Shaybah, Saudi Arabia

On April 25, all of the Dow wives were invited by Saudi Aramco to visit Shaybah - their oil field near the northern edge of the Rub' Al-Khali desert.  This area of Saudi Arabia is often referred to as the "Empty Quarter" because there is nothing there.  With the exception of the Shaybah facilities, it is quite literally empty!  I have to say...I think it's hilarious that not many of us knew exactly where we were going or what we were doing.  Pretty much everyone was in agreement - when they said they were flying us somewhere for dinner and activities AND the husbands weren't invited (which meant no kids either) we didn't care where we were going...just let us know what time to be ready hahaha!!!  I knew we were staying in Saudi, but I didn't even have a clue about which direction we going!  

Saudi Aramco had a great day planned for us!  We started off at their terminal in the Dammam airport.  They flew us on one of their private jets out to the middle of nowhere.  This is all of us getting off the plane on the airstrip at Shaybah.    

The surroundings here are just beautiful...much, much different than the desert we have around us in Jubail.  The sand is a red/orange color and the dunes are sometimes as high as 1,000 feet!

When we were approaching Shaybah from the air, it was easy to grasp just how remote of a location it is.  There is nothing around but sand and a few roads going in and out.  Here you can see the facilities from where our gathering was.  They had to transport materials from 500 miles away in trucks until the airstrip was complete.

Our dinner was set up outside this tent.

Inside the tent we were served snacks and shown a presentation about the facilities.  At the end of the presentation they talked about how they were starting on a new project and we all laughed saying that's the real reason they brought the "bosses" there...to recruit the husbands.

We went back outside for our look into some Saudi Arabian culture and traditions.

These men were serving Arabic coffee, tea and traditional sweets.

Man playing traditional music on a rababa.

Falcon show.

This is me getting a henna tattoo.

He is making khubz (Arabic bread).

A tandoor is used to bake the khubz.

These guys were there to show off their different handicrafts.  I know there must be a name for them, but I don't know it!

Me and some friends enjoying the view.

What an unbelievable life I have :)

We watched the sunset from our tent on the hilltop (or should I say sandtop, hehe), ate a delicious dinner, and then boarded our plane back to Dammam.

London, England

Day One

We started counting down the days for our trip about two months before it was time to leave.  It had been 8 loonnng months and we were beyond ready to get out of the middle east!  We left our compound around 8:00 pm on March 12 and made a beeline to Bahrain for our early morning seven hour flight.  We arrived in London and were greeted by a driver who took us to our flat.  We were in a great location - right across the street from Buckingham Palace!  We picked up breakfast from a little cafe downstairs and then headed out to get groceries.  

After we got settled in, we set out to explore our area.  (Disclaimer:  We took this trip over 4 months ago and I have a terrible memory.  Don't be surprised if there are lots of pictures with very little information!)

Of course we had to take a picture in front of the iconic telephone booth.  When we saw it I thought it was pretty cool that we found one right away, but I quickly realized that they are everywhere!

Westminster Abbey!  I was kind of sad that we couldn't tour the abbey since there was a funeral going on that day, but it is gorgeous!  Whoever it was, he was important because there were tons of people waiting up and down the street and paparazzi.  Our tour guide the next day told us his name, but I forgot...refer to terrible memory statement above!

Big Ben!

Connor was super excited to see Big Ben.  We talked about it before we left and showed him pictures so he pointed it out right away!

After walking around a bit we decided to grab a snack and some drinks and rest our feet.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous!  We so enjoyed taking it all in and going wherever the wind took us.

All week long Harry stopped to look at every place that sold postcards!  He was looking for the "London at Night" one that is on some tv show that he watches.  I can't remember the name of it...there goes that memory thing again haha!  We never did find the postcard!

Parliament!  The architecture all around London is STUNNING!  I would just look around in disbelief that I was actually there and seeing all these things!

I noticed this as we were walking along a sidewalk and thought it was so cute.

After more walking around it was time for Jameson to eat, so we decided to take a break at St. James' Park.  It was so beautiful!

We had a great time just relaxing and enjoying each other and our surroundings.

Connor was pretty much over the walking around and sightseeing so we let him run around and play to his little heart's content.

We walked across the street to visit the Churchill War Rooms.  Of course right when we went in Jameson started screaming so we walked right back out to let him finish his bottle.  This was to no objection from Connor as he was thrilled to run and jump around.  I'll be honest...I was not at all excited to visit the war rooms.  Number 1, I don't like history and Number 2, it was expensive.  Harry listed it as one of the things he really wanted to do so I agreed to go and I'm so glad we did!  It was the underground command center for the British government during WWII.  It was like stepping back in time!  I have a ton of pictures and found it hard to narrow down a few to put in the blog.  I highly recommend visiting there!  (Even if you aren't into history.)

The people basically spent their days underground so the weather for the day would be posted here.

I totally had to get a picture of a black taxi cab.

We ended our first day getting pub grub at The Albert (a kid friendly pub).  I love this picture...Jameson is really just yawning, but I captioned it, "Someone has a baby in a bar?!?! Wait...OMG, it's me!!! I'm the baby in a bar!"  Even though it was a kid friendly pub, it was still a little awkward considering we were the only ones with kids there.  No one seemed to mind though and the waitresses were all going crazy over Jameson's name.  When the after work crowd started to come in we decided it was time for us to head back to the flat.  

What a great ending to a great day!  This is where I developed a love for apple cider :)

Day Two
After a good night's sleep we set off for another day of touring the city.  We decided to take the hop on hop off bus to get a good overview tour.  Our guide was really informative and we were the only ones on the bus for a good while.

Wellington Arch

This is Speakers' Corner where people can gather to, well...speak.  From what I understand crowds gather there and the people talking stand on boxes.  They can pretty much debate and discuss whatever the police will allow them to.

Random horse head statue.

Sitting at the top and all the way to the back of the bus probably wasn't the best idea.  We had to keep Jameson really bundled up because it was pretty chilly and he wasn't feeling that great.  Don't judge us!

It's a little hard to see, but there is a small sign near the roof of the bus that says, "Mind Your Head."  Apparently "mind" in London is used in the place of where we might say "watch" or "look out for" or something to that affect.  The elevator in the building where our flat was said "Mind the doors" right before they closed.  We got a kick out of that and mimicked it the whole time we were there.  And if you know me and Harry then you know we did it all while talking in a British accent!  Haha!!

Another random statue.  It was very odd to see something so modern in a city full of history.

Another view of Parliament and Big Ben.

Passing over the Tower Bridge.  A lot of people think that this is London Bridge, but it definitely isn't.  London Bridge ain't got nothing on this!

Outside view of the Tower of London.

The Great Fire of London started here at a bakery on Pudding Lane.  The fire lasted for something like four days and basically destroyed most of the city.

We got off the bus near Buckingham Palace in hopes of catching the changing of the guards that day.  We were pretty early, but a huge crowd had already gathered.  I couldn't get any good pictures because we were a few rows back behind the fence and my camera wouldn't focus well.

Even though we didn't stay through the whole thing we can say been there, done that.  I probably wouldn't spend time doing it again if I were ever back in London though.  At this point it was time for a break and no one was more ready to go than this dude!

After a little resting at the flat we walked across the street to the Royal Mews.  It's the horse stables at Buckingham Palace and they also house the carriages and are responsible for making road travel arrangements for the queen.

Tax money well spent :)

And now for the mack daddy...

The pictures seriously do not do it justice!  It is unbelievably gorgeous!

Next we headed to the pier for our cruise on the River Thames.  Of course we had to get ice cream while we waited in line.

This isn't the boat we rode on, but I thought it was funny.

Beer and apple cider!

This is a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

London Bridge

Tower Bridge

This is where many prisoners entered the Tower of London.

We got off the boat and toured the Tower of London.

Walking around and thinking about all the things that went on here was really cool.  Here is one of the tower's ravens!  The story goes that the ravens protect the crown and the tower and if they should ever all fly away then the crown will fall and Britain will fall with it.

This is a guard protecting the crown jewels.  We couldn't take pictures inside which was a real bummer because it was amazing!  Must see if you are visiting London!

Riding the tube back to our flat!

Dinner time after another successful day!

Day Three
After two jam-packed days we decided to have a lazy morning.

Hey, it's vacation!  Drinking out of the jug is totally okay :)

Heading out to see Buckingham Palace!  Even though we were there the day before, we didn't get to see much because of the massive crowd during the changing of the guard.

I think this is Green Park.  We walked through it to get to the tube station.

We got off the tube and tried following Rick Steves' directions for getting to the British Museum.  The key word here is tried!  We ended up back tracking to the tube station to start over. We were starving so we took the opportunity to get fish and chips at a nearby restaurant before trying again. Ugh! Gross! I've heard it's hit or miss when it comes to fish and chips and this was a definite miss!

We found it!!

We were so over these audio guides by this point. Trying to manage the kids and these things at the same time was nearly impossible. It did keep Connor occupied though because he had the kid version with pictures so it was kind of like a scavenger hunt for him. I know we should have gotten a lot more out of the museum than we did, but we did the best we could with two kids that were at their limit of sightseeing. 

Traveling with two small children comes with its own set of challenges. We had many moments where we could have broken down and started screaming at each other, but we would just laugh and say that we are making memories. This was one of those moments. We were about ready to leave the museum and the kids were definitely ready to leave. We gave Jameson a bottle and the inevideble happened with him having a cough and sinus drip. He projectile vomited all over Harry! We were in the main entrance that is very open and the sound of him puking seemed to echo all around us. I could just feel the people staring with their judgemental eyes. I scrambled to find something to clean everything up. I bent over to get towels out of the diaper bag and after walking around for days wearing Jameson my back gave out. All I could do is laugh and say I think that's our cue to leave!

So leave is exactly what we did. On the tube back to the flat!

Happy baby :)

Day Four
Jameson really wasn't feeling well so we decided that we would have a very low key day and keep him inside.  We lounged around the flat for a while and it was really nice to relax.

We had already planned to go to Hamley's so it was a great day to do it.  I checked their website to get the store hours and noticed that Captain America would be there promoting the new movie coming out.  Perfect!  I brought Connor while Harry stayed at the flat with Jameson.  He was in toy heaven when we got there!  Hamley's in London is the oldest and biggest toy store in the world.  I think it was six stories!  They have several really cool lego displays.

The best thing about this place is that the employees are demonstrating toys all over the store.  It kept us entertained for about 2 hours while waiting for Captain America!

He was super pumped!

Back at the hotel playing with his new toy!

It was almost empty.  Why dirty a glass, right?

Day Five
We had a tour to Stonehenge and Bath for our last day.  We walked down to the bus station to catch our ride.

Thatch roof!

All bundled up and ready for Stonehenge!  It was really cold there!

This place is incredible and mind boggling!

It was really too cold for Jameson to be out in the wind so we decided to head back to the bus and eat our snacks that we brought.  I got Connor to try a few orange slices.  He liked it, but then started to choke on the "dry skin".  It was definitely another making memories moment where we could have used an extra set of clothes...I'll leave it at that!

I wasn't fast enough to get a good picture, but this is where they would put the town drunks to sober up when they got arrested.

The English countryside is beautiful!

Touring the Roman baths!

Stopping at a little pizza place for lunch.

More beautiful countryside!

We had an excellent time in London, but we were so ready to board a plane the next day that would take us to the USA!!!