The Snells: A week of firsts

This has been quite the week for us here in Saudi filled with lots of "firsts"! To start off our week, we experienced our first Saudi sandstorm. It was quite a sight to see. The clouds were low, dust was everywhere, and you could hardly see in front of you. Here are two pictures, taken from the same place, that show the difference in visibility. The kids and I stayed indoors so we didn't get all that sand in our lungs. The closes thing I can compare it to is a blizzard. The clouds, fog, visibility all reminded me of a blizzard, except it was 85 degrees out instead of 10. It lasted about 2 days, but by the afternoon of the second day it was pretty clear.


The right picture is on a sunny day and the left picture is on the day of the sand storm. It was crazy!!

Another first for us this week was Soren starting his new school, ISG Jubail. We were able to meet with the school counselor, who gave us lots of information about the school. They do two years of kindergarten here, starting at the age of four, so Soren is in Kindergarten 1 (KG1) this year and will be in Kindergarten 2 (KG2) next year. The school day is 8 until 2:15, which is much longer than his preschool, but they get to have 3 recesses and a quiet time! He has to catch the bus at 7 and gets home at 2:45, so he was quite the tired boy when he got home yesterday. The school has over 50 countries represented, which is cool that Soren gets to meet kids from all over the world! A few days after we met with the counselor, we were able to meet his teacher and see his classroom! We were very impressed with the classroom. It was very large with lots of different "stations" for the kids to explore and learn. And then, yesterday, Soren had his "first day" of KG1. He had a great time! One of his friends/our neighbors, Lucy, is in his class and that helped him a lot!


Another "first day" of school picture! He did great!!!

Another first we had this week happened today! On what should have been Soren's second day of school, we found out it was cancelled due to weather. Now, you may be wondering, what kind of weather could possibly cause cancellation of school. Well, we wondered the same thing! Apparently, a sand storm is a brewing and caused schools to shut down. I have to say, I have never experience that before! So, we are home again today. Thankfully, other kids are home too, so hopefully we will get to play with some of our friends!

Elsa also had a new first this week too! She began using the big girl potty!!! Yesterday she wore underwear for half the day and did GREAT! She was so excited to be wearing her big girl underwear! This morning when she woke up, the first thing she asked was to put on her underwear! Potty training with 3 kids is a bit trickier than it was to potty train with just 2 kids. But, I guess that is true of everything, right?! I'm hoping she can get this potty training thing down in just a few days with limited accidents! Chocolate candy works wonders as an incentive! So far, so good!!!

And of course, the third child needs to have a big moment too!! Little girl decided to start rolling over last week. I had put her down on the floor to go make the big kids lunch one day. I came back 5 minutes later and she was on her tummy! Oh the smile on her face showed just how proud she was of herself!! In true third child form, no one was there to witness her first time rolling over. We put her on her back again, and she was just as proud to show us her new trick. Since then, she has showed us many times how she can roll from her back to her tummy. She has even gone from her tummy to her back again! She is just growing too quickly!


This is how I left her.

"Hey Mom! Don't mind me...I just rolled over!"

So proud!!!!

"I can hold a toy all by myself now too!!"

We also experienced our first time eating out at a restaurant last week. We decided to go to Chili's with some friends last week. The Chili's is in a very nice part of Jubail called Fanateer. It is a very upscale area right on the Arabian Sea. It very much reminded me of the States. The Chili's was located right next to Outback Steakhouse, Fuddruckers, and a gelato store. I sort of felt like I was back in the states, sort of. At most restaurants, there is a family entrance and a men only entrance. Since we were there with families (and more specifically women) we went in the family section. Inside the family section, there were tables and booths with curtains, so that families could have their privacy. The food was very good and didn't taste any different than Chili's back in the states!

Another first of our week was adventuring to Old Jubail to try out another new restaurant with some friends. The restaurant was called Pansitan and they served Fillipino/Turkish food. The food was delicious!! I think my favorite was the skewers of bbq chicken, the spring rolls, and the garlic fried rice. We ordered waaaay too much food, but it was fun to try lots of different things! We had duck, shrimp, chicken, stir fry, noodles, beef ribs, bbq chicken, dumplings, and lots of rice! Seeing Old Jubail was fun too. It was a Thursday night, which is the night before their weekend starts. So there were lots of people out and about! It's hard to describe so I will just show you some pictures instead!

Old Jubail.


Getting a good picture of the plants in a moving car at night is quite difficult. But the plants are quite the site to see at night!!!

And, to end, here are just a couple more fun pictures of the kids in the last couple of weeks. We are still waiting on our air shipment, which hopefully will come this week! We are getting a little stir crazy without our stuff! We did find a "garage sale" on the compound of a family who is repatriating in a few months. So we bought a new activity mat for Kjerstin, a few books for the big kids, and a shopping cart for Elsa. The kids are having fun with their new toys! Well, that is all for now. Until next time, enjoy!!!