Summer 2012

 So our summer has come to an end.  We left our beautiful Utah on August 15 with lots of fun memories.  We were fortunate enough to be able to spend time with family and friends.  

It was a great summer that had to come to an end.

 We spent one evening with Todd's, Marsi's husband, family for a barbecue.  His Dad has some really cool toys and cars.  This was one of them that he let Gavin drive.  It was pretty fun until it started to rain on us.

We always feel so patriotic when we come back to the States.

 Fortunately we had a pretty much injure free summer.  This was about the worst of our injuries until the end of the summer when Rachel kicked a soccer ball at Coree while playing soccer.  She tried to block the ball with her hand and messed up her wrist for several weeks.

 We always continue our traditional walks through Provo Canyon.

 Oma and Opa made the long drive out from Arkansas to spend our last few days with us.

 This is one of many reasons why we love Utah.  It is so beautiful.

Always good to continue developing our friendships.  

Vika and Aspen didn't take long at all to become reacquainted.

We want to make it a tradition to have a picnic at the park to end our time in Utah.  This year we had most of Ranell's family, Susan and Carl's family, Stephanie and her fiancee, Marsi and Riley, Colton, and Katrina even stopped by.  We all decided to do this again with whoever can come.

Basketball became a big part of our life...no surprise there.  We were staying only a few blocks from the Pleasant Grove Recreational Center so we spent many hours playing basketball, volleyball, working out, and doing Zumba.

Deegan....

Vika....

Syra and Vika...

Nicole...

and Jonny being a typical brother to Rachel.

Lars and Deegan kicking the soccer ball around.

We drove up to Idaho to pick Rachel up and spent a few days at the Sand Dunes camping and riding ATV's.

We kind of felt like the beverly hillbillies with our little tent compared to the massive RV's and trailers, but it was still awesome.

Vika loved wearing the helmet...it was like her crown.

Jonny got sunburned a few days before rock climbing and this was the after effect.

Gavin and his tricks...

Gavin getting some air....

Rachel was training for a marathon so part of her training was to run 20 miles.  Camping didn't stop her so she ran through the country with Gavin following her in the car.

After Idaho we camped a few days in Yellowstone before heading back to Utah.

Stopped to see a few Bison...

Of course we saw Old Faithful...twice.

Our time in Yellowstone ended with a storm.

We loved our summer and are looking forward to next summer.  Although we had a great time, it was great to come home to Saudi.

Week of ugh!!!!

Last week was our first week of UGH!  We have been very fortunate throughout the year to not have any illnesses, injuries, etc.  Except for the occasional colds, which were very few, we have been fairly healthy without any real incidences that required special attention, until last week.

We were all in the car driving around looking for some motorcycle shops that sale ATV's.  We finally found a Yamaha shop so we stopped and Gavin went in while the rest of us stayed in the car.  Nicole had said several times during the previous hour that Vika had bugs in her hair.  I thought she was just teasing her.  Then she said, "No, really.  She has bugs in her hair."  So, I started to think she was serious.  She said that Daddy had found one earlier but she still saw a lot in her hair.  I started to investigate but of course my deteriorating eye sight didn't help, so I put my reading glasses on and started probing.  Sure enough....there were bugs.  GROSS!

I have never seen or experienced lice so I wasn't sure if that's what they were.  We immediately went home and I looked it up on Youtube to see what they looked like.  Yes, they were lice.  YUCK!!!! A thousand times over.  I wasn't so concerned about getting them out of her hair but I was not looking forward to all the cleaning and work that comes with it. 

Fortunately, it was on a Thursday which is our weekend so we went to our local pharmacy, where we can buy just about anything without prescriptions and asked about lice.  The pharmacist gave us the shampoo so I spent most of the evening shampooing Vika's hair, cleaning the sheets on her bead, bagging up pillows and comforters to suffocate the little buggers, sterilizing brushes and combs, checked everyone else's hair (thank goodness nobody else had them) and combed her hair over and over with the little comb.  Just talking about it again is making my head itch.

The lice themselves were gone but I wasn't sure about all the eggs.  Since it was a weekend, we were able to keep her away from other kids.  I thought she was clear so we headed off to school on Saturday morning.  The school policy is that they have to be checked by the nurse before they can go back to class, so we went to the nurses office right before school thinking all was fine.  They said that she still had eggs in her hair so she couldn't come back to school yet.  What do I do now?  My class was about to start in a few minutes and I'm told that she needs to go home.  Our administration is outstanding and very understanding and immediately jumped into gear to help me out.  Within an hour we had a sub, my plans were made and I was headed home to spend hours trying to get rid of the eggs. 

I combed her hair from scalp to ends in little sections using the tiny toothed comb.  Since her hair is thin I did this for about an hour with her hair dry, then put conditioner on the dry hair and combed it all again.  The conditioner makes the eggs slide off easier.  I then scrubbed her hair in the shower with a vengeance and then combed her hair again when it was wet.  This all took about three hours.  I repeated this all again later that evening.  I was sure that there wasn't a single egg left in her hair. 

She stayed home one more day with Nicole who was home with pink eye.  I then repeated a mini version of the combing again that night.  By Monday morning when she went back to school, she was clean of all those little buggers and eggs.  I swear that if this was Nicole who had lice, I probably would have shaved her head.  Nicole has very thick wavy/curly hair which would have taken at least twice as long to comb through.  So thankful she only had pink eye and not lice too.

We have taught our kids that the only way they ever can complain to stay home from school is if they are vomiting or have a high fever.  Saturday morning Nicole had gotten up for school, got dressed and was walking out the door when I noticed her eye was bright red.  She didn't even think of complaining that she woke up with it sealed shut and that it was red.  I guess we taught her too well,  I immediately knew what it was and told her to stay home.  She stayed home for two days, went to school on Monday and woke up Tuesday with it in her other eye.  Again, since we can get just about any prescription drug from the pharmacy without a prescription, we just went down and asked for the eye drops and got it. So nice to be able to do that without having to go see a doctor first.  If you know what you need, why pay to see a doctor just for a prescription?

So our fun UGH week of lice and pink eye.  I guess it could be worse but that was enough for me.

No pictures because I didn't want to gross anyone out.

DHS Sports Banquet

 Jonny had a very rewarding sports banquet this year.  He played on the JV Volleyball and Basketball team as a Freshman and received the "Impact Player" award for Volleyball and MVP for Basketball.  If he had played one more sport this year he would have been a contender for Most Athletic JV player.  Next year for sure.  He said he's going to play both soccer and Coed Softball along with Volleyball and Basketball next year.  

A Day In Bahrain

 Last weekend Gavin and I decided to leave the kids and have an all day outing in Bahrain.  We haven't gone too much this year just because we were usually busy with some type of sport or kid activity but finally had a Thursday to ourselves.  We left the compound at about 8:30 in the morning for our adventure.  This is leaving our compound.  All the compounds are barricaded and have security checks to go through.  This is the exit as we drive out of our compound.

 We decided to take a few pictures on our way to Bahrain.  This is a shopping center on the road by our house.

We live about 1/2 a mile from the gulf coast and right off the coast near our house is this large desalination plant.  For months we weren't sure what this was because it looks like a fancy building on a little island off the coast but eventually learned it is a desalination plant.

Bahrain is an island off the coast of Saudi.  They built this long causeway connecting Saudi with Bahrain.  We actually can drive right up to the beach here but not real advisable without four wheel drive.

 In the middle of the causeway they built a man made island where the border and customs is located between Bahrain and Saudi.

 Here we are entering one of several stops as we enter Bahrain.

Bahrain is a basically just a big city.  There is all kinds of construction of new projects going on.

This was a pretty cool building in Bahrain.  It was shaped like sails on a boat.  In between the buildings they had these wind turbans.

Bahrain is only about 45 minutes to an hour from our house depending on the traffic at the border.  It is much more relaxed then Saudi.  Women don't have to wear abaya's and can actually drive.  They have several large malls with movie theaters.  Gavin and I ended up at the City Center Mall and went to see "The Avengers".  We felt like we were back home in the states for a little while with a real movie theater and real popcorn.  We did a little shopping and headed back home.  It was a nice relaxing day!

Nicole's Big Day's

 April 19th was a big day for Nicole.  She turned 12 and is now officially a young woman.  Her friend Yasmine gave her a surprise birthday party.  It was more like a wedding reception.  It was at Yasmine's house or should we say compound.  They swam and had a catered buffet along with this birthday cake.  Each letter of Nicole's name was the size of a sheet cake.  They brought it over to our house, I guess they thought we would eat it all but it was way too much cake.  Nicole had a very fun day with lots of her friends.

 Nicole was also on the starting team for our middle school girls basketball team.  Gavin was able to help coach the team.  They got second in the Eastern Province tournament.

 A few weeks later they than played in the SAIKAC tournament where they played awesome.

Nicole was a huge part of the team playing her little heart out.  She is the female version of Jonny and is a major key to the team.

After two long days of basketball they came home with the bronze but the more exciting part about the tournament is seeing how far they have come over the season.  At the Eastern Province tournament they lost in the championship game to ISG Jubail by about 20 points.  They played them again in the SAIKAC tournament and lost their first game with them by only 3 points.  The Jubail coaches were amazed at how well our girls played and they had improved.  They then played them again for the 3rd/4th place position and beat them.  It was a very exciting tournament.  The girls were excited to get 3rd place but were more excited that they had finally beaten Jubail.

Many coaches commented on how well Nicole played and were very impressed to hear that she was only a 6th grader.

Amsterdam...

In April Gavin had to take a quick trip back to the US for his Dad's funeral.  On his way back to California he had a seven hour layover in Amsterdam and decided to get a quick look at the city.  He took a train into the city and spent a few hours just wondering around.  Someday we hope to get us all back there, even for just a few hours would be cool.