Really BIG news!

We have some big news from our neck of the woods.  Really, really big news. In a few weeks our family will be making the biggest move of our lives to:

SAUDI ARABIA!

I have been anticipating writing this post for over 7 months and now that the time is here to actually DO  IT my head is swimming. We've told  our families and some friends about this huge change and most people ask similar questions so I'm going to try to give all the pertinent details in this post.


Background:

So the background of this decision is two-fold. First of all, Allen was not enjoying his job here in Washington at all. He was heavily recruited to come here but the job was not what he expected in any way. Suffice it to say that things at his current company were extremely disorganized which caused months and  months of insanely long hours, loads of stress for our family and general dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Watching your husband be miserable in his career is pretty awful - especially for someone like Allen who thrives on working and doing a great job.

As all of this was unfolding with Allen's job we had some friends in our ward here who took a job with an oil company in Saudi Arabia. We had become friends with this family because they lived in our neighborhood and had a daughter who babysat for us almost every weekend. One evening in early December they came over and started telling us about the job opportunity and all of the perks of working internationally. After they left that night, Allen and I started to discuss what they had told us and from that first conversation we both KNEW we were supposed to move to Saudi. It is very interesting to have such a strong experience and honestly have no doubts about the course you are supposed to pursue.  We knew from talking to our friends and from doing some further online research that the process of interviewing and preparing to move would be several months so we were prepared to dig in and get to work.

Our friend passed on the name and contact information for his recruiter at the company and that ended their involvement in our recruiting process. Allen contacted the recruiter in January who passed his information onto the appropriate department. He flew to Houston in February for his interview which he felt went very well. We were on pins and needles for months waiting for the details to work themselves out. Allen didn't receive an offer from the company for 7 VERY LONG weeks. During those 7 weeks our faith grew so much. We had multiple spiritual confirmations that we were on the correct path and that things would work out. We were still very stressed about the lack of an offer and felt like our lives were kind of on hold. We wanted to start making more definitive plans and had heard from the recruiter that we would receive an offer but we just had to wait for it to come.

We received the offer in early April and then had to get to work filling out tons of paperwork and forms. Allen had to have an extensive background check, we had to recreate our entire medical histories for every person in our family (extremely difficult when you have moved as much as we have and had so many doctors treating us).  After the flurry of paperwork we were in wait mode again. After a few weeks we were scheduled to fly to Houston and attend a cultural orientation and have medical checks at the US company headquarters. We dropped the kids off at my sisters house and spend less than 24 hours in Houston before flying home again. During May we found that our background, medical and school checks had gone through and we applied for our visas from Saudi.  We will be leaving Seattle on the 12th to spend a couple weeks with our extended families before leaving for the KSA on July 28.

Getting Ready:
Getting ready to go has been crazy busy. Hence, the lack of blogging for a couple months. We opted to take a shipment of our stuff over with us and since we are planning on this being a long term move for our family (at least 5 years), we wanted to make sure we only took the stuff we love or need and store the bulk of our sentimental stuff. Which means we had A LOT of stuff to get rid of. We've spent weeks going through every single nook and cranny in our home, looking at every possession and determining what to do with it. We have gotten rid of a TON of stuff. And frankly, it feels amazing. We've sold a lot of our furniture and donated a ton of items to DI. Allen sold his car this week and we have been pairing down a lot. I'd say we've gotten rid of 50% of our stuff.

In the same breath we've had to buy a lot too. We've updated some of our furniture and purchased lots and lots of little things that we won't be able to find in the KSA.  We were told to bring enough clothes for every person for 1 year which is a daunting task for a family of 6. Needless to say, I've shopped up a storm and we have definitely gotten our use out of our Amazon prime account this year.

Living in the KSA:

So here's the interesting part of all this. We'll be living in a compound with lots of westerners. There are about 13,000 people who live and work in the compound we are moving to. Living in a compound is much like living on a military base - there are grocery stores, doctors/dentists, movie theaters, restaurants, parks, multiple swimming pools, golf courses, schools, etc. all in the compound. We will be living in a company provided home and our kids will go to schools that are staffed by American teachers and use US curriculum. We are excited that the classes are really small (15-17 kids) and there is a teacher and 2 aids in each class. The schools rank in the 98-99th percentile in both reading in math for every grade level. We're super excited that our kids will get a superb education.  There are also a ton of extracurricular activities for both kids and adults. There are some really great sports teams that come out of this compound and Carter can't wait to get there.  We will be living on the Persian Gulf and will have opportunities for water sports and beach time.

There is an LDS branch in the compound that is growing quickly. We are one of 6 new LDS families moving in this summer. My friend who is already living there has told me how loving and supportive the members of the church are there and how they really rely on each other for friendship and support.  We are excited to be part of that.

One of the benefits to working for this company are their extremely generous vacation times and allowances. We will be able to come to the USA for several weeks every summer and have the opportunity to take our family all over the world. We are already planning several trips for 2014 and can't wait to experience so many new cultures and opportunities. Allen and I have always always hoped we would have an opportunity to live internationally with our family and we are thrilled it has worked out for us. It is a dream come true!  Allen's job will also provide a a great work-life balance and he will be working fewer hours each week than he has in a decade. We are very, very excited to have lots of time together as a family.

Of course so much of this is scary for us. We are largely going into the unknown. We are leaving behind everything we know and that is very frightening. We are very grateful that we are confident that this is the Lord's will for our family. It will be a huge shock for us culturally and I don't really think you can prepare for that in any way. When we are in the compound we can dress however we want (though modesty is encouraged) but when we leave the compound I will need to wear a traditional abaya. My head and face do not need to be covered but the rest of my body will need to be.  I also will not be able to drive off of the compound as Saudi laws do not allow women to drive. The company provides buses into town many times during they day so leaving the compound is still possible. Of course we can leave if Allen is able to drive.

That is our big, big news. We are thrilled, terrified and every emotion in between. And be looking for MUCH MUCH more blogging coming from me. I can't wait to share about all of our adventures in the years to come!