About My Family
                        or, how the heck did I end up in Saudi!!!

Hello!!

  I love it when someone asks me where I am from in the USA, because I can tell them, pick a region, north, south or west! I was born in San Francisco, California but we moved to the Bronx in NY when I was just 11 months old, so my birth city is not my home. We stayed there until I was 6 and we then moved to Hialeah in Florida but we moved again when I was 15, to California. Soooo take your pick! I have 6 years in New York and 6 years in Florida, but I consider myself from Florida because what I remember the most about the states are my high school years.
   I had attended all my schooling in Hialeah (very near Miami) but in October of 1962, during my last year of high school, my father became scared with the Cuban missile crisis and one night my mother told us not to go to school the next day because we were going for a 'drive'. That drive lasted 3 days and we ended up in California. My father moved us without telling us!
   We stayed only 7 months in California when my father moved us again, this time to Beirut, Lebanon, we had no idea about this country, did they live in tents??? We were pleasantly surprised with the country and how modern it was.
  The schools there were very expensive so we attempted doing correspondence courses, BUT that didn't work! We were teens then and didn't care! We really loved living in Beirut but after a year and a half AGAIN my father moved us, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia!!
  We had become accustomed to the more conservative ways of the Arabs so this move was not a shock to us. We moved here in 1964 and back then, there were no restrictions on foreigners so we moved around freely and wearing our normal clothing, short sleeved blouses and knee length skirts. We had several incidents of men and boys trying to 'pick us up' but this happens everywhere in the world and now looking back, I can say, it does not hurt for them to try!!
   Three years later I met and married my Saudi husband. NO not a prince, although he is in my eyes, but a working man. We have been very fortunate and blessed, in May 2004 will have our 38th anniversary.
   My husband worked with the countries only airline, Saudia, we first lived in Jeddah where our first child was born.  We were transferred to live one year in Riyadh (the capital of KSA) where my husband set up the first District Managers office. We then returned to Jeddah for another two years and were transferred to live in Kuwait for 8 years then one year in Tunis, Tunisia. In both cities my husband was the airlines District Manager for that country. The remainder of our years we have lived here, in Jeddah, the more friendly and active of the Saudi cities!!
   When my husband retired, we opened a video movie store and it did very well for 8 years. He closed the store when the copyright laws came into effect in Saudi. My husband said that with the copyright laws and restrictions, having the video store was not worth the hassle anymore. Now he works with his brothers in a private office dealing in real estate.

We have four children, they HATE me when I call them this!!
  Sahel - (sa-hell), male, born 1967
  Mishal, (mish-al), male born 1969
  Suzan, (su-zaan) born 1970
  Mothi (moo-thee) female, born 1984

   Yes, Mothi was our late in life, surprise child! I really enjoyed raising the first three, there was just 2 years and 9 months between the birth of the first and last babies. When you taught the oldest child  something, the youngest also caught on quickly! The three grew up together and enjoyed each other.
  My first three pregnancies flew by with no special significance but with my last pregnancy I was more drawn to the miracle of life. Poor Mothi grew up with three older kids (the next in age was 14!) who watched her every move and she was never able to be a normal naughty kid!
  Our boys look European, one is dark blond, while the girls look more Italian.
   My eldest daughter married a doctor, like herself, in 1995 and two years later produced my first grand child, a son, Abdul Aziz. Then in Sep. 2002 gave us a granddaughter, Haifa (hi-fa). They are both a handful for her but bring us, much joy! I'm still waiting for the boys to each get married and move into their own homes and give me more grandchildren to spoil....
   My husband has a son from a previous marriage, Majed (ma-jedd, born 1960) who is married and lives in Riyadh with his family. We do not see them as often as we would like to!!! My husband became a grand father for the first time AND at the same time that our last daughter was born, so our youngest child was an Aunt at 7 months!! Heck! my first born has an aunt younger than he by 5 days and the second son has an aunt younger that he by 15 days.

A mothers treasures

A little about my four children:

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  # 1 child, Sahel, aggghhhh I could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end! From 3 1/2 years old, his making a 'cake' by using 4 pounds of sugar with 20 eggs (at a time when they were $.22 each!) and 2 pounds of flour, to his constantly 'going on trips' (going out of the yard and on his merry way) and how, on many occasions, complete strangers would bring him back and ask if he was ours! Finding him another time 'driving a bus' parked in front of the local jail, around the corner from home. Then the time he pulled the chain on the coo-coo clock so hard that it undid into a hundred rings, and I patiently put back together, I liked that clock!
  Taking his fathers reel-to-reel music tapes and circling the yard with them.... At five years old , going to his grandmothers home (just several houses from ours) and opening the door to the goats shed and chasing them all out, 'to have some fun', making my sister-in-law go on a search for them. At 10 years old, walking the ledge of the walled roof on our apartment building, on the 12th floor!
  That list goes on!!!! A very active kid he was!!

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  #2 child, Mishal was a very quiet toddler and would sit where you put him for hours playing with what ever you had given him. He did have his moments, but few, when ever he was crying we would scold Sahel for being a bully, UNTIL we saw that Mishal would do the hitting and then sit and cry, ho ho....  He managed to scribble on the brand new carpet in the dinning room with magic markers, his one love was to tear up paper, until every piece was tiny strips, I made sure that he had enough 'junk' paper to fulfill his energy.

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  #3 child, Suzan was a typical little girl in all ways. She and her brothers got along well and there was hardly ever any fighting among them, this does not apply to the teen years though! She had dolls and all the other little girlie things, at 6 when we bought a keyboard, we were surprised to learn that she had an ear for music and played very well without learning to read notes. Around 8, she tried her hand at all my hobbies, needlepoint, embroidery, sewing, crocheting and the rest but didn't enjoy any, nor did she have a hankering to learn cooking! Suzan did try her hand at painting...

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  #4 child, Mothi had the misfortune of growing up with three siblings already in their teens and she was always interrupted when trying to be a normal naughty kid! She did however manage to climb out of her crib and get into things after I had gone to sleep, in the morning I would find the mess! Mothi loved to sing to herself and the longer she sang the louder she would get. On a flight coming from the states (she was about 2 1/2) all the passengers around us would giggle when I'd eventually tell her to quiet down a bit. She and a cousin would watch cartoons and with modeling clay would make the characters they had seen, pretty good look alikes too!
  She enjoys doing crafty things by hand, including sketching. She fell in love with Orcas around 8 years old, after watching the movie, Free Willie and since then she has drawn literally thousands of pictures of Orcas. She's quiet the specialist in the field of whales now, between all the books she's bought and the internet!!!

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 AbdulAziz at 1year old
  My first grandchild is an adorable little boy who's living with his mom and dad in Montreal, Canada. Before Canada I was able to be with Azouz (his nickname) very often and even had him sleep over on several occasions, once was for 8 days while my daughter and her husband performed the Haj (see About Saudi with information about the Haj). My daughter and husband were able to come for their vacation just 5 months after moving to Montreal so Azouz did not have a chance to forget 'Granny'... and of course they have been able to visit each year during their vacations.

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During Dec. 2003 Ramadan's Eid, 'my babies' were with us in Jeddah. In New Jersey, Sep. 2003, Hifa 2 years old.

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January 2005, 'my babies' returned to finally LIVE in Jeddah so I can finally 'watch' them grow and be a real Granny!

 

Also my first born finally took the plunge and was married in Sep. 2004 so I am hoping for more 'babies' to arrive and spoil.....

Announcing: my third grand child born on July 31, 2005  Abdul Mohsen, to my son Sahel & wife, in Jeddah, named after my husband!!     One year old and happy about it!!

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In my first born's baby book, it asks for the first 3 word sentence and I was amused to write down, "Fa-dul, sit down, che-sha". This translates to, have a seat, sit down, bring on the Hubble bubbly!!

One son (I won't say which) when using the big toilet for the first time was frightened and cried out, "NO mommy NO, penis fall!"

When Suzan was 11, she was watching me in the kitchen and I asked if she didn't want to learn some cooking. She replied, "when I get married I will burn all the food so that my husband will phone for take out, or we will go out to eat."

While flying to the USA and after hitting some bumpy weather, Mothi (then 4 years old) said in a happy tone, "Are we going to crash now?"

My 4 1/2 year old grandson had a cough and his mother was giving him some medicine. He said, "that's cough medicine?", his mother said yes it was. He cried, "But I don't want to cough!"

   Many mothers tell me how 'tired' they are from chasing after their active child, this includes my daughter with her son and infant daughter.
   My first son was the VERY active type who kept me on the run for his first 12 years, and my second son was the quiet, sat in one spot happily, for hours, type.
   My only comment is that an active child is more FUN and much more interesting!!!
   Needless to say, girls are more easy going than boys, UNTIL they hit the teens!!

17 pix..