Odd, but good

Emily and a little friend on the playground.
The odd thing is - we have police coming to our home at least 3 times a week.
The good thing is - this is because the police woman is actually Carey's language teacher.

The odd thing is - since I'm pregnant, locals say I can't eat or drink anything cold.
The good thing is - I still eat ice-cream and have diet sodas over ice at home.

The odd thing is - the only way to the bathroom is through the kitchen.
The good thing is - there's a western toilet in there.

The odd thing is - you have to go through the master bedroom to get to the other bedroom.
The good thing is - Emily has her own room.

The odd thing is - locals say I'm having a boy, because boys make your belly button poke out.
The good thing is - my belly button poked out with Emily too, so I'm trusting the ultrasound.

The odd thing is - you can't buy just 4 lightbulbs, that's unlucky.
The good thing is - they'll happily sell you 5.

The odd thing is - you're supposed to leave all your trash on your fast food table when you leave.
The good thing is - this table clearing provides a job for yet one more person.

The odd thing is - you can't pick at your teeth in public.
The good thing is - to dig around in your nose is completely acceptable. (Emily practices this.)

Day Trip

Out in the countryside walking through a fresh market. This lady really wanted to give Emily one of her tomatoes for free. Emily scored some free candy along the way too.
We met lots of people. Emily especially liked the little ones.
When we found a place to eat lunch, the restaurant owner let Emily use her one year old's toy tricycle.
Some of the scenery....
Emily and Daddy enjoying all the beautiful hills in the area.

Studying the language

The other day all was quiet and I was not hearing or seeing Emily.  I found her sitting on the chair in her own room reading the bilingual dictionary.  :)  I guess she desires to understand her surroundings more too! :)
She gave me a big grin and just kept "reading".  An inspiration to us all!  :)

So this week has been rough on us. We've all had colds.... and Carey's turned into a sinus infection. :( But we've managed to still get our language classes in this week. I (Carey) also decided to bond with the nasty dirty sidewalk outside of Walmart. I was carrying Emily (and Aubrey I guess) and stepped on some uneven patch, and down we went. Thankfully no part of Emily touched the ground. My knee and my pride took the hit! It was really embarrassing. The moral of the story... watch where you're walking. I also had an encounter with a 3 inch nail recently. It was pointing exactly straight up with the help of a broken bracket it was in, and was right in the middle of the sidewalk. It went through my shoe, through my sock, and poked the fleshy part of my foot .... but thankfully due to sore hips I was walking slowly enough to stop before it broke the skin. It took some tugging to get it out of my tennis shoe, but we were so thankful we don't have to deal with Tetanus issues. Especially because I don't think I'm up to date due to not getting shots while pregnant!
Anyways, we are surviving.... liking our language teachers..... and hope to have pictures to come soon!

Apartment Provided!

We signed a year lease on an apartment yesterday! We need to put some fresh paint, clean, buy a bed and a sofa, and move on in! Emily's favorite features of the complex are the play structure above and the fish pond/fountain seen below.

Going out to dinner to celebrate being homeless no more! Although we've quite enjoyed all the places we've stayed in our journey of homelessness that started 6 months ago! :)
Emily's fan club at the restaurant. You can see that the waitresses enjoy serving as babysitters as well, while Scott and I eat. Em loves the attention and does lots to entertain them! :) Em has a slight fever to go along with her cold and cough now, so hopefully it won't get any worse!

We were out and about in the rain today. Emily is really enjoying using the few phrases she knows in the local language. Probably because of the exuberant responses of the locals. She now also knows when people say "can I have a hug?" in the local language. Sometimes she oblidges, sometimes she doesn't. We often hear camera phones clicking around us as the people walking behind us or beside us take a quick pic of Emily. Actually, Scott went to Wal-Mart alone today and 2 guys were using their phone to take just his picture too. So maybe we are all interesting exhibits. We had thought it was just Emily. I think they were probably impressed with Scott's ability to grow facial hair.
Sure it rains alot, but look how green it is! I'm not sure why that last sentence is underlined, but I can't get it to go away. Oh well. Tomorrow we meet with our language teachers for the first time! The official studies begin! We've had nice success in all our little errands and to do lists. The big thing now is to find an apartment. Then get it cleaned and semi-furnished! Not that it will be a new place, but most that we've seen have been sitting empty with all the windows open so they are quite dirty! I guess they leave the windows open so it doesn't mildew being all shut up?? I don't know. I expect they have a good reason.
Anyways, we are all healthy and happy. (Well, Emily has a cold, but it's not slowing her down too much.) She did fall off a bench backwards today and landed on her head on a hard floor. But we think she's okay from that too. Kids fall down all the time, right? She seemed fine afterwards, and helped Scott play his new guitar this evening when we got home. :)

Thursday adventures

We traveled a bit outside of the city today and here are some of the shots.
Any time outside is a happy time for Emily!
Her hair only seems to grow in the back. :)
Check out the cool old man (if you want to see the pic bigger, just click on it).
Visiting with the shoe shiners
Lunchtime! Yummy yummy eats! $2 later we were quite full!

Em enjoying keeping Bridger's squeaky ball from him

Click play to watch the video

March 28

These pics are from the last few days of March when the Messies came to see us at my parents house. When my dad heard that our blog readers were asking for a belly shot, he had this to offer........
Here's a more appropriate belly shot. :) Aubrey seems to be doing well in there... she gives good strong kicks all the time!

Here safe and doing well

We've made it here and are all doing well! We've had some wonderful people help us get acquainted with our new city. We still need to find an apartment and get accepted at a university to study. Finding an apartment here seems to be more complicated than we imagined, hopefully there's something out there that will work for our family. We'll start looking later this week. Hopefully the realtors will show us what they really have, not the things they are just trying to get rid of!
The local people have been quite friendly, and they especially love to try to talk to Emily. They'll pull her out of our shopping cart or try to pick her up if she is walking around the store. She's getting more comfortable with all the attention and though sometimes shy, she'll say "bye bye" to everyone. The department store workers will play with toys with her (in our view) while we check out the children's department. Today a bakery lady tried to give me her umbrella when she saw me leaving the bakery in the rain with no umbrella. Very sweet people.
There are many things here we didn't expect to find, so that has been comforting! Even good ice-cream.... you know how much that means to the pregnant lady! Dreyers Cookies and Cream and Rocky Road, as well as Magnum bars which are very tasty! :)
The only piece of furniture we've already bought is a crib- which Emily is using now, and Aubrey can use soon! :)
The weather here has been nice. The sun has come out quite a bit, with nice lightning storms at night!
We've all been healthy since we arrived and we're sleeping well at night. We do a LOT of walking during the day and will be glad when Emily is a little older and can do the walking by herself!
Right now we don't have internet at our home... so communication is spotty at the moment. It may take a few weeks more to get that set up. There are a few coffee shops around town where we can go to get a wireless connection, so we should be in touch every few days or so. We also have friends who say we can come to their place if we need to get out some communication... so please send us emails! We'd love to hear from you!
Pictures to come soon... I forgot the camera this time.

Back in Cali... and I passed my test!

Good news! I passed my glucose screening! 3 hours and 4 viles of blood later... everything came back normal! We are so thankful!

We made it back to California last night after 22 hours of traveling. We had started our day at 2am east coast time to catch a early flight to DC. Then what was supposed to be our early flight from DC to San Fran had issues that had us sitting on the plane waiting to leave the gate for 2 1/2 hours. Then they deboarded us and a couple hours later deemed our plane unworthy to fly. We spent about 9 hours in the DC airport... trying to get back to the West Coast... along with a couple hundred other people. They managed to get us 3 to LAX by 7:30 west coast time. My parents picked us up and we drove the rest of the way! Poor Emily only slept for about 3 of those 24 hours! We unexpectedly got some practice for our big travels next week! Our bags showed up this morning... they got an extra stop in San Fran and we had to spend the night apart. :)

I'll try to post some pics or videos soon , but just wanted to update quickly until I have time to do that!

fun pic we found from summer of '05

We found this pic from 4 years ago of Bridger as a puppy! Now this is his new family! Everyone looks so much older now... except for Leslie - she looks just as young!

Trip to Washington DC

This week we all got to go to Washington DC! We enjoyed the day out, and it was Scott and Emily's first time to go there. Here are those 2 at the original Smithsonian building.
The Air and Space Museum was interesting for all of us!
We strolled around the mall with some friends and their 2 year old too.
The cherry blossoms were out even though the sun wasn't. And beautiful purple flowers were everywhere.
Emily was happy even though it rained and blew gusty winds.
This picture snuck in twice... ooops.

In other news, I failed my first glucose screening and have to go back for the 3 hour test on Monday. I am bummed about not passing, and really really hope I pass this next one. Some of our plans about where we'd have the baby might need to change if it doesn't go just right! We'll let you know how it turns out when we hear back!

Happy St Patty's Day

Well, today we are having a good day... this is the first day (out of the last 13) that we are not dealing with fever, diarrhea, or vomiting issues with Emily! It is nice to think we might be in the clear now! Just had a lunch of corned beef and boiled potatoes. :) I have no pictures to post from the last few weeks... they wouldn't be pretty! But more to come soon hopefully... of a healthy family!!

Fun in the snow

March has brought us a lot of snow. Emily likes to take a stroll out to take it all in.

She also likes her new pull-up bar which is an all around workout machine you can do different things with. She finds even more creative ways to use it than the creator intended, and loves to exercise with Daddy.