News from the Jacobs family in Saudi Arabia
Kai and Nora recently did an overnight with Grandma and Grandpa Jacobsa nd we met up the next day at the Farmer’s Market in Baron.
One of my favorite things each summer is to go biking on the local trails and back roads. Traffic is low and scenery is high and the rides are great – either shorter ones with Kai and Nora (though Kai and I did hit 10 miles one day) or longer ones alone. This summer my bike riding was cut short with a broken spoke and no nearby place to get it fixed and so I end my summer with 268 miles on the odometer. Here are a few pictures where I paused long enough to snap a photo.
At the end of May we took a weekend trip over to the Ritz Carlton in Bahrain for a bit of R&R before the end-of-year crunch sets in. We booked a club room but ended up being upgraded to the diplotatic suite which gave us plenty of room. Dinner was a Trader Vic’s nearby which had a fabulous menu. All Kai wanted was a cheeseburger and Nora ordered off menu. Noodles. Just Noodles. Totally plain, nothing on them at all.
I am clearly a boring, middle aged guy because I’ve really liked the last few weeks of steady, predicable schedules. As a result of our boring, yet comfortable, existence there have not been many pictures taken but there have been a few. I recently cleared out the photo-stream and here are some worth sharing. Enjoy!
Our 2014 Danbury vacation is done and I’m uploading the last photo gallery from the trip. A rare feat to occur right after we get back as opposed to weeks later. We’ve reconnected with some ice and snow, which we all loved, but also understand that very low temperatures and very short days are treasures best experiences only a few weeks at a time.
Kai and Nora in particular were fascinated by the snow and ice – icicles in particular. On a warming day they would go around the house and garage looking for icicles to harvest. On very cold days they would check the furnace vents for any buildup. All icicles would go into the freezer and Kai would happily narrate a tour holding up each icicle and stating where and when it was collected.
Here are some pictures from the day before Christmas eve. There was a fair bit of snow in Spooner but the rain left none in Danbury. There was about 1.5 inches of standing water on top of the 7 inches of ice on the lake. It made for a fun, though slushy, expedition.
We made it back to the house in Danbury for a nice little winter break. Kai and Nora have been eagerly awaiting the whole range of winter activities – sledding, snow hikes, snowball fights and even shoveling snow – followed by hot cocoa of course. There was not much snow when we arrived and it was dwindling fast. I love the picture of Nora trying to make a slushy snow angel on a small patch of snow left on the deck. Now it is still in the mid-30’s with ran falling.
This year we brought back vast quantities of stateside candy from our recent trip to Florida and were a hit. We ran our just as trick or treating was petering out and gave out over 1000 pieces. Another fun Aramco Halloween.
Crystal and I recently returned from the NESA Fall Leadership Conference in Istanbul. We hadn’t been in many years but everything was right where we left it. Enjoy the pictures.
If you’ve been to Disney you know that there are Disney photographers everywhere. You can ask any of them to take your photo and then later you can look them up online and see which ones you want to buy. This year we did the MemoryMaker photopass which gave us access to all of the photos taken including those on the roller coasters. The ride would read our wristbands and know which cart we were in and automatically add the photos to our account. We ended up with a lot of roller coaster pictures. Crystal started it but pretty soon everyone was trying to make some sort of face for the camera when the car streaked past. The “bored” look was popular and I think Kai perfected it.
Enjoy the pictures!
