Our first Foreign Service assignment: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia!

Last summer, Anthon was initiated into the State Department - we are all super proud of our "Foreign Service Specialist". Since Anthon and I started dating, Anthon has always talked about joining the Foreign Service one day, so we are super excited that his, and also mine, dream has finally come true.   
Welcome to a crazy and exciting life of moving from country to country every 2-3 years!

A couple of weeks into Anthon's training in DC, we got our first bid list with 10 Facility Management openings. We had to decide the order of how much we would like/or not like to go to these places. This is how we ranked the posts:

1.   Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

   2.   Cape Town, South Africa

   3.   Pristina, Kosovo
   4.   Shenyang, China
   5.   Moscow, Russia
   6.   Baku, Azerbaijan
   7.   Brasilia, Brazil (We were already there for 3.5 months last year and preferred a new adventure)
   8.   Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Anthon had already been there and had no desire to go back)
   9.   Dakar, Senegal
 10. Khartoum, Sudan (unaccompanied tour)

A few weeks later, there was a “Flag Day” ceremony to which the new Foreign Service employees could invite family and friends to. We were lucky to have my mom, Anthon’s parents and Anthon’s brother with his family in town – it was awesome having everybody there for this special day!

Since our last name starts with a “P”, and they went through the assignments in alphabetical order, it took quite a while to get to our first assignment…. The excitement and nervosity about where we could end up living for the next 2 years grew a lot, until the speaker finally announced that Anthon Petty would go to: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia!

We were so thrilled that we got our No 1!!! We had heard many good things about the post and were really, really excited that we actually got it. I mean, Anthon could have been sent to an unaccompanied post for the next 2 years, which would have been horrible!!!

 Yay!

           Swearing-In Ceremony:

 Besides family, we were excited that Judy and Kaylie came to the Swearing-In Ceremony, too. We lived with them for about 6 months in the DC area after we got married 

 Anthon's Facility Manager group that he was in training with for 6 months. Yep, Anthon was by far the youngest

Family Picture time!

The whole experience from passing interviews, to receiving a 'call' to a specific area in the world, sitting in training for several months with a group of people like you, and then being sent to a new country kind of reminded us of our LDS mission calls and the time at the MTC. We just wish we would have received some language training. But luckily, most people here speak English and we haven't had any language problems yet.

 Big shopping trip before the movers came. I think we filled 4-6 of these Costco carts. And yes, we did buy toilet paper and kitchen towels - we have traveled enough to say that most countries have the crappiest, thinnest paper products... and on top of that they are super expensive!

Before the movers came. Most of the stuff you can see here was from the big shopping trip.

Almost done packing

Shipment did not sink to the bottom of the ocean like some do, and eventually arrived in Jeddah - yay!

 My shipment from Provo... see you in 4 months! It will be like Christmas when my shipment finally comes. I'm sooooo excited to have my steam iron back soon!!!! :-D 

A little side track here about our separation time due to Anthon's job and me finishing up school at BYU:

So, while Anthon was in training in DC, I was in Provo to finish up school. Not sure if I could have survived that time without family, friends, joining choirs/orchestras, and good entertainment :-)

My friend Yue - When I first moved back from DC to Provo, I lived in an apartment with two other girls. I didn't really like having roommates again and didn't really like the ward I was assigned to, so I moved to a small apartment at South Wymount after that semester. Luckily, Yue and I became very good friends and kept hanging out with each other even after I moved out. Hanging out with her kept me somewhat sane during that long separation time :-) I already miss talking to her! 

Day with Yue in SL - of course, I had to introduce her to Siegfried's

 My German friends - Christine is my 'mission grandmother' (person who trained my trainer). We 'accidentally' ran into each other in a music class we both signed up for, and have been good friends ever since. Grit was in the same stake as I was (Munich), but we had totally different circles of friends, so we never really talked to each other until we both served on Temple Square. I'm really glad that I was able to find some great German friends during my time in Provo - talking about good 'ole home and eating some German food together was always a perfect break from school stuff.

I will definitely miss singing in BYU's university chorale!

Our voice teacher's fan club :-)

During our separation time, Anthon and I tried to see each other every 4-6 weeks, which made the separation a little bit more bearable. The hardest part was probably the time after Anthon moved to Saudi Arabia in January, and we could no longer see each other for a weekend every once in a while. We didn't see each other for 6 months, but somehow survived with just face-timing 2x every day. We also tried our best to stay emotionally connected by doing nice things for each other like sending cookies, putting together a picture slideshow with self-sung music, writing each other love 'letters', etc.
Now, being back together, we have no idea how we survived 6 (to 10 months) of separation. We are soooooo happy that we are here together now!!! 

 Thanksgiving Weekend in DC

Little surprises that Anthon sent in the mail

 Georgetown Cupcakes - my favorite cupcakes!!!

 In the meantime, I got my American citizenship! I'm now a German American and an American German :-)

We went to a Josh Groban concert when Anthon was in town

 Fancy Dinner at Chef's Table

Our first photo shoot since the wedding 4.5 years ago - it was about time! :-) 

As you can see, our time of separation was not ideal and we would not want to be apart from each other for that long ever again, but at least we made the best out of it and enjoyed our weekends together as much as possible.

Now jumping back to Jeddah:

Since I've moved here two months ago, I've received many e-mails from friends, asking how I like Jeddah.

The answer: So far, it has been awesome!!! 

We got assigned to a house on one of the nicest compounds in the area. Every time I look out of the window, I feel like I'm in a resort. The sun shines every day, there are lots of green plants and flowers (on the compound - not outside), then there are several swimming pools, tennis courts, a beach volleyball field, ping pong, billiard and bowling.
Our townhouse also looks beautiful - definitely an upgrade from the small, old, and dark apartments we used to live in. And.... we finally have a dishwasher, a washing machine and a dryer!!! Halleluja!

I still haven't taken pictures of our home. I feel like we still need to buy a lot of stuff like carpets, pictures, plants, some other decoration,... but we've been spending so much money on traveling that those things have to wait for a little bit. My predictions are that the house will be finally 'complete' a month or two before we move again :-)

But here are some pictures of the outside: 

 The main pool, playgrounds, tennis, etc

 An on-compound restaurant/cafe

Main Building

Everything is great and we couldn't be more content with our housing situation, but we are just really excited that our separation time is finally completely over! 

It is so nice to be a 'real' wife again - to wake up together, eat breakfast together, pack Anthon's lunch, prepare dinner, make homemade bread, spend the evenings together and do fun things, and to be silly and flirty again. We also finally have time again to host people, which we have already done quite a bit. Aaaand... I finally have time to work out again!!! I've gained about 26 lbs since I started school - boooooh! So wish me luck ;-)

 Anthon bought some Arabic breakfast for our first morning together in Jeddah

 Eating typical Arabic/Middle Eastern Fast Food - Shwarma 

 There is a Korean restaurant in town! Anthon and I looooove Korean food and were a little worried that they might not have Korean restaurants here in Jeddah, but they do!

Introducing Raclette to some Consulate friends 

To answer the question how I like Jeddah, I don't really have an answer yet. I love life here, but I don't know the city very well yet. A couple of days after I arrived here, Ramadan started. Which means that everything is dead and closed during the day, and life starts to get crazy after 10pm - the time when we usually go to bed! 

So, I haven't seen too much of Jeddah yet. But the grocery stores are pretty good here - lots of fresh produce for good prices, a great variety of super fresh fish, a great variety of cheeses, etc. 

So far, we've been able to get all the products we needed, but products like pickles, ricotta cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, celery, strawberries are imported and can be quite pricey. I always cook and bake fresh and from scratch, so we haven't had problems with not getting the foods/dishes we like. I think not having a massive amount of American packaged foods here, really helps to be a better homemaker. We bake our own bread, we make our own ice-cream, steak sauce, sushi, pizza, granola, lava cakes, lye pretzels, etc. I love cooking and baking, therefore I love learning how to make all these fancy homemade dinners and desserts.

 Vanilla bean and deep chocolate ice-cream

 Lye pretzels - they turned out even better than the ones at most German bakeries - that made me a proud German :-)

Anthon's amazing sushi

There is soooo much to tell about living in Saudi Arabia - I could probably already write a book just about my first impressions, but I think I'll just write a little here and there about certain aspects of our life in Saudi Arabia. Now that I'm at home during the day, I finally don't have an excuse anymore for not posting regularly, right?!? ;-)

Here are some random pictures we took around Jeddah in the last couple of weeks: 

 Buying plants for the house - luckily we had a driver from the Consulate with us. The sales person did not speak a lick of English and we don't speak a lick of Arabic. Negotiating would have been very interesting :-S

 The tallest (but definitely not most beautiful) fountain in the world

 Anthon and I were invited to watch the World Cup final at the German Consul's home - it was so much fun!!!

 Free drinks, ice-cream, shwarma, popcorn

And as the cherry on top of the evening, the German soccer team won the world cup!

 This guy walked around old down town and sold some kind of Syrian juice - really yummy!

Enjoying some super cheap street food

Some Arabic fast food that we picked up from a popular chain

Buying tons of nuts and dates at a nuts & candy store

At the vegetable market. Anthon and I wanted to find a good vegetable market where we could buy vegetables for super cheap. What we didn't know before driving there was that this is more a commercial/big family vegetable market and you can only buy vegetables in big boxes - definitely too much for us two - bummer! Oh well... I guess we'll just keep going to the normal grocery store :-)

I think, that's it for now. There is so much to tell everybody about life in Saudi Arabia, but I think this post is already quite long... Congratulations to those who were patient and curious enough to actually read this entire post! :-)