Year 2 begins....

We've made it through the first week of school successfully!  It was a bit crazy at times, but overall went well.  I personally love our new 7th graders.  They are excited to be "big kids" now and still enjoy learning.  For example, in my classroom the table tops are whiteboards.  If I want them to get excited about a lesson all I have to do it throw out markers and let them do math problems on their tables.  It's wonderful!  We also have a new principal.  So far, my impression is that he is a good guy who has our students' best interests at heart.  I can't ask for much more than that. 

I am going to complain a bit about the heat.  The highs since we've been back have been about 110 F and humid!  I can handle the heat, but the humidity is way worse than last year.  The windows of our house are almost always sweating.  If we have to go anywhere, we pretty much just run to the car and then from the car into whatever building we are going to.  Jamie and I tried swimming this morning which ended much earlier than anticipated.  We only got 10 laps in before we both decided that it was just too hot both in and out of the water. 

Lastly, we did get to celebrate my 26th birthday this week.  Jamie was an amazing husband and made sure it was a special day.  It started with a gift of diamond earrings :) and ended with a homemade meal (and I didn't even have to do the dishes!)  Since it was a school day, there wasn't much to do but Jamie let me pick everything that day and even let me go to bed super early which is what I wanted to do.  On Wednesday (Saudi Friday) we did have some people over for an Indian dinner and socializing.  It was fun having people over and chatting since we've all been pretty consumed with school for the past couple of weeks.  There are three of us on our compound who are pregnant right now which has been a lot of fun.  Below is a picture of us and two of the guys who decided that they felt left out not having a belly. 

Until next time,

Tara

It's A . . .

BOY!  We are happy to report that our doctor's appointment went well and we know what we are going to have in January.  Tara and I thank God everything is going well so far.  Congratulations to all those who voted boy on our poll.  For those of you who voted girl, maybe next time.

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.  Good job if you can tell what you are looking at.

4D of his face.  He was in an odd position for taking pictures and wouldn't move.
The doctor may have used the word stubborn, although we're not sure where the baby could have gotten that trait from.  

2D head/body shot

Another body shot where he is showing off his family jewels

We Made it!

Hi everybody,

Tara and I made it back to Saudi around 6 am on Thursday morning.   It was a 38 hour trip from door to door, but it wasn't stressful.  Our only hiccup was a seven hour delay in Amsterdam on top of our seven hour layover.

We just finished our first teacher workday today too.  It was good to see all our old and new coworkers and friends.  The day started to drag a bit because we are still fighting jet lag and our internal clocks keep waking us up at three or four in the morning. Yuck!  We should be getting back on schedule any day now, so we look forward to that.

Also, we have posted a poll of the sidebar of our blog.  Please check it out and vote for what you think our baby is.  We will find out on Monday and post it shortly after, so your voting time is limited!


Bye

Thank you!

It's 7 am right now and Jamie just finished his last bike ride and Tara finished her last outdoor run for awhile.  In about an hour we will be heading down to Madison to catch the Van Galder bus to O'Hare and we'll be on our way back to Saudi. 

We wanted to take a minute and say "thank you" to all of our friends and family for taking time to see/feed/lodge/transport us this past summer.  We had a wonderful time back in the States but that couldn't have happened without you.  It is a blessing to have so many people who care deeply for us.  Our plan is be back in the States this upcoming April...... with a baby!  Tara is due on January 16th.  Updates to follow!

We will see you all again soon enough,

Tara and Jamie

This is not our wedding.  It is a picture from my cousin Sean's wedding that Jamie was Best Man in.

Last two weeks

The summer continues to fly by.  After making our way back from Canada, I headed straight into girl's weekend with a couple friends from college.  Then Jamie and I headed to Eau Claire for a week and continued visiting friends.  It was busy, but really fun to see people we hadn't seen in a year. 

Earlier this year, Jamie decided to sign up for a triathlon.  He searched the internet to find just the right bike and trained as much as he could in between all of our traveling.  All the work paid off and he finished in the top half of those the men that raced.  I'm glad I was just a spectator.

Since then we have found a bit of time to relax.  We spent a day at a spa in the Dells getting pampered with massages.  We also spent a weekend camping with friends and then going to Six Flags with the Gillaspie cousins.  Unfortunately we forgot to bring our camera so there aren't very many pictures to share of these adventures.

Tara 

Jamie prepping his bike.

Running hard at the finish

A job well done!

Culvers date with Brent

Having dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings with Amanda and Katie Jo

British Columbia Visit

It is about time for an update on our summer.  We have been keeping busy visiting friends and family. Our  time in Wisconsin started with my cousin Sean's wedding to his new wife Tina. It was a fun day celebrating with them and seeing that whole side of the family.  Also, I had the honor of being his best man.

Shortly after the wedding Tara, I, and Tara's brother Billy flew out to British Columbia to visit their parents for a week.  We really like it up there.  It is beautiful country and a relaxing place to enjoy visiting family.  We also usually get put to work on some projects around the yard.  At the end of the week it is nice to see some results of our work.  We also went to the rodeo and parade in town, spent an afternoon camping with their friends, and had fun playing with their animals.  I won't type to much because our pictures will be able to tell you more than I can about our time there.

This past week we have been staying in Eau Claire scheduling as many lunch, dinner, and ice cream dates we can.  It's busy, but worth it to see so many people we have been missing.

Enjoy the pictures.

 Tara posing with all her beloved animals.  It was just supposed to be Maggie and Mittens, but Dixon couldn't stay away from the fun.

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 Looking good Billy!  He is standing on the lean-to roof we took down.

 Moving the woodshed to make room for the garage . . . someday.

 You may remember a similar picture to this from last summer.  This one is better because Billy is doing the chainsawing instead of me.

 Tara swears they just sat their without any coaxing.  Made for a good picture.

 Rough life.

 We went to the Rodeo!

 Some very scenic and remote fishing, but no fish.

 The whole family together for the first time in a long time.

Ireland

A few months ago we decided that on our way home to the States, we needed to take a vacation to Ireland.  It was a good decision because it broke up the ridiculously long trip back and it gave us a little break between the end of school craziness and the coming back to see everyone craziness.  Here is a little snapshot of what we did this last week in beautiful Ireland.

The first few things we noticed and enjoyed when we got to Ireland was the green (we don't have much of that in Saudi) and the amazingly clean smell.  Our version of clean air the last 10 months has been when you can't smell the industry nearby.  For the first few days Jamie and I were in awe and constantly sniffing the air.  

Our first big adventure was renting a car and successfully driving on the left side of the road.  The car we got was a manual VW polo, tiny but nice.  Being a manual, Jamie once again got stuck driving the entire time.  I definitely owe him a bit of driving time in the States.  We drove down to Enniskerry and Glendalough for the first part of the trip.  Powerscourt Estate is an old house at the base of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, but what attracts people to it is the amazing gardens that surround the estate.  There were roses the size of my face!  We also did some hiking at the Wicklow Mountain National Park.  Between the park and walking around Powerscourt, we figure that we walked about 11 miles that day.  You could say we were a bit tired and sore afterwards.  

The next big stop was Limerick.  3 years ago, Jamie has studied abroad at the University of Limerick, so we decided to come back and visit.  It was a time of reminiscing for him as we visited the university, his favorite pub, and other places that held many memories of his time spent here.  

Our last big stop was in Galway.  This was one place neither of us had been to on previous visits to Ireland.  We stayed in a beautiful B&B right on Galway Bay.  This was our splurge lodging because it also happened to be our 2 year anniversary while we were there.  We spent a day at the Aran Islands biking around and admiring the beauty.  It really felt like you had stepped back in time there. 

One thing that we love to do on vacation is eat.  Ireland was no different.  I always looked forward to our evening meals of fish and chips, beef and Guiness pie, or beef and cabbage.  The food was amazing!  One suggestion I would make to anyone going to Ireland would be to stay in B&Bs.  They are homey plus every morning they will feed you a full traditional Irish breakfast!

On Wednesday we did make it safely back stateside.  It was a very interesting flight back full of turbulence, pukers, and delays due to bad weather in Chicago.  Our luggage did not make it back with us, but did show up last night.  We really look forward to seeing you in the upcoming weeks.  We are getting kind of busy, so if we haven't made plans to see you yet please email or facebook and we'll set something up.  

Tara

Here are some pictures from our trip:

 Us at Powerscourt Estate

 

 The roses were huge!

 

 One of the largest pet cemeteries which includes horses, cows, and lots of dogs.

 

 Do you recognize these guys?  We ran into the Wiggles taping a song for their kids 

program while hiking at Glendalough.  We could hear their song (and continued singing

it) for about half of our hike.

 

Jamie at the half-way point

View of the valley in Glendalough, isn't it gorgeous?

We did not stop here to eat

Jamie in front of his old dorm

View from our B&B in Galway

The beautiful coastline of the Aran Islands.