In the Dark

It seems that our country is experiencing a bit of a power shortage these days. There is not quite enough electricity to go around, so they've resorted to a random rolling blackout system. Currently, we lose power for about an hour almost every day, but the fun part is that we never know when it's coming. Most of the time, the outages happen in the evening, which means we get to spend some quality time in the dark.

Sometimes the kids will watch a movie on a computer; other times we read together. We have an emergency backup light that comes on automatically when the power cuts out, and of course our phones make great flashlights, too. We also keep some flashlights in a drawer really close to the emergency light, so when it comes on we just walk toward the light and we can find our flashlights. 

Driving around town, we see that it's not just residences that are affected by the blackouts, but businesses, too. It's amusing to drive down a street and see one dark block in the middle of a busy, lit-up street. We often see the blackout hit a new block, and all of a sudden everything goes dark. When it goes out in a restaurant, the people often just stay put, sitting at their tables in the dark, until it comes back on. 

One night recently, we tried to go to a restaurant, only to get there and find all the kitchen staff hanging out outside, smoking cigarettes. We weren't sure how far they were into their hour outage, but they didn't look like they were getting ready to go back inside right then, so we decided to go to a different place. Thankfully, our second choice had power.

Tonight it went out at our house right around 5:30, as the sun was almost down, so we decided to order our dinner rather than try to cook something in the dark. But the place we tried to order from wasn't answering their phones (probably because their power was out too and they weren't taking orders), so we had to make a different choice.

We realize that many people in the world would be thrilled to have electricity 23 hours per day, and we're very grateful for what we have, but we did want to give you a little picture of our life right now. 

Sharing the Love!

We had a sweet Valentine's Day this year! A few years ago, we started a fun family tradition: Each member of the family has a mailbox, and for a few weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, we all write lots of "I love you because" notes to each other. Then on Valentine's morning everyone gets to read their notes. It was something I did on a whim the year we started, but it has become a family favorite for all of us.

This year, we weren't able to use our regular mailboxes since they were still in storage when we got started, so everyone got to decorate a new box.

They turned out pretty cute!

We spent the week leading up to Valentine's Day getting our house ready to move into, and that morning was our first morning in our new house (in other words, complete chaos), but I was able to find our V-Day decorations in a box and have this ready for the kids when they woke up:

I brought a few little V-Day candies and small gifts with me when we left the states a month ago, and they were all excited about their new dry-erase boards (in their favorite colors) and the Valentine M&Ms and SweetTarts they found at their places.

They also loved reading their notes from each other. I think Sawyer is giggling here about the note from Lee Anna that said, "I love you because your hair is funny in the morning!" Some were silly, others were super sweet.

And Sawyer (with his funny hair) wrote us all this sweet note when he finished reading his cards:

I'm so glad I get to love these people--on Valentine's Day and everyday!

Progress!

We made some big steps toward getting moved in to our new home yesterday! The movers came and brought all of our furniture and belongings. They even removed the cardboard and plastic wrapping from each piece of furniture, and assembled everything that they had taken apart for storage (beds, wardrobes, dining table, etc.). In our last few moves, we've had to do that part ourselves, and we are so grateful for the hours, if not days, that it saved us for them to do it!

Here are a few pics I took right before we left last night. Thankfully, we still have our other apartment for a few more days, so we can go back there to sleep and eat while we get things arranged and unpacked in our new place.

The kitchen looks a lot better with appliances in it! The oven is still in its cardboard box, but hopefully someone will come hook it up for us in the next few days. We've missed our toaster and microwave and coffee pot this month, so it was fun to see all those things again!

The dining and school rooms are coming together, too! We are going to do some more rearranging, so there won't be quite that much furniture lined up against the left wall, but it works for now. The kids got so excited as the movers unwrapped each piece. They were glad to see their stuff!

And our living room furniture fits nicely in the spot we had planned for it. Now we need some curtains for that huge window! Thankfully, the people next door don't seem to open their curtains very much, so we don't feel too conspicuous.

 The girls' room is coming together...

 and so is ours!

and I don't have a picture of Sawyer's room because the light doesn't work in there, and it was dark when I took these. That's on the list of things to get fixed today!

The kids even managed to find a few toys boxes to unpack! They were super excited to be reunited with toys they haven't seen in nine months (and it kept them quiet and occupied while the movers worked!).

Now it's time to head back over there and unpack some boxes.
Hoping for another productive day!

Fully Furnished...and then some!

While we've been hunting for a permanent home this month, we're staying in a furnished apartment that a friend found for us before our arrival. We were so grateful to have a place to land after the long trip that got us here, and the place he found for us is great, with plenty of room and all the basic things we need...but it does have some quirks that we thought it would be fun to show you.

The living room area is decidedly Arab in several ways. It's a nice-sized room, but way too crammed full of furniture! In addition to the dining table, there are not one, not two, but three entire sets of living room furniture--all in one room! You can see one set directly behind the table in the photo above...

then another orange floral set to the left...

and a third 80s-looking set on the right. None of the sets matches any of the others, and the large curtains on the wall don't match any of the three! However, on the positive side, we're ready if 40 of our closest friends come over and need to sit down! You can see that we've designated the 80s living room area as our "laundry room." The washing machine is in the bathroom, and the dryer is, well, you're looking at it. Our dryer is still in storage until we move into our apartment, so until then we're drying all our clothes in the living room.

If you scroll back up to the first photo, you'll also notice one other common decorating feature from this part of the world--chandeliers! Our living room is home to FIVE crystal chandeliers. Pretty impressive, huh?

And this is the kitchen we're working with this month. We don't have a dish drying rack, so we've been spreading the dried dishes out on a towel on top of the stove (stoves here all have a fold-down lid that makes them flat on top). It's a great spot for drying dishes, but a big pain anytime we want to actually use the stove.

The kitchen is also very sparsely equipped, so we've had to improvise when making meals at home. I cooked garlic bread in a skillet that had lost its handle one night, and another day we made cookies in these little foil pans. We've also eaten out or ordered in A LOT. Thank goodness for cheap delivery and restaurants in walking distance!

Finally, we wanted to show you one other room in the house--the bathroom. We're all five using this one bathroom for bathing because the water heater in the other one has a short and won't stay on. We tried turning it on a few times, but it always ended with a loud POP and a blown fuse. So we finally gave up.

The water heater in the bathroom pictures works ok, so we've all been bathing in there, but we wanted you to see one glaring omission in this bathroom that makes it different from any we've ever seen in the states: No shower curtain. Shower curtains are entirely optional and not really that common here. In fact, bathtubs themselves are also a luxury. However, every bathroom has a tile floor and a drain somewhere in the floor. What millions of people do here is simply stand in the middle of the bathroom, turn on the shower head attached to the bathroom wall, take their shower, and then squeegee the water into the drain when they're done.

Now if you did that in Florida, your floor might be wet the rest of the day, but when you combine our desert heat and lack of humidity, it's not really a problem here. We do have a bathtub, so our floor doesn't get too, too wet, but the lack of shower curtain does mean a fair amount of splashing onto the floor. So you can add "shower curtain" to the list of things we'll be excited to unpack when we move into our new apartment next week. Stay tuned for new house pics soon!

Adventures in Paint

by Jason

We set a new family record today. We got our whole house painted in 11 hours! They started working at 9:30 this morning and at 8:30 tonight I turned off the lights and closed the door behind them. It would have taken us weeks to paint all that. But it wasn’t quite as simple as it sounds…

It started earlier in the week. I called our painter—the same guy who painted our last two apartments—and asked if he was available. He said he was, so on Wednesday he came to see the place and tell us how much paint to buy. We explained the color schemes a little and he told us how many gallons of each color he would need. In the past, he’s preferred to mix the colors himself—by hand, on location—but we wanted to pick some colors from a paint store and have the computer mix it.

We learned today why our painter “doesn’t trust the computers” to mix paint. You see these two lids? The numbers on them are the same! They’re supposed to be the same color, the teal one. Somehow, the computer didn’t put enough green in the second one, I guess. But my painter was able to add some tint to it and make them both the same.

Today started with a wake-up call, followed by several hours of running errands. Ahab the Painter called at 8:15 to tell me they were on the way, and would be here in “about half an hour.” At 9:15 he called again and said they were here. I walked over to our new place (just a block from our temporary place) and let them in. I showed them the paints we had bought. They started setting things up and then asked me if I had any masking tape! “Wait a minute,” thought I to myself, “aren’t they the professional painters here?” I told them I’d go look for some tape and some light bulbs, since several were missing in the new flat.

They also asked about a ladder. I have one, but it was at a friend’s house, so I told them I could bring it a little later. They started asking the doorman at the building if there was a ladder around, but there wasn’t, so he asked if he had an old barrel they could stand on to paint! (No barrel, either).

I walked to the nearest light bulb shop and got some bulbs, and that guy happened to have a few rolls of masking tape, too. Walked back to the new house and delivered that, then came back home for breakfast. After about an hour, he called back and asked about a broom and squeegee for the floor. So, I headed back down and bought those and delivered them. And came back home. Again.

I was about ready to go get the ladder when the doorman at this building brought a couple by who are thinking about buying this flat, so we spent 10 minutes showing our house. After that I did go get the ladder and delivered it to them.

We had company coming for lunch at 1:00, but at 12:30 the painter called again to tell me about the non-matching paints in the girls’ room. So I went to see it and see what to do. That’s when he volunteered to just fix it himself rather than sending me to the store to try to explain that they’re not the same color.

He thought it was going to take 2-3 days to paint all those rooms, but he ended up with 5 guys working on it rather than 2. The three extras had planned to work at another site today, but weren’t able to work there, so they all came to our house. The other reason it’s so much faster here than in the States is because the floors are all ceramic tile. So where we’d spend hours taping plastic to the floor to keep paint off the carpet, these guys just let it drip and then wipe it with a wet rag. It also dries pretty darn fast with so little humidity in the air!

I went over to see it a couple more times this afternoon. Things were progressing quickly. About 8:00 he called and said come see. We went on over and found a beautifully painted house! See for yourself...

Here are Sawyer & Sarah Claire with one of the men who worked so hard on our house all day.
He asked to get in the picture with them!:) 

Another shot so you can see the green walls better.

It's definitely teal! Perhaps a bit brighter than her mom would have chosen,
but Lee Anna knew just what she wanted.

No more red and yellow for our bedroom. Hooray!

And the hallway and living room (not pictured) are a lovely beige. 

Now it's time to fill up those rooms with some furniture! If the movers will work as quickly as the painters, we'll be ready to move in in no time!

Say Cheese!

While we were in the states last fall, some sweet and very talented friends offered to take photos of our family. We are so grateful for these amazing photographers who used their gifts to bless us. We'll be enjoying these photos for a long, long time!

There are many more, but these are some of my favorites...

Our (Soon-to-be) Home Sweet Home

I have debated whether to go ahead and post these "before" pics of our new flat now or wait until we get it all set up and post before and after pics together. Obviously, I decided to go ahead and share some photos, BUT I feel the need to make a few disclaimers/explanatory comments. 

First, I hope that it will be clear to anyone who looks at these that painting is going to be an immediate priority! We already have painters lined up to come the day after we sign the contract, so we will NOT be living in a red and yellow house. Currently, even the ceilings are bright yellow! I mean, if they had tweaked it just a bit and gone with garnet and gold, we might have considered it (not really!), but bright yellow walls AND ceilings are just too much. 

Second, because we live in the desert (well, in a huge city surrounded by desert), any surface that is not frequently cleaned ends up disgustingly dirty. This apartment hasn't been cleaned in a while, so all of the floors in these photos are VERY dirty. There is nice white tile underneath, though, and a little soapy water and a big mop will have them looking great again soon!

So when we're looking at apartments, we have to look past certain easily-fixable things to see the things that really are most important (layout, location, etc.--the same kinds of things you would look for in a house). We had to do some explaining to the kids about why we didn't want to choose another apartment that was located very close to this one. That apartment had normal, muted paint colors and was sparkling clean, but the layout and size were not quite as appealing as this one. We can fix paint and dirt, but we can't fix a bedroom that's too small for our furniture!

Okay, so here we go on the Grand Tour:

The door in this photo is the entrance to the apartment. That spot to the left will be perfect for our shoe cabinet. In this part of the world, it's customary to take your shoes off when you enter someone's home, so we make a habit of doing that at our house, too. The door is sort of located in the middle of the apartment. When you walk in, a large living area is in front of you, and then the hallway you see above leads back to the rest of the house (kitchen, bathrooms, & bedrooms). First, the living area... 

This is the view directly forward from the front door. The area by the window will most likely be our school "room," and then in front of that (nearer the door) will be our dining table.

I took this photo standing in the same spot, but turned slightly to the right. The sliding doors lead to a balcony that overlooks the mosque and small garden area in front of our building.

And this photo is also taken from the same spot, turned a little more to the right. Where Sawyer is standing (what is he doing, anyway?), we'll put our living room furniture (couches, love seat, recliner and entertainment center). I love the windows across the side wall. While they do add to the heat some in the summer, I am a big fan of sunlight, and this room will have lots of it!

If you turn around and walk past the front door and down the hall, the first door you come to is the kitchen.

Our dishwasher will fit nicely in the spot right by the sink. The empty spot on the right side is where the oven will go. There's not an oven in the apartment, so we'll get to purchase our own. On the other side of the kitchen (where I stood to take the photo) is an empty space that will be good for a small table and chair and possibly some shelving or storage of some kind. We're not sure exactly what we're going to do with that space, but we're excited to have it! The kitchen also has a door that opens to a tiny balcony.

As you continue down the hall, you come next to the guest bathroom.

I don't have a lot to say about the bathroom, except that it will work fine. Our washing machine will probably also be in this bathroom (with our dryer possibly in the other one). Washers are usually located in either the kitchen or the bathroom, and dryers are almost unheard of, so there's never a good spot for them.

The three bedrooms are all close together in the back of the house. First, Sawyer's room...

then the girls' in the back corner. I'm not sure why this room got left stark white when every other inch of the house is ridiculously bright! Ironically, the girls want to paint their room teal, so it won't be plain for much longer!

The girls' room has doors that lead to a balcony off the back of the apartment, but we're probably going to end up putting some furniture in front of them. We can still get to the balcony from our room, and it will work best with the girls' furniture to use that wall (plus, then we don't have to worry about kids going out there unsupervised!).

Finally, the last bedroom is the master.

The red wall has some texturing in it that we'll probably just leave and paint over. The other three walls (and ceiling!) are yellow. We'll be changing that to something a bit more understated.

 Here's the master bathroom...

and here's a view back down the hallway from the end.

And that completes our tour! We very much look forward to showing you updated pictures as we get things painted, bought, moved in, and unpacked. We are excited about living life here.

And here's one final picture: This poor building is across the street from ours, and it was meeting its demise the day we went to take these pics. The buildings here are made entirely of concrete and rebar, so that's what the big machine was (loudly!) working on demolishing. Sawyer watched, mesmerized, as it worked, and must have said at least six times, "That machine is AWESOME!"

As you can see, the building next door to it is also unoccupied, but there are plenty of other buildings with residents in the neighborhood. It is a quiet area, but located just two short blocks from a major street with all kinds of stores, restaurants, and other places that we'll frequent. We are so grateful to have found a place that we believe will work so well for our family, and we're looking forward to all that is in store as we settle in this new part of town!