Breakfast With Santa

A couple weeks ago when KB graduated, we stayed the weekend in Arlington to hang out with our Lake Arlington friends. My how things have changed in three and a half years! We all have kids. The place is crawling with kids!

Anyways, as people with kids do, we try to find ways to entertain our kids and enjoy seeing them have fun. The weekend we were in Arlington a "Breakfast With Santa" was held, and of course we went...because what parent could pass it up?!!!

Last year AB's first meeting with Santa did not go so well, so we hoped, but did not expect great acceptance on her part this year. The day started out well. AB slept in, she played with our friend's son, and we all went to the breakfast. However, as soon as we walked in the building, we heard Santa walking down our hall. The first thing AB heard was a bellowing, "HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!" Yeah she freaked out, totally scared. Santa came around the corner, and AB stuck her head in between my legs. Her second meeting with Santa was not promising. We made it into the fellowship hall, ate breakfast, caught up with our friends, but the inevitable moment of meeting Santa was fast approaching.

The area where Santa sat was decorated like the North Pole. Here AB was very involved with greeting the polar bear. As far as she was concerned, this was the highlight of the North Pole, but mommy really wanted that picture with Santa...

So mommy, daddy and AB waited in line, but when AB's turn finally arrived, she was not thrilled. If you want to know what she is saying throughout this who ordeal, it is "MOMMY!" Also, here are some lovely profile belly shots a couple of you have been asking about.

I am trying to get her to look at the camera, but clearly she is beyond listening by this point.

Finally AB is safe from the scary man in the red coat and white beard. Good grief. It was so traumatic.

Proud Wife

Six and a half years ago, as 23 year olds, KB and I met as graduate students in Fort Worth. He had already completed a semester and I was just starting out. We looked about like this -

About a month into our relationship we attended a wedding that my mom and brother also attended. While at the reception, just as KB reached over to get my attention (touching my leg), my mom snapped this photo and sent it out for all the rest of my family to see. I never even held hands with guys in front of my parents and this was the first glimpse my dad had of KB. They knew it either had to be love or I had lost my mind.

About 7 months after we started dating, one chilly January afternoon KB asked me to marry him. It was well thought out, and I almost ruined it by going shopping instead of making it to lunch on time. My frozen friend Shelley hid in the bushes for hours waiting for us to get there. She took all of our pictures that day.

We were engaged for 4 months and did all of the necessary engagement stuff - like taking engagement pictures.

Then we got married! We met, dated, became engaged and were married in less than a year. It really did not feel that fast, and when you know you know right?

Anyways, to my point. We were married in May 2005. KB finished the coursework for his graduate degree in December 2005. He was also required to complete 2 years of on the field training. However, I was only a year into my 3 year graduate degree when we married. He waited the 2 additional years for me to graduate...

...then we moved overseas. Two years into our time overseas he officially fulfilled the requirements of is graduate degree, and this past Friday he was finally able to graduate...5 full years after he finished all of his coursework and 3 and a half years after I graduated. Patience for sure.

It is official, my husband has finally graduated from graduate school! Congrats babe.

Settling In (For Sure)

We have been here a little over a month and a half, and time has without a doubt flown by! I do not know about other people who write on blogs, but I often see or think of something that would make an entertaining post. However, when I sit down to write...it is all blank. Therefore this is going to be a post full of random thoughts, nothing really holds them all together other than the fact that I am the person typing them. Go figure.

One of the strangest adjustments to living here is the time the sun rises. Now that Daylight Savings has passed things are better, but it freaked us out that when we woke up at 7 am it was still dark outside. Where we live overseas, the sun rises at 4:30 am. Here in the US I felt I needed to check two different clocks for confirmation that it actually was time to get out of bed.

AB has become a little jabber mouth since we got here. Her vocabulary has exploded. KB and I are still the primary translators of her own personal language, but we are quite impressed. I guess being around English speakers (other than her parents) helps.

I am growing fond of our van. The seats are quite comfy and we can fit almost anything in it. When I see it in a parking lot and realize it is our car, I still cringe a bit, but I am moving on.

I spend so much less time cleaning here in the US than I EVER do overseas. Dishwasher! Vacuum! Huge washing machine! Dryer! No pollution! Adequate cleaning products! I wanted to wait until we came to the US with a child (because everything is more complicated once you have one of those) to make an assessment, and I can say with full confidence that even with a paid helper overseas, it is much easier to keep our home clean in the US than where we live.

Having kids has entered us into a whole new realm of the population. Instead of noticing someone's cute shoes (which I still do on occasion), I now notice people's strollers. I think "look at that one, I bet it folds up tightly and is light." I understand how moms sometimes fail to notice their appearance because now they are checking out other people's stuff - "oh look they have a Bjorn baby carrier...Angelina Jolie has a Bjorn baby carrier." I also get all self conscious when I bring out our vintage stroller that has lovingly been used for at least 15 years. It is free, so I am grateful, but when I see a certain stroller go by, I get stroller envy.

My belly button pops out very early when I am pregnant. Sometimes I need to strap it down with a bandaid, but usually my belly band can do the trick. However unfortunately I am now far along and nothing can contain it. KB and I were at a Christmas party on Friday. When I stood up to go use the women's room, because us pregnant ladies always need to go potty, someone said "oh my gosh, look at your belly button!"... or something to that effect. Apparently I got all embarrassed and red.

I only have 8 more weeks until I am due, and I am thrilled to be nearing the end. I am very happy to be pregnant, but my body is tired of being pregnant. I must say that except for a few things, I have a fairly easy pregnancy, so I really cannot complain much. My first trimester was characterized by headaches and a near constant nausea - incredibly happy to see that one pass. Other than the return of my friendly heart problem, my second trimester was a breeze. In my third trimester my heart is still doing its crazy thing, my hips are begging me to sleep on my back again, and Braxton Hicks contractions are more painful that I remember - however that's all, like I really cannot say much else that would not make me sound like a complaining wimp. In my last pregnancy I had horrible back pain, but I think being here in the US with carpet and no stairs I have managed to avoid it this time around.

I am a person who warms up slowly to change, so it is still strange to me that I will have a little boy in my arms in 8 short (or long) weeks. I have begun to shop for the little guy, but I am waiting to do the real shopping till after Christmas. I just hope I can get myself in and out of the van in a month.

This is AB at HEB last week.

"Driving" a car at the mall

This girl loves her stickers!

Today we went to a Christmas walk in Georgetown, Texas. It was a lot of fun. It seemed like something out of a movie (to me). The weather was a bit more chilly that we expected, so KB is wearing two sweaters, and we used my wrap to cover AB's legs. Do not forget to check out our vintage stroller, don't get jealous!

Been Up To

So what have we been up to for the 4 weeks we have been back in the States?

A little bit of this...

a little bit of that...

and a whole lot of fun!

Also we finally got the official verdict on baby brown. It is absolutely 100% a boy. As my deep seated fears of raising a boy fully sets in (they have so much energy and seem out of control a lot of the time) we are starting to seriously discuss names and nursery decorations. Any suggestions on names? We like names that are unique but not necessarily weird. With our extremely common last name, we like to give the kids a less common first name.

Moving

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we will be moving immediately after we return to Asia in March. Before leaving we managed to pack about 60% of our apartment. It got a bit crowded and a lot messy. I began to have a deep respect for professional movers because I do not know how they manage to pack entire homes in just a day. I need those packing skills! Where do you go to school for that?

Because our garage tends to flood at certain times of the year, we needed to store all of our packed boxes in our apartment. That meant we had to shuffle things around to store the boxes and then later get to whatever we accidentally put behind the boxes, or find the one thing we should not have packed that is in the very bottom box. By the time we left, all of our boxes were stored in our middle bedroom, stacked to the ceiling. How did we manage to accumulate so much stuff in 3 years? Here are some pictures to commemorate our mess.

(That's the Cosby show, season 2 introduction on TV)

Like Father Like Daughter

I know he is being cautious, but I sometimes tease KB because he reads the saftey card on every single plane we fly on. I especially tease him on our in-country flights because we fly on the exact same plane every time - same flight crew and everything.

Well now that AB had her own seat, she decided it was time to follow in her daddy's footsteps. She took it upon herself to pull out the safety card and read it. She even got it right side up!

Here it looks as if she is checking to see if the "fasten your seatbelt light" is truly working, or she is watching the "in case of an emergency" video.

It took some debating and ultimately feigning ignorance of the language, but we eventually were able to bring AB's car seat on the plane. It came down to the fact that 1. our airport had never seen a car seat before; 2. they thought it was too big for the seat, and 3. they wanted me to collapse it - clearly they thought it was a stroller. It fit perfectly on all three of our flights, and AB sat in it at least 50% of the time. She finally became sleepy about 8 hours into our 10 hour flight and she was absolutely zonked for the San Francisco to Dallas flight.

We have been extremely busy since arriving back in the US. We are looking forward to this Monday because it will be our first day that absolutely nothing is scheduled for. Maybe we will go to a park, play and have a picnic or something.

We are staying in a house in LB's hometown. It is a comfortable place, and we are slowly settling in. We are using service that provides cars for overseas workers. We are driving a 2001 GMC Safari but it also looks exactly like a Chevy Astro van. Yep, we are driving a mini van, but it is free and seems to run well. LB is a bit mortified she is driving it, but everyone else thinks it is a good dose of humility. We are quite grateful for the van.

AB is adjusting wonderfully to life in the US. For the first 5 days here she woke up around 2:30 am each morning ready to play. That was rough, but she is flipped now. She cannot get enough of going "side" (translation - outside), Grumpy's chickens (LB's dad has chickens), seeing planes or helicopters fly, V8 Fusion, and the cat that visits us every morning outside our back door. The second day in the US we were driving in the evening and she pointed to the moon and said "moon." We were completely shocked she knew what it was because we very rarely, like once every 6 months, ever see the moon in our city because of the pollution. It was a great moment!

Anyways, I will try to update our blog more often now that we are getting settled in. If you are in B-town, give us a call!

Almost Gone

We are in the home stretch of getting ready to come home. This time next week I should (hopefully) be settling into our home of 5 months and making daily wonderful trips to Walmart and HEB...really it took living away from them to gain novelty. I have always loved Target though.

We do have a bit of news. We found out on Wednesday last week that we will be moving to another city within a few days of arriving back here in March. We sat stunned for a couple of days and then it hit us, we have to pack, like now! We had been planning on taking our time packing for the US, but that all got put off, we have to pack-up our entire apartment. We have been frantic. Our helper has been staying overtime to help us, and I would say as of right now we have about 65% of our apartment packed. We will have to spend a couple days here after arriving back in country before we move, so we cannot pack everything. Also, we have just run out of time. At the end of the day today we called off packing our apartment so that tomorrow (Friday) we can focus on packing for our time in the US.

We leave Saturday morning to fly to a large city. We will spend a day and a half there. We plan to go buy AB a big girl bed at Ikea (and mail it back to this apartment), pick up a few other little things, and relax. Monday at 12:40 pm we will board our lovely plane that will hopefully be holding our 5, 50 lb suitcases below, 6 carry-on bags, and AB's car seat and make our way to San Francisco. Elevenish hours later we will land, and couple hours afterwards takeoff for Dallas. We plan to be hugging our family by 4:30 pm on Monday. Yea!

We hope to see all of our Texas friends very soon. To everyone else, we still have Skype : )

Don't Know What to Write About

I am up late tonight. It is about 1am our time. I have a cold and am frustrated because all the cold remedies I see online for pregnant women just do not seem potent enough for me. They also seem to address congestion, but I would like a little bit of congestion to stop the constant flow. Any ideas how to get congested?

We made it back from our trip successfully. Traveling was crazy and I think both KB and I almost threw out our backs at one point with all of our stuff. KB had AB strapped to him in the baby carrier and was pulling our, possibly, 70lb suitcase. I pulled the pack and play to which the stroller was strapped, and carried the baby bag, insulated lunch bag, laptop bag, and my purse. We were quite a sight.

Now we are busy packing and trying to shut down our apartment. In order to avoid paying for our steam heat, we have to shut off our water and electricity. For someone who has been hording food in their refrigerator and freezer for the last 3 years, this has been a strange liberation. I no longer need to save that Velveeta for a special occasion - it must be eaten, like now! I am also going through our cans of food and desert mixes and dividing them into the categories: not close to expiration date, close to expiration date, will expire while gone, already expired and really expired. In the US I threw away all food that was even a day past the expiration date, but we do not waste anything here. One of my friends made some muffins that were 5 years expired. They did not rise as well as they might have, but they were okay.

So, we are about 8 days away from leaving our little city for 5 months. When we return we will be a family of 4 (5 if you include Toby). I experienced this when we went to Thailand to deliver Avril, it is a very strange feeling packing for a baby that is not yet born, gosh that is an entire trimester away from being born. We are not even 100% of the gender. Furthermore, since we plan to move as soon as we return, this baby will come home to an apartment without a nursery ready for it. Although I know it is crazy, this inflicts massive amounts of guilt on me. Thankfully I know it will not mind.

I am writing this post on our computer that does not have any pictures on it, or I would include something for the grandparents. Maybe we will get to see some of you very soon and that will make up for it.

Failed Attempt

Next week we have to travel. I say "have to" because it is one of the three worst travel weeks of the year. Really why are we subjecting ourselves to this? I know traveling the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas is a nightmare in the US, but you have never been in a traveling nightmare until you live in a country with more than a billion people...and at least half of them are trying to get somewhere...and it is only on either a bus or a train (We will be on a train). This year we get to be one of the crazy people! Why are we doing this again?

We are taking a train about 4 hours north to see some friends, sort of. While there KB and myself will be engaged, and Avril will spend some playtime with several other kids. From what I understand she will be the youngest one there.

For nap time, the kids will sleep on pallets on the floor. AB has never slept on a pallet. Our three attempts at getting her to sleep with us in bed while at a hotel were huge failures, and we came to understand that she needs to be restricted when she sleeps. I know as she gets older, like now, she should be able to easily sleep unrestricted, but there has never been a need, so we have never tried.

We decided to try out the whole pallet thing, because who knows, she might really like it! We took the pad out of her pack and play, put a sheet on it, set it up with all her toys that she likes to sleep with (way too many for sure), and put her down for a nap on the pallet.

For an hour we heard nothing from her room. We were so excited! We thought we had success and we would not get embarrassed when our kid is the one who keeps all the other kids up during nap time. After an hour KB and I slowly opened her door expecting to see her sleeping peacefully on her pallet. No, no, no. That is not what we saw.

The first thing we noticed was the smell. It was a overwhelming smell of Johnson and Johnson baby wipes. Then we saw she was sitting in a huge pile of them. She had opened her top dresser drawer, that we did not know she was tall enough to reach into - yet, took out an unopened package of baby wipes and basically spent a fun filled hour of pulling baby wipes out of the package one by one. It was also apparent she has used some of the baby wipes to "clean" things in her room. She is such a helper.

Waterman

Most places outside of the United States it is not wise to drink water from the tap. In our country it is not wise to even cook with it. Apparently there are all types of nasty metals in our water, and boiling does nothing to get rid of those. We have to buy our water. Coming from a society (from the US) that just uses and uses water to our hearts content, drinking water and cooking with water that comes from a bottle that we have to order somehow made me anxious in the beginning. I did everything I could to conserve it, even drinking sodas instead of water because I feared we would run out of water. This fear partly stemmed from the fact that the first 8 months of our time here we could not manage to say the name of our apartment and that really hindered ordering water over the phone. After a while we learned that no one, not even the locals can correctly say the name of our apartment (isn't it cruel to put the foreigners trying to learn the language in this apartment?) and the water company just came to an understanding that the people calling with an American accent were at such and such apartment. We are the only foreigners they deliver water to, so it confounds us when a new person answers their phone and asks us for a detailed description of where we live. Eventually they put the manager on the phone who asks, "you the foreigners?" and we say yes.

I should go ahead and say, delivering water is not an easy job. They deliver water at all hours of they day and in all sorts of weather. Usually they drive a motorcycle that is rigged up with a contraption that holds about 6 bottles of water. One bottle of water costs us about 75 cents, so you can imagine how little they get paid. Not an easy job indeed.

For the first two years we lived here the same skinny little man with massively toned legs carried our two 5 gallon bottles of water up to our 5th floor apartment in one trip, but recently they have been getting some new guys to help out. When we order water it usually takes 30 minutes to 2 hours to get our water. However, we think one of the new guys was especially eager to deliver water to the foreigners yesterday, as he arrived just 10 minutes after we called, and apparently he had an agenda. Usually these guys are in a hurry and only drop off the water, pickup the empty bottles, take the money, and maybe say hello. Amazingly they are usually not out of breath. It makes me feel out of shape when I am hauling just myself up the stairs and need to take a break.

So when our new water guy arrived I was not surprise when he did not say hello, but I was taken by surprise when the guy instead asked me, "how much does it cost to fly to the US?" I said, "one way about $1,000 USD." Then he asked me if I watch basketball, and I immediately deferred to KB who tends to know sports vocabulary better than I do. Essentially he got to the point. He loves Michael Jordan and wanted to know if was possible to meet him. He thought maybe he could get a job in the US, like delivering water, and deliver it to MJ's house. KB had to break it to him that most people do not get their water delivered in the US. He asked if he waited outside his home, maybe he could meet him when he leaves to go somewhere. KB warned him this is considered very impolite in the US and they may not understand his intentions. He also told him MJ probably has a security guard with him to keep people away from him. Then the guy asked if it was going to be a problem that he did not speak or read English. KB had to tell him that outside of certain sections in large cities, most average Americans do not speak his language. He thought we already knew how to speak the language before we came here and was shocked the rest of the world does not commonly speak it. It was a hard blow for him. This conversation continued for about 15 minutes. This guy's dream is to meet MJ and he saw us as a way to get information how to accomplish it. You have got to love a guy who has a dream!

Our fellow American friend said he was recently asked by his water guy if he could purchase him an iphone in the US and bring it back to him. He too was taken back since his water guy has been delivering his water for 2 years and has never said even hello to him.

Welcome Back Onesie

Recently I have been trying to phase out the onesie as it hinders that "in the momentness" of trying to get AB to the potty when she looks at us and says "tee."

However, as a result she has learned how easy it is to take her clothes and diaper off when she is only wearing a dress or a shirt and bottoms. This morning when she had her alone time (because it is no longer nap time), we found her completely naked and standing in her bed after one hour. Then when she woke up and hour and a half early from her afternoon nap I found her once again completely naked but sitting in her pee. Bring out the onesies because those darn little snaps are just too difficult for her to figure out. Welcome back onesie.

Little Woodchuck

I have mentioned before that AB eats her bed. Here are the pictures. There are about 8 spots on her bed just like these. Arrgg. Fortunately I do not think she actually swallows the wood since I find pieces of it all over her room, and I never see any in her diaper. Sometimes I find her still chewing the pieces when I enter her room. She usually then takes them out of her mouth and hands them to me.

While we are in the US we will be using a borrowed bed, but I already have a plan in place for protecting that bed. It will involve an old bed-sheet and lots of duct tape. I found suggestions online, and it seems the most AB proof. Also, we will work to transition to a big bed soon after we arrive. Potty training, successfully using utensils and moving to a big bed, they seem like intimidating tasks don't they? I am just doing to do whatever other parents who have had success tell me to do.

Me

This is the first and only pregnancy photo I have taken. I will be 20 weeks tomorrow. I figured I popped out so early this time, there was not a very good reason to chart my progress. This child will most likely (hopefully) become a middle child. Apparently I am starting with the middle child neglect early. I am a middle child, so I should be doing better.

It is also 100% safe to say, I feel a whole lot bigger than I look in this picture. Talk about invalidating! Gee whiz!

Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders

In April/May when we were in the big city we bumped into these girls. Yep they are the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Here is the story -

As Kristy, Jeremy, KB, AB and myself pulled up to this shopping center, we saw a group of girls that just did not "fit" in this city scene. Their hair was too done up, they had on way too much makeup, and the biggie, they were all wearing matching track suits. Turns out they were heading to the same restaurant we were going to. This left our little party to speculate the entire meal as to who they were. By the way, there was a camera crew and photographers with them.

When I tried to get a closer look at them I noticed they were wearing white cowboy boots with their blue and grew track suits. I thought, "no way; not in this city and definitely not in this country." However, after asking the restaurant manager who they were, he confirmed they were in fact the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. They were in town to promote a new direct flight with American Airlines that incidentally got canceled a couple days later because the capital airport would only give them a middle of the night landing time. At least the girls got a trip out of it.

Anyways, as we were leaving, they were leaving. I totally used my baby for this one. I asked if they would take a picture with my daughter. They said sure. I sucked in my stomach, stood up as tall as I could and put on my old cheerleader smile. Really, do I look that different from them...don't answer that. I did not realize my picture was over with them until one of them gently guided me away from them.

That is how we ran into the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders in one of the most random places to meet them, ever.

Little bit of this and a little bit of that...

Most foreigners who live overseas find it quite necessary to have a helper. Our apartments get dirty faster, we often go to the store (most produce spoils in 2 days), food preparation is more complicated, and the biggie washing all those dishes that get dirty from the complicated food preparations. Before AB we did everything ourselves, and on average between KB and myself we spent about 4-6 hours a day cleaning or going to the store. On top of that we were in language school for 4 hours each day. That did not leave much time for our other goal in life. After AB we realized we needed a helper.

The first lady was awesome. However, she lived a 10 minute taxi ride away, but did not want to take a taxi and therefore rode her bike. After one week she said it was too far and quit. Eventually we got another helper, Ms. Ge, through an agency. She was not great, but she was sufficient. In March after working for us for almost a year, Ms. Ge took two weeks paid vacation (that she did not ask for) and then two weeks later said she injured her back was in the hospital for 2 weeks then quit. However, while she was "in the hospital," she was well enough to climb up our four flights of stairs to get her wages. We did not say anything, but it seemed fishy with her injured back and all.

Thankfully Karen, who was already watching AB during our language classes, took over the cleaning of our apartment. After about 3 months she said it was too hot to ride her bike to our apartment. I offered to pay for her taxis and she said she did not like taxis. What confuses me is that she would have to ride her bike to any job she has, so....uhhh, I think she was fibbing. However, she was our friend, and I think she was pulling one of those cultural things called "saving face," (she had some reason for quitting that she did not want to tell us, so she gave us a more "acceptable" reason, very common) so we let the inconsistencies go. Since leaving us in June she has had 2 different jobs, so I do not think it has much to do with us.

Our fourth helper was temporary and we knew it. She was great and we just tried to enjoy every moment she worked for us. Our fifth helper is a senior in college. When colleges are overcrowded here, they tend to tell the seniors to not attend class their senior year, do independent study, and then come for graduation. Our local university just spent every dime they have on building a new campus and cannot even afford to pay their teachers, so yes, all the seniors are doing "independent study" by working on their parent's farms, bagging groceries, or in Alice's case, she is the helper to a desperate foreign family.

Alice is ridiculously sweet and she does not complain about having to clean up the Toby poop. Because she is a senior and has nothing else to do, she said she can work for us until we leave in mid October, and this makes us very happy. In addition to her regular wages, we pay for her bus fare to our apartment and for her lunch, which she purchases a the supermarket across the street. One day I was eating lunch when she came back from the store with her lunch. I asked what she bought and she said, "fried silk worms." I know the people of this country like to eat fried silk worms, but I choose not to partake in them. This decision was further enforced when I got a nice whiff of the fried silk worms. Let's just say, I made an excuse about having a headache (which fortunately I did) and made swift retreat to our bedroom until every last one of those worms were consumed. I may be in my 2nd trimester, but my annoying gag reflex to unusual smells (i.e. unsavory to me) is not quite in check. Nevertheless, we love Alice, and AB calls her Alish.

KB took a picture for your enjoyment.

More Random Pictures from KB's Phone

Sometime last month AB decided to give us a heart attack and climb up on this little stool for the first time. She has sense learned that is a no no, but apparently KB wanted to keep a picture for prosperity.

See those diapers behind her? You should see what her room looks like. She got into an unopened package of 120 diapers and took every single diaper out of the bag.

Evidence

AB is slowing taking apart her baby bed, piece by piece. It started when she was teething and has developed into a nasty habit that we just cannot break. Here is a picture of AB just after we got her out of bed the other day. That is a strip of wood going across her forehead. We find little strips just like this in her bed every morning.

By the way, see that eczema rash around her mouth? Anyone have any suggestions for how to treat that? I have tried Eucerin, Aveno, and Vaseline whipped with water, and so far the Vaseline works the best.

Eating Out

You never realize how normal it makes you feel to eat food that is familiar to you until the option is taken away. So, as pathetic as it sounds, when we travel to the big city, we plan our days around doctor appointments and restaurants. We have the Big 4 (our 4 favorite restaurants) that we like to hit up every time we are there. Ideally we eat at one of them a day, eat/drink Starbucks for breakfast and blessed Subway for dinner. That means we get four wonderful days of awesome food. The biggest letdown of whole trip is coming back here and realizing that I am now going to have to cook again and it will be another 3 months before we can hit up the Big 4.

We have discovered that AB loves pizza. This is great news since one of the only western restaurants in our city is Pizza Hut. However even in the big city among awesome food AB still stuck to her pizza. She also likes decaf lattes, and one morning she drank half of mine before I caught her - it had a straw in it. Plainly it was too easy for her. It was not problem. I was on vacation and just bought myself another one. Like I said, 3 months until I can even smell Starbucks again. I was not wasting a good opportunity.

I should tell you, the city we call the "Big City" is an extremely historical city. You could spend days sightseeing, and even though I have been there 12 times, I have yet to see even half of the historical sights. KB on the other had has seen all of them like 3 or 4 times. Our friends or family come in to meet us and KB plays tour guide. My local friends 1. cannot believe I have been to the big city 12 times - it is a big deal for them to go, and 2. cannot believe I have not gone to see the historical sights. Clearly my priorities are different from most other people who go there. I just want to eat, go shopping, and hang out at the really clean hospital.

Below we are at two of our favorite restaurants in the big city. If you ever make the trip to see us, we will gladly introduce you to them as well. So far all of our friends and family liked them.

Repairman

A few weeks ago one of our neighbors drove into our garage door. Poor guy. He really is a nice guy and speaks slowly and clearly for us - not louder like so many other people do. Since he drove into the foreigner's garage door, more than 20 people gathered around to watch him as he called us to come down and see what he had done. They stood looking at our doors for 2 hours. At one point KB even looked out of our balcony 3 hours after the incident and a few people were still looking at it. I guess it is more entertaining than TV on a Friday night?

Since we do not actually use our garage to park a car in, raising and lowering our garage door on a daily basis is not that necessary to us. We can actually access our garage from an inside door on the bottom floor of our apartment building, so the fact that it took 2 weeks to get our door fixed did not bother us. Just as long as it was closed and locked. Also, most of the junk in our garage is not even our junk. It belongs to some friends. Let's just say, if someone needed to fully stock a mostly empty apartment, we have what they need. Then when they leave, we just put it back in our garage.

KB took these pictures when he realized how the repair man was plugging in his power tools. He just stuck stripped wires into the holes of the outlet. How do more people not get electrocuted in this country, and what do they have against using plugs? Anyways, he survived and our doors are the whitest doors in the apartment complex.

Cultural Lesson #11300664

I am so glad I looked up the definition of "Indian Summer" online before I called what we are experiencing an Indian Summer, all 10 of my blog readers would have been horrified to know I guessed the definition.

We are experiencing the opposite of an Indian summer. Today it was in the mid 70's and windy. Much to the bruising of my ego, I think if I actually went outside, I might have needed a jacket. (Bruising because I refuse to wear a jacket in August no matter what the temp) We live in a city where the temperature is below freezing for three months out of the year. I admit, there are much much colder places in the world, but for this girl from Texas, that's cold.

KB, myself and most other foreigners I know would consider today "cool." However as expected our language tutor came in today and declared the weather was "very cold." We have learned that the locals refer to the weather as either very hot or very cold. Everything is "very" and if it is not very hot, then it must be very cold - nothing in between. I think there is a wide gap between these two descriptions of temperature. Lots of other descriptors could be used like hot, warm, cool or even just cold.

Our language tutor, Kitty, has a great sense of humor. I said (in the local language, so please excuse it if sounds a little Kindergarden-ish), "Kitty, three months every year the water is frozen on the ground. That is 'very cold.' Today is just cool." She thought about it for a second and started laughing. She then rephrased herself. "Today is a very cool." I guess they just cannot get away from using "very."

As a side note and in Kitty's defense. This language actually uses the word "very" a lot. When someone asks you how you are doing, you cannot just say "good." You must say "very good," or it is grammatically incorrect. In the beginning had a difficult time with using "very" to describe things when we did not feel a "very" was necessary. We are getting more used to it though, and I will probably embarrass myself when I overuse the word while speaking English in the US.

Fancy Lady

More pictures from our phone. Here AB made good use of her links and dolled herself up.