Garfield has returned!

So, be truthful. How many of you knew that as soon as I got a new cat that Garfield would come home? Yeah...my hubby knew this too. So now I have 2 cats, which is fine with me because I love them!

Paul will be home from the Navy to visit for a week starting on Wednesday the 29th. I'm very excited about this! We still have Jason's friend staying with us, but he is going to Colorado in a day or two to visit his family and to scout things out there. I think that he is thinking that having his house burn down and getting laid off from his job in the same month might be some kind of sign from God that he needs to "get out of Dodge". Hmmm, maybe so.

Henry and I have submitted all of his information to the Connections Academy and are just waiting for the shipment of his books and computer. Hopefully I will have him out of school by Thanksgiving at the latest.

Stephi and Randy are laying laminate flooring in there house this week. I can't wait to see how it turns out. It will definitely be a GREAT improvement over the crappy carpet that came will the house... lots of stains on light beige carpet is gross!

Work is pretty much the same... actually better. They have trained some new people to be in charge... so I don't have to do it as often, which is good. I was starting to get tired of doing it all the time. It is nice to actually be a nurse. Makes me remember why I went to nursing school... I was starting to forget.

Last, but not least, I am becoming an official member of Copper Hills Church! I went to a class this past Thursday to learn more about the church and I am signing the pledge on Sunday. If you are all wondering about the Summit, they voted to dissolve last week and they donated their remaining assets to a few different causes. Pastor Scott was offered a full time ministry position at Copper Hills and I've started seeing a few more Summit folks at Copper Hills.

Life goes on.

Where In The World Is Diego Garcia?!

I found out over the weekend that my son Paul is going to be stationed at Diego Garcia.

Diego Garcia is the largest atoll, in terms of land area, in Chagos Archipelago, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The island is located in the Indian Ocean, about 1,600 km (1,000 mi) south of the southern coast of India.[1] (For the complete Wikipedia entry click here.)

So he'll be pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but it looks like a cool place to be.

Part 7: What was I thinking?!

For Part 1 click here
For Part 2 click here
For Part 3 click here
For Part 4 click here
For Part 5 click here
For Part 6 click here
I'd heard horror stories about getting through customs in Saudi, but I had no problems. I had packed everything that I thought I would need in our suitcases. Clothes, toys, books, my art supplies, my spindles and fiber..and my Bible (that is what I was really worried about). But we had no troubles there. After we passed through customs, Jason was there waiting for us. He looked so happy and relieved that we were finally there with him.

He drove us from the airport in Dammam to the ARAMCO compound in Dhahran. It was a bit surreal passing the machine gun nests as we entered the 10 square mile compound. Jason was excited to show us the house that he had prepared for us and the car he had bought and fixed up so that we would have transportation. I was so exhausted from the 24 hour-plus trip to get there, that I just wanted to sleep. But when I went to bed that night I just cried. I missed Steph and Paul so much. Everything was so different there.

Henry loved it there. There was a park right across the street from our house. The compound was kind of like 1950's America. Women stayed at home and went to club meetings. The kids were in little league. We got Henry registered for school and were amazed to find that the class sizes were small. There would only be 15 kids in his class. He and Jason got to come home for lunch every day.

I didn't even have to clean house while I was there because we had a house boy. All I did was read, paint and spin. They even had church services there (on Fridays... the weekend was Thursday and Friday there). But I was miserable and I was making Jason miserable.

I can look back now and remember the good things about my time in Saudi, but when I was going through it.... it was terrible. I felt so guilty about leaving Stephi and Paul. Steph seemed fine when I talk to her on the phone, but Paul. Oh, talking to Paul made me feel so bad. He was as depressed as I was. He missed me, he missed his sister, he missed his friends. Jason kept telling me that they would be fine. That if I stayed I could travel home for holidays and for 3 months in the summer.

I knew that God wanted me to be there with Jason, but I became less and less sure of why. I was so sad. Jason and I argued all the time. I thought for sure that there was some great purpose for me there... but I never learned what it was. I complained and complained until Jason couldn't take it anymore and we came home in November, less than 5 months after I got there.

Jason came with us and we had a great Thanksgiving with our family and had lots of interesting stories to tell. Jason returned to his job in Saudi a few weeks later and I started job hunting at home. I thought that I had made it through the toughest time in my life - but my greatest trial was just around the corner.

Part 6: Saudi Arabia

For Part 1 click here
For Part 2 click here
For Part 3 click here
For Part 4 click here
For Part 5 click here
After Jason went back to work at the Cardiac Cath Lab at the hospital and I went back to work at the SNF, I think Jason started to worry about money.  I mean, we had enough.  We were making it OK, but it wasn't like when he was in sales.

He met a guy at work who had worked overseas and had made a lot of money that way.  So Jason looked online and applied for a job with ARAMCO (that's the Arabian-American Oil Co).  A month later they called and he went to Houston, TX to interview for the job and long story short, he got it.

That was in the summer, but with all the paperwork, the passport, the work visa... Jason finally left for Saudi in
October.  At first we were all going to go, but we learned that the schools on the ARAMCO compound only go to the 9th grade.  Paul was a sophomore and Stephi was a junior.  We looked at boarding schools and we found a nice Christian one in Oregon.  The kids were excited about it.  It was only 3 hours from my dad in Northern California and 1 hour from my friend Michelle in Oregon.  So we went to visit it.  It was great!  The kids applied and they were accepted.

The months went by and our visas were not approved... because I was taking Zoloft.  Of all things!

Jason said that the first few months over there were the hardest for him.  We talked on the phone every few days and after the New Year he was able to come home for a few weeks.  It was so hard to put him back on the plane, but he told me that if I stopped taking the Zoloft that he knew he could get me cleared to join him finally.  So I weaned myself off (painful, and really deserves another post altogether) and I filled out the visa forms again.

In April, Jason told me that he finally got me approved to join him.  Only now Steph and Paul didn't want to go to boarding school.  Argh!  Steph was starring in the spring musical - she was popular here.  She had a boyfriend and would be starting her senior year in August.  And Paul didn't want to go without her.

So I made plans for Steph and Paul to stay.  My family and most of my friends didn't understand why I thought that I needed to go to Saudi to be with Jason.  Before I became a Christian I probably wouldn't have, but I knew that God wanted me to be with my husband.

The kids were supportive of my choice amazingly. I found a nice, young, Christian woman who was in college and working at the church nearby to stay at the house with Stephanie (who would be 18 in a few months).  My brother who lives in town said that Paul could stay with him, but he would have to change schools.  

On July 11th, 2005  Henry and I got on a plane and flew to Saudi Arabia.  

Part 5: A Wise Woman Builds Her House

For Part 1 click here
For Part 2 click here
For Part 3 click here
For Part 4 click here

"A wise woman builds her house." This is what Hannah told me I was doing by staying home. I really did focus on my family that year when I was home with them. Jason had been worried that Stephi was growing up too quickly. She was 15 and had been hanging out with a boy that Jason really didn't like, and I was finally starting to see things that way my hubby did.

I started making Steph and Paul go to youth group at the church. At first they weren't very keen on it, but after a while they enjoyed it. They became invoved in the teen small groups at our church and Stephi even sang for the teen worship service. That year Steph and Paul really blossomed into a couple of nice, clean cut kids. And I felt good that I was finally giving them the kind of parental guidance that they deserved.

I really felt God working in our lives. Jason and I found a great small group also. There was even a gal in our group that used to practice Wicca like I did. I really connected with her and we felt that God had put us together for a reason. He showed us that we didn't have to be ashamed of who we used to be because now we were His.

So, we grew together as a family that year and we were all baptized as well (except Henry because he was too young.) I started volunteering with the kids youth group and even read through the Bible for the first time.

But my time at home with my family didn't last forever. Eventually Jason stopped selling Xray equipment because the market dried up and he was forced to return to hospital work. This meant that I had to return to work too. I was surprised to see the Christian nurses that I used to work with at the skilled nursing facility(SNF) at my church one Sunday. I didn't know that they went to my church! They were so happy to learn that I had changed my ways and told me that they had been praying for me. I told them that I had been off work for about a year, but that I was looking to return and they said there was a night position open at the SNF.

So the next day I applied and 2 weeks later I was working there. Just 2 nights a week. It was perfect. I'd probably still be there if Jason hadn't have been offered the job with ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi

My Thursday Fro' Me To You is about this picture.

In October of 2004 my husband decided to take a job with ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia. What can I say...the pay was REALLY GOOD. The original plan was for the whole family to go. Then we learned that they didn't have school for the (at that time) teenagers on the protected compound, only up to grade 9. I talked to the kids and we looked at Christian boarding schools. They finally decided that they would rather stay here in Arizona. Stephanie (nearly 18 at the time) stayed in our house with an older Christian girl from church and Paul (still 16) stayed with my brother. By July 2005 Jason had finally got me and Henry approved to join him in Saudi.

It was very difficult for me to leave the teenagers behind, but I knew that I'd be back to visit in 3 months. I just felt that God wanted me to be with my husband. It was a tearful goodbye at the airport for all except Henry. He was so excited to be taking this adventure. But when we got up in the air and he looked out the window to see the city and houses below, he started crying which made me cry again too.

It took us more than 24 hours to get to Dhahran, KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). We went from Phoenix to Denver to Frankfurt to Dubai to Dhahran. It was late at night when we arrived and Henry and I had to go through customs before we could get through to the area to meet Jason. We had brought 4 suitcases packed with clothes, shoes, computer games, books, art supplies, toys etc. I was so worried that they would confiscate my Bible, but they didn't even open our suitcases. What a relief.

After customs we finally saw Jason. He looked so happy that we were finally there. All the way to the ARAMCO compound he was telling me about the car he got so we get around easier, the house they assigned him and how we could decorate it, trips we could go on, etc. He was clearly so excited that we were finally there with him. But I was so tired and miserable (I had weaned off my Zoloft before this trip). Once we got to our house I couldn't stop crying.

The next morning we went to the Dhahran Mall so that I could get an Abaya. They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

I look back on our time in Saudi Arabia fondly now. I never thought I would.

My first blog entry.

How's that for a title?  It seems that everyone is blogging, so I thought, "Why not me?"  Surely I have at least as much to say as the next person.  

Tomorrow Jason and Henry fly to Texas to visit Grandma Linda and Grandpa Jerry.  Henry is looking forward to getting a BB gun and shooting whatever Grandma Linda lets him.  Jason comes back on Monday and Henry will be staying until June 29th.  There will be tons of cousins to play with.  He should have a blast and perhaps my house will stay clean.

Paul will be done with his training in Great Lakes, IL sometime in August.  Right now he's not sure where he will go next.  We're hoping for San Diego, but it may be Virginia or even Mississippi.  We really miss him though.  He's been gone since last October and we missed seeing him on his 19th birthday.

Steph and Randy are currently looking for a house to make an offer on.  They really want to stay in the Westgate area because those home are most likely to increase in value in the near future.  Of course, that is assuming that our economy EVER recovers.  

And finally an update on me.  I have been working only 2 nights a week since I started at Banner Estrella almost 2 years ago.  However, the week of July 6th I will be working 3 nights a week.  I am pretty excited about this because I will finally have paid time off!  Plus, with the price of gas and food going up, we can really use the increased income.  Jason and I forget how blessed we are sometimes.  At least we work in health care which tends to be very recession proof.