update

Okay sorry that I haven't been the best blogger lately,,,life is moving at an immesurable speed and it is sooo hard for me to keep up with everything. I will attempt to catch you all up to speed.

General: well the house is coming along, today we recieved appliances. The town engineers came out and refused to give us occupancy but mohammad tells me that its not a big deal that we can still move in on saturday and have ameena start school. Apparently we are borrowing electricity from the neighbors and that will be enough to get us through. the outside isn't finished but the inside is good. We still haven't recieved the tanker, god knows when it will come. It has been delayed so many times. There is so much red tape concerning the tanker sometimes I wish we didn't do it. Mohammad is going crazy with all the stuff he has to deal with on a daily basis for the house. He spends every day there trying to get things done. He is sooo frusteraited that things aren't coming together like he likes. I swear me and him will never build from scratch again...well just buy things that others have gone through the hassle.

Me: I spend every day with the kids trying to entertain them. Its hard without a car, public libraries or parks but I try my best. Today we swan in the blow up pool in the veranda, played candy land and ameeena helped me bake a cake for dinner. Fasting this year has been a challange because of the long time and because it is so hot here. Every day is in the upper 80s to lower 90s. I drink a 2 liter in the am and a 2 liter in the pm but still feel thirsty almost all the time. Other than that I am trying to contain some sanity and sleep.

Ameena: well the big news for her is that she lost a tooth.....she feels like such a big girl and she put it under her pillow and got two dinars from the tooth fairy. Which she put in her collections for buy the very expensive stuffed tiger she saw at the store. She also went to the school to meet her teachers and pick out her uniform. It was a very big day, generally she was well behaved with the teachers. She has two teachers and two different classrooms half the day she spends in her english class with Miss Heba....who ameena adored and wanted to stay there forever. The other class is arabic with miss Eisha...which ameena threw blocks at because she was sooo frusteraited. You can only speak english in the english class and ameena hated that she couldn't understand the arabic. I hope they can handle her. We found out that he bus will come to our house at 645 in the morning!!! I don't think that ameena has been up that early before but well will have to start our day at 6am. wish me luck.

Ibraheem: is excited that ameena is going to school and he can have me to himself. Ameena went and spent the night with her cousins the other day and didn't come home till 1 pm. Ibraheem was so happy to have that time with mommmy. He has a new love for fire, and if you leave a lighter out he will attempt to see the "pretty." He of course enjoys his daily carebare watching and loves his cousin halla which he calls sweetie pie. He got a haircut and it was a disaster as he bucked and kicked the hairdresser...he didn't want to be there. Haircuts now will be handled at home where he can be easily distracted. He continues to be eaten up by the bugs....I guess he is just tooo sweet. his cousin othman thought that he would like a horse viewing and asked his friend to bring over his horse. Ibraheem in a usual way was happy to look but not touch. Ameena on the other hand pet the horse and then rode it for a while... she is soo daring.

well the next post should come from the house and hopefully I will have pictures. Pray for us that the boat willl come and mohammads stress level will decrease.

Take care everyone

general update

we are doing well...

ameena...

she is getting sooo excited about going to school she keeps telling everyone that her school bus allows her to watch movies in it. At least we know where her priorities are. She is generally having a better time with everyone in the family, although the hitting continues. But after all it is ameena.

Ibraheem: Ibraheem is starting to show some definance. After three weeks of going to bed with mommy he hates to go to be alone now that I am trying to get us on a schedule for ameena's school adventure. As you can see from the picture above, after an hour of putting back to bed..he decided the best option was to bring his pillow and sleep at the door. It worked for me...I didn't have to go to bed at 8pm that night. He is picking up on the arabic at an alarming rate....its amazing those young minds. I bought the kids a small swimming pool, of course because of the water shortage I didn't fill it all the way up..but it did draw a crowd of spectators as you can see. Even though it was small the kids still had a great time.....and I got some much needed mommy brainless time as I just had to make sure one didn't kill the other :P

Mohammad: continues to run back and forth between here and amman to watch the building and to work at the same time. Its starting to run him down but now that his brother is back from omrah....he's not doing it alone. He is genuinely enjoying being with his family, sometimes I am jealous of how they look at him...so much love and genuine joy for him just because he is their brother...its nice to see that kind of unconditional love.

Me: Hanging in there, still grapling with all the change...I think that it has been the hardest on me. We went to a posh wedding three days ago, it was so lovely. The bride being from Canada took a groom here from Jordan and he is going back to live with her family there. I wanted to say "take me with you" . But that was me panicing. I have been spending a lot of time with mohammad's sister she helped me make home made pickles. She's going to teach me to make a nice zuchini dish tomorrow. The building of the house has really taken off...we are picking the final paint colors, bathroom fixtures, lighting. the outside doors were installed today and the tile in the main living areas is put in place. We hope to be in before september fingers crossed. People tell us we are being optimistic but its really a necessity to be in there before ameena starts school. The tanker will be arriving later than we thought probably not till the end of august beginning of september. Note to all my friends don't trust a russian shipping company :P

Anyhow I hope you all are well...sorry about the delay in posting. tootles.

mall trips

One thing that we have come accustomed to and like are the malls of amman. Although their merchaindise is outragously priced they have these great areas for kids. Its likea 360 amusement park. Of course ameena went right from the giant slide while ibraheem clung to me like a monkey and only perked up when he saw the bouncy house full of balls :P He then decided that it was safe to venture out onto the cars, but he let ameena drive. Each time we have gone out we went with her little friend Omar and his mom Rania. I am so fortunate to have a friend from bburg here with me. The second trip to the city mall yeilded and indoor rollercoaster ride. Thats ameena and omar's little head in the green roller coaster. And yes folks, their was an animated lion that walked around the rides....ameena was sooo excited she road it sooooo many times. It was kind of disturbing though...the lion sung the Titanic theme song...which was a poor choice for a mechanical riding lion. all in all both trips were a hit with the kids and ameena and heem appreciated mcdonalds and burger king respectively. I luckily met a woman at one event that spoke great english and gave me the inside scoop on all the places to take your kids in amman...stay tuned for future adventures. choa

adjusting

Well the good news is that we were able to find a school for ameena. Its this great place near to our house called bunatalghad you can check out their website at http://www.baa.edu.jo/ They are a half en

glish half arabic school that supports islam. they have awesome facilities including a pool which ameena was way psyched about. She is ready for school we just need to keep our fingers crossed that we are moved into the house at that time. They start September 1st. The awesome thing is that their buses are airconditioned and have dvd players,,,I bet ameena wont want to get off the bus some days. Her uniform is going to be sooooo cutie. Its gray and pink, how perfect.

We went to the castle today, the main attraction wasn't the 1000 year old ruins...no it was my blonde arabic child that was speaking english. You would have thought that he was a martian with how these people were taking pictures of him and pinching his cheeks...yeah very little personal space here :P

Ibraheem is picking up the language sooo fast. The other day for breakfast he said "oh here's cheese." in arabic without even thinking about it. I am soo impressed by his ear. Ameena is doing better tooo. She's reminding herself that she needs to speak it and she is reminding me too. I am having a harder time, I guess its more difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.

Its still hot here, most days its in the upper 90s but it helps that it is breezy and there is no humidity. The sun seems different here, more bright, I practically have to keep my sunglasses on all day for the fear of my retnas being burned out :p We saw chickens the other day and immediately ibraheem wanted to go pick them up, I had to remind him that they aren't like Dana's nice birds and that they will peck your eyes out. With that Ibraheem decided not to approach the "crazy birds."

tomorrow will be a busy building day picking out stone and floor tiles as well as meeting with the carpenter to design the kitchen (every womans dream).

wish you all well

were here

well we are here...finally the kids have adjusted to the time change. there was a lot of 3am waking thinking it was party time. thank goodness that is over. there are many people visiting and mohammad and I have decided to rent a temp apartment in amman to get away from the commotion because he isn't getting any work done. Ameena and heem are finally starting to warm up the family,,,,the first days all everyone heard was NO. But they are now giving them some space and it is working out better. I think that language barrier makes the other kids tease them more, so of course they think that they are mean. But it is getting better

we went to the house a few times, it looks great. the view from the kitchen is breathtaking I love it sooo much. I have attached a photo. Also ibraheem likes the place every time we go and we pull up outside the first thing he says is "lets go look for treasure". I have also attached a pic of him digging in the house rubble thinking that he is helping :P

Ameena has attached herself nicely to a cousiin named nouradeen who is very nice and of course handsome....she always picks the good looking ones. we are also going to the city tomorrow to look at schools for her. There are also two big malls here that I am just itching to go and see:P well I hope everyone is well and we wish you the best,,,,see you next post

i did it

Hello all...well the good news is that on wednesday I passed my NP exam!!!! But, two days before the exam I fell down at the university and broke my leg :( I am on the mend and we are finally free to take our leave.

The kids are doing well, they are excited to go and ameena is playing her arabic color bingo game like mad and hopefully we are both learning the colors for our new language development. Ameena had an awesome lion birthday party and her best gift was that grandpa came down to celebrate with us. She was so supprised when he came with me to pick them up. Ibraheem, was excited, recognized him and let dad carry him in from the car when we got home. It was such a sweet momment. The girls nextdoor commented on how much baby heem looks like his grandpa. Ibraheem is being his usual carefree self. It does appear that we are all clear to take Bella with us to Jordan. She is in good health and is ready to go after all her vaccinations and the airline gave us the okay to bring her in the life cargo. The good thing is that she will just account for a peice of luggage. Here's some new pics from that family...enjoy.

moving on

We SOLD THE HOUSE!!! I can't believe it. We got a good deal and I am so proud of us doing it without a realestate broker. It seems that things are moving full steam ahead. I went to NYC last week to pick out the furniture. I am leaving tomorrow to attend a class to help me pass the NP boards. I haven't recieved my testing time, but I plan on calling them tomorrow.

Ameena is doing well, she graduated from Islamic school (see pic). She's excited about seeing moh's family. Ibraheema caught a cold last week. He stayed home with me some, some residual coughing now but much better. He comes up with the funniest sayings lately like "what's up with that!" he whips them out over dinner and cracks us all up. We are planning a family vacation before we leave the country. We have booked out tickets for the 7th of July, we plan to be out of bburg around the 26th of June.

c yah