We Are The Champions!!!

I don't like basketball. I don't watch it on tv. I don't play it. I played when I was younger and my team was always in last place. The Whitemarsh Owls. We were really really bad. So when the athletic director for our school came to me and asked me to coach basketball at school I laughed at him and quickly said no way. When he came back a week later begging me because no one else would do it I said fine but with one condition. I would only coach the 6/7 grade girls team. I know nothing about coaching basketball so I figured at that level it would be all about teaching fundamentals. I can teach dribbleing, passing and shooting. So that is what I did.

The season started at the beginning of March with a one month break for intercession. The kids returned to school in mid-April and that is when the games started. I had 10 girls on the team and most of them had not played in an actual game before. I figured we would get slaughtered. Boy was I wrong. It turns out four of the ten girls could flat out shoot the ball. We were really good. We ended up going 6-1 on the season (we lost a game because we only had 6 players and they got tired) and getting the top seed in the All Aramco 6/7 Girls Basketball Tournament.

We had to go to Dhahran for the tournament. It took place this past Wednesday night. There were 6 teams in the tournament and all the teams had to play three games. Because we were the top seed we got a bye in the first round and only had to play 2 games. We easily won our first game and moved into the championship game to play against a team we beat handily earlier in the season. The problem was that they had gotten a whole lot better since we saw them and we were playing two games in a row. They had had an hour to rest. At one point we were up by 8 points but as the game wore on my girls started to get tired. They also happen to be very aggressive. We averaged over 20 team fouls per game! So on top of getting tired they started fouling out one after the next. We were in trouble.

By the time we got to 20 seconds left in the game the other team had pulled to within 2 points and they had the ball. They easily moved the ball through my second stringers and scored. Now there was 15 seconds left and we had the ball. We brought the ball down the court killing 5 seconds and I called a time out. 10 seconds left. We inbound the ball and dribble for 5 more seconds. I call our last time out. 5 seocnds left. The plan was to get the ball to our point gaurd and she would pass it up high to our forward who is our best shooter and she would take the final shot. It was like watching Hoosiers or one of those basketball movies. They ball gets in, the point gaurd looks to our shooter and she is wide open. 3 seconds. She throws it over everyones head and my best shooter gets the ball 15 feet out. 1.5 seconds. She never misses. Never. As she let the ball go I knew it was done. Slow motion. Bam!! She hit it as the buzzer sounded and we won!! Total chaos. We carrried her off the court and had one heck of a fun bus ride back home. Here is a picture taken just after the came. Wow. 23-21 And they're paying me for this?

The Three Best Expat Gadgets

Living overseas can be difficult for a person who has lived in the most technologically advanced country in the world. That being said it is a heck of a lot easier living in Saudi today then it was for expats 15 or even just ten years ago. There are lot of cool techie stuff that has come on line in the past few years that have made living so far from "home" quite tolerable. Here is my list of the top three gadgets that make expatriot living pretty cool.

1. Skype and Video - Skype is a company that offers telephone service over the internet. This service you actually have to be on your computer to make a call. You can call different parts of the world at a huge discount. A lot of people over here use Skype to keep in touch with people back at home. Most of the people who use Skype as their phone service are from outside the US. North Americans use a different service (see #2 gadget). What we North Americans do use Skype for is talking to friends and family over a video feed. It is very cool to see people when you talk to them. Very George Jetson. Every couple of weeks we will get on with my folks or Marie's parents and let the kids talk. We also keep up with friends this way. It is great to watch the Matt and Paula R's kids and our kids talk to each other face to face from halfway around the planet. So if you don't have a video camera for your computer go out and pick one up. They are inexpensive and we would love to see you real soon.

2. Vonage - Vonage is another online phone service (VOIP). Much less expensive then regular phone service in the states. Marie and I had this as our primary phone service in the states for the past few years. The really cool thing about Vonage is that you can unplug the Vonage box from your computer and take it with you wherever you go and have your phone number with you. For example, if you are in Philly you could take your box to the shore with you and hook it up to a computer with internet there. If people called your home phone number the phone at the shore would ring. No long distance. So take that idea and move the box with you to Saudi Arabia and the same principal applies. We have moved our old U.S.number here to Saudi with us. So if you have our old number it still works. We are able to call family and friends in the states like it is a local call or at least state to state. People get a real kick when you call them on their cell phones from Saudi. There have been times when Mom has been sitting on the beach talking to me in Saudi on her cell and it costs next to nothing. Technology is so cool. Our phone has two lines. Line 1 is our local Saudi line. Line 2 is our US line. The down side is that we do get calls in the middle of the night about once a week asking for donations to this and that. So if you have our old phone number from the U.S. give us a call. Oh, please don't call after 3 in the afternoon or you just might get a cranky sleeping family member.

3. Slingbox - This is probably my favorite gadget. Back in the states Dad S. has a box (Slingbox) hooked up between his tv cable and his computer. This then feeds the cable signal off into cyber space. We here in Saudi we can then log in to our Slingbox account and watch local cable on the computer here in Saudi. The really cool thing is that we can change channels as we wish and it does not effect his cable at all. He can be watching CNBC and we can be watching Food Network at the same time. Why is this my favorite gadet you ask? Because of two words: Philles & Eagles. I can watch hometown sports which is a real treat here. Not to mention that most of the channels we get are British. You try watching the BBC Food Network. Slingbox is really catching on here and many people are starting to get their computers hooked up to their TV's so they can watch stateside TV on their nice big TV rather then their little computer screeen.

For now I am just happy to be able to watch my Philles and listen to Harry and Wheels once, sometimes twice, a week (I can only watch the 1PM games as the 7PM games don't start until 2AM here). Here is a pic of my father-in-law and I watching a game in front of the computer.

The King's Visit

Last week, our company hit a milestone anniversary, and because of this, we were honored by a visit from the king. The last time a king came to visit us was 50 years ago, so this was a really big deal. For this event, a director and production crew were flown in from France to produce a community show for the king.

I don't know how they were selected, but Sarah & Jack were invited to be one of the "King's Stage Kids", which meant they would be sitting on the patio with the king during our community performance. (yikes!)

There was a week of rehearsals (yes, even my kids who didn't have a speaking part or dancing part had to practice sitting for hours!:) We traveled back and forth for 5 days preparing for the visit. The selected children were asked to wear their national dress. Sarah wore a Vietnamese Ou Di to represent our Asian background and Jack wore a Red & White striped Golf shirt to represent our American background.

Security was tight for obvious reasons and on the day of the visit we waited in our designated area for hours and then after that, waited in the performance area for over an hour. We joked, "Who does he think he is, the king? :)" This picture is of the National Guard and royal body guards:

Jack walking in:

Sarah waiting patiently for the king:

As tired as we were from our week of traveling and rehearsing, when he came in - you could feel the energy level go up immediately. Everybody perked up and cameras were going the whole time. King Abdullah looks great for his 85 years!

Our kids were sitting about 20 feet from the king - you can see him on the left under the Saudi emblem and the kids sitting on the patio on the right:

The program we had for the king included a welcome speech, a poetry reading from a young boy, and a couple of dances from the children. The program also included expats who were children the last time a king visited our community back in 1947! This is a picture of one of the "children" giving a speech. I bet they never thought they'd be back in Saudi, let alone meeting another king!

The whole performance was finished with a sword dance (rumored to be one of the king's favorites) performed by both western expats and arabs.

Here's a picture of all the expats in the dance:

Here's a picture of the dance as it was going on - the drums were awesome!

The king surprised us all by joining in the sword dance - everyone was so excited and pleased - we were all cheering!

What a great experience! I hope it's something the kids will never forget. I know I won't!