"Saba"!!!

Just a quick update....An-do and I are baby sitting Zeke for a few hours this morning and he has finally figured out a name for me!!  He now calls me "Saba."  I like it, I think it's close to Sabre which is fun, like a Sabre Tooth Tiger.

Just another Transition

We are back home in Georgia.  After two months in the beautiful state of Virginia, we are back in the Peach state.  There is a reason our blog is called "Our Journey Around the World,"  because we are constantly in a state of movement and transition. (at least so it seems)  Our time in Virginia was very good.  We enjoyed it very much.  We met a lot of people that we became fast friends with and that we were very sad to say good-bye too.

I must apologize for not blogging as much while we were in Va.  We did not have easy access to the internet, but I aim to keep everyone updated, and hopefully our internet access with be conducive to that.

When we arrived home this morning, my sister, brother-in-law, nephew and new little niece came over.  I got to see little Madie Ruth for the first time!!  She was so cute.  I am sure that she has grown so much since she was born, but she still seemed so little to me.  Of course our nephew, Zeke, was ecstatic to see "An-do."  It is amazing how fast those little guys grow up!  "An-do" is by far Zeke's favorite person in the world aside from his grandma (aka "Mamu").  He doesn't even have a clue that I have a name...this morning he was being cute and going around the room looking at everyone and saying hello to them by name.  He looked at his dad, "hey daddy,"  looked at Carrie, "hey mommy,"  looked at Drew, "hey An-do,"  he looked at me, paused and a confused look came on his face and he said, "hey An-do."  Oh well...he's too cute and I guess I'm okay with the fact that Andrew is his favorite (as long as I end up being Madie's favorite).

PPD and TB

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that during our last immunization clinic we had TB skin tests done.  Well, my PPD test did react positively:

(My TB Skin test over two weeks later)

Don't worry, I don't actually have TB.  A positive reading simply means that I have been exposed to TB.  In reality, this should not be that surprising.  I figured it up with some other people, and I have traveled to about 15 countries, and that within the last ten years.  With all this traveling, it is no surprise that I have come into contact with someone who had active TB.  I was not that nervous about testing positive.  I figured if I did have TB, Andrew would have tested positive on his PPD test also, but he was as negative as you can get.  A couple of hours after Andrew received his test, you could not even see it anymore.  But, just as a precaution, I had to get a chest x-ray.  All my results came back completely normal.  So what now?  Here comes the fun part :)  I have to take a pill everyday for 9 months:

I don't simply just have to take this pill, but I have to take this pill on an empty stomach.  At least two hours after eating and one hour before eating.  For those of you who know me well, I do not often have an empty stomach :)  I have discovered that the best thing for me to do is take this pill an hour before breakfast.  Also for those who know me well, I need to eat breakfast first thing in the morning when I wake up.  Therefore, I set my alarm clock an hour before I need to get up.  It goes off, I wake up, take my pill and go immediately back to sleep for another hour :)  So far it's been working out pretty good.  I've been taking this pill for three days now :)  The good thing about all this is that if everything works properly and I take my pills like I should, I will never get TB (as far as I understand).  Even if I am exposed again, and I will never have to take another PPD test because I will always react positively.  I am pretty grateful for that last part, because those skin tests hurt pretty bad.

Well, thanks for listening to my rambling...I hope you enjoyed it!

Cousins are like Siblings

This past weekend we had the opportunity to visit my cousin, Laura, and her family in Lynchburg.  Laura and I were always very close growing up.  In elementary school most of the adults/teachers couldn't remember our names because we were always together.  I have such great memories of us building forts out in the woods or "tree houses" on the swing set in Laura's backyard.  I remember in college, rolling out of bed and meeting Laura to walk down to the cafeteria to eat breakfast together.  While she is technically my cousin, Laura has always been more like a sister for me.  For a majority of our lives, we have lived no further than two miles apart...that is until we grew up and became adults ourselves.

The cutest little Jack in the world :)

Granted...not the best picture in the world, but it shows the love none the less.  Love you Laura, you're the best cousin in the whole wide world!!!

Busy

It feels like a lot has been happening lately.  This week we got pictures of our new apartment :)  we had our second immunization clinic where we got TB skin tests done (I think mine might be positive), we started taking the oral vaccine for Typhoid Fever, we went shopping and got a few impulse purchases :-/ and we got our first newsletter sent out.  Tomorrow is our two year anniversary and the day we start training for "just in case" scenarios.  All in all it has been pretty exciting and I believe it will continue to be pretty exciting.  I can't believe it, but we are a little over half way through this training process.  It seems like it has been just a short time, but it also feels like it has been forever and I am ready to move on.  I think I done with the basket weaving...for now anyway.  Now I am just ready to get overseas!

Basket Weaving

Remember a month or so ago when I wrote a post about basket weaving?  Well...I think I'm doing it again. This week we received some pictures of our future apartment overseas. It is amazing and wonderful and much nicer that I expected.  I was so excited to see pictures of it, but it also just set in once again how real this move is!  Since we have been in Virginia, I think I have just been on this adrenaline high, so excited about all that is going on, and too busy to really think much about what is to come.  Well, those pictures just reminded me this is the real thing.  The time has come!  I am so excited and look forward to it so much...but I'm still weaving :)

Immunization Day

Today was immunization day!  It's the day that we have all been looking forward to and anticipating for the past month. All we've heard about over the past month is how many shots we will be getting, how you'll get a shot in each arm at the same time, etc, etc.  I had all this anticipation built up expecting to get five or more shots.  I show up to get my shots and all I got was one!  I couldn't decide if I was glad to only be getting one or disappointed because I was expecting to get multiple shots at the same time and quite frankly was a little excited about seeing if that really helped it not hurt as bad.  All in all, I think I am thankful.  We still have two more immunization days before we head out overseas, so I still have shots to look forward to.  Andrew on the other hand was not so lucky...