Our special visitor......

What a great day! Today was stake conference and we were honored to be visited by Elder Jeffry R. Holland and his wife, Patricia. A church leader is his position has not visited here in 26 years. How blessed are we to have them come after only arriving two months ago?? Brad and I were lucky enough to both get to attend the leadership training before the general session. It was amazing. We all met together briefly then the ladies were taught by Sister Holland and the men with Elder Holland. They were both so down to earth and funny. After the conference we had a huge pot-luck dinner. It was such an honor to meet them and even have the kids pose for a picture with them. Sister Holland told Whitney that her granddaughter was also 16 and that she knew, if they were together, would be great friends! Isn't this picture the greatest?!?

Swiss Miss Returns ............

Whitney got back from Switzerland this morning. We picked her up at the school about 10:30. She had a great time and took loads of pictures which makes me happy! It's late and taking forever to upload so I'll add some more later. She's slept all day and I'm assuming she's gonna sleep all night, too! One of her friends dropped by and she came out of her room just long enough to say, "How can you even be awake??", then promptly headed back to bed. Every morning was spent in ski instruction then they skiid all afternoon and practiced what they learned in the morning. The evenings each had a different activity. One night was movie night, then bowling night, ice skating night, 'disco' night, etc. She said it was all great. Maybe she'll write about it on on her own blog if she remembers the password!

World Travelers............

This is weird.

Brad and I are in Saudi.

Taylor is in France.

Whitney is in Switzerland.

Evan is in Bahrain for Youth Conference.

It's us-the Pogue's- who have hardly left Sulphur, Louisiana!

And of course Ivy and Calder are still representing the family in the good ole' USA in Minnesota.

(and isn't it sad that both kids that are here with us have activated their exit visas before their parents. We're feeling pretty sorry for ourselves! )

Just an update........

A cute picture of the kids eating at Fudrucker's at the Rashid Mall the other night.

Evan running in his track meet. (stolen from one of his Facebook friends.....thanks!)

Ok, so I got in trouble from Andrea the other day because I haven't been updating my blog enough. So, I'm vowing to repent and do better. Whitney has my camera in Switzerland so I am pictureless but that might encourage me to write a little more. Whitney, or the Swiss Miss, as we are affectionately calling her now, left Thursday morning. She had to be at school at 5:00 am to get on a bus to Bahrain and then a flight to Abu Dhabi and then on to Geneva. I have chatted with her a few times on Facebook and she is having a great time. When we bought the kids those itouchs for Christmas, we never dreamed how great they would be. Wherever there is wireless internet, they can communicate with us. We've also been getting emails from the teachers on the trip and all seems to be going great. She has vowed to take tons of pictures, but we'll see. That same Thursday Evan had a track meet in Udhailiyah. He had to get on a bus at 6:00, an hour after Whitney. Brad and I decided to head into Khobar and look for furniture.....again......This time we really did buy some things instead of just "look". We went to our new favorite store, "Anteek" or something like that. We bought a beautiful bookshelf, a tv table and some other little pieces. No use to describe them, I promise to post pictures later. This was Evan's last track meet of the season. He has really enjoyed cross-country and has done really well, even with the big plaster cast on his arm. Later that evening, Brad and I went back to Khobar (have I even mentioned on here how all the stores close all afternoon?? -so you either shop in the morning or evening or both- but no in-between!) We headed for the Dhahran mall. We found this new little furniture store in there and went in. We saw this really nice red living room set that we impulsively decided to buy. It is really nice and very similar (for those of you who know) to the big red leather chair we have at home in Louisiana. Anyway, we ran into some new friends, Rusty and Donna, and we ate at the food court with them (Popeye's!) and they gave us a ride home. A first happened tonight at the mall- a man shook his finger at me and fussed because my head was not covered! Uh.....what, forgive my trashiness?? We'd been warned to expect that sometimes. Another man laughed and waved his hand at me like "don't listen to him", something to that affect. Friday is our new Sunday here. Sunday is work/school as usual but Friday is the Sabbath. We went to our church meetings then home. I made the best lunch. I stuffed a whole chicken with dressing and had mashed potatoes and gravy. It was delish! Brad had a YM meeting and I took my "non-Sunday" nap. Saturday of course was back to school for Evan and work for Brad. All our new furniture got delivered today and I love it all. The living room furniture is HUGE and may have really been to much for the room. I need Andrea to help me arrange it!! I think we might end up putting the love seat in the other little sitting room. Things are still going really good here. We love and miss you all! Remember to read Taylor's mission blog! He's doing great!

Little Differences.....

I've been thinking of a few odd things that I wanted to tell you that are different here in Saudi:

-at the grocery store on the chip aisle, all the brands-Lay's, Dorito's, etc- have a "Tomato Ketchup" flavor! I haven't bought any because, well, just yuck!

-at the beauty shop, you pay BEFORE they do your hair or nails

-if you have change coming back, they hardly ever give it to you. I mean, they give you the bills, just not the coins. BUT, sometimes they'll give you a small pack of gum instead.

-at the bank, you pull a number like at the DMV (although it doesn't take any time at all) When it's your turn, your number in neon lights up above the teller. Anyway, while you wait, a little guy in a bow tie walks around with a tea set on a tray and offers you coffee or tea in tiny porcelin cups.

I'll think of more but my mind went blank. There are so many! None of them or bad or a big deal, just so very different!

Address......

Just in case any of you want to send me some snail mail, here is our address:

Our Name

Saudi Aramco P.O. Box 1675

Dhahran 31311

Saudi Arabia

I told some of you our street address but we can't get mail here. I've already got an order in to Andrea for Tony's and Burt's Bees! So there you go, no excuses!

The injured...........

So Evan came home from school after his "Ghost Dance" preformance telling us that his wrist was hurting really bad and that he had hurt it at lunch playing basketball. I reminded him that I had seen him and talked to him during the afternoon and he hadn't mentioned it at all! Anyway, it looked really bad-swollen and bruised. We decided to let him sleep on it and see what tomorrow would bring. He was up several times during the night asking for Advil so we figured it was something..... The next morning we head down to the ER at the local hospital. We were stopped by guards at the front door telling us that Evan couldn't enter the hospital in shorts! What?? Anyway, we explained we were headed to emergency and he became more than accomodating. He actually escorted us down the hall and pointed us in the right direction. We didn't have to wait long for the x-rays or to see the doctors. There were two that saw him, a lady doctor then an orthopedist. After pushing and pulling and poking, they looked at the x-rays and confirmed that the wrist was broken.

We were sent upstairs to the "cast room" where a young male Arab nurse put on a cast. Evan was hoping for a bright orange or blue but here, white was the only option.

It felt better immediately in the cast because he couldn't move it at all. They prescribed some pain meds but we didn't give him any and he didn't need them. He missed track practice that day but went ahead and ran in a track meet two days later. Now it's just a matter of a few weeks....