will crawl between soft sheets and sleep in a very comfortable bed. Ignore all my shallow complaints about the heat, moving, and whiny kids: 2012 has been a stellar year.

on the beach

One of the things I’ve complained about Bahrain is the lack of beaches here. How do you have an island without a beach? We went to the closest thing today — an area of the island that has been created out of “reclaimed land.” Meaning, it used to be underwater until they built it up with sand and fill to make Bahrain bigger. Since it’s manmade, there’s a small manmade stretch of beach where the kids and the dog can run. The sky is dark and we’re all bundled up in the photos because it was in the 60s and rainy/sprinkling — really, really fun. 

 

 

The kids brought their soccer ball and played soccer — the dog played for both sides.
 

The water wasn’t very cold. Not like the Pacific Ocean where it’s so cold the bones in your feet start to ache and your toes go numb. 
 
 

These two thought it was plenty cold, but Josh pointed out it was warmer than the water in our swimming pool (which we don’t use in the winter because it’s too cold, so that’s not saying much). 
 

Our dog is an amazing runner. He’s faster than I can possibly describe. There was a big pelican looking bird down at the water’s edge and he took off chasing it down the coast like he was never coming back. The amazing part was he kept pace with it for a good 30 seconds until the bird realized he needed to fly up and away in order to escape since he couldn’t outpace him by flying along the ground. 
Micah doesn’t come when we call him when he’s off leash (too busy tracking all the wonderful smells, digging up rotting fish, and he really hasn’t gotten the hang of obedience training, even when he’s not distracted), but we let him run because there wasn’t really anywhere for him to go and because Josh felt like if he did run away, then it was meant to be. 

I’m not worried about losing him — he doesn’t leave me alone long enough to get lost. 
 

happy dog, happy kids, happy post-Christmas family

Panic

I do this every year:
I’m happy and content with our minimalist Christmas until Christmas Eve hits and everyone starts posting photos of kids in new pajamas, stacks of presents under the tree, and SantaWatch with cookies and reindeer food. Suddenly, our holiday seems meager and plain and unimportant and I start feeling guilty: My kids are going to grow up and have Christmases of excess to make up for not having presents under the tree. They’ll go back to school and everyone will have loads of new clothes and electronics and the boys won’t have anything new to show off. Their future spouse/therapist is going to think I’m a horrible mother. Ackkk! I’m making a huge mistake.

Good thing that by then it’s too late to do anything about it or I’d be like the mom in Christmas With the Kranks who tries to pull together a full Christmas extravaganza at 4pm on Christmas Eve. Instead, last night I sorted through all the December candy that my kids have collected (Halloween through Christmas is one big trail of candy these days — it drives me crazy) and I took all of the candy canes, chocolates and gum and dropped them in the stockings to give them some added weight. If I can get all of the extra sugar out of my house before New Year’s I’ll be happy. I also added coupons for knitting lessons (they’ve all been begging me to teach them since I’ve been teaching a friend to knit once a week) and a coupon for a kindle book for each. It assuaged my guilt a bit.

This morning we slept in, had omelets and hot chocolate for breakfast, read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 and then opened a few things that the kids had made or purchased for each other at the school Christmas store. Some coffee, bubbles, gum, a winter themed rubix cube, and a few snack foods were opened and then we gave them an Xbox game that I had Josh pick up yesterday (see! Holiday guilt!) that they played for the rest of the morning. Wipeout 3 for Kinect is hilarious to watch. Running, jumping, ducking and avatars getting bounced around on Big Red Balls is what Christmas is all about, right?

Ready for Christmas Lunch on base
She picked out this outfit all by herself — gray leggings, purple shoes, pink tutu, layered shirts and flower hair clips.
Josh laughs at how she’s frilly one minute and a bruiser the next

After the kids were tired out we went to Christmas Day lunch on base where they had a lunch buffet for all service members and their families. This afternoon we’ll rest and then open stockings in the evening and watch a Christmas movie together. Last night we put on The Santa Clause — tonight Carter is voting for Santa Clause 2, Calvin wants A Christmas Story and Caleb probably wants something that nobody else in the family wants to watch. Then he’ll cry and pout until he starts to enjoy the movie that we actually decide to watch and then he’ll apologize when it’s over and say he really liked it after all. It happens every time.

The most interesting thing about Christmas at our house is that every year looks different, very different, because we keep moving around, shedding stuff, and acquiring new kids along the way. Next year will be the first time in 4 years where we’ll be doing Christmas in the same place. Unless we go home for Christmas (probably not), or travel over Christmas (a possibility), or get evacuated again (I’ve learned to never rule that one out). Until then, Merry Christmas from Bahrain!