Summer in the States

True to our past five years, we’ve gone a little while without a blog post in the summer. I think this time around we preferred to enjoy the time in the summer before sitting down to record it all, so I’ll do my best to include everything with as much accuracy as possible despite the lengthy break in between posts. 

After school let out, we stuck around for an extra day or two to get our stuff packed and get our house ready for no habitation for two months. This included stuff like making sure windows were fully sealed to protect from sandstorms, cleaning up a bit, and moving all of the house plants to one room of the house so we could leave some shades open for sunlight. 

The baby had traveled before this summer. He had gone on some shorter flights like during our trip to Egypt and Prague, but never anything as long or daunting as our trip to NY promised to be. We were in for fourteen hours on a plane. Even though it was direct, and we didn’t have to manage layovers or dragging extra baggage through airports, it still loomed large in front of us as a major challenge. In addition to all of that, we’d have to contend with the fact that he had just settled into a pretty consistent routine including bedtime. We were about to throw that for a loop with some serious jet-lag. 

The morning of the flight, we left for the airport around 3:00am. Things went as smoothly as anything can go when you wake up at 2:00am for the day. When we got on the plane, we were pretty comfortable because we had booked a whole row to ourselves. To make things even better, Shannon had researched and purchased an inflatable footrest cube thing that when inflated, perfectly filled the space where your legs go. It created a perfectly level platform with the seat, extending the seat to the seat back in front and created a bed for the baby. This was perhaps the best $20 we ever spent.

Since it was a Saudia flight, there was a square of space near the back of the plane meant for prayer for those who needed to pray along the flight. It was right in the center of the plane and was probably about 7 feet by 7 feet roughly. When people weren’t praying, it was a great place to stand with the baby. He did a great job of sleeping for much of the flight, but 14 hours is still 14 hours. We had to occupy him by taking turns walking up and down the aisles and by hanging in this space a few times. Another family even took their three kids to the area and had a picnic. I highly approve and encourage all airlines to create a similar space for the sanity of their flock of passengers. 

When we landed, we went straight to the rental car area at JFK Airport and sleep deprived and eager to be done traveling, I was nearly hypnotized/tricked into every conceivable add-on, insurance, toll pass, bell, whistle, and ribbon. It would have nearly doubled our rental car purchase. Luckily, my much saner and clear-minded wife corrected that before we were on our way. 

We drove to Shannon’s sisters’ apartment and let out a big sigh of relief. Here we were, finally. It was Harris’s first time being in the US. He is too young to know the difference, but it was nice to have this tiny American citizen set foot on a place he could always call home. When we got to the apartment, there were New York bagels waiting for us and we spent some time with the family. Luckily, by the time we got there, it was early afternoon, and probably only an hour or two earlier (local time) than Harris usually goes to bed. So we gave him his bath, fed him, and put him to bed. The length of the trip, and the serendipitous timing of the flight ended up working out. The tired baby slept through the night, woke up the next morning, and never had to struggle with jet-lag. 

We spent our next few days in New York walking around the local parks, watching movies with the sisters, and frequenting a favorite deli of ours. We had some unique to New York experiences along the way, like the probably mentally ill and certainly homeless man satiating some of his carnal pleasures by himself on the street one sunny afternoon, and the experience of having to move the car for street cleaning, only to realize that I had to drive around in circles for about three and a half hours to find a new parking spot. All in all our time in New York was relaxing and allowed us to recharge after the long journey. 

Then we drove down to New Jersey to see my family. This was something I was eager to do since my family was not able to come to Riyadh to visit the baby when he was born. This was the first time anyone in my family was going to be able to meet him. Due to the heavy concentration of my family, all living within about 20 minutes of each other, it was perfect. We stopped at our hotel, loaded up on some supplies and then went to my mom’s house to catch up where we were met by my grandmother as well. So baby Harris got to meet his grandma, and great grandma at the same time. It was pretty cool having four generations of family in the room at the same time. 

 

One of those first days, I went to my niece’s school and picked her up early. We went and got some subs and drove up to her first baseball game. She and I hung out, ate snacks, yelled at the opposing team’s players, ate more snacks, cheered for the Phillies, and had a great time. I was glad and grateful for being able to spend some time with her. I miss having the ability to do that throughout the year. 

After one or two nights in a hotel, we made our way to the beach house that we rented for two weeks.

Due to the fact that most of my childhood friends and all of my family live very close together, most of our trips to New Jersey involve us spending about 40% of each and every day in the car going to visit people. This year, with the baby in tow, we wanted to make sure we spent as much time with people as possible, and made it easier on ourselves with the baby. So our plan was to rent the apartment and have people come visit us. We had the top floor of a duplex that served us perfectly. We had enough space to set the baby up in his own room while we hung out in a large living room area. Our friends Justin and Megan came to meet us the night we got there and brought some food. We shared some food and drink and spent some time with their kids as well catching up. 

The following days were a bit of a blur. We spent days on the beach, and on the boardwalk. I grew up going to the beach nearly every day in the summer, so I really enjoyed taking him to the beach. He sat in the sand, ate some sand, played, went in the ocean, and did the whole thing and loved it. Days were spent on the beach, or having family visit. My sister even took him to the zoo for the first time. He was especially interested in the buffalo and lions. During the rest of those two weeks, Harris was able to meet many of my best friends, my aunts, my cousins, my sister, my uncle, and a whole slew of other family members. One weekend, Shannon’s sisters even made it down from New York to spend a few days with us. It was really special for me and Shannon. My uncle made the drive up from Washington D.C. to meet the baby and brought us a steaming plate of my Aunt Donna’s famous blueberry muffins, which Harris of course wanted to try. One of the things we miss the most about living in the states is our time with family. He was 8 months old before any of his family on my side even met him. But we enjoyed our visits quite a bit. They were the highlight of my summer. Evenings were spent with more visits, grilling swordfish from the fish market a block away, and hanging out in the backyard. It was everything I wanted from my time there.  

When our time in New Jersey was coming to an end, we checked out of the beach house and drove to a local vineyard with Megan, Justin, their kids, and Shannon’s sister Meagan. They all were doing a 5k race through the vineyard. It was great. The weather was beautiful and there was food and wine for anyone interested in partaking. I stayed with the kids and cheered them on as they raced. It was a really nice way to close the chapter on our summer in New Jersey. After the race we drove back up to New York and crashed with Shannon’s sisters again. The next day, we made our way to Florida. 

Our flight was relatively uneventful. We were greeted by Shannon’s parents. They had fully prepared for the arrival of their grandson. They had a crib, high chair, and some toys there waiting for him, which was helpful for us since we didn’t have to continue to lug that stuff around with us. We spent the next three weeks doing some online summer courses for professional development, hanging around and relaxing, and of course doing our summer errands. We got some things out of the way like dentist appointment and got Harris a Social Security card. We went out and bought some things we can’t really get in Riyadh. But mostly, we spent time playing with Harris and hanging out with my in-laws. 

Shannon ran another 5k race on the 4th of July, which was pretty great too. This time I joined her. We dressed up in all of the America stuff we could find, drove downtown, and ran the race through the cobblestone streets of Winter Park. At the end of the race, there were coolers and coolers of free watermelon for each contestant so Shannon and I each ate our fill. When we got home, we prepped for a BBQ that we hosted at Shannon’s parents’ house. Shannon’s sisters and one of their boyfriends came down for that as well so we were able to spend some time with them again. For clarity’s sake, one sister had the one boyfriend. He joined us for the weekend as well. 

The day after the 4th of July, we rented out a small cabana at a local river. This is one of our favorite things to do every summer. The place is called Wekiva Island. It is not an island at all, but a pretty cool hangout spot along a river that leads to some natural springs. It’s a great place to grill some food, or order from the food truck, swim, canoe, paddle board, and hang out. One must always proceed with caution in Florida as these rivers sometimes have alligators, but if you are vigilant, and you aren’t the slowest swimmer, you’re usually okay. They even have a bar with lots of craft beer for those who want that. In this particular case, we rented a small cabana for 8 people. But we were called the next day with apologies for overbooking. It turns out we couldn’t have that cabana. But to make up for it, we were going to be set up with a indoor/outdoor space with a private dock, waiter, indoor (and air conditioned) space, private bathrooms, and enough space for 60+ people. Also to make up for our inconvenience we were given a $100 gift card to cover any incidental purchases for the day. It was fantastic. We listened to music, went swimming, read books, played with the baby, and it was all free!

In addition to a few more beach trips, and some more time with friends, we also took Harris to Disney World for the first time with our friends Meg and Bethany. This being Florida, it was roughly 200 degrees outside, but we were able to go later in the afternoon when it was cooler, and we only stayed for a few hours. We mostly did inside stuff for the benefit of air conditioning. It was cool to see him on some of the iconic Disney rides. 

All in all, our summer in the US was fantastic. It was everything I wanted and needed it to be. We were able to introduce Harris to a lot of the people who mean the world to us. He met his family, made a connection to his home country, and got to go on many adventures. We were able to catch up with people, and see and do a lot of our favorite things as well. As our time in the US was coming to an end, we set our sights on another transatlantic flight and a trip to Ireland and England. But I’ll save that for another post.