Blue Abaya in 2011

Happy New Year to all my readers! May this year bring you peace and happiness!

So 2011 was certainly an eventful year in my life and in the whole Middle-East. I gathered some of the top posts and most important events of 2011 in case you missed some..

The Finnish minister of Education Henna Virkkunen visited Riyadh in January and met with Saudi officials who were interested to learn what the secret is behind Finland's education system's success. Here is my take on the Finnish education system and what Saudi-Arabia could learn from it:
http://www.blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/02/saudis-take-lessons-from-finnish.html

In March the supposed "Day of Rage" turned out to be just a day of rage from the skies and raging muttawa in Riyadh:
http://www.blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/03/day-of-rage-from-skies.html

This year we were very blessed and lucky to get the Saudi marriage permission approved, in the nick of time before I was due to give birth to our daughter. Here is the story:
http://www.blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/03/saudi-marriage-permission-success.html

And then we went to the judge when I was 9 months pregnant and wobbling like a penguin in the over the head abaya trying to conceal the pregnancy!
http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-saudi-wedding-ceremony.html

Shortly after our princess was born and I became so overwhelmed with her that the blog was pretty quiet for some while. My mother was also diagnosed with cancer during this stressful time. http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/04/our-princess-was-born.html

And what would the year in Saudi be without running into the infamous CPVPV, Saudi religious police? Probably the most hilarious incident happened during Ramadan the muttawa had a problem with my husband's shorts and my uncovered face: http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/08/muttawa-holidays.html

One of the most heated discussions was on the post about the Magical Moroccan Maids and how Saudi women fear they will cast a spell on their husbands: http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/09/magical-moroccan-maids.html

2011 was a big year in regards to Saudi women's rights. Women started to work in some grocery stores around the country as cashiers, King Abdullah announced Saudi women were granted right to vote, run as candidates, become members in Shoura ,http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/09/king-abdullah-starts-new-era-for-saudi.html
The lingerie stores were given the deadline until Jan 2012 to change to all female staff, http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/09/women-to-finally-sell-lingerie-in-saudi.html
The women driving movement got lots of publicity with Manal Al-Sherif's and other women's cases and the planned protest day of June 17th. In case you missed it I wrote an article about the announcement of women's voting rights and a lashing sentence for driving the next which was featured as the Editor's choice on MidEastPosts. http://mideastposts.com/2011/09/28/saudi-schizophrenia-votes-for-women-one-day-lashes-for-driving-the-next/

I was thrilled and honored to be interviewed by the Arab News: http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/09/blue-abaya-interviewed-by-arab-news.html

The most comments came to the post from our trip to Incredible Istanbul, check out the pictures here: http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/10/incredible-istanbul.html

This year my whole family came from Finland to visit us in Saudi and we also traveled to Dubai and Jeddah with them. My mother stayed with us in Riyadh for two months. We had a blast on our Saudi road trip to Abha, Gizan, Farasan Islands, Najran and Empty Quarter. I started to do a regular Tuesday posting "Tuesday Ten" and here are some pictures from the road trip:http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/11/tuesday-ten-from-saudi_15.html
I promise to blog about the whole trip very soon!

Lastly but most importantly, I wanted to thank everyone for reading, commenting and supporting me! I was touched by all the positive feedback I got to the post "Missing Mom and Motivation": http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2011/12/missing-mom-and-motivation.html

Lets see what 2012 will bring along..I am hoping and praying for health for all my family members that got diagnosed with cancer this year, for my daughter to stay safe and healthy and to remain that most happy, radiant and smiling baby on the planet, I am hoping to find a decent workplace this year and or course to visit some new countries as well!

On a more general level I am hoping to see women start driving this year and for the CPVPV members to get a new job description altogether and to leave women alone once and for all. Well at least I can dream of such a miracle.

I'm bad at New Year's resolutions but I promise to try my best to keep the blog going and hopefully you will enjoy :)