Import=Important

 I was always one of those people who thought when people said “retail therapy” that it was just an excuse to go shopping.  who doesn’t like new things right?? however I was and still am very well ….Cheap! I hate to spend money on something that i know i can get cheaper by making it or not getting name brand or searching somewhere else to find it for a little less. Like a predator searching for its pray , how ever living over here is taking that drive for the hunt out of me.  At first when we were shopping and looking for new things i would see the imported section in the store and steer clear thinking “ I don’t need the name brand” , “ it’s all the same  , what person would pay that?!?   Times have changed ! and this is the new Tracey way of shopping  Imported=IMPORTANT     If there is an entire wall of food we look for the one that says Imported , cost who cares.  Also if its something you have been told is not allowed here and you find it you buy 2.  Such as more “Gingerbread Holiday” Items . We decided to go to the craft store   here which is like micheals meets a dollar store in forest lawn …we had to wait for Brandt to take us after work head down to the hood , Wait 25 mins for prayer to end  in the car with my always calm 3 kids.Go in side to the darkest farthest corner of the store(similar to the family section @ starbucks)  only to find Joy ! Colorfull lights hanging from the ceiling and more colourful balls  for greenery  then we spot it ….wrapping paper and  not just any wrapping paper it had a big ol sticker on it that was so familiar i may have shed a tear…..Kirkland…..as i wipe the look of shock and how the heck did this get here i see the price (120SR) which is $30 American  , look at brandt and say YUP we will take 2 . Finish our shopping trip with bags of Crafts , red and green items , Fabric that closely resemble elsa’s cape and sparkly lights . Rush out of the store to beat the next prayer time  , as they are so close together right now at night with the sun setting early .  We drive to one of Brandt’s local Schwarma joints which he loves. As we drive ,  there are people everywhere , open pit’s of road contraction  cars/cabs swerving and honking and all i can think is yup this is it…..He#*       It like a bad dream  just pure and utter craziness and then we turned in to what seemed like a parking lot to a dump only to discover nope this is the road to our destination  , close my eye think what’s ment to be will be and open as brandt is parking  (which i use very lightly) as it’s on the corner of an intersection and he hoppes out of the car and goes in to what looks like a  post apocalyptic building filled with men (of course men only)  and emergeces with our dinner! Fun right ! we then enjoyed the best schwarma and the kids devoured it to! so they must be doing something right in there . 

      

  Another Trip to Bahrain  , we headed off for anther day of adventure and shopping ! Getting up at the crack of dawn to head across the cosway as it can get pretty wild and take up to 2 hours we lucked out and only took about 40 mins ! crossed the boarder and Stripped off my super sexy abya reveling  my elbows and wrists! the car almost swerved off the road..LOL ka maybe not that much but man it did feel good. We went to the mall for more retail therapy cause it had been about 8 hours since our last shopping trip……As it was early and the mall was still closed we went to the food store and found …..frozen blue berries!!! now as you know these are really hard to find and we love them!!!I don’t even know how much they cost but we bought all they had !!! about 12 (average price $5 per 340 g bag)     

Then we continued to tour that mall as we filled the kids with ice-cream to get them though we were ready to rock ! and we found Bath and body works!!!    seriously it smelled like heaven ! it was the first place in a long time that smelled good! everything here smells like dust and spices and gross perfume! aka the middle east! it’s an official smell and well i’m not a fan!   So bath and body works smelled like HOME and they had Ginergerbread holiday scents! with snowmen and snowflakes and Peppermint all over them!!  Now as excited as i was you have to remember when you cross the boarder to come back to Saudi your  car will be searched and you never know what they are going to take aways so you have to be car full what you bring back with you…..So this is what we brought and the what’s ment to be….   

after calming from our smell over load we went to the baking store which we have here but this one was better! that’s the things with Bahrain everything is the same there except better!!!The people are happy  , the women are not completely covered and the people in the store are able to talk to you! but the store was full of more gingerbread holiday stuff!!   I got this awesome mood to make gingerbread houses! so excited!!! When ever i find something i have been looking for it's pure joy. I have been searching for all the items i need to make Grandma's Chocolates for the Winter holidays to share with my new family here.  And it's tough! i have been searching for weeks , still unable to find Maple flavouring and people think i'm crazy to look for something like that , Finding chocolate for dipping .Which Brandt finally had to meet a local women at a public location to pay her in advance to order chocolate form her Friend.So in pure saudi style you give a stranger money and hope that something good comes out of it down the road .Fingers crossed . But I am slowly getting there and hopefully will find everything i need:)

#adventure  , driving to Bahrain always Fun

Brunch!with Friend Lots of sugar!

Here it is!!! $60 worth of wrapping paper

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Not sure if you can see the writing but it just sums up this wild world we live in

More Retail therapy! pottery barn kids ,but it's for Brandt ! we think it looks like a drilling rig and could no resist

Here it is my Contraband scents! that made it across! My appartment will no longer smell like the middle east!!

We also managed to get a Lego star wars Advent calendar which some i know will be pretty surpassed as we already said the The guy in red is running low on lego this year  , just to cover our bases.Bad parents I know but we had to be ready:)

Summ it up  , I formally apologize to anyone that i brushed off when they said retail therapy helped because after my past 48 hours of shopping I have to say it's true it's a real thing and it does help!!! Look out Brandt !

First world Problems are still Problems....

Well here is the next picture addition  : I looked back to realize that it has been almost a month since that last update and i could not believe it ! Time flew by , only 94 days until we go back to Disney and our cruise! but who is counting ...here we are , life is good but man  things sure add up , Things that you think will not bother you , like not being able to drive or use your computer of sit on you own couch , make a phone call  , celebrate a holiday that you have done for ever , or eat food that you have had at your access your entire life to find out that you are the only person in this country that wants it and you can not find it . First world problems yes but we are discovering they are still problems... Examaple A

This is from out most recent shopping trip( there are many shopping trips are they is not much else to do than shop , and it takes all day to do so between prayer time and not finding what you need)

We found "Local" corn on the cob , no idea where local is but it was corn on the cob and eating it made us feel so normal , but it was no taber corn that is for sure.  Name brand popcorn only one store we have found sells this and it's a big deal . Starbuck pumpkin spice steamer ...no words needed , I am becoming a little obsessed with these as it really makes me feel  like a normal person. Me and a Friend went to the mall last week and went to my first family section in starbucks  , usually i just crouch outside the men's section and have Brandt go in and get my drink but this time was family and it was not all that bad . Here is what you need to do :You look at the awesome looking starbucks  look for the dark corner go towards it realize it's the door for the family section starbucks and go through hoping you are going to come out of it alive , then realize that hey it's not that bad~ order your drink by pointing at a picture menu that they seem to have everywhere as no one speaks the same language so after a game of name that drink and sharides  you come up with something hot in a cup and think ....i'm getting good at this only to discover it has coffee in it (which i don't drink) and say screw it i'm good with it. Call the event a success and try again next time .

It is funny that the things you would not put up with at home are totally normal here . Such as sharing a seat belt with your 2 year old because well you have to get out of the tower and this is the only way out.#repunzel    Or when you go to sephora 4 times to try and buy something and it's never in stalk and all the answers you can get are "inshalla" 2 weeks , if you can understand them women we are cover from head to toe with literally only they eyes covered. However their make up looks smoking good! so that is encouraging while shopping for make-up 

Here is my beloved syrup i talked about last time ...love

So got these roasted chickens at the food store ...do they look different to you?   the cooked them upside down ..even the chicken are backwards:)

Here we are at another aramco compound that is on the beach. It's about a hours death race in the car to get there  , the roads are busy and scary but Brandt is enjoying the Saudi way of driving so we were off to the races.  This was our kids first time Ever at the ocean and it was epic! They loved it the waves the sun , sand . It was a really good day! It was beautiful and mostly clean  , so it was a good break from reality . We went with friend and bbq'd on the beach and the kids played.#Blessings  We have not had bbq since aug so that was amazing! we are still trying to figure out where we can bbq as we sure can not on the 36 floor but we will get there.

kayden realized that it was salt water in the ocean ...not impressed:)

Colby loved the waves! played in them the entire time

This is the view from out appt , most days are kinda hazy and you can see the coast but not much more. This day was so clear and so blue. You can see Bahrain across the water , this is about an 45 min drive and it's a different country so the Rules there are a little more relaxed so this is a big week end destination. 

So BLUE!

This is a quick shot of one of the jets that fly over camp  all day and night! the kids/brandt  love this. 

Kayden's school had a halloween parade at school so me and Colby man hopped on a buss to go and see .  Well I have done halloween my entire life and this was the first year that we did not have to take in effect a snow suit in to the costume! loved that  So as we waited outside for the parade to begin we sat in 34 degree heat and LOVED it! Once it started you would have though Colby was watching a parade at Disney he was screaming and cheering everyrtime he saw a character he knew . Then when he saw Kayden he ran in to the crowd going for the embrace it was really sweet! Another good day ended by a party on main camp  ,This was another first i have never been to a party in a baseball field in oct where they had Halloween candy and games , with more nannies than parents and served Shwarma!  On the 31 there was a party at the tower for all the kids and it was so fun they played games and hung out with there friends then off to trick or treat. How do you ask they do this in an appt , well easy! ...inshalla

We gathered 3 mom's with 8 kids total  and as i was telling my older two about the rules of the night my youngest hoped on the elevator...then the rest of the kids say "colby got in the elevator ...well this is a problem  , there are 4 elevators  and the number are on the out side so once you are in you can not change your destination  ..so i hopped in the next available one which happened to be the one next to where colby was ...Alone  and i could hear him screaming beside me as we were going down then i notice he has stopped an i am going to next i hopped out go up 3 flight only to find now it's silent then i get a text saying he in the lobby with the front desk , thank goodness so  wait for another elevator that was taking to long for my liking so i took 17 flights of stairs down to the lobby to find nope he has going back up to 5 with one of our friends , then go up to 5 to almost miss brandt get on with him to go back ....soo Colby decided not to go trick or treating he was scared enough from the events. So back to the rest of the kids and off we went to floor #44 start out going door to door then down a flight of stairs ,and repeat, with us and out 7 kids total ,it took us almost 2 hours but we did it! 40 Floors with the kids , average age was about 4 , but they were troopers!  #adventure

More shopping , now lets set the floor for this one , picture you live in a strange country where there are NO pork products...no bacon for almost 3 months and you find this at the food store. Angels sang when we found this one can not wait to eat these! Turkey bacon:)

more yummy food Brandt found at some bakery that looked like a hole in the wall i'm sure ! i have stopped asking where the food comes from cause most times it's better not to know! (refer to Brandt face book picture of where dinner comes from)

Halloween night! Off we go!

Long and short  , having fun ,getting kinda tired of things being hard and long but still making the most of it.(aka lowering expectations) We are Finding the new normal  .We are now into the fun part of the year that you are not allowed to say or talk about here but we are going to call it our" Gingerbread party" on Dec 25.  It will be a new experience that is for sure! But we did manage to find a secret shop where there was a secret knock involved with a back room stashed of Winter inspired greenery  , and sparkly items which will make it feel like home.  It's a long story that i would love to tell you all in person one day:) That about sums up our world as we know it today! We love you all and are sure to have more adventures to tell you next time ...#saudiadventure