Monday, October 17, 2011

My Awesome Birthday

Today was my birthday and it was one of the best I have had in a long time. It is Sunday but here in Saudi Arabia that is like a Tuesday in the States so I had to work today but that didn't matter much, it still was an awesome day.

My day started at 5:20 this morning with a kiss from my hubby as he left bright and early to take Jonny to seminary. I arrived at school and was greeted by several of my students with all kinds of gifts. Yesterday I let it slip that it was my birthday today in one of my classes and as I said it, many of my students grabbed their planners and wrote it down like it was a homework assignment. This morning they all remembered by writing messages all over my board in my classroom along with gifts. What sweet kids they all are.

All day I was greeted with smiles and birthday wishes.

After school I got to choose where we would go for dinner. The Corniche or strand along the Arabian Gulf (not the Persian Gulf here...they call it the Arabian Gulf), anyway it is only about a mile from our house with just about every type of restaurant along the Corniche. I chose to go to TGIF, that's right, they have TGIF here in Saudi. I really think they should change the name to TAIW (Thank Allah it's Wednesday). It was just the same as in the States.
It was nice to be able to take the family out to a good restaurant with good food and service. That's something that was very hard to find in China. Here we have many choices like Chili's, Applebees, Tony Romas, TGIF, Macaroni Grill, Burger King, McDonald's, Hardees (Carl Jr's), and KFC to just name a few.
The food was great! I was able to actually have a good Chicken Chimichanga.

As you can see we had a great time enjoying our food and each other. I wish I could have taken a picture of the family next to us though. After we sat down a group of four women dressed in the full Abaya's covering their faces and all walked in with their husband. Yes, he had four wives. They sat in the booth next to us but requested privacy so they brought out a room divider to put around the booth. Gavin asked why he couldn't have four wives. After some thought he came to the conclusion on his own that one was enough.
After dinner we walked along the Corniche. Yes, that's my Abaya I wear when we go out. It really isn't that bad. I just throw it on over my clothes and it's no big deal. It does get a little hot if I'm out in the sun because it is black.

The weather is getting a little cooler so it was nice walking along the Gulf. After dinner and our walk we came back to the house to open presents and then ended the day talking to Rachel, which was the best part of it all.

Happy Birthday to me......

1 comment:

Heidi J said...

gosh you have more restaurants in the place you live thousands of miles across the ocean than we do right here in the US. Glad you had a great birthday! And you look fantastic in the black... toga thing. Miss you all!