British Columbia Visit

It is about time for an update on our summer.  We have been keeping busy visiting friends and family. Our  time in Wisconsin started with my cousin Sean's wedding to his new wife Tina. It was a fun day celebrating with them and seeing that whole side of the family.  Also, I had the honor of being his best man.

Shortly after the wedding Tara, I, and Tara's brother Billy flew out to British Columbia to visit their parents for a week.  We really like it up there.  It is beautiful country and a relaxing place to enjoy visiting family.  We also usually get put to work on some projects around the yard.  At the end of the week it is nice to see some results of our work.  We also went to the rodeo and parade in town, spent an afternoon camping with their friends, and had fun playing with their animals.  I won't type to much because our pictures will be able to tell you more than I can about our time there.

This past week we have been staying in Eau Claire scheduling as many lunch, dinner, and ice cream dates we can.  It's busy, but worth it to see so many people we have been missing.

Enjoy the pictures.

 Tara posing with all her beloved animals.  It was just supposed to be Maggie and Mittens, but Dixon couldn't stay away from the fun.

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 Looking good Billy!  He is standing on the lean-to roof we took down.

 Moving the woodshed to make room for the garage . . . someday.

 You may remember a similar picture to this from last summer.  This one is better because Billy is doing the chainsawing instead of me.

 Tara swears they just sat their without any coaxing.  Made for a good picture.

 Rough life.

 We went to the Rodeo!

 Some very scenic and remote fishing, but no fish.

 The whole family together for the first time in a long time.

Ireland

A few months ago we decided that on our way home to the States, we needed to take a vacation to Ireland.  It was a good decision because it broke up the ridiculously long trip back and it gave us a little break between the end of school craziness and the coming back to see everyone craziness.  Here is a little snapshot of what we did this last week in beautiful Ireland.

The first few things we noticed and enjoyed when we got to Ireland was the green (we don't have much of that in Saudi) and the amazingly clean smell.  Our version of clean air the last 10 months has been when you can't smell the industry nearby.  For the first few days Jamie and I were in awe and constantly sniffing the air.  

Our first big adventure was renting a car and successfully driving on the left side of the road.  The car we got was a manual VW polo, tiny but nice.  Being a manual, Jamie once again got stuck driving the entire time.  I definitely owe him a bit of driving time in the States.  We drove down to Enniskerry and Glendalough for the first part of the trip.  Powerscourt Estate is an old house at the base of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, but what attracts people to it is the amazing gardens that surround the estate.  There were roses the size of my face!  We also did some hiking at the Wicklow Mountain National Park.  Between the park and walking around Powerscourt, we figure that we walked about 11 miles that day.  You could say we were a bit tired and sore afterwards.  

The next big stop was Limerick.  3 years ago, Jamie has studied abroad at the University of Limerick, so we decided to come back and visit.  It was a time of reminiscing for him as we visited the university, his favorite pub, and other places that held many memories of his time spent here.  

Our last big stop was in Galway.  This was one place neither of us had been to on previous visits to Ireland.  We stayed in a beautiful B&B right on Galway Bay.  This was our splurge lodging because it also happened to be our 2 year anniversary while we were there.  We spent a day at the Aran Islands biking around and admiring the beauty.  It really felt like you had stepped back in time there. 

One thing that we love to do on vacation is eat.  Ireland was no different.  I always looked forward to our evening meals of fish and chips, beef and Guiness pie, or beef and cabbage.  The food was amazing!  One suggestion I would make to anyone going to Ireland would be to stay in B&Bs.  They are homey plus every morning they will feed you a full traditional Irish breakfast!

On Wednesday we did make it safely back stateside.  It was a very interesting flight back full of turbulence, pukers, and delays due to bad weather in Chicago.  Our luggage did not make it back with us, but did show up last night.  We really look forward to seeing you in the upcoming weeks.  We are getting kind of busy, so if we haven't made plans to see you yet please email or facebook and we'll set something up.  

Tara

Here are some pictures from our trip:

 Us at Powerscourt Estate

 

 The roses were huge!

 

 One of the largest pet cemeteries which includes horses, cows, and lots of dogs.

 

 Do you recognize these guys?  We ran into the Wiggles taping a song for their kids 

program while hiking at Glendalough.  We could hear their song (and continued singing

it) for about half of our hike.

 

Jamie at the half-way point

View of the valley in Glendalough, isn't it gorgeous?

We did not stop here to eat

Jamie in front of his old dorm

View from our B&B in Galway

The beautiful coastline of the Aran Islands.

Workday/Luncheon

Our school has this grand tradition of having teacher workdays on Thursdays (the first day of our weekend).  I don't like it very much because it makes for a really long week and a very short weekend, however, we do survive.  We had our last workday this weekend!  Jamie and I were amazingly unproductive.  One good thing that happened was the women at school hosted a luncheon potluck for the men.  This was the counterpart to the Valentine's breakfast the guys did in February.  The luncheon included very tasty food, good company, and pictures drawn by a class of 1st graders portraying each guy.  The pictures were priceless.  

Other than that we have just been trying to finish up the school year as quickly as possible (only 8 days left) so that we can head out to Ireland.  We're really excited to see you all when we get back to the States.  Some of you have already made plans to see us which has been great, but if you haven't just email us and we'll set something up.    

 

Guys at the luncheon.

The  picture of Jamie done by a 1st grader.

What an Amazing Teacher

First off, I think it is safe to say if there was a first year teacher award at our school it would be Tara's. She is the Renaissance woman teaching math, science, health and tutoring three students after school. Side note, I have picked up one language arts tutoring gig myself. Don't tell anyone I can't spel.

One Wednesday night Tara's Food and Nutrition class hosted their dinner for the semester. The students picked a Mexican theme and made burritos, Chimichangas, some good guacamole and bean dip, and apple filled tortillas. There would have been churros too, but someone used the tablespoon instead of teaspoon when adding salt. I think I had to call Grandma Gloria with that question a long time ago during a baking adventure when I was home alone. Tara and the kids worked from 2:30pm-9:30pm. The guests (parents and teachers) said the food was wonderful, and I think they meant it.  The students go through quite the transformation.  Few if any had ever cooked and some had never washed a dish in their life at the start of the semester.  In the end, the kids were satisfied with having completed a task that seemed much to large 30 minutes before the parents arrived, and Tara and I were able to reminisce about crazy restaurant life.

We have only two and a half weeks of school left now and are getting more excited by the day for our Ireland trip and coming home.

Here are some pictures from the evening.

Ray stepping in to do a little supervising.  No one lost any fingers.  Good job Ray!

The group from our compound.  Baby Dylan looks tired.

The Crowd of 50 people

A very tired Tara was given flowers from her class for "[making] this semester amazing" as one student wrote on her card.

Bake Sale and Khobar

This week has been kind of busy getting ready for our school's Fine Arts Night. It was an evening devoted to recognizing the arts complete with awards and a "museum" showing off the students' work. Jamie and I aren't directly connected with the arts, but my nutrition class was asked to host a bake sale at it. We chose items to make in class, plus the students had to make something at home to bring in. It was a hit! Combining money from the bake sale and general donations given, the event raised about 1000 SAR ($266) for an organization in Thailand called Freedom Wheelchairs. The organization gives people wheelchairs who needs them, repairs chairs, and helps people lead quality lives in a place where disabled are usually disregarded. I was really proud of my students and all the work they put into the evening. Now we are working on our big end-of-the-semester dinner project where we serve a complete dinner to their parents and teachers.

We also had our last big trip to Khobar. We ended up spending almost the whole day in town running errands and getting items to bring back to the States. It was also our last time at Lulu, the most amazing grocery store ever! It was sad, but we know we'll see it again in August. Plus, its exciting to think that we'll be back in the States in about a month!

Enjoy the pictures!

Tara

Selling items at the bake sale

Doesn't it look yummy?

A Family Reunion in Bahrain

Tara and I had an awesome weekend! Tara and I left one minute before school got out on Wednesday to go to Bahrain to see Seth. We even took Saturday off of work to have a long weekend with my brother. We weren't sure if he was actually going to get his leave approved, but he did. Seth was happy to escape his base in Djibouti, Africa for a few days, and now he only has two months left.

We took Seth out to the Tree of Life, which he thought was neat. There were a ton of workers out there digging big holes for pottery to put in a museum. They showed us some of the pieces they had dug up.

We also spent some time walking the shopping malls and street shops, watching movies, going out to eat, and visiting the Naval base in Bahrain. Ironman II and Clash of the Titans are good movies if you are wondering. The base was pretty cool to see too. Tara and I walked into their commissary and felt like we walked back into the United States. All the products and name brands we haven't seen in 9 months were oddly comforting.

Even though we didn't do very much, it was one of the best weekends we have had since being here. Spending some time with my brother was just what we needed before going into the lat five weeks of school and Saudi Arabia before we come home for a visit.

Enjoy the pictures

Brothers at the Tree of Life

The deep holes the excavators were digging at the Tree of Life

A rousing game of Monopoly . . . Seth won.

The three of us at TGIFridays for our last meal together

Tara snuck this candid picture

Our GPS said the funniest pronunciations for place names. All the "Al" street names were pronounced "Alabama." "Mohammad VI" also turned into "Mohammad Virgin Islands"

6 1/2 weeks

That's right.  Only 6 1/2 weeks of school left!  The antsy, end-of-school feeling has begun.  Talk amongst the teachers is often what people plan on doing over the summer break.  Just about every lunch time we can be caught swapping bed and breakfast deals or traveling tips with our friend Laura who is also planning a trip to Ireland this summer.  We love our jobs, but are very excited to go back to the States and see everyone again. 

In other news, school just had a staff photo contest.  They had to be pictures taken between Christmas and spring break.  It was really neat to see all the places that people had gone to and the amazing pictures they took while there.  I'm proud to say that I won 2nd place!  It's a picture in the Siq which is the entrance to Petra in Jordan. 

We are really looking forward to next weekend because we get to see Jamie's brother Seth!  He is currently stationed in Djibouti for the navy and is meeting us in Bahrain for an extended weekend.  It will be great to see him, plus we get to miss a day of school.

That's about it for now.

Tara

  2nd place picture