Tracey Adventures: honey moon phase is over

Well when we first arrived people seemed very …curious as to how we were doing. First question when meeting anyone here is … how long have you been here . Now that we are reaching that one month mark we are becoming veterans’ . Next question where do you live everyone who is not in the tower with is gives us the ohhh , and how is that going ?? well long and short and theme of my life right now….it all part of the adventure!!! Life here is truly what you make off it , and if you want to sit around and think of all the things that would be a lot smoother at home you would never stop …. For the most part things are good , but there are days…..that’s fur sure that you just look out the window at the crazy world around us and wonder ……what are we doing here!! Then after a few tears and some four letter words , you dust your self off and go tackle the world.

School has started and it has it’s own challenges , curriculum here is way more advanced than in Canada , so kayden is having some issues with being behind at school . Plus all the drama of starting the first grade , plus taking the buss Ridiculously early every morning. But the school if really nice and seem like they are going to do good things for our dude.

Skylar is also at school everyday for half the day , and she is loving it . But the standard reply to the how was your day was the buss ride took for ever , but i went to the play ground 3 times!! so her simple life if Great!!

We finally tackled the mall here …and let’s just say it was epic!!! It made chinook in Calgary look small!! they had everything you could ever need , so we started our shopping trip with a store called Saco world. This place was just like walmart except more industrial . We found everything from tupper wear to bouncy houses! Now I know you are all thinking what good would you need a bouncy house with no back yard…..well that’s the point !!! all I will say is the kids were pretty stoked! So we have a cart full of items we packed them to the car and with approximately 2 hours till the next prayer time we were off!! The mall was very family friendly most stores had a large family only sign in the window so as long as you are with you family you are good to go everywhere. Except for the men’s only section in the restraunts but who want to got there:) They had everything ,poetry barn kids , children’s place , a giant candy store , cooking store that was just like papered chef , there was even a theme park and a massive indoor play structure . So we shopped and shopped , then when prayer time was quickly approaching we made the mad dash through the mall to the car before we got locked in …when we arrived at our mini car(yes we still have the worlds smallest rental car) which was already full from our trip to saco world we proceded to unpack everything and cram it all in let’s just say kayden had a stroller on his lap and I was holding bags on mine and the trunk was probably on the verge of bursting open . #adventure I can defiantly see us spending a lot of time and money at that mall:)

Brandt finally got a bank account here which is a bit of a lengthy process but we are one step closer to buying our own car if we can only figure out how to get some of our money into this country . We did receive our Residency card , that was a hard one to handle when you get your card that says saudi resident with a big ol picture of you on it ! Yikes that is one of those…how did that happen moment!!

We are having a lot of those lately simple things that should not be an issue are very difficult , like internet . It is so slow that we can not stream netflix!!! first world problem but still.Brandt went and got a router to hopefully improve that , and 2 hours later it was slower than what we started with so the next day another trip to the store and got another router and after testing it in every corner of the apartment it works sometimes if its in the corner by the window with nothing around it , then you can get netflix for 3 mins at a time before it’s lost again and searching. So I know this is not a life or death thing just frustrating !!! It’s the little things that just seem so difficulty you wonder why you bother trying . I was getting a little cabin fever one day and after skylar goes to school i have a 3 hour window to get something done with only one kid but you are very limited as to what you can do as there is only one buss that can take you anywhere in that time , so me and my saudi sidekick hoped on a buss to camp to got the the library , well the buss left and after a 40 min ride we arrived at the library hiked across the parking lot to get in returned our books then had a total of 8 mins to get another book , Rush back across the parking lot to the bus stop only to stand there for 20 mins then get on a buss that took us to another compound before our own thus making our buss ride home , 60 mins which usually takes 15 …….with Colby crying and threading to get car sick just so we could get out and get a new book , which we all know i probably could have found online in 5 mins. but it’s all about the adventure and i know i can’t have an adventure sitting in the condo all day but after that it makes it hard to want to do that one again . All was good bit just one more thing that is harder to do here. But on a positive note with all my free time , as my boxes have still not even left canada!!! ( I seriously think at this rate i might have them by christmas!) I’m getting smoking good at pintrest ,we have had a new meal every night the family is liking that part. Most the time i can find all the ingredients i need and the arabic writing on the label just adds to fun . The baking ingredients are so rich and pure compared to home the sugars and butter are out of this world !!! However as i still and camping for the most part things are a little tricky still , it's was brandt birthday and i had to bake him something so i made red velvet whoopee cakes , proud moment was making the icing by hand ! just timing it right so that the butter was soft from sitting it out and mixing to a wonderful rufflynees with my whisk , it was simple but yet different from home . And making buns and breads with no mixer means you are latterly needing it on the counter , and as i don't think i'm quite pioneer worthy it was pretty satisfying ~!

making buns in Saudi makes me feel like I know what i'm doing!!! proud moment

Thursday is our take out dinner night so we try someplace new every thursday , this week was sea food . Brandt went alone and went a little crazy , but you got to pick your fish from the cooler and how you wanted it prepared so here is our lobster larry!