The Turducken of '14 and Finny's birthday

We have some pretty cool friends who live up in Ras Tanura.  We started reading their blog when we found out that moving over here was a possibility.  It was an incredible resource on everything from packing to traveling abroad.  We've met up a few times since we've been here and they are such great people.  Glenn at one point started bragging about his turducken skills and it was decided that we had to make it happen some time in this holiday season.  The weekends before Thanksgiving got booked up really fast so we decided to make it a week before Christmas dinner, on December 20th.  It was a really yummy meal and we were able to have the Redmond family over and a couple of other guys who were available and without dinner plans that night.  

 Once again the turducken was a huge hit.  Which, I think is a pretty big deal considering it was all purchased and cooked in Saudi.  A huge culinary score for Glenn.

 Finn's birthday was on Sunday the 21st.  It was Tate's first day of Winter Break so he got to be home with us and that was probably Finn's most exciting present.  We love having Tate at home to play with and it's SO nice that they get along so well, most of the time.  I woke Finn up singing "Happy Birthday" and his face just lit up with excitement that it was his big day.  The first thing he said was, "And now I can open my presents?!"  We had breakfast and opened presents from Aunts and Uncles then Tate and Finn ran around playing with the new fun toys and creating stories to make believe with the new toys.  It was so cute to watch.  I made some cupcakes to take to a play group at the park to share for his birthday.
It was a beautiful, warm day and we spent almost 2 hours playing at the park with a ton of kids who were all off of school.  By the end both boys were exhausted and Finn was very ready for his afternoon nap.  When Glenn got home we had mac and cheese for dinner so we could get out really quickly and avoid prayer times as much as possible, then we headed to a play place at the Dhahran mall called Billy Beez.  Poor Finny was a little under the weather and it just got worse at the night progressed.  We got into a little playground structure just after the first evening prayer time and it lasted less than half an hour.  Finn kept following Tate around and then getting nervous or stuck and then he'd cry until Tate or some other kid helped him get down to us.  Then he wanted to go up again after he was consoled for a minute.  Tate was really sweet to stay by him and try to take care of him but after about the 4th time of Finn melting down we left and tried to find some games to play.  Unfortunately the basketball games were broken, but we played a few other games and then headed home.  Finn opened his presents from us.  A book, a new game, and new Darth Vader bedding which will be so cute on his bunk bed when it eventually arrives.

Finn was very sweet and let Tate help him unwrap his presents.  Both boys were very tired by the end of the night.  Turns out they were both on the brink of some fun Christmas viruses!  Even so, I think Finny still had a fun birthday.  We're sure glad he's our little boy and glad that we got to take a whole day to celebrate him.