Dallas

We spent the last five days in Dallas. We got to see A LOT of our friends and say our final farewells to them. We ate a lot of food that we're going to miss like our favorite Tex-Mex, Sushi, BBQ, and of course our favorite American restaurant. We were hoping to have some Papa Murphy's tonight in Houston, but two things are stopping us: 1. No oven in the hotel suite despite the person on the phone telling us there was.
2. There are no Papa Murphy's in Houston. Crazy, right?! Dear Papa Murphy's, get on the ball and move to Houston.

We've made about four trips to Target since we got to Dallas and have to make at least one more. We're planning on watching Lost tonight. We're really going to miss our Lost night friends from VA. We had friends over every Tuesday since the beginning of the season (including two days after I came home from the hospital) to watch and discuss the episodes. It just won't be the same tonight without the pause button on the TIVO, and without you great people to enjoy it with.

Soon we're heading out of the country. I've started having mixed feelings about this. I am really excited to start our journey, but part of me is becoming less excited. More...nervous and full of questions. Will I be accepted in the San Jose embassy community? Will I get a case of cabin fever because I won't have a car or a place to go? Will I get the job I'm applying for (that's right...I'm applying for a job)? Will I be able to keep up with the awesome friends that I made in VA the last 10 months? John has been my rock during all of this. I know he's nervous but he's been very strong for us.

Things get a little tense with us sometimes, but overall I've been surprised at how well things are going with us. I expected that this close to leaving we'd be clawing at each other's throats and that hasn't been the case. I've been very pleased with how I've been handling myself by not getting overly upset by things in order to keep the peace. It's been hard work, but it's worth it.

Simon was dedicated on Sunday. We were so excited that we got to do this at our home church in Dallas. It was great to see everyone there. I miss my church family so much and was happy to see everyone one more time.

This is probably going to be my last entry written from the states. Good bye States! I love you so much and will miss you.

Decade in Review: 2000 - 2009

Holy Cow! Is it really the last day of 2009? That's totally crazy! The last 10 years have held a lot for me. I'm going to make a condensed list so as to not write a novella.

2000:
High School Graduation
Live in Costa Rica for three months

2001:
Get engaged
Buy a house
Get married
Travel to Bahamas for honeymoon

2002:
Hubby and I Turn 21
Decide to move to TX - try to sell house - fail

2003:
Decide to go to Bible School
Apply for Christ for the Nations
Get accepted at Christ for the Nations
Try to sell house - succeed
Start 1st semester at CFNI
Go to Mexico with friends and family

2004:
Continue at school and work in Dallas

2005:
Find out six days before graduating from CFNI that we're pregnant with Malachi!
Finish CFNI and graduate in May
Go to Europe with John's family (and Malachi in the belly) for two weeks
Start attending best church ever: Fellowship of Joy (FOJ)
Continue working at hotel until even on the day I go into the hospital
Go to the hospital at 33 weeks and 5 days for a potential issue that proves to be true. Diagnosed with PPROM.
Induced at 35 weeks and 2 days
Give birth to a wonderful baby boy on Nov. 23 2005. 5 lbs 5 oz. 18 inches long. Name him Malachi David Roy meaning: the beloved messenger of the King.
Leave the hospital two days later
Bring Malachi home 12 days after that

2006:
Stay home with the baby
Move back to CFNI alumni housing
Join choir at FOJ

2007:
Go to China to see how to go as missionaries the next year after John graduates from Dallas Baptist University
Decide we don't want to go to China as missionaries
John starts looking into the Foreign Service as a career option
Starts studying for the Foreign Service Officer Exam

2008:
John and Sara join the Marriage Enrichment ABF at FOJ as helpers to the teachers.
John graduates from DBU!
John takes the FSOE
Get job at CFNI Pre School teaching 4 yr olds
Lose teaching job, move to Media Dept to be the Admin Asst to the Director
John passes FSOE and waits for results of Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP)
Finds out in Dec. passed QEP

2009:
John and Sara go to Atlanta for the Foreign Service Oral Assessment - John passes!
Start process of Medical Clearance and Security Clearance
Esther Study with wonderful women from FOJ!
Medical Clearance Granted
Sara finds out she's pregnant with Roy child #2!!!
Security Clearance Granted 5/15/09
Invitation to Join Foreign Service 146th A-100 starting 6/22/09 given and accepted
Malachi's first seizure on 5/23/05 - has another one before we move
Move to DC 6/20/09
Malachi has three more seizures. Last one lands him in the hospital - perscribed Keppra - hasn't had a seizure since 7/8/09!!!!
John goes through Orientation and gets posted to Chengdu China
Goes through training for his job
Malachi's medical clearance is downgraded because of the seizures - pulled from Chengdu
John starts Spanish until we find out next posting
We take long weekends and go to Baltimore, MD and Virginia Beach, VA
Posted in San Jose Costa Rica!!!
John and Sara find out they're having another boy!!
Pregnancy has a couple of hiccups, but they turn out to be nothing.
John's parents and brother, and sister-in-law come over for Thanksgiving. We all have a nice holiday together.
John, Sara and Malachi have a wonderful Christmas in DC with friends.

That is quite a decade! I'm so thankful about everything that's happened. I know that God has been directing my life to lead exactly where I am. 2010 has great promise with amazing things I already know will happen: have baby, move to Costa Rica, e.g. And things I can't even imagine that will happen. I can't wait to see how the year goes.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season, what ever you celebrate. Blessings!

Exhausted

I've been regretting this part of my return to home. On Monday night and Tuesday morning/afternoon I didn't feel like doing anything, so I didn't do anything - including the blog. We (Malachi and I) were in Dallas for almost five days and we were pretty busy. Most of it was just hanging out with friends - we both had a great time doing that. I'll try to make this summary quick.

Thursday: Malachi was an angel the whole day of travel (about 8 hours from door to door). I kept him pretty occupied with books and snacks and his toys on the first flight. We got in to Memphis a little early and had time for bathroom breaks and some phone calls. I made Malachi sleep on the next flight and tried to sleep but couldn't get comfortable so I read. We got to Dallas, got the rental car and headed to our friend's (wonderful Don and Rosanne) house. Another friend, Danielle, was there with her kids, one of them being one of Malachi's best friends. Then another friend of mine, Ginger, joined us after a little bit. They wanted to be there to support me because they had some bad news. They had to change the time and day of the shower due to a funeral for the father of a friend of ours. I certainly understood and wasn't nearly as disappointed as they thought I would be. We had a great time of playing catch up. Loved it!

Friday: Rosanne let me sleep in an hour while she and Malachi hung out. We didn't have any plans until 11, so we spent the morning chillaxin. At 11 we met a friend at Chick-fil-A. We don't have CFA here, so we were both very excited to have it! It was a lot of fun to catch up with Sam and hear about their new adventures. I meant to make plans for Friday and I did try, but it didn't work out. We ended up just hanging out at Rosanne's house. Danielle and her kids came over again so they played while we did more resting. I was still exhausted from the previous day of travels.

Saturday: John left DC at about 6am to come to Dallas for the weekend. We had breakfast plans in Dallas with our friend Holly. I was so excited to see her. After we got back "home" from breakfast we left to go back to Dallas to get a couple of friends, Cassie and Sarah, for a mini-shower because they couldn't make it to the re-scheduled one. We met another friend, Cassi (yes that's right, at the table sat Cassie, Cassi, Sarah and Sara), coming from Austin at a Mexican restaurant. That just happened to be the restaurant that John and his friend Chris had gone to. They had been there for just a few minutes when we walked in and went to our own table. We all said hi and then went back to our separate tables. The girls had a great time playing catch up and eating delicious Mexican food. The boys did to as far as I can tell. After lunch I brought Sarah home and met John, Chris, Holly (yes they're married) and their one month old son Stephen at Starbucks. We sat with them for at least an hour just talking and hanging out. It was a lot of fun, and Stephen was awesome. He just laid there in his mama's arms sleeping the whole time. Afterwards John and I passed a little time waiting for another time of hanging out with some friends. Eventually we made our way over to Cassie and Jason's house. Cassie, Cassi, Jason, Sarah, Ival, Isaac, John, and I spent a few hours that night catching up and having a great time. People started getting tired (three pregnant ladies!) so we left around 8:30. John and I put Malachi to bed right away and hung out with Don and Rosanne for almost three hours talking. More catching up!

Sunday: Church day! We were so excited to go to church and hear our Pastor speak. Malachi enjoyed his time at church with his old friends and so did we. I cried through out church because I missed it so much. After church we had lunch at our favorite after lunch spot with some friends. We went to Target for a short time then made our way over to my shower. The ladies had put together an awesome shower and I had a great time. I was so blessed by those who put together my shower and by all who came. John and I went from the shower to visit our friends Raul and Valerie. We hung out with them for a little bit and then went to dinner at one of our favorite BBQ places. I dropped John off at the airport so he could do homework and went do Don and Rosanne's. They were having a home group meeting so Malachi and I went to my room and I started packing. They finished their meeting and I went to visit with people I still hadn't seen. I stayed up to watch the Cowboys beat Philly.

Monday: I woke up excited to return home. Being excited for my return home made the morning happen kind of slowly. Ginger and her daughter came over for our last morning. Malachi and Rachel played nicely while the adults stayed in the living room and talked. Malachi and I left at 10 for the airport. I had to return the car, ride the bus, check the car seat, get through security and get us some food by 12:00 and I made it. Malachi had a pretty rough day this time. He was completely exhausted by this time from the lack of naps and the super busy-ness that this weekend was. Happily for me we got on the second plane and he fell asleep during the safety announcements. He slept almost the whole flight. It caused a bit of soreness for me, but it was a great break too. John met us at the airport and I was so happy to see him! Even though he came to Dallas, the time spent apart sucked.

Tuesday: Woke up with John and wished him a Happy Anniversary. We were celebrating 8 years of marriage on Tuesday. He gave me an awesome card - seriously hilarious. Then he handed me a second one. It was a gift card for a pregnancy massage, I'm very, very excited for it. Unfortunately I had forgotten to get him a card and I didn't know he was getting me a present so I didn't get him one. I was totally being lame. John went to work that morning and I tried to rest while doing things to get ready for the night throughout the day. Showering, doing hair, make-up and packing were almost all done by the time John got home from work. At 4:30 our friend came over to stay with Malachi that night.

We made our way to the hotel where I pulled out the pregnancy and anniversary cards and got us an upgrade to a Jr. King Suite. It was like a regular hotel room, but bigger. The size was great. We had some time to kill before going to dinner so we sat down to enjoy some TV and there was a knock on the door. The gentleman who checked us in and gave the suite to us sent up some champagne and chocolate covered strawberries with raspberry dipping sauce. It was delicious. I toasted our anniversary with him with a sip of champagne. We took a taxi to our restaurant and ended up there half an hour early, but they were very accommodating and sat us right away. When I made the reservation I told them it was our anniversary and I'd like a view of the capital. They were quite good at fulfilling this request. Unfortunately there was a large tree between us and the capital and I could only see white spots through the tree. I guess in a couple of months when all of the leaves are gone it'll be visible. Dinner was delicious! I've really been into potatoes lately so I think my favorite part of the dinner was the Yukon Gold Potato Puree. I totally over ate on the Puree. Then we ordered a very decadent chocolate dessert. Then our waiter brought us over another dessert, he said it was for the baby. We will totaly recommend this restaurant to anyone who wants a good steak dinner.

After dinner we made our way back to our apartment complex to a goodbye party for a friend. I didn't think I could make it through a movie so we decided to do this. She's moving to London on Monday, and I didn't want to miss saying good bye to her. We stayed for about 20 minutes before I started wilting. We headed back to the hotel and went almost immediately to bed. We got to sleep until 8am the next morning! That's not a huge deal, but we got 9 hours of sleep. It was awesome! We had breakfast at the buffet at the hotel and checked out. We made our way over to the Spy Museum. We had a ton of fun there! I also recommend this to anyone visiting the area. After that we headed home. We had a very fun time celebrating our 8 years together.

Ok, so this is probably the length of a short story. Hope it didn't put you to sleep.