Friday, November 24, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving..new blogger?

The last time I attempted to post to my blog, blogger was down and then I got busy with Thanksgiving and class so I got away from it. Somehow I am now in new blogger, but I don't see much difference yet, so we'll see.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We celebrated here with a turkey and our friends. Pamela actually had the day off school this year. She, of course, complained because she didn't have Friday off as well and yeah, it kinda bites to have to go back to work or school the day after, but Dylan doesn't get Friday off either. If he wants to take it off he has to take a day of leave and since Fridays are short days it doesn't make sense anyway... But I was very thankful that the school gave the kids Thanksgiving off this year. This is the first time since we were in Syria that it's been an official day off for Pamela and not just a day that we kept her home from school in protest. My ideas might change when I have 3 school aged kids running around:)

We have yet to take our Christmas family portrait to be made into a card. I suppose that's something we will do this weekend as we are getting pretty close to time to send the cards.

Rose's brother (who lives in Maryland) came to visit yesterday. He's a nice guy, works for USDA and he's funny too. Rose said that he sounds and behaves like an American. He bleaches his vegetables before he eats them and he made her wash the mangoes from the trees with distiller water (I don't blame him, not only does he work for USDA, they also delivered water the day before Thanksgiving and the water was diiirty, bleh!).

Monday, November 13, 2006

Blogging from Germany and a guest!

Dylan has offered to guest blog for this week. He's got an interesting take on things and he's funny too! So I'll let him have it for a few days. But as of right now, he's at the consulate and I'm sitting in the hotel with a sleeping baby so y'all have to listen to me:).

I'll let him tell you the funny stuff that happened on the flight-cause it's always funny. I'll blog my take on Germany. First, it's cold here but not as cold as I remember it being and I'm okay with the cold. It's quite a shock when you go from 95 degree weather to weather in the 30's but we're doing okay. It's a pretty gray day today, but again, I'm not bothered. I see bright sunny days every day. I am amazed by how bright the lighting is in every place here. But now I look old because I can see every little line on my face..."mood" lighting is what we have in Accra and I kind of like it;). Dylan and I were overwhelmed in the stores yesterday. We couldn't find anything to buy because there's just so much stuff. I did buy a new pair of running shoes, but I couldn't go running today because I didn't wake up with enough time to leave Blaise with Dylan.

I got an overall 97 in my abnormal psych class. I am kind of sad it's over. Now I'm in college comp II. I am not sure that this class was required in my other schools, because I should have already taken this one, but perhaps I overlooked it.

Dylan said yesterday when he went to buy food at Taco Bell, that he feels like he's special ed. I know what he means. We're so up on the whole world and know so much about so many other countries and then we come back (even though we're not in the States, we're on military bases and they're pretty close) and we're so out of touch. Things like using elevators and little things like that. I forgot that water is safe to drink out of the tap in other countries. I keep trying to buy bottles. And the power hasn't gone out once since we've been here.

Well, I am taking advantage of my break and since the baby is sleeping, I am going to take a nap. Something I haven't been able to do since Seth was the baby.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Serena Willams

Well, today was a met and greet with Serena Williams. When Dylan told me she was coming, I thought That's why all the people want to come to Africa, all the cool visitors! Not really, but hey it's still pretty cool to meet them. This is actually a terrible picture so hopefully I can replace it soon with one that the embassy photographer took. Posted by Picasa

Marine Ball Picture

This may be the only picture of us in our Marine Ball dress. They weren't doing the traditional pictures with the Marines at the ball so this could be it. There may be some more floating around out there that we'll find out about later, but I just found the ball pictures from last year so it may take a while. Enjoy! Posted by Picasa

Monday, November 06, 2006

Wow a whole week!

So now I have a whole week's worth (and a really busy week it was) to blog about and so little time:) So I will start with yesterday and work backwards, 'cause that's easier for me.

Yesterday we went to Mia's birthday party. There was a bouncy castle, as usual, and lots of friends for Seth and Toby to play with. All the kids took turns riding on Mia's motorcycle. But probably the highlight of the party was the caramel dip for the apple slices. I was hanging out by the food table eating the apples and everyone there was just thrilled by it. Now today I started thinking, most Americans don't think that caramel dip is such a big deal, but I don't think that we've had it in any post since Germany. Just odd.

Saturday night was the Marine Ball. The Marines tried a different venue this year, it's security concerns, but in Ghana it takes you so long to train people to do what you want that to change venues, usually ends in catastrophe. Our table was right by the "bar" and the line to the bar was almost the length of the room. The ball itself was a lot of fun, but it was poorly put together. The U.S. Navy band played at the ball and they rock! The choice of music wasn't all that great (all 80's) but hey, it worked!

Most of the rest of the week was just us without our car. The fuel pump went out, we ordered a new one, then we waited. Once we got a new one, Dylan hired the commissary manager's son to fix it because the Ford dealership here is doing bare minimum and so our other friends have been without their car for approximately 3 months because the pump just keeps going out, we just can't do that. There's too many of us to take 1 taxi and we're not even supposed to be taking taxis here because of security. So we paid someone to repair something that the Ford dealer would have done for free. But so far (we got the car back yesterday) it's working better than it ever did when we left the dealership. Pricy, but the other option is to just sit around and wait without our car for months at a time.

Today proves to be a cool day, but I'll save that for later.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Been really busy

This is just a short blurb to let everyone know that tomorrow I should be back on track blogging! I have so much to say, because so much has been going on, but I have had this 10 page in depth psychological analysis due today and I haven't had much time to blog. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise.