June 20, 2008

OK, so here we are. We got up, had breakfast. My stomach was still was uneasy, but I was able to handle the smell of the eggs being cooked....barely. They had mango, papaya and cantaloupe and eggs. I ate like half and egg and half a cup of fruit. That was pushing it. Senora Lydia drove us to the school today to make sure we got there on time. We sat there in the office for a little while and then went back and made sure our account was up to date. Apparently we didn't pay for our ride back to the airport in August. So we paid that and gave them our money to change it into pesos. We went back to the assistant directors office to do a "test" to see how proficient we are. Yeah, I didn't know jack. Seriously, like nothing. I think the guy was laughing inside about how lame I am. Oh well. Drew could conjugate much more than I could. I don't know if we'll be in the same class or not. I know I rely way too much on him, but honestly, I don't mind.

So we came back to the house at 9am and I went to lay down cause I was hot, sweaty and just not feeling well. I think we're going to move our twin beds next to one another today...or at least Pablo will. hahaha I need a maid. Also, this whole no toilet paper in the toilet thing is difficult to remember. I think I fell asleep for a few minutes, it felt good. I felt bad though since Drew was anxious to go do something, and here I am, not wanting to even move.

At 10am, we came back to the school and paid for internet for 2 months, and now we're sitting out on the patio while everyone eats lunch. The smells are making me a bit nauseous, but I'm trying to stay calm. I feel shy and out of place here. There's these somewhat large groups of people here, like 4-8people. Then there's us. Everyone else, except escorts? are in high school too. We're old and newbs, so it's a bit daunting.

So I don't know what else we're doing today. I think the internet access is accessible at the house since it's like in the backyard of their home, even though there's so many trees, you can't tell. I think I might want to go walk around the school and figure out where things are.

The lady that showed us around the school was talking a million miles a minute, I understood so little, but hopefully enough to get around, since pointing helps a LOT.

I think that's about it for now. I have no idea what we're going to do this weekend. They have excursions lined up with the school, but we can't afford all of them, so we have to pick and choose what we do.

There's a literally green fly hanging out. It's like the size of a bee, but BRIGHT green. crazy!

I'll upload pictures later on. I'm hoping that the 2 bars for the internet are accessible at our little casa tonight so I can get on then. That' would be most awesome.

Hasta Luego!

June 19, 2008

Panic. Sheer panic. The alarm went off at 3:50am. Disorientation, adrenaline, paralyzed. I woke up this morning not knowing what to do. The panic in my mind was so intense, I literally could not move. I got up the courage to ask Drew if he wanted snooze or off…typical morning routine. Snooze. Hell, I knew I couldn’t “snooze” today. I had to get up. So I hit the snooze, sat in bed, bending my fingers, willing myself to get out of bed. This was sheer torture. We loaded the car, said a prayer, and off we went. We got to the airport with no complications, we got through check-in with no complications. We got on the airplane, once again, no complications. In fact, overall, there really have been no complications, a smooth transition.

We had an hour layover in LA while they cleaned the plane. We re-boarded and headed for Mexico City. By the time we were about 30 minutes out of the city, I mentioned to Drew that I wasn’t near as freaked out as I had been that morning. For some reason though, there was some extremely turbulent air for the last 20 minutes of the flight. We would drop – not just a little drop – but the kind of drop that makes your stomach muscles spasm. THEN, while landing, I swear they were drunk cause the plane tilted significantly to the right…..I was honestly surprised we didn’t land on the wing. Everyone started cheering and clapping after this because we had landed, if not smoothly, at least we had landed.

We then had to go through immigration. That took almost an hour and a half. The airport was hot and stuffy and no one was happy. We then had to go through customs and I had an apple in my backpack for Drew to eat if he wanted it while we flew. They laughed at me for having it and made lots of random Spanish comments about it that I couldn’t understand. All in all, it went very smoothly, no rummaging through suitcases, nothing.

Drew and I were both worried that our chauffer wouldn’t be there since we were so late. He was. Thank goodness! He introduced himself and said his name was so and so and yo habla en espanol solomente. So he wouldn’t talk to us in English. We didn’t have much to say to each other on the 2 hour car ride down to Cuernavaca. He spoke English, but he wasn’t going to speak it with us, so unfortunately, we didn’t talk much. On the drive down here, I was having a major panic in my head. All these houses on top of each other. And what are those big black containers on top of everyone’s houses? What if we live in one of those? What if that’s considered “middle class”??? So we get to the place, and since it had a # on it like an apartment, that’s what I was expecting. Come to find out, it is a gated community with a policeman at the gate to let people in. It is a small home, but they have 2 guest rooms attached to the house. We can come in a different entrance and everything. We got here, and their house helper, Pedro helped us in with our luggage. Lydia, the wife made us “spaghetti” when we got there. We washed our hands and went upstairs to eat. (our little room is down some stairs in the backyard).

For some reason when we went up there, I got so nauseated, I was freaking out. I didn’t want to eat a thing, but the pressure of pleasing houseguests made me grab some salad. They had put this extremely potent mustard salad dressing on it. I could barely choke it down. Under normal circumstances, I’m sure it’d been fine, but not tonight. Then she made spaghetti that consisted of noodles, cheese, and onions. The smell wafting through my nose made my stomach turn. I did NOT want to eat it. Since I couldn’t communicate how I was feeling, I grabbed a small bit of it to put on my plate. The stuff hit my tongue and I didn’t know if it was more polite to run to the sink to hurl, or go outside. I was panicking. I was in a cold sweat and told Drew I wasn’t feeling well, extremely nauseous. He tried to translate it for the couple and Lydia brought me some random pill that was supposed to help with upset stomachs, like a pain killer. I said gracias. There was no way I was taking that without knowing what it was! Yeah, it was in a sealed container, but I didn’t want to take it.

FINALLY, we were able to go back to our room after a huge discussion about what we wanted for breakfast. Hell, I couldn’t keep down what I was eating, there’s no way I was going to be able to eat breakfast! I went to lay down on the bed for a while cause not moving seemed the only thing I was going to handle. After a while, I was ok enough to go take a shower. Thank goodness we have our own bathroom. Twin beds, but our own bathroom, I’ll take it. Not fun, but what do you do? So here I am, 930pm, exhausted beyond belief, sick as hell, not wanting to go to bed cause then I have to deal with the stress of tomorrow. Orientation. 8:00am. Ugh. I sure hope this gets easier for a little bit. :/

Whirlwind Trip!

Wow! We had a crazy last 5 days. Let me recap!

So we drove down to Bend on Thursday for an OCDLA (Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association) conference. I dropped Drew off at the resort and made my way back to the house to occupy myself for the better half of the day. We ended up going to a BBQ that night where the attorney's were smoking pot and exposing their privates while feeding babies. It was quite entertaining! So then on Friday, I hung out at the house that the Marion County PD's office had rented out just sitting outside reading. I apparently got much toastier than I had anticipated. I was really sunburned when I went to help out setting up a PD's party in the afternoon. That was pretty fun too. We ended up watching a ton of the original Hulk TV show and laughing at how lame it was. Good time! So then on Saturday, we drove from Bend all the way up to Seattle. Drew dropped me off at Sara's friends house to go to a bachelorette party for Sara. It was pretty entertaining. I didn't stay for all of it since I didn't want to do the whole Karaoke bit. So Dad, Laurie, and Drew picked me up and we went to watch The Hulk movie. It was pretty entertaining. It was so much better than that last piece of crap that came out. Granted there were some lamesauce junk going on, but considering what they had to work with, it was pretty good. So then on Sunday, we hung out at Dad's house watching movies, doing the whole BBQ thing and just pretty much chilling. It was nice. Then finally, today, we headed back to good ole Oregon and got here this afternoon.

Now that we're home, all the laundry has been done, I cleaned the house and now we're watching the most recent BSG episode. It can't really get much better than that. Oh! and I made more cookie dough cause I was jonesin for that!

So tomorrow, I need to get a few final things together for our next trip, and then head over to work and try to get some of my furniture moved in, and then on wednesday, I need to pack and make doubly sure I haven't forgotten anything, and then go to sleep early since we have to head out at around 4am to make our super early flight. Yes! lol Good thing I have computer games.

4:30am

I think every night, without fail, Lexy has woken us up on or around 4:30am since Ryan moved in. Ryan is in HER room and I think it's her protest. We have tried coaxing her into our room, we've tried keeping her out of our room, we've tried keeping her in our room, but she just sits and moans like she's DYING! EVERY NIGHT! Maybe this is my smooth transition into motherhood. At least it's only once a night, eh? hahaha

So this morning when I got up and got dressed and everything, this is how I find her on her bed:


So yeah, I had to take a picture. Her eyes were slit open so she was following me around, but that position just cracked me up. All my hatred for that night went away in the laugh. Oh lexy, you butt. I love you way more than maybe I should! I promise you'll get your room back in a couple of months. (You wouldn't think a cat would be vexed over losing their bedroom...but you'd be WRONG!)

Slacker

I guess I seem to forget about this blog a lot. So here I am, once again on a beautiful Sunday afternoon updating the world. :)

A pretty rose on the side of our house

School got out for me on Wednesday at noon. I don't remember what I did that afternoon, but I'm sure I did something. On Thursday morning, I started packing things up in the classroom and all of the sudden, TONS of people came in and just started moving my classroom to the other hallway. It was amazing. The women I work with are the most dedicated, hard workers I have ever met. There wasn't one ounce of complaint! They just came in, did their business and within a couple hours, EVERYTHING was out of my room (I had to beg them to keep my desk and chair in there so I could actually do grades that afternoon!) ---I hadn't expected ANYONE to help me with my room, so the fact that I had at least 10 people in and out of my room, and the only thing I had to move was a stack of empty storage containers was beyond my wildest dreams. If any of them ever read this, THANK YOU!!!!

So then on Friday, we had our all District staff meeting. It came and went pleasantly, and I was able to finish up my files and portfolios for next years teachers. I was then able to head over to Salem and watch Drew preform his first trial. He had wanted me there even though I was a little apprehensive on the idea of being there. I was so nervous for him, and wanted it to go perfectly, so when he got up to argue his case, my stomach was in knots!!! THankfully for both of us and his client, he did a bang up job. Neither of us were anticipating that he would win, but his arguments were presented flawlessly and succinct! GOOD JOB DREW!!! I was very proud of him! :)

On Saturday, we made it to the temple for a morning session and went over to Washington Square mall for some tasty Cheesecake Factory for lunch. While we were driving around, we found a Maggie Moo's ice cream place!!! I was so excited that we got cheesecake to go, and went over to eat tasty, tasty Ice cream. It was perfect!

Sunday, we had to talk in church, that went well, and even though they had planned 2 youth speakers, neither showed up, so Drew and I had to use up the whole time. That can be pretty scary! A lady at church told me a funny story afterward though that I thought I'd share. She said that a few years back, there was a man from the stake presidency that had just been called and was up there speaking. He had said that there was a "nephite" up there with him. Of course, it got everyones attention, so he then proceeded to say that he didn't know if his left or his right knee was going to win, but one of them was going to crash. It made me laugh!

So that's about it. We'll be heading off to Bend on Thursday this week, then up to Seattle, back to Dallas, and then off to Mexico the following Thursday, it's going to be a whirlwind of the next 2 weeks!

Some pretty flowers from our front yard