Blur

The past month has been a blur. Now that I have my laptop going, here are some pictures from our last week in Durham. Jessica, Elyse, Nahal, Rob and Susan, and Moni and Susanna - THANK YOU all for helping with cleaning 801 Turmeric Lane. You are all great friends, neighbors, and we hope you will all come down to visit us in Blue Ridge. We miss you all terribly, and not only was our Turmeric home our first home, but you all made living there very enjoyable and comforting - especially just knowing you all looked out for our well-being. We look forward to seeing you all soon, and possibly, if you all can make it, for Ethan's 1-year birthday celebration later in September (his birthday is on the 21st, though we may hold a party on the nearest weekend, don't know off the top of my head what date that is, if the 21st).

Oh, and I've updated my blog entry of July 10th with pictures that seemed to not open. I hope they work this time around.

And the pictures I post here will be a continuation from then, when we met with several friends before saying goodbye to Durham, and the house cleaning and final photos in our front yard.

Oh right, I am remembering events of those last few days in Durham... and also a heartfelt thanks to the James, Nourani and Mostaghimi families, for not only organizing farewell dinners in your homes on our behalf, but for all the prayers, love and encouragement you've all showered upon our small and growing family these past four years. We love you all!

Kaleidoscope: Day Two

Ethan started daycare yesterday for the first time. We had put him on the wait list for infants (0-12months) back in February, and his spot came up just in time. Kaleidoscope is a popular and well-run daycare and learning center in Blue Ridge, and they have wait lists for all of their age groups (1yr old, 2, etc..). The infants group is especially hard to find spots for, so we are glad that we had put Ethan's name early.

But Ethan did not enjoy his first day so much. He cried when I dropped him off. I did not stay too long or else I would have made things worse for him. I stopped by once, around lunch time, to see how he was doing. The caregiver had just put Ethan to sleep for his nap and while placing him in his crib, Ethan woke, and started to cry again. Good thing I was there, though, since he was glad to see me, and I played with him some, to try and get him used to his new surroundings.

I stayed for about 30 minutes and left to run some errands and to not have Ethan then get used to me always being there in the daycare with him. He cried when I left.

So his first day at daycare, a day that started around 9:30 am and ended when Kelly and I picked him up at 4:45pm or so, did not really go so well (as expected). He ate nothing, slept but 30 minutes, and cried for hours probably.

Today was day two. He cried almost immediately when we got there, though I am not sure it was because he recognized I was soon going to leave him there, or that other babies were crying around him. I did not stay long and just left. Poor Noomz was crying.

I will check on him again soon. I hope he eats something today. It is quite a challenge even for Kelly and I these days to get Ethan to eat anything, so I am not expecting miracles here, and I know it will take a long time before he will trust a stranger to feed him. It is unfortunate that Noomz will have to lose weight before he starts eating in daycare, with all our worries about his weight not increasing since around his 6 month doctor's visit. But there is some hope. Just last night, after not eating all day at K, we fed him his usual dinner and then some yoghurt. He ate a little bit of his solids, but not enough I thought, since he should have been starving. So we tried feeding him yoghurt and to our surprise, Ethan loved it! Needless to say we packed him a yoghurt to go along with his milk and solids in his meal bag.

Just heart-wrenching.

As if moving and re-establishing one's life is not difficult enough.

Pictures As Promised

Finally, my laptop is back in working order and digital camera and blogging may thus commence as before. I took a ton of pictures of all various angles and places in our house in Blue Ridge. They are not in any order and just random, and you can see the mess from our unpacking and such, but if only I had my gadgets working earlier, I could have shown all just how crazy and disorganized we were a week back (i.e. the pictures actually show a much better situation now). I will take some lake pictures next too though we've not had any time at all to go down to the lake (except drive by it on our way to/from the city downtown area). But as promised. Sorry it took so long! Now you can expect entries with more pictures than text hopefully. Love to everyone! And PLEASE come and visit us :-)

Getting Settled A Bit

It has been nearly two weeks now since we relocated to the mountains in Blue Ridge, GA, and we have unpacked nearly all of our things. A few generous house warming gifts from Kelly's parents have meant some extra work for me (assembly work etc..) but the house is looking now more and more personal and soon will feel like home, hopefully.

This past Wednesday, July 25th, was Kelly's birthday. We celebrated with dinner at Longhorns Steakhouse in Ellijay. Dinner was fantastic, but dessert was really really good. Not announcing that it was Kelly's birthday or anything -- just doodling a large "note" that read "Happy Birthday, Honey" on a napkin with some crayons provided for Ethan (subtle hint, I know) -- our server got the message and brought Kelly a huge slice of cake (can't imagine how huge the entire cake must be) with some 7 (no kidding) layers of chocolate. You'd think it was probably too rich (too sweet) or at least I did, but it was heavenly, smooth, and really easy to take in, even after a heavy dinner. It certainly made our cake back home (that we purchased to eat once we got home from the restaurant) pale in comparison.

Ah ha... but how wrong was I again... because the chocolate ice cream cake that we bought was just spot-hitting perfect the-night-after-Kelly's-birthday night celebration night. Yup, we even put a candle and sang Happy Birthday and took pictures. It was fun.

We've been shuttling our trash down to the local dumpster since we don't have any garbage service (to start next Thursday) as of yet. Not many people hire this service either. Many content with simply driving to the dumpsters with a few bags of trash and paying far less than local pick-up service. This is one of a few new things we are having to get used to, living in a rural location.

But after sorting through a mountain of trash from packing material and cardboard boxes and such, we can final see the main floor of our house from our driveway. Words simply do not do justice what work I had to go through to sort it all out. Should've taken some pics. But who takes pics of trash? Right, nevermind.

And we fiiiiiiinally made it out to see some friends. We drove down to Jasper to visit the Teskes. They live about 45 minutes to an hour away from us, and they have two kids (Isabella - 3 and Adib - 1) -- same ages as Carmel and Ellie Nur and Junnoske and Ryunoske!! They know Kelly's parents from serving at the Baha'i World Center in Haifa, Israel, and also know my sister, Sharon, from when she was on pilgrimage in Haifa or one of other visits to the BWC maybe. Small world the Baha'i world. And so we hope to join them for Feast on Wednesday and other activities in the future.

Tomorrow, we are going to the big city (Atlanta) for the first time since we moved here. I have not posted any pictures since we've moved because my laptop (or the power cable for my laptop) needs repair, and the closest Apple Store is in Atlanta (Lennox Place??) and will get this fixed once we are there tomorrow -- likely to leave my laptop for a whole week. So, soon, hopefully, I shall post pictures.

Ethan starts daycare at Kaleidoscope on Monday, when Kelly starts work also. I plan to finish up things in the house and start reading/preparing for my own work (while I can when Ethan is at daycare) and join Kelly at work a week or so later.

We'll see how Ethan does at K. Both Kelly and I are mildly optimistic his first week will go ok, though likely he will have no problems adapting and playing with the other infants and catching an illness from some of them and being asked to be taken home. Yea, that's probably the most likely actually.

Mountain Living

Hi Everyone! It's been exactly a week now -- I can't believe how time flies! -- since we moved to Blue Ridge, Georgia. We have been unpacking all this time, going out of the house a few times, most of those times to go to Home Depot, the others, to buy groceries. Otherwise, we've been cooped up at home organizing our things and throwing boxes and packing material out. We have only managed to take a walk or two around our new "neighborhood" and managed to walk up to the lake briefly. I am sure we will have many more opportunities to truly enjoy our location. But for now, I jokingly tell Kelly, I am getting "cabin fever" from being stuck at home for long periods at a time, but there's just so much to do, and it has not been easy since with Ethan, only either Kelly or myself can really do any of the unpacking. And so I write this entry to say I will be posting another one very soon -- hopefully this coming week -- with pictures of our new house once everything is more or less in place. Tired and exhausted wishing we had family over (more for the extra hands than company to be totally honest) I sign off for now. Love to all!

PS. not sure what happened to the pictures in my previous post, but will try and get those uploaded again

PPS. Ethan is 10-months old today (Yipee!)

Waiting For Kelly...

Ok, so maybe I wasn't actually going to wait until we moved to Blue Ridge to post another entry. Well, I am just waiting for Kelly who is a few minutes away from home, stuck in traffic, and Ethan's asleep, and we are all going to the Nouranis home for dinner. I believe every night this week until we leave on Sunday we have something (dinner) pencilled in our calendar. Tonight, the Nouranis. Tomorrow, Moni and Susanna (and the Rengels too?? not sure). Thursday, Merlion with Jessica. Friday, last 19-day Feast. Saturday, dinner at the Mostaghimis (official goodbye dinner with lots of folks). Sunday, off to Blue Ridge. Oh Kelly's home... here's some pics... :-D

One Week To Go!

We have one week left in Durham. We've been so busy with making "changes of address" with everything, doing some packing/planning, and meeting with friends for final dinners. Will write more soon. Oh, and did anyone watch the Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal? Repeat of last year's final, but MUCH more competitive. Probably the best Wimbledon final ever. And Roger won. Yay! OK, here are some recent pictures and not so recent pictures I forgot to post. Possibly my next blog entry will be once we are moved and settled in Blue Ridge.

Happy Canada Day!!

To all my fellow Canadians -- HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

Grandfather Mountain, NC

[photo: rain storm approaching in the distance, blue ridge mountain range]

Friday night and all day Saturday we went to Grandfather Mountain with Jessica, her sister Rebecca, and her best friend, Shashi. What a fun hiking/outdoorsy trip! We bought this cool back pack carrier for Ethan for which we got plenty of compliments everywhere we hiked. Long drive back home though, and still we've not caught up on sleep... and so this entry will be short. Check out pictures by clicking link above.