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After lunch I headed to Buckley where I was able to visit with some previous co-workers. They are such good people who I miss a lot. It was sure nice to see them and have the chance to visit for a few minutes. 
Jared didn’t have to work that day, so when I got home from the temple Jared, Katie, Cayden and I were able to go to Southlands where I was able to do some clothes shopping! It was great fun and nice to finally find some clothes that were my style and in my price range!
Friday night was Relay 4 Life (the fundraiser for American Cancer Society which turns into an all night party). It poured on us as soon as it started, so I hid in a tent until the rain stopped. I knew that if I got wet I would be super cold and would probably not make it the entire night. So, I waited out the storm and about an hour later it was safe to come out. Jared, Katie, and Cayden joined us for a little while. Thanks Katie for letting me wear your Winter Coat- I definitely needed it! It was great fun to visit with people and see them again- such awesome friends I have! We went to IHOP at Midnight to use their bathroom, warm up a bit, and get a bite to eat. I got about 45 minutes of sleep that night and that was while sitting in a chair so it wasn’t the most quality sleep. It was well worth it though- good times! Here are some pictures from Relay:
Saturday, June 13th
Once I got home from Relay and got showered it was off to Southlands again. I was looking for a straw hat and Katie knew of the perfect place for finding such a thing at the Farmer’s Market. I had never been to the Farmer’s Market at Southland’s before so I guess it was time that I experience that after having lived in Denver for 4-1/2 years. 
From there we went to a Disney story in Westminster. The selection was pretty picked over by the time we got there, so it was kind of disappointing. We didn’t want to waste our trip out that direction so we stopped at the Westminster Mall. I had never been there either and was amazed to see 31+ empty stores there. I think that mall was struggling before, but especially now that the economy is so bad- yikes! That really hit home for me since I don’t see it in Kuwait- they haven’t been affected by the world economy crisis. There is a cute playground in that mall, so we enjoyed watching Cayden explore and have a good time.
That evening we enjoyed a delicious dinner and then threw on a movie. I typically cannot fall asleep in movies even when I want to, but I only lasted about 10 minutes before I was completely out. I guess a combination of jet lag and only 45 minutes of sleep the night before caught up to me and won!
Sunday, June 14th
I slept in on Sunday… clear to 6am! I got my 8 hours, it was so nice! We enjoyed a leisurely morning and had Scooby Doo Waffles for breakfast! I haven’t had homemade waffles for 6-1/2 months so that was what I requested. (Note: I have a waffle iron, but I can’t use it since the power is 240 versus 110. I haven’t bothered to buy a converter either- they scare me!) The waffles were delicious! 
I went to Maplewood Ward and while Jared, Katie, and Cayden attending their own ward. The good part is both wards meet at 1:00pm, so the timing is perfect. It was nice to go to church in Maplewood again and say hello to some good friends there.
After church we got to spend the evening with the Showell clan. Annie is too good to us and always makes great dinners and desserts. Thanks Annie! I love hanging with the Showell clan, they are very entertaining and it is just fun to be there. Check out the “Carpet Sliders”- it is like ice-skating on the carpet.
After the aquarium we headed to Jared and Katie’s where we were able to just relax and enjoy the evening. It wasn’t too long before Jared got home and was able to join us as well. Also, our friend Katie was able to come over so it was a fun little get together. We ordered pizza, ate ice-cream bars, watched Nemo, and had a wonderful evening. 
Once everyone left it was time for me to pack and get ready for part two of my vacation. I had to leave super early in the morning, so I was up until about 1am getting everything ready to go! For some reason it seems I never get more than 4 hours of sleep the night before I fly somewhere. Crazy! 
This week I have been trying to finish up my wood project before coming home. I am 99% done. It needs to have the glass cleaned (I have to go buy some glass cleaner) and a door latch put on. The flag display box was designed by Mom, so I hope it is somewhat close to what she pictured. The original intent was to put a door on the box, but the guys in the shop did not build it that way. So, we put a frame on it that wouldn’t allow you to put anything on the shelves unless they were permanently fixed in there. Well, that was not going to work, so we ended up tearing off the frame and building a door after all. It is made out of Mahogany.
A Beautiful Day at the Hilton Resort
Another two weeks have gone by which I need to catch you up on. Last week I was unable to blog, because I used that time to drive around Kuwait and find where I had to go the next day.
Okay, here’s a quick recap of my week May 18-May 23rd. I wish I was home to party with Ryan and Steve on their birthdays, but I was sending them happy birthday vibes all day! I got to see the new release, Angels and Demons. I was impressed with the movie- of course the book is a hundred times better, but at least the movie stayed fairly close to how I remember the book. On Saturday I went to support my friend in her basketball tournament. She played in college, and a few other girls on the team also played in college, so I knew they would be a good team. They didn’t disappoint… but I must say I was a little embarrassed for the other team who scored a total of 9 points (I think) the entire game. I think the other team scored around 60 points. I so wanted to go play for the other team- I could have been their star player!
Anyway, last Sunday I used the time to find my way around Kuwait. The next day I was to pick someone up at the airport and then take them to the temporary lodging facility (TLF). Well, I knew it would be dark when she flew in and I really had no idea where the TLF was, so I needed to drive it during the day and get an idea of where I was going. I hate driving here when I know where I’m going, so it adds an extra element of craziness when you are trying to find your way to a new place. Needless to say I spent a good chunk of my day driving around and I did not have a change to blog. It was a good thing I did drive it though, because there is no way I would have found it in the dark or on my own. My friend actually met up with me and I followed him to the TLF. Sunday, night I hung out with Tamera, my friend, who was leaving for home in the morning. I am happy that after 15 months she finally got to go home to be with her kids.
Okay, so Monday (25 May) was Memorial Day. Have I mentioned how much I love holidays? It was so nice to finally get to sleep in and have a “Saturday”. I went with some co-workers of mine to the Hilton Resort and enjoyed a wonderful, all-you-can-eat breakfast. It was pretty tasty, and so it should be for 8.5 KD (about $30.00)! We then went out shopping and enjoyed the lovely, hot day. It really was nice to go out shopping and just enjoy my day… until about 4pm that is!
As mentioned earlier I had to head to the airport and do my “Sponsor duties”. I didn’t have to leave for the airport until about 7:30pm, but my stress headache started about 4pm. I was stressful for me to drive in the dark and in heavy traffic and finding places I had only been to once before. So, my holiday was cut short. Anyway, I headed out, and made it to the airport without any trouble. The flight was delayed, but it didn’t say for how long, so I looked in all the little shops in the airport and kept checking the board for arrival information. Sure enough, about 20-30 minutes later the flight had landed. I don’t know what this gal looks like or anything about her, but I told her I was a short, blond girl who would be wearing hot pink shirt and to meet me in front of the Star Bucks. So, I was expecting her to find me. About 25 minutes later there was still no sign of this person, but I did receive a phone call from a co-worker who just spoke with the escort service and was informed she never got off the plane. I had to confirm if she was on the plane to begin with, so thus started the scavenger hunt of where to go in the Kuwait airport when needing passenger information. I was told to go upstairs and it is in the corner near a certain store. Okay, easy enough, I thought to myself. That is until I got to that location and had no idea where to go from there. So, I asked someone and was directed down this long, empty hallway. It felt like I was in a back alley where I wasn’t supposed to be. Anyway, I found the airline and the door is locked. GREAT! Now what? There were two gentlemen in the hallway and one was talking on the phone. The other, in broken English, said he can help as he pointed to the guy who was on the phone. Okay, so I waited for a few minutes. Once he was off the phone he said he does not have the key to the office and told me that people were still making their way through the airport so I should go wait a little longer. So I went back down and waited for another 20 minutes looking around. No sign of the gal I was to pick up. So, I headed back upstairs and this time the office was open, and there was a different gentleman inside. I asked if he could tell me if this lady was on the plane. He said she was not. Hmmmm, very interesting! I asked if he was able to see if she was on any leg of her journey and the guy was very hesitant to help me any further. Apparently I should not have been there and he shouldn’t have helped me in the first place, he was just trying to be nice. So, I was happy I didn’t have to drive to the other locations, but pretty ticked my “Saturday” got cut short for nothing. I got home around 10pm.
The bad thing was this lady was MIA and no one had any way to contact her. We didn’t know if she was stranded somewhere, if she had cold feet and wasn’t coming, if she was okay…. Until she called me the next day around 4pm. Turns out she never left due to bad weather. She did eventually make it here, so she is no longer MIA!
On Thursday, May 28th, I got to experience the hot sun of Kuwait since I was outside for a site visit all day. It was 122 degrees that day! Let’s just say I have never sweat so bad when I was not exercising. My garment top was completely soaked! The wind came along and made it even hotter. I’ve heard the wind described something like this…it feels like when you open the oven door and get that blast of hot air on your face. That is a pretty accurate description. Being in the sun all day seriously drained me. I was so exhausted when I got home so I didn’t work on updating my blog- sorry. In fact, it got to be about 8pm and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I laid down for a 10 minute power nap and when I got up from the nap I pretty much got ready for bed and went to sleep a little after 9pm that day. Crazy!
As we were driving back from the site visit we passed a guy selling ice-cream on the freeway! It made me laugh. He rode his bike up the hill and parked it along the side of the freeway set up shop. The funniest part about it was he had a customer when we drove by! Oh, this place cracks me up!
Hello all! As many of you know, my internet has been off and on the past couple weeks, so I have been unable to catch up on my blog… but don’t you worry, I’m back! My time the past few days has been taken up with preparing a talk for today. So now that is over I feel like I can focus on the other items on my list… like updating my blog and getting Jenny pictures for my book! Last week was pretty exciting, well, for me anyway. Sad when little things like seeing a movie are now considered extremely exciting. I think that is a sign of working too much and not having a life. Anyway, I got to see the movie Wolverine in the “theater” and enjoy some popcorn. Hey, it’s free so I figure I should take advantage of that. I didn’t get home until extremely late and still had to get up for work the next morning, but it was fun.
Last week was also very exciting for me because I finally got to ride a camel! I was lead around in a very small circle, but it was still awesome to ride a camel.
One neat thing that I was going to write about last week, was I saw a Sheppard out with his sheep. It was cool to see one man, staff in hand, and a whole lot of sheep just following. Those sheep trust the Sheppard and the Sheppard must have known his sheep pretty well because he didn’t seem too concerned that some of them were right on the edge of a busy freeway with a lot of crazy drivers (seriously some of the sheep were about 5 feet away from the edge of the freeway). My thoughts turned to Christ and how He is the ultimate Sheppard. He knows us well and we should trust and follow Him.
One neat thing that I was going to write about last week, was I saw a Sheppard out with his sheep. It was cool to see one man, staff in hand, and a whole lot of sheep just following. Those sheep trust the Sheppard and the Sheppard must have known his sheep pretty well because he didn’t seem too concerned that some of them were right on the edge of a busy freeway with a lot of crazy drivers (seriously some of the sheep were about 5 feet away from the edge of the freeway). My thoughts turned to Christ and how He is the ultimate Sheppard. He knows us well and we should trust and follow Him.
So, it’s gotten above 100 degrees here several times. Last Sunday, however, was the first and only time I have actually turned on my Air Conditioning. I love being warm! It is going to get unbearably hot here, even for me, fairly soon. For now, I do love that it is about 80 degrees when I walk outside at 4:30 in the morning!
