Smörgåsbord

I haven't updated this week, so you get a variety of topics. Hence the title Smörgåsbord.

The painting is finally finished! He put the last coat on, on Sunday night. Then on Monday I arranged the house the way it was. It's so great to have some color on our walls. I hope I get to do this at every post, it makes such a big difference.

This week has been really mellow for me. John's been very busy at work so he hasn't been able to check with the reference for P (the house keeper). I was hoping that we'd be able to have her starting this week, but I guess that's not going to happen. Hopefully by next week we'll have her here. EDIT: John emailed the guy who had her working two years ago and he's out of the office this week. Boo!

The screen doors to the balcony in our bedroom are broken and have been since we moved in. The screen doors in all of our house have issues staying on the track. Usually you can just replace them and walk away. These are pretty difficult to even replace because they come off track right away. So the Embassy contacted the land lord who hired a contractor to come look at them. He said he was going to buy a part that he could attach to the door to make it tighter on the track. He was supposed to come by Tues or Wed afternoon and hasn't come by yet.

I found out earlier this week that Malachi will be old enough this fall to start Kindergarten. This is really exciting for me and a little weird. I don't feel old enough to have someone going into school (on a side note, someone here was telling Malachi that her oldest daughter was almost as old as me - she's 32. Apparently I don't look my age anymore (I'm 29)). So the school I'm trying to get him in is quite a drive, but I think would be worth it. My sponsor's kids go there and she can't say enough good stuff about it. I feel like Malachi would get a great education at this school and he'd be with his friend. If he doesn't get in, it wouldn't be the end of the world, there are other schools, but I'd love it if he could get into this one.

Simon is continuing to grow and develop. He's still really enjoying the gym that we're borrowing from our sponsors. We've attached the mirror to it and he likes looking at himself in it. He's drooling more and more now which makes me think he's getting close to teething. I scheduled a 4 month well check at the Embassy on the 7th at 2:15. I was hoping to have a car by then, but I don't think it's going to happen. I have used a couple of taxi's that speak English, they're both very nice, so I'll just have to use them again. Malachi continues to love Simon - sometimes a little too much I think.

This morning I heard Malachi and Simon playing in my bedroom and discovered Malachi sitting by him with a pillow on top of Simon. Simon seemed happy, but I kind of freaked out. I tried to not make Malachi feel too bad about it (because after all Simon was laughing) and just told him that he's still to young for the pillow because it's too heavy. I showed him that it's fun with one of Simon's blankets too. The next issue was that Malachi wanted to keep him covered "for a few minutes" so I explained that babies like it if you pull it off quickly. He didn't quite understand that, so we moved on to a different activity.

It's taken me quite a long time to construct this blog entry because so much has been going on during it (including making the well check appointment). Some guys are here to work on our gutter. Remember the flooding? Hopefully this will prevent that from happening again. We did have some really, really heavy rains this week and I was pleased that we didn't have any flooding from those.

No word on the job at the Embassy, or our Diplomatic status (therefore, no HHE or car). Maybe, MAYBE, I'll get some word on that next week. I'm not holding my breath.

I think that's it. I hope you enjoyed your update full of all kinds of stuff. I really should just update more often. Then they wouldn't be so long and take so long to read.