09.23.2005

Wow, this summer has just been insane. It has been one thing on top of another, and nothing like the summer I pictured in my head before coming home. I really thought that I would come home, and we would get on this great schedule. A schedule full of things like pool time, park time, arts and crafts, story time, etc. It never happened though. Getting two or more children out the door plus 3 adults too a lot longer than either of us anticipated. It takes us 2 hours or more a day to get out the door. So if we are on the road by 10 o'clock we are feeling accomplished.

I turned into a shopaholic this summer. I feel like I have spent the majority of my summer running from one store to another, and my bank statements prove it. There is so much that I needed/ wanted to buy when I came home, and we did not even get half of it. At times I wonder where all the money went when I look at my lists. It looks like we might just do a home décor Christmas instead of getting individual gifts.

The summer was filled with dramatic events at every turn. It started off with Kaitlynn climbing up Meridian's dressing, and knocking it over on herself. Thankfully the drawers flew out, and made a softer landing out of it. And it gave Kaitlynn a place of security in the fall itself. It scare her to no end, and us too. Since then we have tethered the dresser to the wall. That was a feat in itself because we had to rearrange the room to find a place it would fit, look nice, and have two studs for the hardware.

After that Dawn dropped a bowl on her foot. The bowl shattered and cut her foot leading to her needing stitches. She got 4 stitches, and during the 10 days she had them in she noticed that her big toe had gone limp. When the stitches were removed she asked the doctor, and was referred to a podiatrist after a month long wait because of her HMO. Upon her seeing the podiatrist, she was informed that she severed the main tendon to her big toe, and would need surgery, possible physical therapy, and would not be allowed to travel back to Tunisia with me. So she had surgery in the middle of August, which left her immobile and in a cast for 4 weeks. Then she was in a walking boot for 2 weeks, and just this past Wednesday he cleared he to wear a sturdy shoe. So that has been a great change for us!

Dan and I were in a car accident, which in odd ways led to Shelby being born sooner than she probably would have been. That just led to a lot of miss communication while Dan was here, and him not getting to do things that he thought he would have time for before Shelby was born.

Having Shelby here has been wonderful though. See more on that in the Shelby section.

After that we had visitor every weekend for 4 weekends coming to the area to see us. . I got to see four friends from college and one from high school during that time. Kristen Babbitt and her cousin were randomly coming to Virginia Beach for a vacation. They had plane tickets from last year that needed to be used, and they have family friends in the area that were giving them free lodging and use of a car while in the area. For the brief time that I got to spend with Kristen, it was great to catch up with her. The next weekend my friend, Laurie, from high school came up for the weekend. It was great to see her and just have some downtime. I wish I had more time with her. The weekend was way too short. The following weekend Kristin Wedding drove up from Charleston, and stayed at Liz's. This was great because it insured me getting to see both of them. Liz and I have been talking all summer and seen each other a couple of times, but not as much as we would have liked. Life just gets too busy! While Kristin was visiting Amy Bourbonniere drove down from the DC area to see us all. That was great. I have not seen Amy since my last semester at Wheelock.

My Aunt Jeanie and cousins came down for a week after Dawn had her surgery, and that was a blessing. They were so helpful with both the older girls, and the house. In the evenings I went down to the beach with them a few times. They took Kaitlynn to Busch Gardens, which she loved. I was going to tag a long with them, but we had just gotten Dawn's van back from the accident and what an ordeal, and the check engine light came on while they were here. I did not feel safe driving the van 45 minutes to Williamsburg with 3 children in the car and a check engine light on. So they went in Aunt Jeanie's car instead.

Since then we have just been trying to catch our breathe, and get into an sort of routine. We are still working on that one.

I have no idea when I am leaving this area to go back to Tunis. I am still waiting on Shelby's passport to come in. At this point it is getting ridiculous, and I am wondering if it is even going to be the correct passport. We are supposed to get Diplomatic passports, and I fear that they are going to give her a traveler's passport. I was supposed to get her passport back in 4 weeks, and it is already been 7 weeks.

I am also waiting on TMO to come do Shelby's layette shipment. Another large fiasco! I got in touch with the appropriate parties about ALL these issues back in April to make sure I was doing everything right, and had everything in order for Shelby's birth and a smooth transition back to Tunis. Everything I was told was wrong. It might not bother me as much if it were just one thing, but everything I had questions about the wrong information was given. TMO took more than a month to get worked out, and then they can't even come to get her stuff until 21 days after they talk to me. So that puts them coming to pack out her stuff on the 30th, and us not getting it in Tunis for at least 35 days. It is just a pain because it could have been there waiting on us. Not to mention I was told I would get 500 pounds for her stuff, and no the weight is down to 250 pounds. That is a lot when I have been buying like it is getting shipped by the government at no cost to me. So now I have to weigh everything I am sending to see where my cut off it.

On top of all of that I want to get an IUD for birth control. I want something that I do not have to remember to take or really worry about. So I kept asking about it and bringing it up at my OB appointments. At my 5 week appointment they put it in the system, and I could not get an appointment for another 5 weeks. So even if I had Shelby's passport, I can't leave until at least the first weekend in October.

So for the time being I am just biding my time here, and enjoying my family. Hopefully soon there will be an update on when I am going home to my honey.

05.04.2005

A lot has been happening around our house lately. Last week they installed a security system that had been used in a previous house. It takes them two days to install these systems. Apparently, it is the Tunisian way to take a long time to get things done. I have to give them credit because a lot of the workers will come, and then stand around taking breaks and talking thus making a one-day job become two days. However, these gentlemen worked throughout the day except for lunch. They had to drill a lot of holes in the walls, and then run cables through them. To get the cables to stay to the wall they used a hot glue gun to glue them, and then reinforced them with the brackets for cable wire you can get at Lowe's or Home Depot.

On the evening of the second night, we had a problem with the system. Since it is a system that is being reused it already had zones set from a previous owner. One of the zones previously set apparently used to have a low battery making the system beep every 3 to 4 minutes. It was very annoying. It was 9:30 at night, and we were trying to figure out how to get it to stop. In the process of trying to get it to stop beeping, Dan set the thing off. Thankfully, it did not disturb any of our neighbors, and he got it stop immediately.

So the next morning I went over to Marianne's house where they were working, and informed them that I had a problem with the system. They came over a few hours later to try and fix it to no avail. During my waiting, I went to lock my patio door that they had used to two previous days to store their gear, and my keys where missing off the peg. So I brought that up to the State Department employee who is in charge of them. When she talked to them about it they claimed the door was already unlocked. I know this is not the case because we never use that patio, and it is always locked for security reasons. I think they either missed placed them on the first day of work when I was not home, or they accidentally took them and did not realize it. Either way it is a pain in the butt to me because now I have a security issue, and we are going to have to request to have the locks changed. GSO is probably going to try and charge Dan for the lock when it should be charged to the RSO section since there is an Embassy employee from that department who is assigned the job of overseeing them. He is supposed to put in the work request this week, so we will see how the money issue is handled. The next day they came out again with new parts for the system, and with the new parts were finally able to fix the zone issue.

Apart from our security system, we realized through Marianne requesting screens for her patios that we could request screens too. So we are requesting that they build screens for all of our windows. That would be a great treat because our A/C unit has been broken since we moved in, and there is no telling when it will be fixed at this point. GSO was supposed to be here over an hour ago to look at it for the 5th time, and they have yet to show up. So having screens on the windows to keep bugs out will be a big help since the weather is so nice during the day, and I often have the windows open for a breeze.

Our other new development at the house last week was that GSO finally planted some grass seed. We have been having email wars and a serious on going issue about our yard for the last few months. It is in our lease that the landlord will provide a small-planted garden, and we still only have dirt for a yard. In Tunisia, a small-planted garden generally means a yard with plants and trees. At this point we would all really just like to have grass, especially since there are 3 children living here, and nowhere for the to play.

After much gripping and threatening to withhold our rent, GSO decided to just plant grass seed on their own, and then get with the landlord about the plants. So we had some works come out to till the harden sand, and to spread the manure they had put down two weeks before. The manure had previously been spread, but most of it had blown away with the strong winds here. The two gentlemen that were doing this yard work were very nice. I offered them a drink halfway through the morning, and they were very appreciative. They were here at the same time as the security system people. So after a day full of loud drilling I took Kaitlynn outside to play for a little while. The two workers were done with their work, and were taken with Kaitlynn. They played soccer with her for about 45 minutes. We were trying to talk to one another, but had the language barrier. So I broke out my dictionaries, and we spent another 45 minutes of us trying to teach each other key phrases in our respective languages. This was very fun and interesting. All Tunisian's speak French because it is their second language in school, so you are able to get by here just fine if you speak French. However, Tunisian's really like it if you try to learn some Arabic. After my little "lesson" in Arabic I learned how hard it is to speak Arabic. There are a lot of deep throaty pronunciations that sounds very similar to the untrained ear, but they pick up on the differences immediately. They said more correctly in English than I said in Arabic.

The next day a different gentleman came out with liquid fertilizer and grass seed for our yard. With the fertilizer, we had a couple of days of very bad odor outside. We all felt bad for the policeman that stands guard next door to our house because of the smell. Thankfully it went away in a few days time. Now we are all setting up a watering schedule for the grass. In the beginning it has to be water twice a day, which takes a good hour to do. At this point we are alternating weeks between the four families. There has been talk about hiring a gardener to come and take care of the yard after we get our grass in and hopefully some plants of some sort. The gardener we have in mind will cost 10 Dinars a day. So if he comes everyday that will cost us each 75 Dinars a month (roughly $60 USD). No too bad for the size of a yard we have. For now that is a moot point, and we are working it between ourselves to take care of the yard.

Well it is about 2 hours after the designated time for GSO to show up for the AC, and I finally hear them outside working. We will see how today goes, and I will keep your abreast of the progress.

03.31.2005

Sometimes I feel like all I do is clean. I have been cleaning my house for days now, and you really can't tell. It seems like as soon as I am done cleaning up one thing Kaitlynn has made a whole new mess for me to contend with. It is very frustrating. I know it is the age she is at, but I want my house to be spic and span when we leave for Prague. I really do not want to come home to a dirty house. Not to mention that it will finally feel great to feel organized in this house. We were starting to get there and then in a matter of days I got my pregnancy clothes in the mail that still have not been put away. That is not something that I can tackle while Kaitlynn is awake, and there have been other things to do during her naptime. On top of that, about 2 weeks ago we switch Kaitlynn's bedroom. We have decided to just make one room the nursery, and at the time Kaitlynn was in the smallest room. So I wanted her to be moved to the bigger room. I figured that way if I was playing with both kids in the bedroom there would be plenty of room for both of them. At the same time as changing rooms, I needed to break out Kaitlynn's 18-month and 24-month clothing. It is starting to warm up here, and most of her 12-month clothing is getting too small. As it should since she will be 2 in about three weeks. So I need to organize her room still, decorate it, and find a place for all of her clothing. That is the most frustrating project because if I try to tackle it when she is awake she just gets into all of her clothes, and tries to dress herself. Since it is a project in her bedroom, it is not something that I can tackle when she is napping. I think that I will have Freddie come over one afternoon that I set aside for this project, and get him to play with her. Needless to say that all of these small projects add up, and make is seem like there is so much to do thus causing me stress.

Today I just have this major headache. It is the kind of headache that you wish you could crawl into bed and sleep off. That is not going to happen! On my list to definitely tackle today is the pregnancy clothing. This afternoon I am watching Freddie while his housekeeper is at a doctor's appointment. I also need to start organizing our stuff for our trip to Prague. So I have my work cut out for me. When Kaitlynn gets up from her nap, I really want to do some finger painting with her. So I need to have this other stuff accomplished. Danny is going to try to take a half a day tomorrow, so I might be able to get him to take Kaitlynn outside while I tackle her room. That is something that could change by the day though. So I am not getting my hopes up on tackling that project tomorrow.

I am very excited about our trip to Prague. The spouses have three different day trips planned for our week there. We are taking a trip to Karlstejn, which I honest do not know anything about. Then we are going to do a 6-hour walking tour of the major points of Prague. That one should be very fun. I just hope it is not too tiring for me. Then there is another trip planned to visit the Jewish quarter. So I am really looking forward to everything Kaitlynn and I will get to do. I need to go on the internet to look up activities for the one day Dan will get to do some sightseeing with us.

I will update again when we get back from Prague!

03.28.2005

Yesterday was Easter, and we had a day full of events. In the morning we opened our baskets as a family. Dan ordered me a basket off the internet from this gift and basket website. For him, I got Dawn to get me Madden Football 2005 for PS2, and I also put some filled Easter Eggs and different candy in his basket. For Kaitlynn, we filled her basket with various Easter items that people had sent us plus plastic Easter Eggs and some candy that she is able to have. Inside the plastic eggs that Dawn sent us she put a hidden Easter message that we tried to decode. I think that we are missing some words though. We got the gist of the message - We miss our piggy family: Have a Happy Easter!

Suddenly our morning was slipping away from us. We all needed to shower and get ready. After Dan showered he continued to clean house. We began on Saturday, but the Kaitlynn's accidents abruptly ended our planned evening of cleaning house. I showered and shaved. Then I gave Kaitlynn as bath, and got her all dressed. She was absolutely adorable in the complete outfit that Dawn sent us. And thankfully the gorgeous weather that we have been having for the last two weeks lasted for Easter too! So she did not even really need a cardigan unless we were in the shade. Kaitlynn loved her outfit. She would put on her bonnet, pick up her purse, stomp her feet, and then go look at herself in the mirror. It was too cute!

I continued to get ready throughout the remainder of the morning and early after while Dan swept and mopped all of the floors. My hair is getting so long. It takes me a good hour to dry it and fix it. It is getting to be too much, but I have been growing it out for so long. Plus I really like it the length it is. So for now I am keeping it, and we will see how having another baby will change my hairstyle.

After getting all ready, Marianne and Freddie came over to ride with us to the Easter Egg Hunt at the Ambassador's house. On our way out, we ran into Jason, Liz, and baby Andrew (our upstairs neighbors). Andrew looked absolutely adorable in his Easter outfit.

We all had a great time at the Easter Egg Hunt. That was the only activity planned that Kaitlynn could participate in, but we stayed throughout the planned afternoon so Freddie could enjoy the activities and play with his friends. Plus it is nice to get to socialize outside the Embassy. So we saw lots of friendly faces, and everyone found out about Kaitlynn's tooth episode. Thankfully, I was handling it a lot better than the night before.

We had a great meal at the Ambassador's house. It was a potluck affair where everyone who was coming was assigned either a savory dish or a dessert according to your name in the alphabet. We were supposed to bring a savory dish, but I brought fruit salad because I was craving it. It is always nice to have these potluck affairs because people have been stationed all over the world, and you get a nice mix. Plus it is a good way to get to experiment with new foods, but not have to have a full serving of it. All of the food I tried was yummy! Everyone was commenting on how nice it was to see me eating again. Boy, did it feel good to enjoy food. I even had seconds. (Photos of the view from the ambassador's house are in the Travel section. :))

After the Easter Egg Hunt, we rushed home so I could get dinner ready. We were having the Marines and Marianne and Freddie over for Easter dinner. While I cooked and prepped everything, Dan continued to do a "deep" cleaning around the house. We served a veggie tray with homemade ranch dip, grilled shrimp, and devilled eggs for appetizers. Then for the main course, we had oven-fried chicken, twice baked potatoes, corn, and homemade macaroni and cheese. Marianne brought garlic bread and a 7-layer dip to top off the meal. The Marines came over a little early to get out of the house and to play some games here. We have turned them into a game-playing crowd. Marianne came over early to help me cook, and she was a HUGE help. Dan got these 1 pound potatoes that took twice as long to cook because of their size, so I was completely behind on what needed to be cooked when. Everything turned out great though. The Marines were so into their game of Monopoly that they wanted me to hold dinner off even longer.

Everyone enjoyed the meal. We ate so much that there was no room for dessert. That was too bad because I had ice cream and strawberry topping. Yum. Again Marianne was a huge help after dinner. She rinsed or washed all of the dishes while I picked up, and put the food away. It was so nice to wake up this morning, and not have an enormous mess all over my kitchen. I had so much extra food that I was able to make a lunch for all of the Marines plus Dan and me too. I did realize I made that much.

While we cleaned up the boys finished their game, and Dan got Kaitlynn ready for bed. Marianne and Freddie had to leave after that because he started school back up this morning. I know he was sad to see his Spring Break end. Poor guy. Some of the Marines stayed while others left to get ready for work either last night or early this morning. We all played another game of Monopoly. I headed to bed while Dan and Larry finished the game up. The day made me exhausted. I sleep soundly, and did not even hear Kaitlynn make a peep during the night. Although Dan says she did. All in all we had a great Easter. Thanks to everyone who sent us packages, and made the holiday homier for us.

03.22.2005

Yesterday I took Dan to the craft fair, and we got to buy all sorts of goodies. I got everything I wanted. I had to compromise on the coasters I wanted to get. I wanted to buy these thick Tunisian tiles. I thought they would make great coaster, and be a relatively small but nice keepsake from our tour here. Dan thought they were too thick, and preferred to get really coasters. I bought a long vertical wall hanging to go at the end of our hallway. I also got a dish that is square shaped, but the edges as curved upward. On opposites sides they are pointed like a square dish would be, but on the opposing sides the points have purposely be broken off and are jagged. The print on the dish is a swirl pattern that has gray, rust, red, brown, and white in it. We have two cubbyholes inside of our hallway wall. So the dish is going into the top cubbyhole to hold our keys and other odds and ends that are in our pockets. Then we got a vase filled with dried flowers to go in the bottom cubbyhole. The vase starts at the bottom as a deep rust color and fades upward to a golden color. Then we got a wicker trunk to go at the end of our bed to hold comforters. We also found some other coasters. They also have Tunisian designs on them. The only thing I do not like about them is that they are so thin, and they are glass. So I picture one sticking to a glass and breaking, or Kaitlynn getting a hold of one of them and dropping it.

We left before we got to finish looking in all of the hallways. Dan was exhausted from standing duty earlier in the day. Plus he was either carrying Kaitlynn or all of our purchases the entire time. So he said we could go back later this week to look some more, and possibly get more to decorate with. That is great to know because after we put everything in its place we realized that we need some sort of artwork to go behind the key dish. We used to have some family photos there, and without them the small wall behind the dish looks too bare. The vendor that I got Dawn's gift and my wall hanging from has smaller wall hangings that would look perfect with the dish. So we are going to go back to his shop.

If you would like to receive an email notification when this site is updated, please leave a note saying so with your email address in the comments. I'm going to put together a mailing list before the next update. -Dawn

03.20.2005

Today was a good day. Michelle invited me to go to this large craft fair with her and her daughter today. They have it in this large building. It is about the size of a coliseum in the states, and they have divided the inside of it up into three halls. Inside each hall they have made about 6-8 smaller hallways that are lined on both sides by vendors selling all different Tunisian goods. They offer this type of craft fair three times a year, but this is the largest one.

We went through one and a half of the hallways, and found lots of neat things. It was great to go to because all of my walls are bare and white. So I need some decorative items to make our house more homey. However, I did not want to buy anything without Danny. So my plan is to bring him later this week, and for us to get all of the items I wanted. I did buy one really neat thing, but I can't really talk about it because it is a gift for Dawn. And, of course, she is the one updating our site for us.

While at the fair a Tunisian shopkeeper hit on me. It was a little bit strange because I was in his shop trying to buy some decorative slippers for Kaitlynn to wear during dress up. As we passed the shop later on that day he asked for my phone number, and was not the least bit deterred by the fact that I am married. It was odd, but also a nice compliment at the same time.

After the craft fair, we went back to my house to watch Meet the Fockers. We all enjoyed it, but for some reason on our T.V. the sound was all messed up. There was a faint buzzing noise all through out the movie.

Then we went out to dinner as a group. We went to Dan's favorite restaurant, the White Elephant. It is a Thai restaurant in one of the resort hotels. We have eaten there quite a bit because it is the only restaurant that Dan really likes. He is a picky man to please when it comes to food. There is this wooden bridge that you have to cross when you are coming into the restaurant that is there for decorative purposes, but Kaitlynn loves this bridge. She likes to walk back and forth on it the entire time we are there. So when she started to get fussy from being in the high chair for so long without our entrees, we normally let her out to go play on this bridge. Well when our food comes we put her back in the high chair, and have to deal with the fussiness until she realizes there is food to eat now. Well tonight she must have filled up on the appetizers because she was not interested in the meal and kept fussy to get down.

After about 3 or 4 minutes of her fussing a waiter comes over to Dan to tell him that people are complaining about the noise. Now we are seated in a remote room in the far corner of the restaurant, and people are still complaining. As if we like to hear that noise coming from our child, and if there was something we could reasonably do to get her to stop it, we would have since we would like to enjoy our meal too. So Dan being annoyed by Kaitlynn's attitude, and further annoyed by this waiter says to him, "SO???" The waiter goes on to say, "But sir…" and Dan replies "GO AWAY!!!" Now this is a restaurant that we visit often, and one that should be accustom to children since it is located inside a hotel. Well Michelle was sitting next to Dan, and after the waiter left she realized that the waiter was politely trying to kick us out. I could not believe it. We were astounded because we were not the only people there with young children, and the other children were not exactly quiet. Granted they were not as noisy as Kaitlynn, but that is to be expected when you have children around her age. We finished our meal, but I felt quite awkward the rest of the time.

02.19.2005

Last night at Happy Hour at the Marine House, Rose and I were talking about what we were doing this weekend. It is a long weekend at the Embassy since President’s Day is Monday. We decided that we should do something to break up the long weekend. So we were just talking about our families and how things have been for the last few weeks. We got to talking about her son, Derek, and his birthday party a few weeks ago at a bowling alley. So we decided to plan a bowling outing. With planning it in less than a day we had 7 families and one of the Marines show up for our impromptu bowling get together. It was a great turn out, and we all had a bunch of fun. We only took up 2 lanes, but our bowling lasted forever because with all the adults and kids there were about 20 of us bowling. I bowled on the kid’s side with the bumpers up, and so did a few other ladies. It was great. We had pizza there, and each bowled two games. We decided that since there are not too many “family friendly” activities planned through the Embassy that we should have some sort of get together once a month.

I think that getting out of the house with other families was great for Dan. He was really starting to feel like a hermit here since I have not felt good, and have not been up to any sort of socialize. Everyone has been completely understanding about it, but at the same time with us being one of the new families here at times it feels like we are losing our chances of getting to know other families. So he was worried about how that was going to affect the rest of our term here.

02.18.2005

Check out the newest page at the top. :)

11.29.2004 (back entry)

We moved into our new apartment on Friday, the 26th. In spite of our initial hesitation we love our new apartment. It is in a quadruplex. We are in the front bottom apartment. All of them are 3 bedrooms, 2 ½ baths with a balcony. All of the furnishings are brand new. In our room there is a queen bed and all of the furniture is cherry wood. In Kaitlynn’s room is a twin bed with a chest of drawers. We bought her crib with us, and the woods in her room just happen to match her crib wonderfully. There was a desk in her room, but we moved it into the living room so she would have more room to play in her room. In the extra bedroom there are two twin beds and all of the furniture in there is cherry wood also. In the living room and dining room there is also cherry wood furniture. There was a sitting area that we have turned in to a play area. The plan is to move the extra chairs, the table and lamp in to the corner of our room for a reading area for me.

When looking at the place we were the most concerned with size of the dining room. We have to be able to have the Marines over from time to time, and all be comfortable. The dining room looked so small when it was empty. I am amazed to say that they comfortable fit an 8-person table, china hutch, and a dresser of sorts in there. We were also concerned about the clothes space in the entire apartment especially in the master bedroom. There really is no closet in there. There is a shelving system with doors. That is still a problem we are trying to work out. We are trying to find out if they are able to build us some closets in there. For the time being Danny has used up ALL of the closet space in the guest room, and Kaitlynn’s clothes is also full. So all of my clothes are still in the boxes. Today they came to put together a wardrobe that they took from our old house. However, the people that took it here forgot to take the shelves that go on one side, and the bar to hang clothes on the other side. So it is all put together, yet I still can’t use it.

It is funny how life in another country is so different in certain aspects. You can tell that we are used to the ease of central heat and air. It is simple to use with symbols we recognize and in degrees, which we understand. In our new apartment there is “central heat and air”, but there are also radiators in case the central heat goes off. What does not make sense to me is that both seem to be hooked up to the electricity. If they were going to install both forms of heat you would think that there would be one hooked up to the electricity, and the other hooked up to the natural gas. So we keep having people come over to “fix” things that really are not broken. We just don’t understand them. I am sure that they think we are insane Americans.

02.04.2005

For those who haven't seen Kaitlynn in a while. Check out her photos page, and enjoy! :) There are a few scenic ones in my gallery too.

01.11.2005

I haven't had the time to write anything, to answer email, to sometimes to even read my email. Thanks to everyone for thinking of us and checking in. Please bear with me while I am unable to reply. In the meantime, Danny updated his section, and there are a few new photos of Kaitlynn in her section.

10.26.2004

So we are here in Tunis, and it still does not seem real. Our journey was an interesting one.

The first airplane we were on was one of those tiny express ones.That part of the flight went quickly, and without a problem. However, when we landed we were on the opposite side of the airport from the gate for our next flight. So we had to take a bus from one terminal to another, and then hike down to our gate. There were some Italians who were following us to get to the gate also. That felt a little odd because they could not really speak English, so we had no mode of communication. Plus Danny is a fast walker so the distant between them and us was getting longer and longer. It just made me feel a little awkward because I felt like we should be walking and talking with them.

Our second flight was great. When we got to the gate and checked KM's stroller they changed our seating so we would have the first row in coach for extra room with KM. There were some lovely people in the terminal who were talking up a storm to KM. She was having a great time showing them her baby, and then being an Indian giver when she handed it over and they would take her. They weer very sweet to her. When it was time to board, they allowed us to board first with KM. That was great. However when we got to our seats we realized that KM's carseat would not work in the row they had just moved us to. The arm rests were stationary, and could not move. So we had to ask them if we could move back to our orginial seats. I could not remember the seats we had to begin with. They did some work, and moved us a seat back. There was a person who was supposed to seat there, but the seats on the other side of the aisle were open. So the flight attendent said to just have him sit there instead. I had fears that the person assigned to our seat was going to be mean since it meant that they would not have the four seated row to lay in at night time, but he was great about it. And very friendly to KM who was being her normal self. The flight itself was great. We hit a little bit of turbolence (SP?), but it was fine. KM was a trooper. She played and played. She did not want to go to sleep at her bedtime, so instead of making her fuss and disturb the other passengers she just got to stay up later. I finally got to see Spiderman 2, and Danny watched it too. Danny could not sleep, so he stayed up all night. When he finally tried to sleep KM was fussy because she could not toss and turn like she likes to do. I had moved to the two rows besides us at that point. They gave us a doughnut stick for breakfast which neither Danny nor KM would eat.

We finally landed in Rome at 2:40 AM EST. We were a little confused when we got off though because there was no customs to go through. After figuring out that we would not have to pass customs we went toward the terminals. We had to take a shuttle over to the terminals, and then go through screening. I set off the metal detector again, and had to take my shoes off. At ORF I got selected after setting the detectors off to be the randomly screened person. Very odd feeling associated with that. They now feel you up at the airport to make sure you are not hiding anything in your underclothes. So with evryone coming through and seeing you like that, you tend to feel like a criminal. When we finally got through the screening process, and went into the terminal our flight was not yet listed on the displays. So we decided to get some food after a mild fight between Danny and I. (Everything is better now.) Well getting food seemed to be more ofa challenge then we took into account. First we had to change money over. It was easy, but more expensive then we thought it would be.

To be continued.....

10.19.2004                                                                                        12:12pm

We are back here working on the site again. Danny is eating lunch. Both kiddos are down for a nap. I am learning website info.

10.19.2004

Today Dawn is teaching me how to use our new website. There is a lot of information to remember. I have a feeling that I am going to be asking a lot of questions in the future.

While I am learning all of this Danny is feeling left out and gypped because he has to be downstairs watching KM. Meridian is sleeping in her mommy's arms, so KM can't be in the computer room.

We got more information from the Embassy this morning. Danny called over there because we had not heard anything via email for about a week and a half. Things are really busy there right now. They are building new housing for us. It should be done in about two weeks. Which is great. That is right around the time our first shipment of goods should get there. They also have ball preparations going on. It is set for the 6th of November. To top all of that off Danny has his first semi-annual inspection on the 8th of November. Needless to say things are insane there right now, and they are throwing our arrival right in the middle of all the insanity.