It's thursday morning

Each week i keep thinking life will slow down and we'll do all the things we need to get the house settled and finished, and i'll grocery shop and have time to be outside. But each day is busier than i expected and most of those things don't happen.

I wasn't feeling well the last few days, which also slowed me down. I think it's just sinuses.

Language class is going well! Yesterday we learned 53 words. We don't learn that many every day. Some days we learn a lot, some days we review and put everything together that we've learned so far. Today is one of those days.

Random:

We found a GREAT noodle shop just down from our house. I'll take pics next time we go. It's delish!

This has been the week of broken things: our kitchen light (not the light but some type of weird box on it), washing machine, and now internet. Our internet is still out, but we're hoping things stop breaking on us.

We have friends in our city that it seems everytime we go to their house they lose water. I'm starting to think we should find a new place to hang out, ha!

I tried practicing my language with my taxi driver yesterday and isntead of saying i was going to start studying language in 2 months at the university, i told him i was going to open the door in 2 years.

Hopefully i'll have time to do another post this weekend with some pics.

Have a good Wed night/thursday morning whereever you are!

love

laura

Random stuff

It's been another busy week. Not as busy as last week, but pretty productive.

Daniel and I had our first language class yesterday. We will meet with our tutor 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. We are on an intensive 8 week schedule that should allow us to learn 800 words. The learning method is different than anything we've done before. We don't talk for the first few weeks, we just listen to our tutor point to pictures and say the word over and over. It's all built around object recognition and repetition.

We both like it so far. I can tell the words are actually sticking with me (so far, ha!). We will probably study about 2 hours or so each day to make sure we remember everything we learned in class.

In about 8 weeks we'll enroll in a nearby university and have regular classes. Daniel will most def be in a more advanced class than me.

I still haven't run yet. I keep putting it off, because there aren't any parks or grass here, so i'll be running on the sidewalks and streets, and they're SO crowded. I'm afraid a motorbike will hit me. But Monday i'm going to make myself run at least a few miles. I'll let ya know.

I'm still relearning how to cook here. We were going to make hamburgers the other night and after we started cooking the meat, we realized it was actually some type of sausage. So we had sausage burgers instead. They were still good!

I made pizza because it was something i made all the time in the States, so i figured it would be pretty foolproof. It mostly was, except we don't have any salt yet in our house and the toppings were just veggies, so it was good, but a little salt would've gone a long way!

This is for Sarah....i've been eating SO much fruit here! We have a market down the street and i've had fruit with at least 2 meals for several days....apples, peaches, grapes, and cherries. AND i've been getting a good amount of fresh veggies too. True, they're prob drenched in oil. But still......

It's been so hot and humid here. I knew it was like that before we came so at least it's not a shock. But you pretty much know that by the time you walk somehwere you'll be dripping with sweat. We don't have central air, but little ac/heat units in the main rooms. But we also try to be economical so we have mostly just been turning on the ac when we go to bed. But today is already brutally hot so i'm thinking the ac is going to get some use today!

I'll try and take more pics of the local food. It's our fave and we can't get enough of it!

I'm going to try and make chicken parm, tacos, and chicken pastina this week. I'm hoping for no surprises, ha!

love

laura

Quick update

We're about to spend our third night in our new home. There have been a few issues but overall it feels SO good to have our own space and start settling in.

Today i decided to make breakfast because i haven't cooked in almost 2 months and we had everything to make scrambled eggs and toast. i was so excited to be making our first breakfast in our new place. But since we're still settling in and setting up house, i forgot that we don't have a skillet yet, and that we hadn't unpacked our silverware, and didn't have any cooking utensils, or any salt/pepper. SO we improvised and i cooked the eggs using chopsticks and we ate the eggs with onion and garlic powder on them. It was definitely missing some salt, but still tasted good!

THEN i wanted to make dinner tonight. We have only bought the basic groceries so far, but i figured i  could do baked chicken, oven potatoes, and broccoli. Well the chicken ended up cooking in half the normal time so it sat on the counter for 30 minutes while everything else cooked, the potatoes never cooked all the way so we ate them undercooked bc we were so hungry, and when Daniel was cutting up the brocolli AFTER we had cooked it, he found a couple of large worms inside. ahhhhhhhh.......

All in all, we didn't start any fires and we did end up eating, so we called is a success, ha!

I know cooking here will take some getting used to, but i'm excited to figure things out. Tomorrow Daniel is travelling a little outside the city and i'm going to look for fabric to have our bedding made. This is actually an easier and cheaper option, as long as i can find some fabric i like.

I haven't run at all since we've been here. It's been about 2 weeks. So i'm hoping Tuesday morning to get at least a short run in, just to see if i've still got it, hahahaah! But seriously i've already lost 5 pounds since getting here, so i have less motivation to run. We've been walking all over and moving stuff so i've been way too tired to think of doing anything extra. But hopefully some running will happen this week.

Well it's bedtime here, Happy Father's Day!!!

love

Laura

What's been goin' on...

We got here on Tuesday and have been busy ever since. We automatically started looking for an apartment to live in. We found a wonderful 3 bed 2 bath on the 14th floor of a high rise building. Daniel prefers to live much lower, and i don't really mind too much.

I forget how long it takes to do things here and how different it is. We walk most places, which means you don't want to carry anything too heavy for very long.

We have several import stores in our city. A bag of Sun Chips costs about $9, a bottle of vanilla extract about $12. But Daniel and i can both eat great local food for about $2-$3. It's a trade off.

Our lives look so different here, much different than i was even prepared for. When i lived overseas before i knew i would only be there for about 2 years or so. But now, we've sold most of our things, and plan to really settle in here. I've never had to set up house in a new country before. It's very new to me, and strange.

But we love it here. We're ready to be settled in our apartment and get into some type of routine (if possible ha!) and really start living among those around us. Sometimes i can't believe i'm here. It feels like it's taken forever and been such a long journey, but i'm beyond thankful that i am living where i am, among a people i love.

love

laura

Tuckered out

Wow, so we've been here 4 days and have been going non stop. I mean, non stop. The last few days we've been getting up about 6, and then hitting the pavement all day.....then getting home around 9 and getting in bed at 10. We've been walking all over town and i'm pretty sure i've already dropped a few pounds. I keep wanting to run, but we're so physically worn out each day and getting our exercise by walking every day that i havne't yet, but i want to.

Here we are on our second day outside our friends apartment.

This is one of many local meals we've enjoyed since being here. We've eaten local food every chance we can get and are realizing how much we've missed it!!!

Quick update, we have an apartment!!!!!!!!!! We signed a 2 year contract, and got an amazing deal!!! It's something we can afford and something we love!!! It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, and a great kitchen!! I will def post some pics when i can. We can't move in yet...this next week it will be painted and cleaned.

We picked out our paint colors tonight!!!! I feel like a home owner, it was such a detailed process and we have a lot of freedom to fix things up and make it our own. I can't wait to make it our home!

It's been pretty hot and humid here. Today's high was 88, with a heat index of 102 if that tells you anything, ha! I've been drenched with sweat every day we've been here at some point. Again, great for weight loss, hahaha!

It's been pretty crazy so far, but we're excited to be here!

love

laura

Ready or Not

We left Dallas Sunday night with 7 bags of luggageand moved to East Asia!

Despite the flights being LONG, everything went really smooth and all of our bags were there to meet us on the other side! We are apartment hunting right now, which is easier said than done. It's a bit more complicated than we thought, but we're trusting that we'll find the right home for us. We've eaten local food 3 times already and can't get enough, it's delicious!!

My email and internet have been a bit off, so not sure when i'll post again, but hopefully soon.

love

laura

Lately

Last Saturday i met up with Caroline to spend the day, catch up, and say the inevitable 'good bye.'

We went to one of our faves....Cheesecake Factory!!! yum yum yum! We both got our usual, Louisiana Chicken Pasta and split the new Reeses cheesecake!

SO, after having lunch Caroline DRAGGED me to Pea in the Pod. I.am.not.pregnant.

We walked in and Caroline started asking the sales woman about clothes for me to try on. The lady looked at me, and (thankfully!) asked how far along i was, because i wasn't showing yet, ha!!! I'm glad she didn't say i was showing even just a little! After getting thru the awkwardness of telling her i'm not pregnant and won't be in any time soon (that i know ha!), we started browsing.

We plan to start a family while we're in East Asia, and maternity clothes are hard to come by. So Caroline thought it would be a GREAT idea to start maternity shopping now. We strapped on the belly and had the best time EVER!

Who knew that preggo belly was SO much fun? I know that you don't just gain belly weight, but lots of things get bigger, but i'd be pretty happy if i could look like this whenever the day comes. The belly is supposed to make me 7 months.

This might be a weird thing for us to do, but seriously best.time.ever.

My nephews, Grant and Ethan have been here all week. Ethan still closes his eyes when we try and take a pic.

Ethan likes to play doctor. I'm not sure what he's doing here...checking blood pressure?

We went to the pool yesterday and i tried several times to get pictures of the boys, but they will not sit still! I don't have any pics with me and Grant, or me with both the boys. My goal today is to get some good pics of us.

Tomorrow is the big day! We'll go to church in the morning, eat lunch, then get ready to fly out. it's insane.

love

laura

Girls Get Away

Sarah and I went to Fredericksburg, TX this past Sun-Tues for a girls get away. It was great to just get away and have some girly sister time. We watched movies, drank coke, ate junk food, and just enjoyed the sister time before i take off for a few years.

We stayed at the CUTEST B&B! i would recommend staying here to anyone!!! The lady is so sweet! We had homemade cookies every day, peach tea in the afternoons, a movie library, free sodas, and just the best little touches that made everything fun!

We pretty much ate our way through the town. We'd been saving calories, ha! We ate at Hondos' after TPG's recommendation. It was really good!

Each morning we were served the both amazing gourmet breakfast. I forgot to take a pic of Tuesday's, but it was a fruit delight (banana pudding, fruit, granola), eggs, toast, bacon, and butter pecan french toast. yum!

(oatmeal crisp)

Monday we spent the day shopping and eating chocolate at every store we could find that sold it. Which is a lot.

We had lunch at a tea cafe. It was delish.

Tuesday we went for massages and pedicures. The massages were great. The pedicures were ehhh. But the relaxation time was much needed!!!

I'm going to try and blog a few more times before we leave on Sunday. I want to post some pics from hanging out with Caroline and my week with my nephews.

P.S. Daniel and i were just introduced to Angry Birds. Our lives are now changed forever!

love

laura