Greetings,
Well, months have passed now since my last posting. Since I wrote last in February, we have had cycling races, in which all four of us raced - even me on my new Felt bike - and a kids' triathlon; we have had music recitals, performances, a Sunset Concert in which David performed and another one in which Hayden performed, and Jennifer's workshop in Berlin.
We traveled to South Africa for spring break, driving the Garden Route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town. In Port Elizabeth we saw the location and routes for David's South Africa Ironman race in 2011 and went to a vast elephant park, Addo Elephant Park, where we saw elephants, kudu, tortoises, zebras, warthog ... Breathtakingly, the rain stopped as we drove around searching for the many animals living in the park.
In Kynsna we mountain biked, kayaked in a downpour, and visited the Township with a woman who lives there and runs a foster care program for children.
In Cape Town, we drove around the peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope. The location of the blending of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans was both spiritual and humbling. It was awesome, in the true sense of the word, to stand at that geographical southern point of the entire continent. Later that evening, we ate dinner at a restaurant near the Water Front -
Quay 4 - where Hayden sampled ostrich, kudu, and warthog. We wondered
if he ate the kudu we had just visited earlier that day on the peninsula. Logan tried
oxtail soup, with an actual ox's tail. If nothing else, the boys have
learned to be daring eaters who are willing to try new foods - and who
even expect to do so. As Hayden said, "I will probably never get to eat
this anywhere else." (The ostrich was the favorite for each of us, I think.)
Since South Africa we have been gearing up for our big move. We have accepted jobs in Stuttgart, Germany, where we will be heading in August. We will be heading to the United States for the summer to see family and friends, to clear out our own house and send what we need to Germany (and to sell or give away things we kept for four years and don't even miss), and to do some hiking and backpacking, weather permitting. The boys will do an ultimate frisbee camp in Seattle, and Hayden will attend Interlochen Arts Camp for creating writing and guitar for the third summer.
We have pared down our belongings in Saudi Arabia, had a couple of garage sales, closed our bank account, turned in our health cards and ID cards, sold our motorbike ... So many things to do to pack up and move to a new continent. We will actually need winter clothes now, and we will be able to eat pork whenever desired or buy a nice bottle of wine for dinner. At times the steps needed to move on seem like hurdles that cannot be hurdled, but then another step gets done, and it seems that the light at the end of the tunnel is, in fact, growing closer.
We are grateful to be leaving at a point where we have been here long enough to have much to miss. We each recognize the professional and engaging colleagues we have enjoyed working with for four years; we work at KAUST with probably the tallest, the most athletically talented, and the most humorous group of teachers at any international school. I doubt if another international school offers as many tall teachers we have. We have musicians with their own bands and athletes who compete in competitive races of several types. We have laughed so much with many of our colleagues, particularly but not limited to those with whom we lived in the Marriott Jeddah for nine weeks and started The KAUST School. Recently at a faculty meeting, where more than half of the teachers are departing, we reminisced about the early days with rats in our houses and in the school, the ubiquitous fire alarms, the floods, the backing up sewage, and getting driver's licenses (for males only, of course). We all recognized how much we have accomplished and how meaningful and valuable our relationships have been and will continue to be.
With three weeks to go, we have much to accomplish, but we mostly want to have time with our friends and to make plans for meeting up again ... somewhere. What a ride it has been ...
Thanks for reading.
Jennifer
We flew to Colorado to have a family and friend reunion and then we flew to Seattle where, once again, we began the onerous and important process of clearing out belongings from our attic, packing another 31 boxes for shipping, and shuttling myriad items to Goodwill and other recycling institutions throughout our end of the city. We had planned a huge garage sale on a Sunday afternoon; unfortunately we had lost sight of garage sale culture in Seattle where most people peruse others' secondhand items on Saturday mornings. We sold about two things, including my old road bike, and then we started donating toys, books, clothes, and furniture to other places where they could find new homes. Hayden and I helped the Large Packing Guy load our boxes on a truck, from which they would be handled and moved several times on their journey to a faraway destination. When those boxes arrived in Stuttgart ten weeks later, they clearly had suffered many throws and tosses from those responsible - they were generally smashed, some were partially split, and one box with our dining room table was missing all together. Nonetheless, few items were broken, remarkably, due in part to my friend Gwen's assistance in carefully packing up everything.
After trying to write more often and keep up on the often mundane and occasionally interesting details of our lives, I suddenly realized once again that weeks had gone by, and I had not written a blog posting. Since I last wrote about receiving my glorious and fast Felt road bike, I have been trying to ride two - three times per week, often in the dark early morning hours when virtually no one is on the road except for fast-driving security officials arriving - perhaps late - for work.
We spent our fourth incredible, festive Christmas holiday in Seefeld, Austria, at Beck's Hoamatl. We have rented the same cozy apartment for four years and are welcomed each winter by the embraces of the owner and her adult daughter. They always provide us a large bowl of fruit and bring out all of the items that we have intentionally left in the past - mugs, puzzles, a game, and old magazines. We have been so blessed by this relationship and, despite our lack of German, we have developed a relationship with them that makes it feel like home every time we go. The snow and skiing were as fabulous as ever, better in some ways, and the food was scrumptious. We eat out at a few favorite restaurants but cook our favorite, often pork-oriented, meals at 'home' most nights. We always rent our downhill equipment from Modern Ski, located perfectly at the base of the ski hill in town. The owner and his staff welcome us each year and get us fitted for gear for the ten days. Each morning we collect our gear for the day and each afternoon we return it, exchanging the equipment for small tokens which will allow us to collect the exact same set of equipment every day without having to lug it all the way home each night. It's a perfect set-up. We rent our Nordic equipment at Norz, right on the start of the Nordic trails, again welcomed by the owner and a young guy named Remo who generously gets David and me the classic or skate gear we want every day.
In fact of the ten bikes currently on location here, only three were purchased new. One bike was given to David when he was sponsored by Mark Nobilette as a triathlete in 1985. My old commuting bike was purchased from a Seattle police auction after an earlier bike had been stolen from our Ballard backyard. Logan typically ends up with Hayden's hand-me-downs, which suits him just fine. Hayden's bike, which is used every single day, was purchased new but will eventually probably be Logan's. David's mountain bike was purchased from the same friend who sold him the Ironman bike. I purchased a new mountain bike in Switzerland a few years ago but use it nearly every day. David's Cannondale commuting bike, already used when purchased in Boulder right after we were engaged in 1994, has more than 50,000 cycling miles. Privately, we have all sort of decided that the Cannondale may not leave with us when we go, neither will the police auction purchase, or, sadly, the Little Silver Bike that was given to us by friends for our kids to learn to ride bikes, just as theirs had.
Hayden and Logan each biked about twenty hard miles. Because the weather is slightly cooler now and the extreme humidity of the summer has somewhat dissipated, we drank more normal quantities of water and snacked on delicious dates. The group was a diverse mix of nationalities, but most people were far stronger mountain bikers than myself. Nonetheless, the leaders kept us all together, and the follow-car was available with extra water, tools, snacks, and seats for anyone too tired to continue. We all made it the entire way to Mushroom Rock and back, with a slight detour to the swimming hole at the Wadi.
