I can't believe my little coconut is already four years old! He has grown up so much over the last year, and he is really excited about being four for some reason. Because of scheduling, we ended up celebrating his birthday for almost the whole month!
He ran fever the night before his actual birthday so I kept him home from school. There really is no escaping allergies and sinus infections - even in Saudi Arabia! During the day I took him to Jarir Bookstore to pick out a new videogame for his Kinect and then to Danube to choose a cake for us to have after supper. He picked out a Disneyland game and a strawberry cake. His birthday fell on a Sunday so we were able to Skype with everyone back home. We were going to try and do a group session on Skype, but you need the paid version to do that so we had to improvise. We set up our two laptops and two iPads so that everyone could sing Happy Birthday to him and watch him blow out his candles. Quite unconventional, but it worked!
He even go to Skype with Parker, his best friend from back home! It was so fun to watch them chat.
Because most of the families we would invite to his party were going to be out of town for the Eid holiday, we decided to wait until the end of the month to have it. Harry was actually off of work for almost the whole week for Eid so we went to Bahrain to celebrate some more and do things that we can't do in Saudi. Plus, I could go out in public without having to wear an abaya and we didn't have to worry about places closing for prayer time! We decided to go last minute so we scrambled and got a single exit visa so that we could leave the country and then come back in. Somehow the memory card for my camera became corrupt and I lost all of the pictures from our trip! Yeah, not too happy about that but c'est la vie! On our way to the hotel we had the driver stop at the Al Fateh Grand Mosque. It's one of the largest mosques in the world and allows nonmuslims inside. They even do tours and give you lots of information about the mosque and Islam. Prayer time is a huge part of life in Saudi Arabia. Our schedule basically has to revolve around it when we leave the compound. It was interesting to find out exactly what is going on during those times...well what is going on with the people who are actually praying. After the mosque we checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Kempinski because it is connected to the City Centre mall. All of the activities we had planned were in the mall so it was the perfect place to stay. This way we didn't have to worry about getting a taxi and we could easily go back to our room for naps and to rest. After checking in we had lunch at PF Changs and then went to the movies to see Planes. After a much needed nap we spent a little time at the pool and then finished off our day with a light supper at the hotel lounge.
Day two started with an early lunch at McDonald's, fun at the indoor waterpark, gelato, and supper at TGI Fridays. There was "family seating" in the food court, but we didn't sit there because...well, because we didn't have to! It was weird that I felt so liberated over something so small. Connor had so much fun at the waterpark! He hung out at the kiddie area for a while, but he was too afraid to go down the slides by himself and they were way too small for Harry to go down them with him. We spent a lot of time going around the lazy river. We must have gone around at least four times. This is when I started noticing how ridiculous the people were. It's like they don't know how to behave appropriately and they definitely don't have manners. I don't think parents even know the meaning of discipline. Harry ended up getting Connor to go down a few of the bigger slides with him and he loved it! He could've done that for the rest of the day, but I was getting tired and couldn't stand much more of the crazy people! Perfect example...as I'm coming out of the changing room, this girl tries to push me back so that she could come in. I forcefully gently pushed back and said excuse me. She laughed while the ladies she was with stared me down through the little eye hole in their head covering. I just stared right back at them. I won't have a confrontation with these people, but I'm definitely going to let them know that I'm not afraid of them! I was beyond ready to get out of that place!
Day three started again with an early lunch at Potbelly's, fun at Magic Planet, bowling, and ice cream at Cold Stone. Magic Planet was a fun place to spend some time. It has little rides, bumper cars, and arcade games. Connor landed on the jackpot on a game just like the one he hit the jackpot on last year for his birthday party at The Party Pad. It was so funny and he racked up on tickets! I was winning throughout the entire game of bowling until the last frame. Harry and Connor both came back to beat me! We couldn't escape the crazy people there either though. A grown man thought he was going to cut the line at the counter, but the guy working wasn't having it. He told him he had to get in line and it was awesome! Harry had to track down one of our bowling balls after this little boy took it off of our lane. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but it was the lightest ball they had and there weren't anymore available. I had to tell a little girl next to us several times to get back on her side. Once I had to stop her from bowling down our lane. And yes, her mom was sitting right there! I'm sure my hormones and the fact that I'm uncomfortable and in pain most of the time added to my lack of patience and understanding for people in general, but they really are a different breed here!
We decided to venture out for supper and I'm glad we did! We ended up at a place called Coco's which is in what seemed to be the downtown area. The atmosphere was cool, the food was good, and the peach iced tea was amazing! The iced tea at almost every restaurant we've been to here in the Middle East has been really good and this was probably the best. I'd really like to know what they do that makes it so good. The only pictures I have from our trip are of our night out because we took them with our phone since we didn't have our camera.
When we were walking down the street to find a taxi Connor saw this pink ribbon and said, "That's where Mimi works!" Harry and I were both shocked because we never realized he made a connection with awareness ribbons and his Mimi's work with the American Cancer Society. We had a great night out and an overall great time in Bahrain! The next morning we had breakfast and then got ready for our short 1 hour drive over the causeway and back into Saudi.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and it was finally time for the birthday party! It took me forever to find a place to have the party, but I finally decided to have it at a place called Ceramique a la Cart Café at the Al Rashid mall here in Khobar. It turned out to be a great place to have a party. The cake and transportation didn't turn out so well. Connor requested a batman cake so I did my usual search for it on Pintrest and he decided on something cute and simple...easy right? Wrong! I got a few quotes for it from local bakeries and their prices were outrageous for a small cake to feed no more than 25 people. I came across this lady on one of the Facebook groups that I follow. I took a look at her page, she does good work, charged a reasonable price....perfect! Until she messaged me the weekend before the party saying she couldn't make it because I don't live on her compound and it is too complicated to get visitors access and she couldn't get a car to deliver it to me. I know people who have been to her compound. There is a huge craft show there next week and a lot of the ladies from my compound are going. So while you can't just show up and get into the gate, it is not "too complicated" to get a visitor in. To top it off, the morning of the party she posted a picture on her Facebook page of THE EXACT cake that I sent to her to make! Thankfully I found another lady who was able to make the cake he wanted. It was a little on the dry side and it tasted just okay, but it was a batman cake so that's all Connor cared about!
The party was at 11:00 so we scheduled the car to pick us up at 10:30. Now the dispatch center, cars, and drivers are all here on our compound so they are usually pulling up to our door exactly at our scheduled time...not.that.day. At 10:35 Harry called to make sure someone was coming and the guy said that the driver was on his way. At 10:45 he called back. "He's coming, he's coming." I'm thinking okay...we can leave right now and still be there on time. 10:55 rolls around. Still no car so Harry calls for the third time. "The driver is waiting outside your villa sir." What?!?! He definitely was NOT waiting outside our villa or outside any villa down our street for that matter. He finally shows up at 11:00. The guy was very friendly and smiling away. I just glared at him. I wasn't going to fuss with him because chances are he was just following orders and had nothing to do with whatever the mix up was, but I wasn't going to be chummy either. I was mad and needed somebody to be mad at lol! Even though we were late to our own party everything turned out great! They started off with face painting and then the kids were able to pick out the ceramic of their choice and paint it. I was worried that things would get broken or they wouldn't be interested in painting, but they loved it! The were so quiet, took their time, and really had fun! They ate, danced, played games, watched the guy do magic tricks, and just had a fun time together! His party was a little unconventional considering he had never met half of the kids there and he was one of only three Americans, but he didn't care :)
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