Saturday, September 8, 2012

Compound update

Hey guys,

So I guess the last news was us getting back from Sharm on Monday.  The week's been pretty tame so far, I had my Arabic class on Wednesday and a new girl has joined.  She and her husband were on the Sharm trip, and I had seen her around the embassy so it's fun to have another new friend in the class.  Emy informed me that she's taken another morning job on Sun/Tues/Thurs, so I'm only going to have her two days a week.  I was a little bummed, since I had hoped for an extra "floating" day, but I know she wants to earn money and we can't hire her for 20 hours a week.  She said Thursday afternoons were open though, so maybe I can do that once in a while for grocery shopping or whatever.  It's not a disaster, I just get an idea in my mind and changing it is a lot of work.  I'm 80 years old, I suppose.

Thursday was steak night at the embassy, so naturally we were there.  It was delicious, and we sat with the same fun couple we met for the first time last week.  (It seems like a month ago because of the vacation, but I guess it was just a week.  Wow.)  They're very nice and have a sweet baby girl.  I'm hoping to get together with the wife and have a girls night or something.  Although driving at night sketches me out a bit.  But I just need to hitch up my pants and go for it.

Sunday morning we went to church, using my phone's GPS to navigate.  It's so helpful to have two adults in the car, so Thomas can drive and I can be a step or two ahead.  Driving alone somewhere new is a bit scary.  But I guess eventually we'll be comfortable with navigating on our own.  I don't even know the names of the neighborhoods, except for ours and the immediate vicinity.  Lots to learn!  It was nice to worship and sing and pray and discuss a Bible passage.  I enjoy the casualness, and the fellowship.  The kindly Australian couple who had been leading worship and the kids time are going back home.  The man is a retired Anglican pastor who fills in for the regular minister during the summer break.  So we'll get to meet the "real" dude next week, I think.  But the temporary people did a good job and maybe we'll meet up with them, on the slim chance that we would visit Australia.  I would love to, especially since we have friends there currently.  (Hi, Jessica & family!)  But it's still a huge flight from here, and I don't know that we'd have time to really do it justice.  I feel like you'd need a month minimum to see a sampling of the continent, and then also New Zealand.

Benjamin is loving his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches these days.  I finally bought some regular Smuckers grape jelly and he's a big fan.  He's doing a teeny bit more walking, and using some more words.  He will bring a book to me and say "up", so I'll put him next to me on the couch and we'll read together.  I think he says "apple", and he probably has a couple other things that I just don't understand yet.  He's pretty chatty.  I still need to take him to the pediatrician for his well-child checkup.  He'll be 19 months on the 8th, if you can believe it.  It seems unreal, but also, there's a long stretch of time before he goes off to college.  We still have potty training and preschool on the far horizon, but I know it'll happen before I know it.

For dinner Friday night we were going to get delivery, but can only use our tax-free cards at the restaurant.  So we packed up and ran over to pick it up, it was only about 7 minutes away.  It's in a little neighborhood, mostly residential, but it has a mini-Cozmo grocery store.  I may check it out during the week, there's also a little park that was packed with families.  It was a burger place, and they had curly fries and onion rings so of course we got both.  They also had milkshakes, I ordered one but it was really thin and liquidy.  The rumor mill has it that you can't get a good milkshake here, but I'll keep trying.  The food was good, I think we'll eat at the actual restaurant next time, there's a little patio and it's cute.

Saturday started off with a bummer, Benjamin woke us up crying at 6am.  I figured it was just teething, but went in to his room to hold him.  I opened the door and a blast of hot air hit me.  The AC went out!  Argh.  Poor baby was really warm and mad, which is understandable.  So I rolled him in his pack-and-play to the office next door and Thomas brought his water cup.  I held him and swayed while he drank the whole thing.  Poor buddy.  He went back to sleep until 9am, and Thomas got him up and fed him breakfast so I could sleep in a little.

We just stayed home all day and relaxed and watched College Gameday.  (Thank goodness for AFN!)  I was hoping to shop at Carrefour but we're still waiting on the official plates and registration and insurance, so I thought maybe I should wait until tomorrow, when that's supposed to get finished.  It was a nice, chilled-out day.  The picture is from today, Benjamin's been really teething and chewing on lots of stuff.  This is one of his new foam blocks.  Silly boy.



Later,
Rachel


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