Fun Shake

Here is a post I meant to write while we were in Jordan but time, energy, internet all failed me and it never happened. So here is a look back at a great fun outing we had in Jordan about a month ago.

It was time to celebrate the end of another fun year and have an end of year playgroup party. Dawn suggested this great place that she had just recently tried for the first time. It is called Fun Shake! It is in the basement of someones house and while that sounds creepy to those of us in the US it is completely normal for businesses to be located all sorts of places in Jordan so no worries! Dawn arranged the field trip and even got a discount for our group. Instead of the usual 8jd it was 6 jd per child and they even opened an hour early for us! You have to love service like that.

So what is it? It is a great play place. With little rooms set up for imagination play. Things like super heros, beauty shops, kitchen, grocery store, club house and a doctors office for the kids to use. They have a room with a large slide, that the kids loved, ride on toys, little people, and a puppet theater. Outside they have a slide, sandbox, and a little playhouse. They have a small room for eating in that also has board games, and legos. You can rent out the space for birthday parties and from what I saw the rates were really really reasonable compared to what I have seen else where. So if you are looking for something fun to do with your little ones... I would say age range is 2 -6/7 depending on if your kids still likes to dress up or not.

Here are the directions to this great place. It opens at 11 am.
The following link has a map to help with directions: http://jo.jeeran.com/en/p/fun-shake-amman/

 Directions to Fun Shake (near City Mall)

Go North on King Abdullah street (the big street that runs through 8th circle) and pass City Mall on your Right. Stay to your right as you pass City Mall.
RIGHT at circle immediately PAST City Mall
LEFT at first traffic circle, then you will pass mosque and montessori school on your left
first RIGHT at Al-Ma’aref St
first RIGHT on Al-Zarkashi St
first LEFT at Kamel Al-Kilani
first RIGHT on Al-Wasfiyah St

Fun Shake is on your right hand side; go down the stairs to enter (NOT Handy Kids across the street)


Here are some pictures of the place and the fun.

Climbing into the club house

Dress up and house area

Cute tea set and a cozy reading space await inside the club/tree house

Beauty parlor

Dining table with the kitchen located through the pass through

Grocery store

Kitchen

Entrance into the play space

They have a small sitting area for parents to hang out and they have a small snack shop

Working hard at the grocery store

Slide time!

Really this kid has no fear.

Our first impressions

Oh my. We are back. I have to say once the pure exhaustion and jet lag (Still working on it) has worn off it is good to be back but we are having to adjust.  Here's what we have been up to so far.
We woke up Friday morning and headed to the DMV to get S's expired license renewed. 3 hours later and we have a piece of paper that says it is renewed and they are mailing the license to our address only the address is in Poland so...we are still trying to figure that out.  We had more fast food and hit Target for some essentials. It was long past nap time and well into meltdown mode for Little Lady but we had to shop.

At this point in time we have enjoyed...drinking tap water, taking showers with amazing water pressure, driving and knowing people will actually stay in their lanes and follow traffic laws, ESPN, people that actually try to help you and do their job, and not everyone trying to touch/pinch/kiss/hug Little Lady. It has been a great day.

Saturday we got a picnic lunch at jimmy johns and went to the park. We spent the afternoon in the pool. It was a great great day!

Sunday we went to a farmers market. We enjoyed fresh sauages, lemonade without mint, guacamole, and a pint of blueberries! We tried to remember to say thank you instead of Shukran. Were surprised when we were talking and commenting on things to each other and people around us reacted...Oh yeah everyone speaks english here! DUH!!!! Little Lady enjoyed playing in the water feature at the market and seeing lots of dogs running around.

Little Lady has learned about lawn mowers (the riding kind), leaf blowers, hand dryers (those crazy dyson ones), fire trucks, and ambulances. It is amazing what she is experiencing for the first time and trying to understand.

Today we had a doctor appointment for S and I and Little Lady learned all about not being treated special and having to wait. We waited over an hour to be seen and it was 3 hours by the time we finally left the office. She did great but that would have never happened in Jordan where we walked in and were immediately swept to the front of the line. Oh well it happens. You win some you loose some.

So far the amount of green is overwhelming to the senses. The air smells fresh and we enjoyed some rain last night. It is great not to be stared at everywhere you go and have our kid draw attention. We are shocked how foreign it feels driving around Northern Virginia a place that we were at home in. We lived here/ worked here/ own a home here and yet it kinda has a strange feel to it. We don't always know where we are going. We have to look things up. It is just kinda strange. Hard to explain how it feels but it is weird. I can only imagine how it will feel in another 2 or 3 years when we do it all again.

Overall we are starting to feel a bit more at ease and  it is a great feeling to feel the stress that we didn't know existed slowing falling away. WELCOME HOME!!!

Hanging out at the DMV

Less than 24 hours in the US and her first Owie

AIRPLANE DAY!

Well the train wreck that has been continues. We thought we were ready. We had everything packed and good to go. We woke up and there was no rushing around like a maniac. It was amazing. Then we loaded into the elevator for the last time and we stood there. Now I bet you are thinking...oh no! You got stuck! haha...that would be hilarious...but no. We simply stood there. We forgot to push the button. Whoops! S and I had a great laugh about that one. Way to go out on a bang! We got in the car and away we went. We arrived at the airport no problem. We loaded up 2 hand carts and the stroller. S was pushing one cart and had 2 back packs on. I was pushing a cart and the stroller. I had trunky attached to my bag following along like dog on a leash and a bag on my back. We looked awesome! We managed to weave through the airport and get in line at the counter to check in only to realize we forgot the keys in our pocket. We no longer have a working phone to call the driver back so yep. The keys to the house in Jordan get to go on the plane. We make it to the counter and check in. It is taking forever. The lady says it is because there are no seats left together on the plane so we will just have to hope someone switches with us. Yeah cause we want the 2 year old flying by herself! UGGHHH. Then she looks at all the bags and informs us that even though American Airlines says we get 2 bags each and even though RJ says that to destinations in teh united states we get 2 bags we are only authorized 1 each because we are connecting in London. If it was a direct flight to the us them we would get 2...Tell me how does that make a difference? Either way we stand there with 6 suitcases, a stroller, and a carseat waiting to be checked. She takes them and directs us to the counter across the way to pay for the extra bags. 400 JD later and waiting in a forever long line with people cutting it is time to board the plane and we still do not have boarding passes because we are waiting to finalize the payment and have to return the previous counter. We finally get the boarding passes, and go to the diplomat line to speed through security. Which is fine until they take the stroller to a different line because it needs the big xray machine (instead of letting me take the wheels off) and no one is there to scan it. Then our bag of Electronics (ok it had 2 hard drives, a net book, an ipad, an ipod and is a charging bag so has wires of it's own) confused security and needed to go to a secondary screening process. We made it to the gate as boarding began. Thankfully they were delayed a bit. As we go through the check in and get the stroller tagged the guy only tags it to London Heathrow. When I ask him to put Washington Dulles IAD  on it he says no and that I will get the stroller back at the plane. Well that is not how it has ever worked before but hey why not hope right?  We get on the plane. S in the row behind LL and I just take someones seat. The girl shows up and asked her to switch she did no problem. We get to London and get off the plane and wait and wait and wait. I eventually asked someone for our stroller and they tracked it and said that it was put with the rest of the cargo and is now at baggage claim. Best if we go to our gate and have them track it. Hopefully they can get it from baggage and get it on the flight. Yeah right...Well we rush through the airport. We had only 2 hours and we have wasted a 1/2 hour on the stroller. We rush through carrying 3 back packs, a large shoulder bag with LL's multiple carry ons in it. a rolling suitcase and trunky. Most of the time dragging an exhausted toddler along as we do not have arms to carry her. We make it to the gate a bus, a train, multiple escalators and elevators later. Also another security screening that had a problem with our tech bag. We walk up to the gate and explain the situation to the lady. she says she will track it but it is time to board. Would we like to pre board as we have a child? HAHA!!! I stifle my laugh and ask to use the bathroom first. Little Lady and I run to the bathroom and come back and on to the plane we go. A small dose of sanity we had been seated in the Exit row and since LL could not sit there we were upgraded to economy plus. We had big seats and china dishes, and menus? On a plane what is that? WOO HOO. While we did not get any sleep we had some space. S was seated in the row in front of us and it was a fairly good flight. We arrived in Dulles. Our bags were there except the stroller. We took the bus to the rental car. It was ready and waiting. All our luggage fit! We made it to the hotel fairly unscathed. The room was ready (It should be I mean it was 11 at night) We then ran to McDonalds across the street as LL has had nothing to eat since she refused the food on the plane and we had no time to get anything at the airport in London. At 11:30 she was in bed and by midnight we were too. It was a long long day but once we made it on the British Airways plane things started to look up.

Train Wreck

Ugghhhh. I have to say that packing out  a week and a half before leaving country is a bit too long with a small child. It was long enough for her to notice and start asking for specific items, which we didn't have and which lead to meltdowns. It was also long enough for her to get board with the movies, and few toys that we did save to bring with us and be the entertainment for the summer. It probably did not help that our train wreck of a leaving Jordan began not long after the packout...here is that story.

We packed out on Monday the 26th (See the previous post about that one). Little Lady went over to her friends house for the day and had a great time. Which we are truly grateful for. So if you have a little one ship them out! Tuesday was scheduled to be another pack out day but the guys just worked a bit later than usual and finished in one day. So S stayed for the inspection that was scheduled and we had LL's friend Amelia over then we met at the playground with our friends and had dinner. The girls played everything was great. We went home and put LL to bed. We went to bed ourselves around 11 as we were exhausted. At 11:30pm the train came crashing into the station. LL woke up screaming in her bed. I went in thinking it was another nightmare. There has been a lot of those lately. She really is suffering from some night terror type thing. YIKES! When I walked in she started screaming that her bed was yucky. I quickly realized what she meant. She was vomiting. YUCK! So I grabbed her from the bed. Yelled for S and off to the shower she went. He cleaned her up and I cleaned her bed and room. We got her all clean and dry. She was laying on the bed with Daddy when I saw it coming. I grabbed her and tried to make it to the bathroom but not so much luck. This time S cleaned up the mess and I cleaned up her and also myself. This practice continued until 3 in the morning. Thankfully S stayed awake on the couches with me and LL. He was amazing at the clean up. I kept soothing LL who has not really experienced being sick like that since she was very little. Eventually the vomiting stopped, the fever began, and S went to work with only and 1 1/2 hours of sleep. We survived Wednesday not really sure how but we did. Thursday was spent trying to recover some sleep, clean the apartment, and continue the recovery of the Little Lady. Friday morning. 8:30am we had appointments for haircuts. Jasmin is awesome and she comes to the house. So as S was taking a shower to get ready he noticed he was not feeling well. He made it through his hair cut but just barely before above mentioned sickness struck. If that was not enough...1 hour later and I was down for the count too. We spent that Friday taking turns with who was in the bathroom being sick and who was watching the toddler. At one point I tried to be a good mom and make some lunch for her only the smell of the food killed me. Worse still... she refused to eat it and S and I were so incapable of anything it sat on the table the rest of the day with wifts of pizza entering our noses and sending us running every so often. Why not move it you ask...because honestly just moving a finger or blinking an eye was too much effort with this sickness. At one point it truly became Lord Of the Flies ish around there and LL was left to fend for herself. She had whatever she could reach for dinner which was 4 fruit snack packs, 2 juice boxes, and I think an apple. I am not truly sure. Oh well she survived, though it took everything we had to get her in PJ's and into bed. Lifting her into the crib was just awful. We made the judgement call that there was no way we were hiking Wadi Mujib the next morning so we canceled with our friends and with the Nanny and that was that.

Saturday we woke up to day 2 of the plague. Fevers and other fun stuff. I was feeling better and able to eat some. I still kept falling asleep on the couch and was not an actively participating parent but I did make lunch and dinner for LL and I went out on the balcony and laid in the sun while LL played chalk. S on the other hand was still pretty much on deaths door. By the afternoon I forced him to eat and take a shower. After that he started to slowly recover but it was not great.

Sunday S had to go to work and I took LL and Erapie to the playground. I wanted to go with her by myself and give Erapie time to clean but I realized this was not happening. I was very fatigued and could hardly manage sitting in a chair let alone anything else. LL needed to get out though so this was the best solution. Unfortunately one thing I did have to manage was dealing with our Vet. It had been 7 weeks since I had heard from him. We saw him and started the cats EU paperwork and bloodwork. He promised to give us a call when it came in which would be in 2-3 weeks. Well like I said it had been 7. Any time I would call he would say it wasn't ready yet. Then he started just not answering and sending me a text instead saying he would call me later. He never did. Well when  I played the I will call you every hour on the hour until I get an answer game. He finally answered after 3 hours! He told me then that he would make some calls and get back to me. He was not sure about getting the cats on a flight yet and would find that out as well. By noon I still did not hear anything. I asked S to ask around at work as others use him and see what they were saying. Turns out he had been forging EU health Certificates and bloodwork. He was being watched and having a hard time getting real ones now. People had taken their pets to Europe only to discover that the paperwork was not valid and the pets were put in quarantine. GREAT!!! Just what I needed to find out when we were leaving the country in 4 days. AHHHHHH!!! S called the Vet and made him aware that we knew his situation and we were withdrawing care. We wanted all 550jd back and all of our records. The vet told S that it would not be a problem. Then he called me to discuss it with me. Yeah there was nothing to discuss. S called him back to reaffirm that we were not discussing anything. He owed us the money and we were done. I traveled to the office where he asked me questions and told me many things like " Never a blood test, maybe a health certificate" when I asked him about the fake documents. He also told me not to believe what I hear because "they lie, I am their competition" when I said I heard about it from other vets. I walked out either way with all the money and the documents that I needed. I made arrangements with Judith at Welcome Home Kennels and she came by that night to discuss what we could do. Unfortunately since the vet never dated or stamped the cats vaccination records and we never saw him give the cats the shots (his techs took them from the room) her vet was uncomfortable issuing any health certificates. The cats would have to be re vaccinated before they could leave. Also according to this new vet she has had problems with the previous one not vaccinating animals and saying he was so she really did not want to risk it. I don't blame her.

Monday we decided to skip playgroup and the possibility of germs for a small playdate with Amelia. Neither one of the girls was really up for a playdate. They played away from each other and by themselves. Oh well. I ran errands at the embassy too. That night we tried to close out accounts only to discover that is a headache too. Lets just say nothing is every easy in Jordan.

Tuesday the lady came and took the cats. LL was a hot mess and quickly told her daddy "She stole my kitties" We spent the rest of the day with a little on in tears and very upset. She has since reverted back to binky sucking like a fiend and I just can't try to break it right now. It is clearly her coping mechanism. Tuesday night we went to happy hour and had a good time letting Amelia and LL play at the playground.

Wednesday once again I tried to close out accounts only to be hit by the it is not in your name and blah blah blah game. Jessica was a saint and drove me around as we had to turn our car in that morning by 9am. S missed a very special meeting where he was given an award because he was dealing with the car. Whoops! These things happen right? Yeah... The people from the embassy came for final inspection which was a joke. They literally walked in and walked down the hallway. Never entered a room and just told me to make sure everything was gone the next morning. Ok! I waited around for that? The worst part was when the doorbell rang LL thought it was the lady bringing back her kitties. She lost it when it wasn't. OH well. That night we had a great last meal in Jordan with Jon and Jess and off loaded the remaining food and cleaning supplies on Erapie and the toys and movies on Jon and Jess.

Stay tuned...the train wreck continues but I think travel day should get it's own post!

getting her work done.

Always fun times with your best friend

getting into trouble as usual

Saying bye to each other. Well they would get to see each other again the next morning.

Dinner out at Levant. We will miss all the great outdoor dining.

It is hard to say goodbye to good friends. We can't wait to visit you in Oklahoma!

My Oh My

 I cannot believe how fast things have been moving. We packed out 2 weeks ago and this is what that looked like...Just imagine a screaming toddler that thinks everyone is stealing her stuff. Yeah we sent her away so we did not have to deal with that. So it really looked like 7 workers, 1 Boab, 2 stressed out Americans, 145 boxes of stuff for the Boat, 5 Airfreight boxes weighing in at 582lbs, 6 pizzas, 3 breadsticks, more bottles of water than I know what to do with, 6 dozen cookies, 2 trucks, and 6 wooden crates.

Air freight!

Getting started

OUr Boab acting like he is doing the work

Getting to the end

Air frieght

half way!

Done

 

EVERYTHING IS PACKED

Now to get it all on the truck

You are probably thinking...ok you survived it. What are your tips? Here are my tips after going through it. If you saw Caroline's tips some will be a repeat but since not everyone saw Caroline's info I figured I can repeat it.

Have snacks and lots and lots of water for the guys. We had 2 12 packs of water and 2 of the liter bottles and it was gone very quickly. Oh and it must be refrigerated. It wasn't and the guys then put them in the freezer to chill quickly.

We fed ours lunch which was pizza and breadsticks. 6 medium pizzas and 3 orders of breadsticks. It was gone pretty quickly.

We didn't have any cardboard prayer rugs at our place but our balcony turned into the smoking break room. So if you have a preference about smoking at your property make sure you have a space for them to go to.

We tipped each of the workers 10JD, because as Caroline says they are driving away with all your stuff. We waited until the end to tip them. They were appreciative however we did not realize that another truck with 3 more workers would show up at the end. So we were not prepared for the extra people. Whoops!

The guys we had all spoke English well and were very good about labeling boxes except which room it came from. SO I have 20 boxes labeled bedding or clothing but no idea which bed or person they belong to. Have a sharpie handy and you can go around writing on the boxes as necessary.

I don't know if this is the case for everyone but our airfreight boxes here were only approx 2 1/2 Ft by 3 1/2 feet or maybe 3x4. They were probably chest height on me. Coming to Jordan we were able to fit a ton of odd size things in our airfreight including an Ironing board. That was not happening. I had to disassemble our baby gates, taking off all the extensions and pegs and it was still a tight fit.

This is a little late in the game for those of you packing out but if you are on your way to Jordan. Just know they do not have mattress boxes so if possible keep yours. Our tempurpedic mattress caused some serious headaches. They finally wrapped the box springs in cardboard and then laid the mattress on it. Wrapped that in cardboard and plastic and made a make shift box for it. Not what I would have liked to have happen but we had no choice. Thankfully we had been prewarned to save TV boxes so we had a large box for our big TV our small one was just placed in a box of clothing and so we hope it makes it.

That's all I can think of right now. I will update it as necessary. I have an airfreight with a 2 year old checklist that I made up. If anyone is interested I can send it to you. I have found that splitting our silverware and dishes in half works to cut weight but give us what we need to get started.

Good Luck and happy moving!