I can see why they are called Magic Bars

Calvin and I had fun in the kitchen this week together making Magic Cookies. He was so excited to tell Daddy what we made when Marvin got home. He was so excited in fact, that he just couldn't get what he wanted to say out of his mouth fast enough.

This is the perfect recipe for a little helper. I only needed to help with a few parts of the recipe, like chopping up the chocolate choloate bar, but those of you who live in the land of chocolate chips don't have to do that. If you like chocolate and coconut these are sure to be a winner. I love finding recipes that are helper friendly. I'm thinking this one will stay in our recipe box for years to come.

cooking up some snow

Friday it kept snowing and snowing and snowing and although we've been enjoying the beauty of it all it's caused a few problems. Power outages and water outages throughout our city. Thankfully we still have power, only lost it for a few hours yesterday but our water has been non existent for over a day now, and there's no telling when it will be back on. So us being ever so prepared we had 5 liter of water in our apartment, that's it. Now we typically use 5 liters for drinking everyday. Yikes, so we've been choosing our beverage wisely.

But thankfully we have a lot of snow!!! So today we got our buckets out and hauled buckets of snow up 4 flights of stairs to our apartment, and melted it in a big pot on the stove, so we can do some necessary things like, flush. It's fun to see how He provides for our every need, even when we aren't too smart and prepare for stuff like this.

Snow gathering round 1

We even had some fun playing in the snow indoors. Calvin thought that was pretty cool, and it left some water on the table so we could give it a good wipe down.


Now let's talk heat shall we. Our heat is run by hot water, so no water, no heat. However someone is making it possible to heat a room in our apartment at a time, (we have no clue how, but at least one battery is hot at a time) if we get desperate we'll just turn on our oven. Thank goodness for a small apartment.



So we've been warm all day, had enough leftovers the last two days not to have to prepare a thing and had already planned on going out for dinner tonight. He's good, isn't he?


And even more good news, I just heard the water flowing again, it's only the cold water, but we'll take it. Now it's time for my Bath in a Bowl (boil some water on the stove, pour it in a big tub and add some cold water). What an answer to our prayers.

Blank Canvas

We are beginning to think through ways to spruce up our apartment. People tend to decorate here by hanging carpets on the wall, I'm compromising in our living room and when we leave for a visa run next month we're hoping to find a beautiful wall hanging at the Grand Bazaar. But I'm hoping to do something less local in our room, because who's gonna see it but us?

There's not much here in the form of framed art that isn't crazy pricey. So we're wanting to do a few DIY projects that make our house seem more like us. But I'm completely clueless of what to do.

Here's what our room looks like right now

Along the side of our room we have our dryer, our expandable clothes line. Usually this is full of laundry but since we haven't had water in over a day, there isn't any laundry that can be washed. So what would you do in this space?

The other wall is pretty much blank other than the ironing board, which may or may not stay in our room. We can get wood, blank painting canvases and some frames and paint. And everything must go with our duvet. And we can't change the wall color. We are hoping to buy some new window treatments through.

Here are a few ideas that I've seen that I love:

Thanks for the help!

Erica

Time to rearrange

When Calvin can't get it together we often send him to his room to regroup. This also means the light stays off. Well I was quite surprised the other day when I opened the door and found the light on and him playing. The little stinker figured out that if he brought a cushion over from his bed and stacked it on top of pillows he could reach the light switch. So we moved the bed and actually like this set up better.

"Snow" Much Fun Day

Today has been a fun day. We don't have language on Fridays and I'm hoping to use the time to get out with Calvin. Today it was snowing giant snowflakes in our part of the world, so we headed to a grocery store in town that has an indoor play place. Such a blessing!!! When we arrived no one was there so we did our shopping and went up stairs where Calvin drank his juice box. (Maybe we should not have started this little thing, but Calvin gets a juice box every time he comes with us to the store, it helps motivate him to walk faster to the store. Plus I found a brand here doesn't have any sugar added, so it's a better alternative to candy or cookies.)

So let me bring my sheep back, as they say here when you digress, after the juice box was inhaled we checked out the play place again and hooray the lady was there. She was super sweet, has two kids, and told me all about a foreigner in town who speaks the local language well. I had to laugh because I know this foreigner well. Calvin had fun playing in a different place and then we headed home to eat lunch. Calvin walks slow so we missed the first couple mini bus that came our way, so we had to wait several minutes for another one to come along. Calvin caught a snowflake in his mouth quite by accident and thought it was such a clever game that it occupied us while we waited. He was squealing and laughing, it was so much fun. Then about two minutes after we got on the little bus he was out. There must be something comforting to him about public transportation because it lulls him to sleep almost every time. Maybe it was all that riding around he did in my belly here.

We've had fun reading lots of books today and now he's pretending he's taking Marvin's nose. Love it. He's a lot of fun these days.It's been a while since I've done a developmental update so I thought I'd give a good snapshot of where he's at right now.

He's moved on from saying "where'd it go?" a million times a day to "what's her/his/that name." He often wants to pray for Baby, Abby & Audra and of course Aunt Nat. He loves playing hide, but is very bad at actually hiding. I love hearing his giggles as you try to find him and he'll usually tell you "right here Mama". You'll often find him marching around our living room singing "All for the love of a bear" , a song off of his favorite Winnie the Pooh Movie.

He's weighing in these days just under 28lb. Can devour a piece of fruit in no time flat, still doesn't care for potatoes, broccoli, or green beans. In fact during dinner tonight he had to eat a piece of potato and he gagged it down, quite literally. He knows what candy is, thanks to Grandpa T and our office manager. There's no sneaking a piece around him now, because we usually hear "pees key peease" which means a piece of candy please, bummer my sugar cravings have to wait till nap time.

He loves to count, usually it goes like this 2, 9, 2, 9. Although when prompted can count to 4 correctly. He still loves puzzles and can even master 24 piece puzzles, w/and without frames. He loves tools and every time Daddy gets a hammer or screwdriver he must help too. He still loves blocks, but we need to buy a few more to make it a little bit more fun.

He loves "hot baths" and begs to take them. Loves to brush his teeth, but hates it when we do it. He's pretending more and more and loves to make us "hot tea" to drink. He gives the best hugs these days and is actually giving real kisses. He's made a little progress in the toilet training department and will usually go when he tries but just haven't gotten into a good routine yet to really go strong with the potty training. He's a little afraid of walking past our trash dumpsters, but I don't blame him.

He usually runs or jumps everywhere he goes and loves to wrestle with his daddy. He can climb with the best of them and can often figure out a way to get to things out of reach.

So there you go that's our lil' guy right now. Very thankful for him.

please, please, please, stay outside

First ignore our messy balcony, we were using it as a place to sort through things for our new teammates. Now it looks better, (although I do still have some trash out there that needs to be taken outside in the morning.)

What is it about birds? Why do they always have to come inside? After a very traumatic bird incident a few years ago I'm a little freaked out when they are inside. I was hanging up laundry to dry the other morning and I heard a tweet, tweet every now and then. I ignored it until I went back in to the kitchen and noticed a bird trying to escape. It had flown in through our fan and couldn't figure a way out. Poor thing kept smashing into the window.

So after calling Marvin I tried to pump myself up enough to enter the balcony. I did what any girl would do I grabbed a pillow case and a mop and headed in. I pulled up a chair for Calvin to watch and gave him strict orders not to open the door. I lasted about 5 seconds on the balcony, of course I was screaming and waving the pillow case around the entire time, didn't quite get to opening the window because I had a bird flying around my head. I tried again, and again and still no luck. Then I spotted my language teacher and relief was on the way. I waited till she got there and she laughed because she remembered the my infamous bird incidence. Together we cornered the bird, and by together I mean she. I held up the curtain to trap it and she opened the window, after that it quickly flew out. Now what is it going to be like come spring when the windows are always opening????? I don't even want to go there.

First Class Mail

We received our first piece of mail here!!! Calvin received a Christmas card from his Grandma S. He loves it and often has hands it to me and says, "Mama read this". Thank you so much for brightening Calvin's day.

And Grandma T, this is Calvin's favorite shirt. If he even sees it he HAS to wear it or else a full blown tantrum follows. Sometimes I conveintly don't wash it, just so he can wear something else. Please tell me someone else does this too?

still can't believe it

Our trip last week to IKEA also included a trip to a big french supermarket where we picked up some "essentials" like peanut butter, tortilla chips & bacon. But we also went into a craft store, yes I just said a craft store and it was a REAL CRAFT STORE. My heart was so excited!!!! During our thinning of our suitcases I had to take out a lot of my craft supplies. So you can imagine how excited I was to see this store. I nearly fainted when I found chalkboard spray paint. SERIOUSLY! I felt like jumping up and down because I have been searching for chalkboards everywhere to make a menu board for our kitchen, now that problem is solved. Marvin just has to buy me a piece of wood big enough and my menu board will be ready.

They also had scrapbook paper, seriously people I thought I was in America. My last favorite find of the day was a cutting mat. Mine didn't make it in our suitcase, because I left it at my parents house, oops I was was so bummed because I used it all the time. This one is 1/4th the size of the one I have in the states but it works and just thrilled my heart. What a gift these silly things can be.

Yummy Yummy!

We did something that I said I'd never do as a parent....... Let Calvin watch The Wiggles and we hear this about a million times a day now: "Mama I otch um-ee um-ee." (Translation, Mama I want to watch, Yummy Yummy.) His poor nanny gets to suffer through it during my language class, poor girl she must think us American have some pretty weird shows. (And no we did not buy this DVD but it was given to us by our sweet friends whose kids outgrew it, Calvin loves it guys.)

But seriously on to something DELICIOUS & FUN. I saw these a few weeks ago on a blog which I immediately fell in love with and have been dying to try Hot Chocolate on a Stick since. Partly because it sounded fun but mostly because we could get all the ingredients here! And such a clever gift idea.

They were a cinch to make too.

Scald some milk, drop in hot chocolate and stir away.

Creamy, YUMMY, Hot Chocolate!

Quick Road Trip

Our colleagues needed to buy a vehicle in a city about 6 hours away, so we tagged along to see some good friends and we also convinced them that we needed to go here:

Last night it looked like IKEA exploded in our living room. It was amazing how much we came home with and how much cheaper everything was compared to here and they had things we actually liked rather than could just live with. I will be honest I had so much fun picking out things for our apartment at a beautiful store. I could have easily bought several more things, but space limited what we could buy, only the necessities like towels, dishes, pots and pans. But I did make it home with a few extras.

Marvin also picked up some hiking gear he's been wanting to get. It's so fun to see him get excited about hiking. It's something he's always wanted to do, just never had the right group of guys around to do it. He's enjoyed have the opportunity to learn how to repel and has gone on one hike since we've been here. I'm very excited for him to have this opportunity.

Last night after we got home and put Calvin to bed, we both played with our new things. I unpacked all my IKEA things and got started washing them (before the hot water was turned off for the night) and Marvin tried on his new shoes and inspected all his new gizmos. It was a fun trip and we even enjoyed several Western meals. Our sweet, sweet friends kept Calvin all day long while we shopped. They tired him out well and he had so much fun. When we went to pick him up he was just dancing his little heart out. We have such a great family here. Love them!

And of course we stopped here each way. The perfect place to let kids release some energy. Thankful for the few places like these and the awesome pizza.

the frugal part of me was jumping with joy!

So Calvin needed a good pair of shoes to survive the slush, snow and puddles here. Before Christmas I shopped around a bit, but was still confused on his shoe size (his foot just will not stop growing these days). After comparing prices (and figuring out his size) I was set on getting him a pair at the market because they looked like the same shoe only much much cheaper than any of the shops I had visited.

Friday Calvin and I headed to the biggest grocery store in town and I decided to check the toy store in the building to see if they had any shoes, low and behold I found shoes and even a great sale, 50% off!!! I could not believe it, they were the same price as I would have paid at the market. I was so thankful for this little find because it meant I didn't have to take him to the market, take his shoe off in the cold and make sure he stayed on a piece of cardboard while he tried them on. It was a much better buying experience.

P.S. I desperately miss coupons, still can't believe how much we spend on food each week. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but it's gonna take some time.

6 Lessons learned this week

1. When the phone rings while your little guy is on the potty, don't answer it, especially if you don't have a cordless. You'll more than likely end up cleaning up a puddle.

2. This language is going to be Impossible to master, but I'll try my hardest.

3. English is much easier. No changing the ending of nouns, adjectives, direct objects, indirect objects, possessive pronouns, pronouns........ Seriously my brain hurts just trying to get everything straight.

4. Never, EVER give your child full strength OJ. Calvin was seriously bouncing off our friends couch. (Oh and we didn't have too much of a choice on the juice thing, we were invited to our friends house for a big meal and that's the only suitable beverage choice for him and it gave him something to do during all those toasts.

5. It's possible to be so frustrated at your child one minute and just love him like nothing else the next.

6. Well this isn't really something I learned I just enjoyed this post on one of my Favorite Blogs. (So you know I can completely identify with this, even though Calvin's only two. He was licking the chairs in the kitchen the other day, had to get a good lick of each of them. I just don't understand?)

You All are just "Souper"

Thanks so much for all the great lunch ideas, most of them I can make here fairly easily. As I was chopping veggies for soup tomorrow I had to stop, snap a picture and make sure you all knew how thankful I am for your suggestions.

Many of you suggested soup and it sounds like a great easy lunch and I'm hoping to incorporate that at least two or three lunches a week. I'd love any of your favorite soup recipes if you have them (or links to your favorite recipes).

And I'm sooooooooooooooo glad I brought my knives with me. It makes a huge difference cutting the giant carrots here with good knife. I already chopped all the massive carrots before I thought to take some pictures, that will be for another day.

Thanks Again!
Erica

What has 2 eyes and a nose?

Only a mama with a background in early childhood would get excited about this but I was tickled to death when I walked into the kitchen today and discovered Calvin's most recent art skills. 2 eyes and a nose inside a circle! He's been drawing lots of eyes and noses lately as well as circles but hasn't put them together until today. So proud.

For "Abby" Audra & Baby Leah

Thank you for thinking of me. I have been very warm here, even when I play in the snow! Mom and Dad still need to buy me some good snow boots but they told me they will take me to the market on Saturday to buy some. I enjoyed seeing you on the computer and hope to see you very soon.

Lots of Love from your Cousin,

Calvin

Desperately Seeking Lunch Ideas??

We started language (insert applause)!!! So far our schedule goes something like this, my 2 hour language lesson, short lunch break, then Marvin's 2 hour language lesson. All of this happens in our kitchen because our living room doesn't have a door we can close.

So we have a short time frame to prepare lunch, eat it and clean it up, it's less than an hour, and Calvin usually takes a minimum of 20 minutes to eat lunch. (Our teacher will eat with us too.) I've come up with a short list of easy lunches that we can throw together:

-Lavash Pizzas
-grilled cheese
-scrambled eggs
-Stir Fry
-Rice & Beans
-Ramen Noodles
-Leftover meals, if we have enough for all of us
-Regular sandwiches (but the sliced meat is pretty pricey and so is PB, so this won't be a regular meal, maybe a once a month thing.)

Do you have any other ideas that are quick and easy and call for basic ingredients? Think raw ingredients, we can't get many prepackaged things here, so for example any recipes that call for cream of "whatever" soup I have to make a white sauce and turn it into the cream of "whatever" soup the recipe calls for, it's not hard just takes added time. At the moment we also do not have a microwave, so everything must be heated up on the stove top or in the oven.

Oh and our freezer is about the size of a microwave and it's usually full, so i can't really freeze a bunch of stuff and store it. I'm hoping to have stuff made ready throw together for lunches each day.

Thanks for the help WFMW and friends!
Erica

This is how You do it

Thought we'd show you how to properly ring in a New Year. We love this holiday here, it's crazy loud at midnight. Imagine the 4th of July but everyone in town is shooting off fireworks at the same time. It's awesome, sort of sounds like a war zone. To make it even better we had a clear night and could even see the mountains from our colleagues house. Now the fun doesn't end at midnight. People here celebrate with a huge meal and then carry on the fireworks long into the night. (We however went to bed.) Calvin woke up around 3:00 a.m. and there were still people shooting off fireworks, and other things too, but we won't go there. Glad we were safe at home. When we woke up this morning Marvin pointed out a guy passed out on the sidewalk in front of our building. Guess he didn't make it home, maybe he was close?

Oh and are we bad parents for letting our 2 year old stay up till midnight? I guess we're just being cultural. He enjoyed all but the fireworks, he has a healthy respect for exploding objects still. Know that won't last long.

Happy 2010!

making my heart melt

Yesterday I took Calvin to the grocery store. The closest grocery store is in the basement of a shopping center, there is an escalator, but no place to park a stroller while you shop, and no way to get the stroller back up the escalator with groceries and Calvin. (We learned the hard way when Calvin ran ahead while I was trying to pack up our groceries and the stroller and fell on the escalator going up. It made my heart jump but he was rescued unharmed.)

So this time we decided to walk there and take public transport back home. I was so proud of my little man he walked the whole way there, it's about a 15-20 minute walk when I do it alone. People walk here, it's what they do and so they expect kids to walk too. (I did tuck my Ergo Baby in my bag just in case, but glad I didn't need to use it.)

But I digressed, on the melting part. We got off at our stop and we have to walk between a couple of apartment buildings that look just like ours and once we got around the buildings and saw our building Calvin says, "My House." So sweet, and glad he knows it's home and for a minute I thought I was going to cry.

I snapped this one of him playing in his "house" made out of pillows.

A Christmas Collage

Here are a few more shots of our Christmas this year. We had a little gingerbread house making party with some other ex-pats. Calvin did a nice job at eating the candy, then he got bored and ran off to play. Ours is a little local house, we used all local materials to build ours, since I didn't get around to making gingerbread, maybe next year. (our is the "log cabin" with pretzles for logs.)

An afternoon with Father Freeze

The families in our company were invited to attend a New Years Program at a school that is run by the same man with whom our business is partnered with. I've had the pleasure of touring this school before and yes the scary medical equipment is still there and still used.

They had quite the show arranged for the children. I was a little nervous because it was during Calvin's nap and just didn't know how it would go. I held on to our coats just in case we needed to make a quick exit. I was even more worried when they had seats set out for the kids, far away from my reach. Thankfully some other kids on our team sat by Calvin and helped him the whole time. He did awesome, however he wasn't sure what was going on. The looks on his face were priceless.

It was the first time he got to see Father Freeze, the name they call Santa Clause here. Of course throughout the course of the play the children had to get up and move in a circle or dance. He just followed along. Some day this will be normal to him. Our favorite part was when they did the Marcarena and the Chicken Dance, it was a nice touch. However Calvin's favorite part had to be when they gave all the children candy at the end. It was a fun little outing. Calvin's been very bored lately, which also means he's been very curious and doing everything he's not suppose to do so we were glad to have something for him to do.

Any ideas on children's activities that can be done inside an apartment would be welcomed.

"Meat" our Market

The weekend neighborhood market is rocking our world. I love it! The aisles are nice and big, it's busy but you can still walk through it, unlike the central market in our city. Plus none of it is covered which means the smells aren't as potent, if you know what I mean. We're hoping to make this a part of our Saturdays. It's a good 30 minute walk from our apartment and if we bring the stroller we can stop by several other stores on our way home to pick up several things we need for the week. Sweet. There's also a playground on the way home, so it makes everyone happy.

We thought you'd enjoy a few shots of our meat selections at our neighborhood market.

Anyone know of a good recipe for a head of a cow???

How about salty dried fish?


The back of vans also make a great meat locker

They'll cut it right up for you on the standard tree stump.

They also have the live variety if you prefer to butcher your own bird this year.

Isn't it awesome!

Merry Times

We're loving this age. The little things makes Calvin very happy. He could have been easily thrilled with one gift. When he saw there were more presents he was a little confused because he wanted to play with the one he just opened. Sometimes us silly adults get a little carried away with Christmas gifts. This was a good reminder for me this year. I want Calvin to enjoy gifts but I also want him to enjoy giving too. Lots more to think about as he gets older, hoping to find a healthy balance and let Father teach us some more on this topic.

Loving his new blocks. The poor boy was going a little crazy without anything to build with. He certainly loves blocks and has been busy since he opened them. (No more snagging my spices to build something!!)

And after our gift time we were able to enjoy these....

They're pretty amazing and I've been told by others they are and I quote "better than Krispy Kreme". (And I will admit Calvin and I also enjoyed one for lunch too, shhhh.) Oh the beauty of Christmas traditions.

Hope you had a great Christmas too!

Things we’re learning…or relearning

A sleepy boy after a little ride on public transportation.

It’s been a testing couple of weeks at our house. Calvin’s tested all the waters, just to see if they were the same. Obviously his entire world has changed it only makes since that he would have pushed the boundaries a bit, to see where they were at. If we had thought about it more we wouldn’t have been surprised about this and would have been a little bit more understanding from the start.

We’re relearning the value of a plastic bag. I bought some bread with seasame seeds on it the other day and after I unloaded my groceries there were a few on the bottom of the bag, Marvin wanted to just throw it away. But it was a nice one, the kind that cost around .20, they make great trashbags, and there’s no way we’re throwing that baby way, so he dumped the seeds out and it was as good as new. I’m a little funny about my “packets”.

We’re learning how to get around with a toddler on public transportation. It’s gone well but I haven’t ventured off without Marvin. That will be a story for another day. We have a great new grocery store near our house, it’s about a 20 minute walk. It works great to push Calvin there so I can put my bags of groceries on the back of the cart. This is a great grocery store and they have car carts that he fell in love with during our days shopping at Dillons plus they have an escalator which makes his day. But the only problem is the grocery store is in the lower level and I haven’t figured out how I’d get my groceries, a stroller and Calvin up the escalator on my own. So I’m learning how to get around.

I’ve finally learned why people dress small children in tights here. It’s so ingenious, less laundry! Especially when it takes things a day or two to dry in the winter time. I will say I’ve converted. Calvin now wears tights around the house. If we go out we just throw his snow bibs on and he’s a warm kid! I love it. I just need to find him some house shoes so he doesn’t slip so much when he’s not on a rug.

Since we’ve been gone they’ve covered most of the market, so I’m relearning where everything is located. It’s very nice to go shopping and not having plastic tarps dripping water on you. But I’m wondering how nice it will be in the hot summers? I’ll update you then.

There’s plenty more but that’s it’s for now.

Welcome to the Hood

Here’s a few pictures of our apartment building. It’s on the edge of town but we have access to lots of public transportation. We live on the 4th floor of a 10 story building, so stairs aren’t too bad. We do have a lift and thankfully it works, but it smells like urine and it’s missing a number 1 button, so we’d rather take the stairs when possible. I am grateful for it when we take the stroller. I’ve never been a big germ person but that thing grosses me out.

We have a great playground right outside. I can’t wait for spring and summer because it’s pretty dead right now. We hope to meet several new friends through this playground. So far there’s just been a grandfather and his grandson come play at the same time Calvin has been out there.

And here is our door, well our first one. We have two, we share an entrance door with our neighbor and then we each have separate doors to our apartments. But I’ll save that for a later post.

A Big Boy Already?!?!

We had planned on transitioning Calvin to a toddler bed shortly after the new year but he did it for himself. Our first night Calvin slept well. He was exhausted and just wanted to be held throughout the night. He ended up in my bed and eventually took over my bed. So I slept in Calvin’s toddler bed.

The next night was a completely different story. He woke up at 1:00 ready to play. Marvin gave him a snack and told him to go to sleep and when he was done he could eat breakfast. It was quiet for a few minutes then we heard. All done, all done, all done…..for the next 5 minutes.

I saw that he wasn’t too sleepy so I did what any good mother desprate for sleep would do, grabbed our portable DVD player and popped in a Veggie Tale. It occupied him until he figured out how to escape the pack-n-play. The next thing we knew we had a little guy at our bed excited about watching his movie. We kept taking him back to his bed, until after the second DVD was finished and I finally gave up. By this time I was also awake. So I folded up his bed because obviously that wasn’t going to work anymore and I unpacked his suitcase while he played for a bit.

He’s done pretty well with the transition. He loves his new bed and he is sleeping through the night. I can’t believe my son is big enough for a big boy bed!

First Friend

Calvin’s a little observer and an introvert. I’ve been very curious to see how he’d adjust to a new culture. So far it’s been a little overwhelming to him. It’s new to hear mommy and daddy speak a new language and for others to speak to him and for him not to understand what they are saying. So far he’s coped by pretending he’s asleep the few times we’ve been in public and people have been making a fuss about him.

I am so proud of him though he has already learned how to say thank you, and he actually says it better than he does in English. Today we were playing and he gave me a toy and I said thank you in this language. Then he went back to coloring and he started jibber jabbering like I have never heard him do before. He came back over to me and said something to me in the same jibber jabber. I finally made the connection he was talking to me in our new language. I know what he feels because I thought this language sounded like jibber jabber when we first got here too.

He certainly does better with children. We had our friends Ute and May over for dinner and he loved their little girl. He wasn’t the least bit phased when they spoke to him in a different language. Today he was even talking about their little girl. I’m so thankful for a first little friend for him. We live very close to them and can’t wait for our future walks together.

Our Trip Over the Pond

We survived our first long flight with a toddler. We certainly were a sight though, picture us dragging a car seat, a stroller, two rolling carry on bags, a backpack, computer bag & Calvin in our Ergo Baby Backpack. (Yes we pushed the airline allowances to the max.) We are very thankful to not have to do that again for a very long time. Even though it was a pain we were glad we brought Calvin’s car seat on the plane and surprisingly it even fit on our last flight to Nineveh.

Our flights were great. Calvin was very excited. Partly because we told him there were cookies on the airplane. He slept most of our long flight which was nice because both Marvin and I were exhausted from packing all night long. We had a little pit stop overnight before we headed to Nineveh. Of course they slammed us with baggage fees again and we were so thankful we eliminated two suitcases.

It was fun to immediately spot our flight check in. It was the one where everyone was wearing black coats and holding plastic bags wrapped in saran wrap. We knew we wanted to go where they were going. Our flight was much better than our first entry to Nineveh. But for some reason after we landed we waited for about 15 minutes for the bus to pull up. In this time there was no air and one lady fainted. Then I’m not sure why but everyone must board the bus to go about 20 meters to the building. So Calvin and I were literally shoved through a sea of people to take our seat for mom’s with small children. A similar event also happened as we waited to go through passport control. We really made it through two lines very quickly thanks to Calvin.

Now customs is where we were delayed considerably. The problem is we had 12 suitcases and no one knew what to do. Did they charge us a custom fee, if so how much? This went on for several hours. Calvin was exhausted and everyone was really nice to us. They even took us to the back where I could sit down. (Can I just tell you how much I have loved having our Ergo baby. It is the only way Calvin would have fallen asleep in that madness.) He finally didn’t have any more steam and crashed while we waited for Marvin and the customs agents figure out the correct paperwork. But that’s life here! It’s so good to be back.

After a restless night of sleep our first night here. Calvin eventually took over my bed, and I slept in his toddler bed. He was so exhausted that next morning it took some major coercing to get him out of bed.

Because I just couldn’t wait till we had internet to blog

Well still no word about our internet, we’re just waiting. There probablly is one guy in our whole city who can set up DSL, but we shall continue waiting for him. Until then I wanted to post a few things while I’m at our office, so you won’t be bombarded with posts whenever we get our internet up and rolling.

Enjoy!