Loads of stuff

For having some rather bland things to blog about lately this week is an exception. Today we had a bazaar at another compound (not the same one as last year) and we were able to get some yummy Pakistani food, see some old students that outgrew our school last year, and purchase our first Persian rug. I must say the more we look at it, the more we like it. We were looking for one for a while and finally found something we liked for the right price.

After the bazaar we had a birthday party for 1 year old Dylan, our friends Cory and Natalie's son. It was a lot of fun watching him eat his birthday cupcake in a traditional, first birthday, messy style. They stopped by a while after the party and was still wired on sugar.

This next week is a three day week with students and then two days in Khobar for a district teachers convention. It should be good a good time, but busy with driving. We are also processing the soon to be grandparents, Don and Kim's visas to come and visit at the end of January. We have seen some activity which is good, but we hope to stop in the Gov. Relations Office while we are by the district office to exchange pleasantries and see how things are going.

Well, that's all for now. Less than two weeks before we go to Dubai!

Enjoy the pics.

-Jamie

Here is it! It is super nice wool . . . very soft on the feet.

These are the 24 week pictures

Say hello to the 3rd trimester!

The last two weeks

If you saw the previous title to this post I apologize.  I was going to post an ultrasound video, but it wouldn't upload.  I'm working on it . . . slowly.

I meant to post last week, but the internet wasn't cooperating and then it was a combination of being busy and lazy.

Last week at school was virtual school.  That meant that for the three days in the middle of the week, we were at school and our students were at home.  We use a program called Moodle.  We are able to post assignment, link websites, create forums, wikis and chat rooms.  The students can also turn in all of their homework online.  We found a few bugs during the trial, but if we ever are evacuated (unlikely) we can continue school.  It is also a good way to help kids who have missed some school get caught up or we can use it as a kind of homework hotline, which seems very old fashioned now.

This past week buzzed along as usual.  Today we went down to Khobar looking for many things.  We are downsizing our living room furniture to make more room for the baby.  Our coffee table is taking up precious baby play room.  We'll sell what we have since it is a set.  We are browsing Ikea's "as is" section for a cheap TV stand and are looking for some handcrafted side tables made from old Arab or Indian window frames or parts of a door.  We found a place that does really nice work that is closing their showroom and only making custom stuff.  That means everything they have now is half off.  We also looked at some Persian rugs, but nothing caught our eye, and with a rug we better love it because they're not cheap.  Finally, after all the shopping, we came home with some groceries.  Better luck next time maybe.

T - 21 days until Dubai!

Bye, Jamie

Crib

Honestly, the only thing going on for us right now is school.  Not very exciting.  We had a 6-day work week this week and successfully made it through.  Our one day off was spent working on homework for our master's class.  As you can see, teaching and learning have consumed our lives for the past 7 days.  It was exhausting, but mostly fun work to be done.

We did find time on Sunday evening to run to BabyShop because they were having a sale.  We got a brand new crib that was 30% off.  I was very proud of us.  Of course, Jamie used the rest of the evening putting it together.  Below are pictures of the process.

We also had a doctor's appointment on Monday.  Everything went well and all the tests they had done on me came back clean.  So, no gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, or anything else out of place.  I did find out that Jamie and I have different blood types which meant getting a shot in the buttocks.  That was fun!  The one thing that the doctor did mention is that the baby has a large tummy.  I took this as "your baby is already fat", but in the words of my father "he already has a beer belly".  (Thanks Dad!)  I got a bit of a lecture on how many sweets I can have a week, and I'm adding simple carbs to that list as well.  Very little pasta, white rice, or sugar for me for the next few months.   I don't honestly think my eating habits are the result of the big belly (I do a pretty good job not eating sweets normally), but I'll appease the doctor until our next check-up.  Jamie and I were both big babies, and I wouldn't be surprised if our son followed in those footsteps.

Until next time, here are some pics:
Tara

Beginning of the assembly process

He's reading the instructions!

It's looking like a crib.....

It's done!  and he only had to take it apart once to fix a mistake!

Completely curled up with his hand in front of his face

This one is kind of hard to make out.  He was being really stubborn and wouldn't move around for us to see his face so the doctor tried going between his legs to get a face shot.  This was as good as it got.

Goodbye Money

     Well, it is official.  We have started what I am told is the most expensive phase of our lives.  We made our first baby purchase yesterday and have many more on the way.
      First, Tara had a blood and glucose test done at the clinic and we toured the maternity wing of the hospital. We found out we could have a suite post delivery room for only 4,500 riyals ($1,200) a night!  Tempting, but the normal private room should be fine.  Overall, we were pleased with the hospital and staff we met.
     Second, we shopped and shopped and then shopped some more.  We have new bedside lamps from Ikea and old bedside lamps for Mom and Dad Gillaspie when they visit in January, we have a stroller, car seat, and base combo(20% off!), and Tara has a maternity swimsuit!  We also have a lovely Arabic stained glass clock.
     We'll keep everyone updated on how our nesting is coming along as we progress.

Enjoy the pictures.  I have more pictures to post once our internet decides to cooperate a bit better.

Side View, top down

Side view, ready for the Saudi rain

Good Ole' bumper playing the crash test dummy

Tara posing with our stroller

Thought I would put up a picture of our nice new Arab clock also

Three Day Weekend

You may wonder if we ever work, but we actually do . . . sometimes.  This part of the year is crazy with holidays.  Today is Saudi National Day so we are not at school, but we spent a good part of yesterday there getting caught up on stuff . . . so we do work.

Not much exciting has gone on in the last week.  The only things I can think to mention are the tinted car windows and our plane tickets to Dubai.  The tinted windows are a step to keep our baby cool in the Saudi heat.  Even with the A/C on the car can heat up quick with the sun coming in.  It isn't the best tint job, but for $20 I can't complain to much.  And yes, you read correctly, we are going to Dubai.  I just booked our tickets from Nov. 11th-17th.  We plan to stay with some friends we've made through the NESA conference for a little bit and then stay at a hotel for a while.  We aren't quite sure what we will do for the week, but I know there will be plenty to choose from.

O.K. that's all I have for now.  Check out the tinted windows.

Looking Good!

Week of vacation

This past week we had off of school to celebrate the end of Ramadan.  Even though we are not Muslim, we have plenty of reasons to celebrate as well.  First, during Ramadan a lot of people are fasting during the day so even if you are not fasting you are not allowed to eat or drink in public.  This includes being in your car because people can still see you which Jamie found out when a Saudi man gave him a nasty look for taking a drink of juice.  Secondly, stores go back to their normal hours.  The people here tend to be night people to start with, but during Ramadan not much is opened until about 9pm.  During the week, this is way too close to my bedtime to be doing shopping.  So you learn to live without unless absolutely necessary.  Lastly, the fasting is over which means my students will be coming back to school with more energy than the first three weeks.  Not a lot of our students were fasting everyday, but they would often choose a few days a week to not eat. I think is would difficult when you are expected to go to school and focus on learning even though you have no "fuel in the tank".  Although Ramadan has its annoyances, it is inspiring to think of all the people who are fasting at one time for something that they believe in.

We were actually pretty productive with our time off.  Jamie and Babu (our school's head custodian) took a day and painted our kitchen, dining room, laundry room, and downstairs bathroom.  It looks beautiful!  We also reorganized the bedrooms upstairs to start getting ready for the arrival of our little boy.  We can now see how much room we have and compare it to the big items we need to get for him.  We took two days and went to Bahrain and Khobar to get out of Jubail for a bit.  Bahrain is always good for some yummy food and a movie.  We saw The Expendables and even ate bacon for breakfast!  The most interesting food we had was at a place called Pastarito.  We ordered a pizza that was 1/2 pizza and 1/2 calzone (look below for a picture).  It was a weird concept, but tasty.  Jamie was also a great trooper as we went bargain hunting and comparison shopping.  I was on the hunt for a maternity swimsuit, but found out that they are "out of season".  What??!!  It is still over 100 F on a daily basis which is actually too hot to swim unless you have a cooled pool (which do exist!) so I'm not quite sure what they were thinking.

Here are some pictures to go with our week.  Enjoy!
Tara

Jamie with our unique pizza/calzone.

Dining room before

Dining room after (and from a different angle)

Kitchen before

Kitchen after, I think it has a much more sophisticated look now!

More Pics of Baby McGuire

Tara had her latest checkup yesterday.  It was another good opportunity to see how our baby is growing.  The doctor took a bunch of measurements and let us watch our baby moving around for a while too.  Baby McGuire gave us what looked like a little smile and a wave.  We also saw him playing with his foot. So far, our boy is bigger than the average 21 week old fetus.  His size says he is closer to 23 weeks in some of the different measurements.  Tara wasn't to pleased to see he has a bigger than average head to go with the rest of him.  This is what we expected though since we were such big babies (Tara - 8+ lbs, Me - 9 lbs 2 oz)

Also, this is our week off of school after Ramadan.  All travel plans fell through due to a lack of planning on our part so we are going to do some shopping for baby stuff, I am going to repaint the kitchen and dinning room, and we are going to go to Bahrain for one night to get out of Saudi.

I think you are going to like these pictures.  Hopefully next week I can put up the video we have of the ultrasound.  I know what you might be thinking and our prenatal care really is awesome!

He's a good looking boy!

Don't mind the crazy looking elbow.  It is an image distortion (I hope).

Who does he look like?