Arriving in Bahrain

I have intended to reboot this blog from the day we found out we were moving to Bahrain, but then, life happened.  This massive, life consuming, emotion inducing move happened.  It's been 9 months since my husband first asked me... So hey, what would you think of moving to Bahrain?

Bah-Where?

Is there Starbucks in Bahrain?  Can I drive in Bahrain?  Will I have to cover my head in Bahrain?  Will we live in a nice house in Bahrain?  Will kids go to.... the kids!

What will the kids think?  Will they be on board?  Will they cry and scream how could you?  Will they embrace the adventure?  Will they hate us and need therapy one day if we do this?

Emotion.  Lots of it.  But we made it.  Here we are after months of planning and being separated as a family.  Months of fixing up our house to rent and months of saying goodbye to a life we've known for 10 years.  After a summer full of family, adventure, swimming and tears... we made it.

It's been 20 days since we arrived at our home in the middle of the night.  The kids were wide-eyed, excited and nervous.  They quickly found their rooms took a sigh of relief in their new space.  We were so hungry and because of that were so very thankful to our wonderful neighbors for stocking our fridge and kitchen with food to get us through a day or two.  After a few hours of just taking it all in we all crawled in bed and began the process of jet lag recovery and transitioning into our new life.

It's been a crazy 20 days.  For starters Jeramy has been gone to the rig for 14 of them.  Even before he left he was in the office almost every day.  Either that man doesn't care about us or he has such tremendous faith in my ability to handle literally anything that he thought it would ok to leave me in a new house, in a new country with no car, no cell phone, very few groceries and three kids.  Thank goodness for the wonderful people that I've already met that have pointed me in every right direction.  If it wasn't for grocery and restaurant delivery, we literally would have starved.  You can order just about anything and have it delivered right to your door for a very nominal fee.  Like dig in your couch for change to cover the delivery fee and order your groceries for the week.

We've come so far since those first few days.  Our shipment made it with very, very little damaged.  Buh-bye Target pie plate I bought over a decade ago and adios to a candle holder I scored at Homegoods that never really matched anywhere anyways.  I raved about our packers back in May, and I'm raving about them again.  Just amazing how everything made it in one piece.  We all have cell phones and I have a car.  It's the ugliest color of blue you've ever seen, Ryleigh has threatened to buy me a Crayola Crayon decal it's so bad.  But the girls made a good point, we never have trouble finding it in the parking lot.  It's a temporary fix though, when Jeramy gets home we will look for me a permanent vehicle.

I found a preschool for Weston.  He will be attending Eton House International Preschool.  It's a school that started in Singapore and I just love their philosophy.  They have the biggest and most amazing outdoor space I've ever seen.  It's like a farm crossed paths with a Children's Museum.  Y'all know my little man, he needs some space to roam and explore.  It's perfect.

The girls just got home from their third day of school.  They are still struggling with the idea of uniforms and the differences between private and public school.  I think a few teachers came out of the gate as very strict.  I'm encouraging them to give it some time.  They both seemed to have made a few friends.  Avery has actually already had a few sleepovers and is invited to a birthday party next weekend.  I have reports from several sources that Ryleigh spends most of her day laughing and hanging out with a whole group of girls.  So don't feel sorry for them, I think they're going to make it.

Me... I miss a few things.  I miss my church.  I miss my street and my friends.  It hurts a little that I got to sub last year and enjoyed it so much and found it so fulfilling.  Now this year I'm back to being at home full time.  I've been very busy setting up the house but that will end.  I do plan to find a good yoga studio, get involved by volunteering at the kid's schools and at some point begin working on the modules I need to finish so that when I move back I can complete my teaching certification.

But it's all good.  This is an adventure that we are blessed to be on.  We've already started planning some trips for the upcoming year.  One of which will be back to Texas for a long Christmas break, that's the trip the girls are counting down to.  I'll leave you with this conversation I just had with Ryleigh:

Me: So have you made friends at school that you can follow on Snapchat and Instagram?

Ryleigh: Yeah.

Me: Do you know where any of them live?

Ryleigh: Yeah, the girl from France lives on the other side of the camel farm.

Me: Oh cool, that's not too far.

Ryleigh: I can't believe I just said that.

Me: I can't believe I just replied back like no big deal.

:)