Ras Tanura

This past week has been the Eid al-Adha or "Festival of Sacrifice" holiday here in Saudi Arabia.  It is a time for all Muslims to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Ishmael, as an act of obedience to God.  Holidays also mean that Paul is off from work so he has been able to spend the entire week here at home with us, which we LOVE. 

We've spent a lot of time eating out, sleeping, playing outside, and watching movies... it has been really nice. 

On one of our days off we went with some friends, for our first time, to Ras Tanura - another Aramco compound about 45 minutes from ours.  Ras Tanura is smaller than the compound we live in here in Dhahran, but it is very nice and they have a very beautiful beach accessible from inside the compound for residents to use.  So we decided to spend the morning there letting the girls play in the sand and water and then we had a nice lunch at the snack bar on camp. 



Our little family

Madeline loves sand, and she had a really fun time playing in the sand with her friend, Kiersten.  By the time we were ready to get cleaned up for lunch they were both completely covered in sand from head to toe.  



Madeline learning to pack sand



Madeline and Kiersten

When we first arrived the girls had a good time jumping into the water... that is until Madeline lost her balance and got a nice face full of sand and salt water.  She was pretty upset about it and kept her distance from the water after that.  She gets upset when I get her face wet in the bathtub too... I hope she eventually embraces water because there is a lot of swimming and beach time in our future.


The girls jumping into the water

After we got cleaned up (as best as possible) we had some lunch at the snack bar and got some free ice cream from a celebration going on inside the dining area.  We would have gotten the girls faces painted, but an evil, dressed up Tom (from Tom and Jerry) got a little too close to the girls and scared them a little so we were done after that.

Here are a few shots of the shore on the beach.  It really is a beautiful place with crystal blue water and light sand.  I was able to collect a few sea shells near the water.  Unfortunately there was also floating tar and some garbage in the sand near the tables.  Despite a few annoyances we had a great time with our great friends!