Congratulations are in order!

On June 24 an amazing thing happened in Saudi Arabia... women were finally allowed to drive.

Now... all you Westerners put a pin in your big western ideals and recognize that this is a momentous occasion that deserves to be celebrated!

Saudi Arabia is a deeply conservative country with so many restrictions in place for women... from an extremely strict dress code to the guardianship law where women are required to have a male "guardian"(husband, father, uncle, etc) who can control everything from travel to working to even undergoing medical procedures.  The ban on driving was just one of many obstacles in the way of womens independence and freedom.

Women first began to protest the ban in 1990 and many were arrested or lost their jobs. Now, eighteen years later, those same women have licenses and can drive themselves to work or the supermarket or wherever they wish to go. This marks a huge change in the right direction for the country and the crowned prince Mohammad Bin Salman has spoken about overhauling the country and moving their society forward so we can only hope that more changes are on the horizon.

When the women sat behind the wheel for the first time on Sunday, their joy was met with excitement and support! The military even handed out roses and cards to the new drivers! 

All the roses had these sweet notes attached... my friend Fatima said that they say "goodbye and be with peace and safety"

As a westerner, and one born in the United States at that, I can't fathom a life where my dad or husband can control my life or the decisions I make. I've never been a believer in "submitting" to my husband (let alone anyone else) and have always been independent and viewed my marriage as a partnership of equals. But these women grew up in a very patriarchal society and have fought long and hard to make changes to gain freedom and independence and having a license is a HUGE step in the right direction. So, I stand in solidarity with these amazing women and send them well wishes, many congratulations, and lots of hope for the future!

Stateside

Stella and I left the land of Sand at the end of April and headed to the states for some much needed family time, fresh air, and green landscape.  What we came home to was a shit storm of stress and sadness... but I'll get to that in a bit...

We managed to pull off our surprises and shocked everyone with our early arrival! It was awesome and totally worth keeping it a secret! Only my dad knew (someone had to pick us up from the airport...lol) so we spent the whole first night surprising everyone else!

Our first day in town we, of course, headed to Target!

The same day we went to the nursing home and surprised my Nana. She was shocked! And we had a wonderful visit with her...

Which was a good thing because a few days after that we found out that she was in congestive heart failure, had fluid in her lungs and a mass in on of her lungs... and just days after that we were called in and began our 18 day vigil sit.

We had some really hard days... draining days. Days where we were convinced that was it. But we also had some days where she perked up, and one particular day where she really rallied and woke up and talked to us and we are all super thankful for that.

In between our sitting vigil, we caught up with all our family! We got to cuddle on those sweet babies who think its okay to keep getting bigger and bigger! 

Anna and Elsa went fishing...

Stella began to fill up on all the pork she could get her hands on....

We spent a night in the mountains and lots of marshmallows were roasted!

We had snowballs with our besties

Annnnnnd we've gotten lots of love from our favorite pup ever!

and love from the fat cat...

Stella got to have her first dipped cone from Dairy Queen (they dipped a gluten free cone!)

We celebrated Mothers Day....

And that weekend some of our other besties came down from Maryland to visit!!

We took the kiddos to the park and splash pad (we're pretty much spending every moment we can outside in the bearable heat and amazing air!)

We had planned to visit Washington State and our best friends and I wavered back and forth with whether or not to go with my Nana not doing well. I finally decided to just go and take the chance and get some space from sitting at the nursing home for hours on end. And Stella really needed to see her best friend, Carley. We boarded the plane at 7:30 in the morning and my Nana passed away at noon. I knew when I put my phone on airplane mode that when I turned it back on she'd be gone. I don't know why, but I did. I texted my mom as soon as we landed and asked and she made me call her so she could tell me, but I knew. I made the decision not to tell Stella til we got back... I didn't want to start out our trip with such sad news. So I held it together and we had a wonderful time with our amazing friends! 

We had some VERY happy girls!

But to be honest, the mamas were pretty freaking happy too!

We spent most of our five days there outside and we fell in love with Washington! 

Stella was particularly happy with the snow at the top of the mountain!

I also realized that we had visited Washington at the same time six years ago... the day we went to Deception Pass we had actually visited on that same exact day six years previous! So, of course, I had to get a photo! Just a wee bit of a difference between the two.... 

We visited the beach across from the pass and the girls loved climbing on the rocks and exploring!

We went to Seattle and explored the aquarium and the space needle!

Liz and I also got to have a moms night out in the city and we did an underground tour of the city! It was awesome!

We left Washington and headed back to North Carolina and at the end of that week, Christopher came home to attend my Nana's funeral. We didn't tell Stella he was coming in and he surprised her like she had surprised everyone else! It was great! 

Besides just being happy to see him, it was a huge relief to have him here after all the stress...

When we left for Bahrain Christopher didn't really expect to come back to the states so he said goodbye to teeny babies and figured he'd come back to two year olds, so it was so good for him to be able to see all our special kiddos!

He also got to throw a ball with his brother

And... he was able to stand in the rain... and after not being around rain for months, it really is amazing to be rained on again...its funny the things you miss that you don't ever really think about.

And then there was the funeral... it was hard... it was exactly what she would have wanted though, so thats good. I gave a eulogy and made it through without being a total and complete mess.

After the funeral the stress continued... turns out my grandpa spiked a crazy fever right as we walked out of the church and to the columbarium and we ended up taking him to the emergency room and he was admitted for five days for a UTI and a Staph Infection. He's home and doing well now, thank goodness! 

To add to things Mom and I took one of her dogs to the vet and ended up having to have Lucy put to sleep. She was 15 1/2 and something was going on with her brain, but it was so hard after all that we'd already been dealing with (because on top of losing my grandma, in the past six weeks we've lost my great aunt, our neighbor, a friend from my parents church, my grandparents pup, and then Lucy... I wasn't joking when I said it was a shit storm of stress and sadness) 

We took the last part of his trip to just spend some time together and visit with family and friends as much as we could. Work for him has been crazy busy so, even though he wasn't home for a fun trip, I think it was some much needed down time. 

We had a little birthday party for Stella so he could celebrate with her

And one of her gifts was a horseback riding lesson so she did that and Daddy got to be there to see her ride a horse for the first time! 

The day he left we took the morning and headed to the mountains for a quick hike

He's back in the land of sand and back at work and we're still in the states for another couple of weeks. Stella and I were supposed to leave and be back by her birthday but I think Christopher has me talked into staying a little longer to get some much needed down time and happier times with our friends and family that aren't tempered with sadness and stress. 

Before we left Bahrain Stella finished her math curriculum and we've slowly been transitioning to 2nd grade in between all the craziness that we've been dealing with so I snapped a couple of shots of her... not as much of a difference between the beginning of the year and now as there was from her first year of Kindergarten! But still some changes...

And we've officially survived our first year of homeschooling! I'm super proud of all the handwork she (and I) have put in and I think we've got a good thing going. I'm pretty excited to see where it takes us and what all we learn from here!