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Post by vpainter on Aug 23, 2013 6:08:55 GMT
There is a Junior tennis league, golf courses in DHA, ABQ, RT, UDH. You can play on any of them. My boys did golf in school. There is a music program through the schools: vocal and instrumental. There are private music teachers on the camps also.
The Little league baseball is very active. There is a youth basketball league, soccer league, swim team, some types of martial arts, and others for children.
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Post by sivalaya on Aug 23, 2013 19:52:27 GMT
Thanks Vpainter for your detailed reply. Glad to hear the school offers golf classes in addition to other sports.
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Post by ksa2012 on Sept 1, 2013 15:32:46 GMT
We will be coming up on one year in Dhahran. This will probably be my last entry because I can’t realistically call myself as “recently” moving any longer.
We just came back from a short leave to drop off my two daughters to school: freshman at university and sopre (10th grade) at boarding school. I feel a little sad because we will be losing our middle daughter 3 years early to boarding school. It will be a great opportunity (with a variety of extra-curricular activities) for her as she is able to get dorm life under her belt before going to university but we will miss 3 year of additional parenting. My advice on whether or not to send your kids to boarding school is to ask other Expats, do your research on the schools, and attend the boarding school fair early in the process.
We still have our youngest in the Hills School to keep us busy but the house is so much quieter. The days of carpools, practices, and fighting between the three are over.
In July, my wife and kiddos left for the US. I stayed until the beginning of August. The biggest help was having my food prepared and brought to our front door every morning. There is a service in camp that is part of a nutrition program that delivers breakfast, lunch, and dinner in one box every morning for 15 to 30 days at a time. The food was surprisingly very tasty. It is a good value and it takes the uncertainty away from where to find your next meal especially during Ramadan when the dining hall is open only on a reduced schedule and restaurants outside of camp are closed during the day. On the plus side, I was able to take lessons from the local golf pro and hit the driving range and links almost every day. I never played a round of golf until I got to Saudi Arabia because I was always too busy.
The one shock that I was not prepared for was the hemorrhaging associated with a short leave or repat to the US. You have to rent a car or truck to get around and hotel expenses if you sold your house and have no place to stay. There are so much supplies and comfort items to buy and bring back to the Kingdom. These are expenses on top of the stockpile of stuff you ordered through Amazon in anticipation of dropping your kids at the dorm or boarding school. There are also endless trips to Target, Walmart, and the Container Store for more stuff they will need (and do not know about until the very last minute). Because we sold our van, we had to rent a Suburban or Tahoe to bring all the stuff to their school. Then there are hotel charges in the process of settling them in. For my wife and I, we both got fitted for diving masks, snorkel, and fins. We will enroll in a scuba class on camp for a future trip to Oman or the Red Sea for diving.
Remember the rule of thumb: travel, elry, carpets, and savings. Pick any two.
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