It's Real! And the Face Melter

Last Wednesday morning the "re-movers" came and took away all the Aramco dorm furniture. A couple of hours later the movers brought this...

a house's worth of boxes and an inch of sand, as we had a sandstorm during the delivery. Most everything arrived without damage. Just a few odds and ends were broken, so far as we can tell. However, we have not finished unpacking. Nothing was confiscated at the border so now we are wishing we brought a few things we left behind.

As the movers pulled up and started bringing our things in I started getting a little emotional and thinking ok now, this is whole crazy Saudi thing is REAL.

Unpacking is never an easy task, but having been here for three months with our essentials already in place, it was nice not having to look for things like underwear and toothbrushes. We just made sure the beds were up by the end of the day. The rest is finding a new home one box at a time.

A sweet girl named Siti has been helping me by taking the boys a bit. She is a nanny and cook for a family here in town, but they are gone for spring break so she has some free time... thank goodness. For the boys it's Christmas in March, as they open each box and find another favorite toy they missed.

The night before the delivery the boys went to visit the Face Melter. They desperately needed haircuts and I didn't have the time or scissors to do it. The barber did an awesome job and the boys were extremely well behaved (except for a little water hose incident) as this was their first visit to a barber shop.

Chris said Ethan was as still as a statue. I wish I could have witnessed that! However, women are not permitted in the barbershop.

Total price for two great haircuts? $6.00, including tip.

Now, about that face melter. Zach was wondering what the big round thing attached over some chairs was. Chris wasn't sure so he told him it was a face melter. You could come in and have your face melted off and get a new one if you wanted.

Zach did believe him for a short time. What they saw was a sit-down blow dryer you always see old women using at the hairdressers' in the movies.

One last thing. The night before the move I was up all night. 1) Because our Aramco bed was completely uncomfortable. 2) Graham's normal feedings. 3) Ethan was up all night crying. He kept saying his tummy hurt. After I ruled out appendicitis I noticed he was rubbing his ear too. He was nauseated because he had an earache.

Ethan had a cold about two weeks ago. Then we noticed that he had a strange smell about him. It turns out it was the infection we could smell. He finally got some sleep around 5 am. That must have been when he had what Zach calls an EARUPTION. This is the second ruptured ear drum and fourth ear infection for him in six months.

We often wonder if his hearing has been damaged from all of this, as he constantly asks us to repeat ourselves. We will be seeing an ENT shortly and tubes may be in his future.