Read in 2014

Hello friends! Long time, no blog.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this little blog of mine but I'd like to do more blogging this year than I've done in the past couple. We'll see how that goes. 2014 was a good reading year.  At the end of 2013 I felt like I had spent too much time reading and wanted to find a balance for 2014. I think I used reading as a coping mechanism for the stress of moving internationally and I was much more stable in 2014 than I was the previous year. I read a good amount but did not let my reading get in the way of other goals and responsibilities.

I'm really excited to be back in a book club this year. I actually kicked off a new book club here in Saudi a couple months ago and had 28 women show up for the first meeting! I'm super excited to see how it pans out in 2015.

All that said, here's my list from 2014. Books I loved are * and bolded books are from book club (only 1 selection for 2014 and one I've read ahead for 2015).

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (I hated this book and about died when it won the Pulitzer Prize)
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini *
Roses by Leila Meacham
The Runaway King by Jennifer Nielsen
The Monuments of Men by Robert Edsel
The Perfume Collector by Kathlenn Tessaro
Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
The Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff*
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion*
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes*
The Girl you Left Behind by Jojo Moyes
The Last Camellia by Sarah Jio
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd*
War Brides by Helen Bryan
All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr*
Dancing on Broken Glass by Ka Hancock*
Tell the Wolves I'm home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor
If I stay by Gayle Forman
Somerset by Leila Meacham
Where she Went by Gayle Forman
The Brothers K by David James Duncan*
Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani*
Brava Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
The Supreme Macaroni Company by Adriana Trigiani*
The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay*
The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen
The Aviators Wife by Melanie Benjamin*
My name is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner*
Euphoria by Lily King
The Rent Collector by Cameron Wright*

Happy Reading Friends! Would love to know what you read and loved in 2014!

London Trip

On the way home from the United States we planned a 5 day layover in London. We had such a great trip and loved doing a bit of travel on the way home since we were stopping in Europe anyway.  I decided to make scrapbook pages with all our pictures and post them here instead of trying to blog about the trip and also make scrapbook pages. I've been using the new Becky Higgins project life App on my phone and it is the easiest scrapbooking I have ever done. Once I complete all the pages I want, I will upload them to Shutterfly and have them made into a book. Becky is also working to make printing available directly from the app. In the first week I had the app on my phone, I completed 30 scrapbook pages! It is so freeing to have such a convenient way to document our memories. I'm posting them here so our parents (who aren't on social networking sites) can see the details of our lives.

Click on the pictures to make them bigger to be able to read the journaling. 

Kuwait

The first week in June the kids and Allen had a long weekend so we decided to take a little road trip to Kuwait. It's only a few hours away and even though it was only a couple weeks before our big summer break, we decided we needed to get out of here for a few days.

This was right at the Saudi/Kuwait border. I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to take this picture but I had to get the funny translation of the sign.

 Kuwait is very modern and clean and was seriously a breath of fresh air. It was super hot the weekend we were in town so we didn't do very much outside but we have heard of some great things to do so we will definitely be going back soon. This is one of the two Kuwait towers. They are being renovated right now so we couldn't go inside but we'd love to go to the top when we go back.

 We went with two other families and had such a nice time. We ate at great restaurants and the kids played at the pool but the main attraction was the huge mall in the center of town. We spent three full days at the mall and did almost no shopping! It was once the biggest mall in the world but a mall in Dubai has recently taken that distinction. It was huge, and beautiful and there was so much to do.

Our kids loved this FROST ice cream store and insisted we get a picture.

 We spent an entire day at a children's museum in the mall called Kidzania. It was the coolest concept I've ever seen for a museum. The museum is set up like a town. Every business or career choice you can imagine is represented there. The kids are given some "money" that they can use in the museum. They can choose to pay for experiences or they can choose experiences that will pay them for their "work." Each station had about a 20 minute activity for the kids to do. It was so much fun. The older kids were able to go around by themselves and try everything out while the parents stayed with the younger kiddos. I took tons of pictures but you only get a small sprinkling of all the activities for the kids.
Carter and Makenna as Dentists:

Emery shopping in the super market. The younger kids shopped and the older kids were the checkers:

Addison driving around the track (basically bumper cars). Being allowed to drive the cars was quite a process. The kids had to pay to get a drivers license and buy insurance before they were allowed to drive. Then could earn money by pumping gas or working in the car repair shop (where they actually learned to change a tire).

Makenna in the art studio:

Addison and Emery in "jail"

Addison and Emery delivering packages for DHL:

The kids also had a chance to make hamburgers at Burger King, bottle water at the water plant, make donuts, make their own perfume, be police officers/detectives and fire fighters, participate in a play, do a fashion show, paint the walls of a house, sing karaoke, work as doctors and dentists, shop at the stores, be airplane pilots, do eye sight checks and a several other things I am forgetting. It was such a fun day. We had only planned to spend a half day in the museum but we were there for about 8 hours. We will definitely go back.

The next day we went to the grand mosque for a tour and almost melted in the heat. It was 115-118 degrees the three days we were there. It was insane. After the mosque we went back to the mall to watch another movie and eat at shake shack one more time before driving home. We headed home early on the third day because we didn't want drive in the dark because of the camels that roam close to the roads. It was a great weekend and super relaxing and we can't wait to go back soon! (West Elm, Cheesecake Factory and Shake Shack are calling my name!)

Easter 2014

I am back and making a desperate attempt to catch up on blogging. With summer quickly drawing to a close I'm planning to make time to get caught up this fall. I know hardly anyone blogs any more but I still love it as a way to document our life so I'm back to it!

It was really interesting to celebrate Easter this year. We were able to carry on most of our traditions but also made a few adjustments and started some new ones. Since the holy day in KSA is on Friday we decided to kick off our Easter festivities a few days early.

The kids got some new clothes. It was so bright the morning this picture was taken so everyone is a bit squinty. 

 The kids got treats and other fun things in their Easter baskets that afternoon:

We dyed a bunch of eggs that evening in our teeny tiny kitchen. No matter how many eggs I boil, there never seem to be enough for everyone to color as many as they want.

For the past few years we have prepared a semi-traditional passover feast for our family to enjoy. Since we now live in the region where the actual Easter events took place we decided to go with some friends to a very traditional middle Eastern restaurant for dinner on Saturday night. We were able to help make bread:

Dinner was served at a table on the floor with lots of cushions. The food was delicious and plentiful and it was fun for us to have an authentic experience.

There was also a museum in the restaurant that had hundreds of pieces of history in it from this region. It is still fascinating to me that this area was largely comprised of tribal Bedouins until about 70 years ago when oil was discovered. My favorite thing that I have found from this area are the gorgeous, intricate silver wedding beads that the Bedouin women were given for dowries that were then used to purchase items for her family over her lifetime. Amazing!

Easter was just another work and school day for us so it was a little strange to think of our family and friends celebrating on that day. We were invited to participate in a community dinner and egg hunt that evening that made it a more special day and rounded out our weekend wonderfully. It was hot but we had a great time!

Tokyo - Day 6

Our last full day in Japan was another gorgeous day.  Elizabeth arranged a whole bunch of bikes for us to take a ride to Showa park. It was such a great time and probably my favorite day overall in Japan. The blossoms were breathtaking on our ride to the park. 

 All of us on the way. There is a really cool bike in Japan called the mama-chutti. There is a seat in the front and in the back for young kids to sit in. They were all over the place in Japan and both Elizabeth and I drove one.

Outside Showa park entrance:

 Our first stop was at the Japanese garden. I loved it. It was so serene and quiet and beautiful. We visited the bonsai garden and I loved seeing all the different trees. It's a totally fascinating type of horticulture and some of the trees were hundreds of years old.

 The oldest tree in the garden was 350 years old

Having a bonsai lesson from the gardener/caretaker:

 Bonsai for everyone!

My favorite was this Japanese maple tree:

 Mini Kumquat tree:

 Dads + kids in this cool reflection pool:

 We took lots of pictures with the blossoms:

HUGE bundles of blossoms - kind of like a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet:

Allen and Addie on a tandem bike:

 After walking through the Japanese gardens we went to the kids play areas. The park had a huge area with these inflated marshmallow bouncers. It was so much fun. The kids had the best time. You can see how big the area was in this picture:

There were also a ton of fun slides:

It was a slide but the older kids treated it like a ski hill:

There was also a huge ropes course. It hurt the kids feet so they didn't do it for very long:

 We had a slew of tired kiddos by the time we rode back from the park. Here's Madeline, David and Emery completely crashed out. You can see the bike in this picture better. Elizabeth sat on the seat right in the middle.

After the park we changed clothes and had a quick dinner before we left for the airport. It was another complex trip getting from point A to point B. Two cars to the get us all to the bus station and then we rode a bus for an hour to get to the airport. We had an uneventful flight back to KSA and we all slept almost the entire way. We were tired after an eventful and fun week.

We loved our trip to Japan so much. It was wonderful to have so much time with Nathan and Elizabeth's family. Our kids got along wonderfully and just loved having time together. It seems like they enjoyed each other no matter what we were doing. It is the best to see cousins bonding. We also loved spending so much time together as adults. We had some really great conversations and were able to build our relationships. We feel like we scratched the surface of all Japan has to offer and can't wait to go back!