Christmas Morning with the grandparents

The morning after Julenissen is Santa's turn to make a splash. The girls slept in their new pajamas all night in preparation for this footage. With Santa, it's not just presents this morning but the first day of 12 with stocking stuffers as well. We'll finish all our holiday gift giving on January 6 when the wise men come for Epiphany. On that final morning we will exchange one last round of big presents to each other.

Julenissen makes a visit (Parts 1 thru 4)

Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4 are fun, too.

How much gift opening can you handle? This is part one of four for Christmas Eve. Traditionally, the McDougall family is visited by Julenissen on the day before Christmas. You'll see in the video where the little troll tracked in some dirt on his shoes and ate the rice pudding and glog that the girls left before the evening church service.

Christmas is not celebrated and over in just one day in our family so stay tuned for 12 more days of gifts, stockings and giving as we roll into the new year.

Christmas Eve Service

The Christmas eve service in Udhailiyah was a candle light carol singing extravaganza with friends and family in the gym at the Udhailiyah School. The girls were so good they even got to participate in the service by asking the question on the microphone: "Why do we light four candles?" The rest of the McDougall adults answered by lighting the candles on the wreath up on the altar. Finally, we capped the public part of our evening with a chili feed over at the Ladies recreation center on camp.

Lillejulaften means Christmas Eve Eve

Our Christmas family celebrating started this year with a party at Mor Mor and Mor Far's in Udhailiyah.

Let's dance!

Who knew how much fun the Little Einsteins plug and play insert could be without the book attached? Saskia just loves that thing. Anika gets in on the act as well and shows off some of her newly acquired ballet moves. This is the priceless stuff that parents faun over and talk about for days.

Christmas sprucing at home

Decorating at home takes a few days. These vid clips are highlights from the evenings getting our Dhahran house spruced up for the holiday. Kids sure make Christmas fun. No wonder we had to have two! Saskia and Anika are what these times are all about. I can't wait to decorate again next year. So sweet!

Decorating for Christmas with the grandparents

After Thanksgiving we jumped right into getting ready for Christmas. Since we will be spending a lot of time together again in Udhailiyah we all pitched in and brought out a lot of the big items to get Mor Mor and Mor Far's house ready for the end of the month. The best part of the day, however, was after decorating. Sitting around with Mor Far on the guitar and singing carols before bedtime was pretty wonderful.

Anika swings a club

One more part of our weekend with Mor Far. I'm posting this for Mark. He is a golf nut and got Anika a little set of golf clubs so she could learn. She'll need a few more lessons but loves to swing a club.

Jebel kites at sunset

It's the day after Thanksgiving and we are heading out to watch the sun set from the top of one of the amazing jebels of Udhailiyah (pronounced "you'd-ale-ee-yah"). We are greeted by gorgeous views of horizon all the way around and a fantastic aerial of the camp that Mor Mor and Mor Far live at. The more I spend time out on the desert the more I love it here. Are you sick of the kites yet? I can't get enough of the kite flying thing. At least there isn't any sappy music backing up the vid this time, right?

Thanksgiving 2009 in Saudi

Thanksgiving was a blast this year. We all went to Udhailiyah and had dinner at MorMor and MorFar's house. The Remsburgs came (local friends stranded in Saudi for the holiday like us). Mark was master chef, guiding us all towards a terrific 2pm feast. After that was kites with the kids and then videos and desert before bedtime. Gerd Inger called and so did OldeMor from Spanaway, Washington. We are posting these vids so we can all feel closer for this pre-Christmas bash.

Dad's favorite hobby

Out behind our house is a perfect place to fly kites.

It is my new favorite pastime after work as often as it is windy.

As for the cheesy music...I had to try out the new flip video options. Leave a comment telling me if you dig the music or if I should "scrap that crap."

Tee Ball Time with Anika at bat

Anika does a lot around camp. This is evenings two nights a week: Team Gecko Tee Ball. One night is practice. One night is game. This video shows Gecko game-on against the Pirates. Everyone plays all positions and everyone gets to swing until they hit. Everyone also gets to run home. So I guess you win if you have more people showing up to play on your team. It's a fun way to create a family memory. Anika really is great at concentration and execution. Check'er out!

Hitting the park

Saskia has grown a foot since we landed and is into everything. She likes vanilla ice cream more than chocolate and prefers wearing her right shoe on her left foot and the right on the left. She is cute 100 percent of the time no matter what she is doing. When she isn't busy putting her shoes on the wrong feet she does find a table to run into with her head and stairs to fall down. We are on our toes with this one.

Going out with the girls to explore the neighborhood is the absolute best. There are so many different places to choose from that are just a few minutes away. Since we live on the fringes of camp with the desert to our backs there aren't a lot of cars and makes our little street one of the safest around.

Getting out and down the street to the closest swing makes for a fast way to kill an hour before dinner. Anika and Heather take the lead. Raja Lane is our little hook of a street off the main avenue.

Desert Trivia: Riyal Lane is our "big" main street off of the main artery running through camp called Rolling Hills Road. Not that all this means anything to you all so far away but you might recognize names as we continue to blog. The camp is really small and there aren't that many roads to get to know. Heather knew them before we got here.


Here is Heather and Anika 2 minutes later crossing Riyal over to the local tire swing. Note the shade. Nice and cool there: only double digit degrees hot. Sweet! We barely break a sweat.


Anika gets to try out all the swings first in case they break. That said, Saskia is getting more tired of this trend and braver with every walk. Anika is such a great big sister. Showing Saskia the ropes on everything. Sometimes we have to remind her that she isn't the mommy but for the most part she is so sweet and a perfect blend of patience and endurance dealing with little sisters tantrums and mommy and daddy's over protectiveness with everything. We will let Hong Kong rules go completely one day. Give it time, Anika. Your parents are trying.

All right, Saskia. You can go next.

Getting out

Mornings are gorgeous here. We've arrived in Kingdom at the hottest part of the year. That means it's usually 80 before breakfast. The sky is big, though. And blue. The sun is typically white. Not yellow like I remember other places being. The palm trees are all shipped in from somewhere tropical.

Our compound has more than a few mosques. Each mosque-- like every church in the states-- has it's unique character and special blend of people and spices to set it apart from every other mosque. This one is surrounded by a park and near where we swim with the girls at the community pool.

Sand takes it's toll over time. Vehicles around the compound have to endure a lot of heat sitting in hot parking lots and out on the street in front of the house. Each house comes with one garage. Since we will eventually be a two car family (I work and Heather is staying at home with the girls) we will always have at least one car outside. Actually we are talking about converting our garage into another room in our house. Conversions of houses are quite common and the company accomodates most requests that are within reason. For now we park our Ford Expedition outside because the rack on top doesn't fit in our garage. This picture here is NOT our car but what it might look like if we took it out in the desert for a little 4WD action.

Khobar is the closest non-Aramco Saudi city to Dhahran. It's where IKEA is. It has a lot of the markets and malls we have seen on most of our travels around the world. There is a row of car dealerships, an Applebees, a Chilis, a Safeway grocery store and about a dozen different Krispy Cremes. Yes, Starbucks is here. And look, everyone! There are more then one set of arches in town. I guess we can stay for at least a while.

Traffic in Khobar is generally okay. It can be congested depending on the time of day. Generally, the drivers in Saudi have taught themselves to drive. Signs and speed limits are meaningless. I guess the thought is that when you leave home you go with God. And when you get home you pray, thankful to have made another trip to the big city and back again in one piece. One day, I will have a license and then I will drive there. For now, we get rides from friends and family that have their official stamps that let them get around.

Note the stickers on the windsheild. There are so many doo-hickeys to stick on your car to make it official. There is one for insurance, one for the auto club you are a part of, one for security check points, one for registration, one for being allowed to have stickers on your car, etc...if you don't have the right sticker you will get stopped.

And now the desert

So we couldn't pass up the move to the middle east. We always talked about getting out to Saudi Arabia but we never thought it would happen so quickly. Now we are here and it's starting to settle enough that the future can come a bit more into focus as we move into serious settling down mode.

Hong Kong was a great step for us: a splash into the international teaching scene. Great friends and fantastic experiences with so many friends and family that came to visit, we'll always consider Hong Kong our overseas version of New York. We miss the night life and Lilian, our live in nanny.

So much has happened over the last year to make this move to the desert possible. Mark and Gerd Inger (Heather's folks), Ron and Carol (Erik's folks), numerous friends and colleagues from ICS and back in the states have all contributed in so many ways. Whether it was with finances, advice or recommendations we have been reminded once again through the whole process of the last year how lucky we are to be surrounded by kind, loving and talented people. We are blessed by you all and are filled with gratitude everyday we get up to go to work here in Saudi for the chance we have to live a life overseas and watch our girls grow up where Heather did.

Details, pictures and video are coming! Check back often for all the good stuff. Don't forget to drop a comment. We promise to reply to every one!

Mt. Baker Body Painting

Jenny was along for our time in Mt. Baker. She's a very close friend, an amazing blogger and has just started a career in photography. She had this idea to get all the kids doing cute things together and photographing them as they did it. Finger painting is fun. And then we turn it into something else entirely and the experience becomes quite remarkable. Jenny is definitely onto something.

Mt. Baker walking with the girls

I can't get enough of these vids walking with the girls up in the mountains. They probably aren't that entertaining so these are for me. Real memories are gritty and unedited. There is whining and tears. And there is happy conversation and learning about stuff for both little people and big people.

Mt. Baker walking with the girls

One of my favorite parts about last summer was getting to see my girls after being away for a month. Getting to go on walks with the promise of swings at the end made meandering so much fun! Letting Anika lead the way to the swingset was pretty hilarious. We pretty much covered camp before getting to the play stuff.

Mt. Baker hikes

The trails were a great distraction after breakfast and before nap times.
Out behind our summer cabin was a rapid. Rafters went by at 11 and 2 everyday.

Flippin' Dylan

Okay. The music is a little annoying in ths FLIP masterpiece.
The vid is fun though. We got together with all our friends that have kids up in the mountains at a high class cabin for a week before we left for Saudi last summer. Killer time. Dylan was one of my colleagues in grad school so we keep it pretty loose. We try and crack each other up half the time we hang out. The other half we just sit in silence and smell each others farts. It's a gas.