Wow! It's been a while since my last post. Over two months. This is gonna be a long update. But that's a good thing since I'm thinking of doing BEDA this year. BEDA stands for Blog Every Day in August. I got the idea from fellow YouTubers who do VEDA, and since I stopped posting videos, I decided why not do BEDA instead? I'm a day late, but I think tonight's blog entry will make up for yesterday as well. So here goes...
We've had quite a change in pace over the past 2 months here at home. Though there has been a couple of obstacles to get around, most of the change has been for the better. We are now well acquainted with our foreign exchange students. We've been in communication with them regularly over the last month and a half and it's so exciting learning more and more about them. They are both happily anticipating their visit here with us and already we've made huge plans in traveling and showing them what we like. The list that I mentioned in my past blog has gotten even longer in length. There's over 100 things that I've listed that I can't wait to show them. Granted we probably won't be able to do all of it, but I'm hoping we can do most of it. The girls will be coming in a few weeks, and though we are not quite ready for them yet (still working on getting them registered for school... still need to do some major cleaning around the house), we are almost there. I keep procrastinating and putting off the cleaning for the weekends, but those "cleaning weekends" never seem to hash out. We've always got something else better to do... lol. Anyways, that's about the only thing I'm worried about. Keeping my fingers crossed that we can make some progress on the cleaning this weekend, even though we've already got plans for the evening.
So just to share a little more information about our girls. G, as you recall, is from Thailand. She's the one we've been in contact with the longest (and probably the most "like" us). She's kind of shy and timid, but she's super cute. She's this tiny little thing, probably not even 5 foot tall, and under 100 lbs. So cute, you just want to put her in your pocket. She's still working on getting better at English, and she's a bit nervous about being able to communicate well with us and her fellow peers. She's still attending school in Thailand and actually just completed her midterm exams. She's also really involved in her cultural exchange organization that she participates in outside of school. Unlike the U.S., in Thailand, school is strictly for educational subject classes like math, reading, history, government, language studies, etc. Any sports or clubs that students wish to participate in, they have to do on their own time away from school. G likes being in her cultural exchange program. Already, she has spent a summer in New Zealand as a member of the organization. They also recently had their annual prom, in which they got to celebrate and spend one more evening with their friends of the organization, before packing up and jetting off to their respective countries for the foreign exchange program. G tells me that she has 3 more friends coming to the U.S., though none set for Texas. She is super excited about coming here to Texas, as she has seen lots of pictures of the landscape, seen it portrayed in movies, and read about all the wonderful things to do while here in our city. One of things she tells me she's most excited about is going horseback riding. She's been once before in New Zealand and she really enjoyed it. She's also excited to meet new friends, though she admits she's a little shy and quiet at first. She's kind of glad M will also be staying with us, as it gives her an opportunity to make a friend before school starts. She's also looking forward to getting involved with school sports, primarily swimming and perhaps cheerleading. She wants to take Spanish class so that she can learn the language. It's something she's been interested in for a while. She enjoys the same music as me (in regards to American pop music) and said she's eager to learn how to dance. I told her I like dancing all kinds of music, so she's excited for me to teach her a few things. I told her I would like to learn how to cook Thai food and she eagerly offered to teach me. Though she doesn't cook very much at home in Thailand, she has picked up a few things from her mother. She's very eager to learn and experience as much as she can here with us and every time we email each other, she gives me a countdown as to when she arrives.
M is our other student. She is from Germany. She's very different from G, though I think that will only give them more to talk about when they are together. She's a little more versed in travel and new experiences. She loves the study of language and is also pretty fluent in Spanish. She tells me she also has plans to learn French and Madarin Chinese. Wow, how motivated she is! She is also very involved in tennis in her homeland. She competes in regular tournaments and hoping she can continue the sport while staying here with us. We found out the high school does have a tennis team so hopefully she will be able to participate in that. She also has an interest in cheerleading. She seems a little more social and outspoken, though we've only communicated via email. She spent the summer in Spain and actually just got back home this week. Plus her birthday was a couple of days ago, so it's one thing after another and she seems to stay pretty busy. Though we haven't had as much communication with her as we have with G, she does respond pretty thoroughly in her emails. Her English writing is very good. She also seems to enjoy the same kind of music as I do (we have some of the same favorite music artists). She tells me she is looking forward to learning about the American culture. She wants to be involved in foreign languages when she grows up, so she is hoping to also master the English language while staying here. She tells me she's not much of a cook, but does enjoy her German food so she's eager to try the local German restaurant that I mentioned earlier. She's not into spicy food much so I don't know how she'll handle Mexican and Thai food. We shall see. I told her about our local German festival and Oktoberfest and she says she's super excited to check it out. One of things she tells me she's most excited about is going shopping. What teenage girl isn't? She tells me that she's heard that name brands (especially her favorites, Hollister and Ambercrombie) are pretty affordable here in the states, while in Germany it's really expensive. She doesn't seem to be nervous at all about coming here to the U.S. I asked her if she has ever traveled here and she said a couple of times to Ohio, where she has some distant relatives. As much as she has traveled and studied Spanish, maybe I can learn a thing or two from her.
So those are our 2 students. M just turned 17 and G is 16 and a half. I'm still not sure what grades they'll be in since we still need to get them registered. But like I said earlier, we already have so much planned for them. I wanted to do something big for either the winter holiday break or spring break and since hubby is pretty much guaranteed mandatory overtime during December, I figured we could hold off until the spring break holiday. So what I've started working on is planning a trip to Disney World! I asked the girls first whether their parents would allow them to travel to Florida and whether they'd be able to afford their expenses for the trip. They both discussed it with their family and happily agreed upon the trip. They are both very excited to get to experience Disney since they haven't ever visited any of the theme parks around the world. But of course what kid wouldn't be excited?! Hubby and I are excited ourselves as we've never experienced it either. So that is the big thing we have planned in March. Another thing that hubby and I are planning is a Welcome to America party for the girls. Just something to introduce them to other kids and some of our family and close friends. We are trying to keep it as small as possible, but hubby and I love to throw parties, especially one that has music and barbeque. And finally, and this came up just recently, we decided to invite them to UFC #166 when it comes to our city in October. We weren't sure if they'd want to go, especially having never seen it and the tickets being so expensive. But running it by their parents, they were ready to jump in for the experience. So happy to say, we bought 4 tickets for the upcoming fights and can't wait to share our love of the sport with them.
And now moving on to less interesting news... As far as a TTC update, there's really nothing to report on. It's on the back burner and not a priority in our life right now (something I thought I'd never hear myself say). I don't want to say I've given up on it, but I've pretty much come to the realization that I'm not going to be a mom unless we adopt or until I can get pregnant. And the getting pregnant thing won't be happening anytime soon. We've both basically have an understanding that unless we have some serious medical intervention (i.e. IVF) that it won't be happening naturally. It's the reality of the situation and right now I'm ok with that. I can't say that I won't ever try other means again, but my body is so screwed up right now, that mother nature has pretty much crossed me off her list. Yeah it sucks, but hey... shit happens. And when I say screwed up I mean not only that I haven't had my period in almost 5 months (today is CD 141), but I've put on a few more pounds, and I haven't seen a doctor since we last tried with HCG in January. And no, I'm not pregnant. I take a HPT every first of the month to make sure I don't wind up on that show "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant". Yesterday's test, just as expected came out with a BFN. No surprise there... and it didn't even phase me.
As for the weight thing, yes I know, I know. I can't believe I gained weight either. I was a little depressed as the whole TTC came to a startling halt. That probably contributed to it. But mainly I blame it on letting go. Since letting go of the whole TTC journey, I kinda was like "F- it!" Before I was trying to lose the weight for babymaking, but since that's not gonna happen I decided to enjoy life. Now that I have steady work and the paychecks are coming in regularly, hubby and I have been taking advantage and enjoying going to eat out. We've both actually started to gain weight. And then because I started working so much, I was skipping the gym. And then I get home and I'm super tired and just want to lounge around the house. It's a never ending cycle and I do want to get back on track especially with the girls coming. I hate to validate the stereotype of fat and lazy Americans. (I did some research on culture shock and one of the common first impressions from foreign exchange students are that Americans are fat and lazy.... boooooo) Plus my girls seem really energetic and active and I want to be able to keep up with them. I hope they will be able to motivate me. Maybe I can get them on a student/child membership at the gym. We'll see.
Finally, I just wanted to mention that this is the year for baby showers. I told my mom the other day that I'm at that stage in life where everyone my age is getting pregnant. It's kind of weird, kind of eerie, but I'm so thankful that I've put my TTC days behind me, because this year would suck royally had I still been TTC and not pregnant by now. I finally re-activated my FB account, primarily to keep in touch with the girls (imagine life without social networking, how would we ever be in touch? I mean who writes letters nowadays?... lol... that's sarcasm) and now that I'm back online and in full force, there are friends and family members announcing pregnancies and births left and right! I'm thankful I have a job to afford all these gifts I'm buying. I swear like every month I find out someone new is pregnant. Happy for them, of course, but reminds me more and more that I'm not the one announcing it. Not saying that in a bad way, just that these were some of the people asking me 3 years ago "So when are you gonna have kids?" I guess time flies when you're having fun.
Well that's about all I gotta say for today. Tomorrow is another day and I gotta think about what I want to write about. So see you then.
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