To Create a New Blog or Continue on With This One????

So, I obviously haven't blogged in a really long time... I've seen many friends create new blogs for new stages of their lives and have been contemplating doing the same. Does this old blog that I've had since before I joined the Peace Corps still fit me? I'm torn, but I think whatever I blog today must have been built on the many things that have happened in the past right? Well, it seems like a lot of work to start a whole new blog and I love this blog and my old posts so I guess I'll just stick with it. So here's the update since my last post about painting our house: We now have an adorable little baby girl who makes me sooooo very happy. There is no way to express how much I love my little one, being a mother is amazing! We also adopted a dog who rounds things out quite nicely with Tigre the cat. Deivin now has his long term permanent resident card and will be on the path to citizenship very soon. Last year we purchased a franchise and I quit my job to try to make it work last year (more to come on this topic). That's the latest, more to come...

Home Improvements

After painting 1,000 sq ft of the interior of our house it was then time to sand and refinish the floors. I had no idea when we were beginning this task just what it would entail. On the DIY shows they make it sound like: All you have to do is sand it, fill in the cracks and then finish the area. That's it! That my friends is a total lie! What they should say or show is this: You will begin your project with a trip to home depot where they will rent you a broken/the incorrect machine. You will waste over an hour of your time trying to make this sander work before you realize that it's just not the right one and it just doesn't work! You will then clean off the bad sander, pack it into your car and go back to Home Depot where you will have to return the crap sander and then rent the correct one while you waste yet another hour of your time! Once you have the correct sander the real fun can begin. You will then be stuck in a house sanding and sanding and sanding your floors! If you're lucky like us you will have about 1,000 sq ft of flooring to sand! You will be covered and I mean covered with saw dust. My husband turned completely white from all of the dust! After sanding for 13 hours and pissing off all of your neighbors you will then begin the process of filling in all of the cracks. I won't even comment on this process because it's too terrible! Just know that my hands are still swollen and sore! After doing that for yet another 13 hours you will then get to SAND again and then again! It will take you another 13 hours! It's terrible, and, it's just the beginning! You will now need to start the clean up and let me tell you, that (like everything else) is not at all easy! We haven't even gotten to the finishing part! I keep telling my husband that this is not fun, he just laughs. Anyway, I'm sure we'll finish someday after lots of blisters and sore backs. That is my home improvement vent session, I'm sure there will be more to come. Don't believe the HGTV/DIY shows, they make it all look so easy but that is so not the case!

In About 2 Weeks...

In just 2 short weeks sooooo much has happened! On Feb. 14th Deivin and I had our interview for the green card. I expected all kinds of questions about our relationship and how we met and such. The interviewer just asked Deivin to confirm all of the information on the form that we had already filled out. They were questions like: What is your birthday? What is your name? Do you participate in espionage? I just sat there and listened until the end. It was pretty fast and painless. We found out on the 19th that we had been approved for the green card and it arrived today!!!! I cannot believe how great everything has been going. God has been 100% faithful to us throughout this entire process!

Last week Deivin started applying for jobs and it's looking like he will be offered a job from Home Depot sometime next week! It's the perfect job for him and I'm so excited for him, I know he has been dying to work for a really long time!

Life is so good!!!!!

It's Been a While

For a long time I haven't felt like I had much to blog about. I think mostly my family reads the blogs to keep up with me, but now I'm living with them or seeing them all the time so there's not much to update them on.

Anyway, things have really moved along since August! After the wedding Deivin and I went to Montana and Yellowstone for our honeymoon. It was a great trip but once it was over I knew that my next mission was to find a job for me. I know from past experience just how difficult finding a job is and I was a little worried that I would be looking for months. Thankfully after just a week I was able find a temp to hire position which I had actually already applied for before the wedding. When I had initially read the position description I knew it would be the perfect post Peace Corps job and really wanted the job but after not hearing anything for over a month I figured it was one of those phantom job postings that so many employers put up to see who they get but have no real intention of hiring anyone. Months later the week that we returned from the honeymoon a family friend called to let me know that there was a job fair that week. At the job fair I saw that there was a temp agency with the same job that I had a applied for. So, I signed up with the agency and was working within a week! I feel soooooo blessed! I was hired on permanency a month and a half later and there you have it!

More that anything I've felt like I'm just trying to get my feet under me and it's been just in the past few weeks that I feel like things are starting to settle down and I'm finally starting to find normal. Deivin and I still have a long way to go, but we are getting there! Deivin's work permit just arrived and he also just got his learners permit to begin driving. That has been a long journey in it's self, but after many trips to the DMV and hours spent waiting, he now has the permit in hand and now drives us everywhere we go! That's progress! A lady I work with tells me that success is sticking with a plan long enough to succeed, I think she is right. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we just keep chipping away and with Gods help (and He has been a huge help) we are making progress.

I'll update more in a few days... So much has happened...

Two Weeks in Colorado

We have now been in Colorado for 2 weeks and you can't imagine how busy we have been! Tigre the cat is now feeling really good and comfortable in the house and we are working on the outside. I think she prefers the indoors.

Deivin had been doing some gardening and is currently working on the wedding gifts that we will give out to our guests at the wedding.

I don't know if I already said this or not, but planning a wedding is really hard! There is no end to all of the little details. I'm working on checking things off the to do wedding list which turns out to be a full time job. Once I get caught up though I'm sure it will slow down.

Home Sweet Home

Whew! I've been home for a little over a week and it has been so nice to be here! I have been and continue to be super busy with wedding, immigration and general settling in stuff, but I think that being busy is a good thing. Deivin is doing great! He has already totally redone my parents front yard, fixed a door that has been broken for 20 years and is currently teaching my dad how to use a machete. Deivin is keeping very busy with projects and bettering his english. We are no where near bored!

I had no idea that planning a wedding would be a full time job! There should be people that you can hire to do it... It will all come together I'm sure, thankfully I don't have a job yet so I can devote lots of time to it.

And let the Bitter Sweet Goodbye Begin

I'm now in my final days as a Peace Corps volunteer. For the longest time I have dreamed of getting home and how great it will be and how I just can't wait to get there, but now that it's really close I'm finding that I'm actually really sad. I'm still excited and I can't wait to see my family and friends, but I'm really going to miss people here. Also, leaving Deivin's family and my host family are going to be really hard. I see the sadness in Deivin's mom and it breaks my heart. I know that she wants the best for her son and for him to be happy, but he's the first of her babies to leave her and I can tell that it will be a hard adjustment for her.

I'm finally done with all of my projects! Yesterday we had a beach clean up and hung up and moved around a bunch of signs that were all over the places to make things just a little more organized. Deivin made some new signs also that should help the Blue Flag group to get more stars in the coming year. La Palma and Guadalupe hosted the VIDA volunteers again! This is a group that organizes medical, dental and vet clinics that serve people in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. They bring students from the respective fields and they get hands on experience working with people and helping them to get free medical attention. They way it works is they have the students break up into small groups and for example the medical students work with a doctor and they do the interview with the patient, learn to take blood pressure, ask the right questions and they even learn to give shots though they only practice on each other. It's a really great program and the students really get a lot out of it.

Now Deivin and I have moved on from work to the various lunches, dinners, coffee times, etc that people are inviting us to. This part is always so stressful for me.