As of late

Hello all. I hope you all are doing well. Things are going well over here in Baku. In the last week we have filled our house with "new" furniture. Last Friday was the US Embassy furniture sale. The embassy has houses for all of their personnel and they furnish them, just like our school does for it's foreign hire teachers. The embassy purchases furniture from the US, has it shipped over to its embassy's and then sells it off and purchases more every 5 years. The furniture is obviously used when we get it, however, it is much better quality then we can get here. So, the school sent someone to the sale. You have to have cash on hand and take possession of it the day of the sale. After the sale, furniture began arriving in the school gym by the truck load. It was cleaned and repaired, if that was needed, and then this week we were asked to go through and mark the things we wanted. We got a new dining room set that looks very much like our dining set from home. Its the little things that make your house your home. The boys didn't know what furniture we were getting. When they got home on Monday and we had new furniture, especially the dining room table, they were so happy. Both of them sat down at the table and said it's just like our table in Seattle. It was fun to have something in our house that helped make it feel like home for them. We got 3 couches/love seats, 3 dressers, 4 lamps, a coffee table, a bookcase and other things too. It really filled our house with furniture and more storage space. The furniture is all from the Drexel Heritage collection. It's solid wood, heavy and beautiful. We have been taken care of well.

This week we also had Spirit Week at school and then you could dress up in your "Halloween" costume on Friday. Tim was the hit of the week. It was time for him to cut his hair and so every day he had some sort of a different hairdo and beard/mustache change. Monday was stoplight day and he wore a red shirt, khaki green pants and a yellow tie. Tuesday was backwards day and Tim wore a button down shirt backwards and a tie, which of course was down his back and flip flops on the wrong feet. Wednesday was Wacky Tacky day and he went all out. First he cut some holes in his hair and then used that hair later with a glue stick to paste in various places on his head and hands. He shaved weird shapes into his beard and then he wore black gym shorts (in this culture men do NOT wear shorts) a white button down shirt which he used double sided tape to keep open and unbuttoned to show a large amount of his chest. He wore black dress socks, cut a hole in one toe and then wear flip flops. He put a belt on with the ensemble and one of my hoop earrings in his ear. He was a site. Don't worry I have pictures of him and will get them on the page. Thursday was toga day. He was a Julius Caesar of sorts, shaved off his hair and left only a mustache. Then Friday he was a white Barak Obama dressed in a suit, clean shaven head and face. There was trick or treating at school and a parade of costume. It was very cute to see.

Then to top off the day it was a half day and we had our first round of parent teacher conferences. For both Tim and I the conferences went well. I had 7 yesterday and I have 13 to go. I had a couple of tough conferences scheduled for yesterday but they went very well. I was very grateful. Right before the conferences I had a mother all upset about a number of things and so I was afraid that I would not go into the conferences without the right frame of mind. I had to stop and pray and Jesus certainly helped my let go and be ready and pleasant for the parents (who were nervous to hear about their children). As for the mother and what she was upset about, she is a person who really just is negative about everything. Every interaction with her is something negative about the school or whatever. I just feel bad for her. I honestly wonder if she ever has a good day, if she has an optimistic side to her and if she is a happy woman. There is never anything I can say to her that seems to help. I really do feel bad for her. She's passing off these traits to her daughter and it's very sad. I haven't had that conference yet. I will be in prayer for it.

Today we are off to soccer and the boys even have cleats. Thank you Tovars. They love them. We have been getting our boxes from people. Thank you so much everyone for your generosity. We appreciate all the little touches from home so much. The boxes take anywhere from 1 and 1/2 weeks to a little over 3 so far. Just so you all know. Well gotta go, perhaps I'll write more when we get to school.