Swine Flu

Well, kids here finally attended school for two weeks after school openings were postponed until September 6th due to the swine flu pananoia. Then during the Eid break last week, the government announced that elementary students will not return to school until OCTOBER 18th! What??? High school and intermediate school students will go back a bit earlier, and pre-k and kindergarten students will not go back until November. And what do we do with our kids (other than homeschool them) when they're not in school? We go to malls, play areas, playgrounds, water parks, gymnastics and music classes, grocery stores...I'm sure there are no germs there at all.

On the bright side, I do love having Sydney home. I always miss her (and Ethan misses her even more) when she's not here...something is just missing without her with me. So I'm going to enjoy every minute that she's not in school. She loves her school here, but she's actually excited about the idea of homeschooling. The girl loves structure, though, so I'm going to have to come up with a schedule for tomorrow. I drove her crazy today being too free with our time. Maybe we can find a happy medium. Ethan had a great birthday today since he was able to play with his favorite playmate all day. They fight at times like all siblings do, but I'm so thankful that they do enjoy playing together much of the time. I pray that they will always love each other.

Thoughts on Bahrain so far

Camels, strong perfumes, incense, sand, calls to prayer, roundabouts, black abayas, sand, white thobes, date palms, cats, 111-degree heat, and more sand...these are just some of the words that come to mind when I think about our first couple of months in Bahrain. The people here have been very nice so far. The hardest thing to grow accustomed to is the scenery (or lack thereof). The land is very STARK. No mountains, forests of pine trees, or pastures...only SAND everywhere. It's quite different from what we're used to. And the buildings are mostly white, which adds to the starkness. But it makes us really appreciate the yard around our villa. Chad picked out the perfect home for us because our compound, as opposed to many I've seen, actually has a yard with grass and trees. We have lots of bougainvilla and esperanza plants around our house, so it's nice going out and seeing pink and yellow flowers every day. The date palms are also beautiful. Life moves at a slower pace here, so we've had to get used to that. For instance, the children's pool across from our house was closed for maintenance when we arrived in August, and the work was supposed to be completed in a few weeks. We've found that a few weeks can mean at least three months in Bahrain. You just never know.

Sydney has met many new friends at her school, and she absolutely loves it there. Her teacher is wonderful too. I think that the school will be the highlight of our stay here in Bahrain. She also started taking violin lessons (changed her mind from cello), and she's enjoying it so far. Ethan will start gymnastics classes this weekend, so hopefully he'll enjoy that. We're meeting people from Texas all the time. I've enjoyed getting to know some of the other Chevron wives. They are all very nice ladies, and they have been very friendly and welcoming. Chad still enjoys his work in Saudi, so I'm very thankful for that. He's able to come home on Wednesday evenings, and he goes back to Saudi on Sunday mornings. Since we're in the Middle East, our day of worship is Friday. That seemed strange at first, but we're getting used to it. Sydney's school week is Sunday through Thursday.

There is a camel farm just down the road from our house, and Chad took the kids there a couple of weekends ago. Chad rode one of the camels, but the kids would only sit on them while the camel was lying down...I don't think they realized how tall camels really are! This weekend is a holiday weekend (Eid celebrating the end of Ramadan), so we're hoping to go to a local waterpark with some other Chevron families. It sounds like fun.