Typical Thursday

Thursday today: grilled again. It was nice, but it is getting so humid these days. Once the sun goes down it isn’t too bad because you get a pseudo-breeze that passes through occasionally, but during the evening hours beforehand, it’s just plain old hot! I went to open my camera today to snap some pictures up there and it completely fogged over so much that I had to physically wipe it off and it just kept forming droplets on the lens. I had to wait for the camera to warm up and basically become accustomed to the humidity before I could take any pictures.

Rainy and Marcelo made it again tonight. I just love having her around. She came over to hang out yesterday too. Having an American woman here that I can actually connect with, one that I would have chosen to befriend back home, has been such a lifesaver for me.

Then we were supposed to play cards down in our apartment and had J.J. come down too, but everyone was too wrapped up in getting Kaden to walk to actually sit down and play cards. All in all it was a good night.

The roof of the building next door through the fogged-over lens of the camera.

Baby mad at me for making him play outside in the heat.

Being dorks...

Daddy dancing with Kaden.

Kaden thinking, "What the heck are you doing?"

Rainy and I

Post-baby body weight-loss program: Move to the Middle East where they don't have junk food!

He thought this was pretty funny!

Laughing!

Avocados!

Well, we're wrapping up the weekend here. It’s been sort of a lazy weekend. Stu got me an elliptical machine this weekend! It’s too hot to go outside anymore. Seriously, we went out today and poor little Kaden started crying after the first store we went to because it is so hot and he just sweats, even after the A/C has been on forever in the car. In that car-seat the air just doesn’t circulate all that well and he has to be miserable. So I don’t think we’ll be going out much anymore during the day if he has to be in that seat for too long.



BUT, a positive side of going out today was that I got to go to Spinney’s for the first time today and we got AVOCADOS! Hooray for life! So I am going to make guacamole tonight and then put avocado on everything I eat until I am sick of them. We also got some pork, yay. We got bacon and ham which I am really excited about because we can put it on Pizza! We got like ten things total at Spinney’s and it was almost 50 bucks… just goes to show how inflated the price of pork is over here.

Then we went grocery shopping at LuLu’s since it is the cheap place. They have most everything, even if you have to get a weird brand, but as far as produce goes, it’s normally rotting or pretty close to it. Luckily it was a good day for potatoes (they’ve been a total miss the past three weeks) which is awesome because I planned to have baked potatoes this week! It’s nice when things work out like that (it’s the little things in life anymore, heh).

We grilled out on the roof again this week. We did burgers this time though and they were fabulous! Stu is the best hamburger maker on the planet. He even found some really yummy buns that were fresh (so not rock-hard) and we had all the fixin’s. So good. Here are some pictures of us up there this week!

He sure is a good looking guy!

Happy singing baby.

Mommy.

Laid-back baby just hanging out.

Mommy and baby having a great time!

Saudi Sweep

Sup Homes??? (I’m really an east-L.A. Latino gangbanger trapped in a little blonde white girl’s body… actually this would shock no one… moving on.)

Things are going pretty good. I’m thrilled to be “schoolin’ it” again. You never remember how great school is until you don’t have it for a while. Anyway, so it is fun getting the wheels up there turning again.

Stu is getting pretty homesick. I had my initial freak out early on and have since gotten over it, and he was gung-ho when we first got here and excited to be doing this and has finally had it catch up with him. So I feel bad because I’m fine and don’t really care WHEN we go home, just THAT we go home (read “home” as “anywhere in America”)…

… America… You know, we learn in school that we live in the “United States of America”, or just “The United States”… well apparently if you are anywhere other than the United States, you are actually from simply “America”. I keep forgetting this and when people here ask when where I am from (still cracking me up that I am almost always confused with being British [wtf, mate?]) I automatically tell them “The United States” and they just stare at me with a confused look on their face… “Oh, from America…” (since clearly I am not from “Estados Unidos de Mexico” after all.

I can never remember what I have and have not talked about on here before. I talk with my friends and Stu here about these things all the time and I take for granted that I post them… So, that said, if I post something more than once, forgive me, it will be just like you’re the twentieth person I’ve told a story to, just like back home, haha.

I started with the disclaimer so I can talk about one of those things I think I’ve already talked about! I KNOW I’ve talked about how bad the people here drive, but that isn’t even doing it justice. So, the “Saudi Sweep”… ever heard of it? That’s when a driver is in one lane, say the far right, and they decide they need to be in the far left lane RIGHT NOW, so they just turn the wheel hard (RIGHT NOW) with no concern about how many cars they are going to smash my attempting this insanity. So you either swerve out of the way to avoid being plowed over, or slam on your breaks, etc. The problem with this is that EVERYONE is driving just as crazy as “Saudi Sweep” man, tailgating, cutting people off, etc. I swear every time I get in a car (and buckle my kid in as tight as possible) I get an adrenaline rush at least once on the journey. We REALLY almost got into an accident the other day when Stu was trying to get over (no one will let you in) and nearly ran over a guy who decided to stop in front of us, right in the middle of the road… Welcome to Middle Eastern driving. Which just goes to show that those “idiot drivers” (anyone but yourself) in America that we all growl and cuss at in the privacy of our own cars, are not Asians, they are Arabs.

He's a thug baby... sticking his lip out.

Ok, I just had to put this on here... this is Stu's version of a "power strip"... safe looking huh? The other night I looked at it and said "what the heck?" and he's like, "I was wondering when you were going to notice that..."

The Fox Family portrait from when we were in Michigan this winter. Farmer Kaden!

Waving...

He's looking at his reflection in the window.

Grill Master, mastering the grill as usual!

On the roof for our weekly bar-b-que!

Burrito baby... he wrapped himself up and went to sleep.