Saturday, October 23, 2010

The New Job (first few weeks)

Really at this point its the first month. The first couple weeks were pretty laid back and involved the trip to Zecatecus that I wrote about before. After that its been kinda crazy but we are making it. We are trying to recruit our students and at this point dont have any. I know things always come through at the last min around here and I am keeping the faith that it will. To be honest I dont believe God would have put this opportunity in front of us if it wasn't going to work out. In the way of work we have been spending our days driving all over Guadalajara promoting our program to nurses at hospitals, schools, and scrub shops. At the small IMMS that only have a few nurses we are giving invites to bring them in for a meet and great and others who are willing we offer a presentation to be done at their hospital. So if any of you know of any nurses who would like to have classes with an actual instructor for passing their TOEFL (English test), and NCLEX (nursing boards test) send them my way. Our program also includes helping them to get a visa and a job in one of the countries that our company has an office in. Sorry I'm so in promotion mode I could go on all day. It really is such a great deal for these nurses. Seriously if anyone does have more questions about it please feel free to ask.

Our boss is great and although extremely busy with a lot on his plate he is obviously strongly committed to this project. Its nice because he is easy to talk to and likes to have us all hang out after work. He is good at keeping work at work and hanging out as hanging out. A couple weeks ago our whole family got to go with him to his club and let the girls swim and have dinner. We had a lot of fun and its good to get to know the people we work with a little better.

Last week I was sent to Dallas which is where the base office is. I realized while there that there isn't much I miss from the states any more. I was surprised by how groomed everything is, I think I had forgotten what a difference mowing and trimming a long the highways makes. ;) Aside from that it was only the first day that people thought I was strange because I had to think for a while before I spoke. I kept trying to think of what I wanted to say in spanish, then have a little you dont need to do that conversation in my head, then remember to actually talk to the person I was looking at. I was able to meet my supervisor who created the curriculum I will be using to teach my class. We were able to sit and really hash out how the classes should go and basically planned out my first couple weeks of class. I was also able to meet all the people at the base office that I have been communicating with via the web and that was nice. I of course had to make a trip to Target and the Dollar tree while there but for the most part of the trip it was all work. Oh but I got some good ice cream, got to eat a Sonic, and got to eat at this awesome Indian/fusion restaurant that is owned by my supervisor and her husband. Food is always important on a visit to the states no matter how short.

As for our immediate future Issac will be doing a lot of work from home the next couple weeks and I will be continuing our promotions with other people at the school. Its been tough keeping or getting the girls on a good schedule and keeping my house in order. But really my husband is so wonderful and and is doing his share. We just haven't quite fell into our niches yet. And really we cant, there is so much that I cant do around here right now. It seems like we will be getting a big change every couple weeks now for the next few months. For example my mom shows up next week and this will help us a lot. We are so excited to see her its been a year for me and Issac hasn't seen her other than the web cam since he moved here four years ago. Then a couple weeks after that the baby is due. Then comes the holidays and in January we will actually be teaching and not just doing the promotions. Then my mom will be leaving two weeks into January. I sure hope Issac and I ready to do three kids and both working by that time. lol We will be I know but its and interesting thought.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Move

Ok its taking me forever to get this out. Here is your warning that I am not going to read over this before I post it. If something doesn't make since just ask. lol
Its over but was not even close to being smooth. Seriously I know that patience is a vurtue that I need a lot of work with. Since moving to Mexico I have done much better with this, but I am still challenged to my brink sometimes. Let me tell you if what happened to us after me posting my last post had happened two years ago I would have been physically ill with stress. And although I wanted to reach out and rip a few heads off I actually tolerated it pretty well. Its not always about how you feel or what you want to do but what you actually do. ;) This is a change that can only be attributed to the work God has done in my life. Basically I just kept reminding myself of how he has never... ever... ever let me down or left me in the streets. And that kept me as cool as I could be.
The evening that I wrote my last post we got a call from our lovely reltor friend to say that the papers we had were not enough. Right away we told her to forget it all and we would look for another place. We told her we would need what we had given her so we could use it somewhere else. She told us to call next time we were in Guad and she would meet us to give us the papers back. At this point we were waiting on the call from the truck guys who were to help us move. We just figured we would let them know it fell through and that we would get back to them when we needed them. We also had a good friend and a cousin of ours "on hold" as far as helping us with the move. Around 7pm the relater called back and said as long as they could get a copy of my FM2 papers everything would be ok. We were a little skeptical but told her we would go with it. The truck guys called us at 8pm and agreed that 10am the next day was best for them anyway. I then called our friend who was on stand by and he also agreed. So as late as 9pm the night before we realized we were really moving the next day. Issac and I spent the next few hours packing last min items and tapeing up all the boxes. (we had left most of them open in case)
The movers were actually there early and had almost everything loaded before any of our other help showed up. On the lunch break one of the guys said, " its really rare we show up and people have everything packed up and ready to go." Then the other guy looked at him and said,"Actually, it hasn't ever happened before today." Issac and I found this amusing.
Thankfully I then went with our friend in his truck and had the movers follow me to the house. We actually only had to turn around one time and it was within the neighborhood that we were moving to. We arrived with all our stuff at the house around 2pm. This is also when Issac arrived to meet with the reltor to get the keys and sign the contract. She called him when he was about 15min away and said the contract wouldnt be ready until 5pm. He explained to here that we had hired people waiting at the house and could we have the keys to let them put our stuff in the house. The answere was no and that we couldnt have keys until the contract was signed. To say the least Issac was livid, they also informed him that he needed to get another copy of the fiodors ID. So Issac then had to turn around and head to a different part of Guad to get that copy made and proceded to the notaries to see if he could convince them to bring the keys. They were stuborn about the keys but gave us the ok to have our truck unloaded into the parking area of the house. Our movers put my entire house in the front yard basically of this this house and long story shorter, lol, we sat outside until 630pm when they land lady showed up with the keys. By this point I had meet a lot of the neighboors and found out there is a guy that kind of works the area and has for many years. He along with my friend who had stuck with us through all this ended helping move all our stuff inside. We simply set up the beds and crashed that night. We then had the whole weekend to get things together at the house and my first day of work was that Tuesday.
So thank God we are done dealing with the reltor and only have to deal with the land lady who is actually a very punctual and nice lady. The only issue we had witht he house was that the water wasnt working right but it has an underground resivour and a pump that we used until we figured out how to get the water service connected. Now we have our net and water and are happy campers. Im so thankfull for everyones prayers and well wishes. Somehow God was able to give me that peace that passes understanding during all this. A lot of it was because he provided me with fellowship during the wait. Our friend who helped us is a fellow Christian and it was good to have him around. Ill post about the job in a different post and pictures are to come later maybe not till next week of the house.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

zacatecus











So this is like 3 weeks old but my first work assignment was to go with my boss to Zacatecus to a conference and present our program. It went pretty well and instead of writing about it I thought Id just post some pics. Zacatecus by the way is so pretty, you feel like your in a spanish town. Prob the best part of the trip was to get to know my boss better we drove there and back and got a lot of chat time in. He and his wife are Jesus loving, praying Christians. This helps so much to have a boss who is on your wave length with the basics. Its actually a first for me and I'm loving it. So here are the pics enjoy.

Last Seguro appointment and finding a new doctor

So I'm not sad to say we had our last appointment in the Seguro. Honestly the treatment wasn't bad and it was all up to date but the thought of having the baby without Issac or the epidural was scary. Also as to be expected with something that is free most processes are more of a pain in the butt. For my last dr. appointment there we ended up having to wait almost 2 hours and only the thought that this was the last time got us through it. It was a new doctor but after we explained everything she simply gave us our paper work and wished us luck. We also found out that Issac can still have his surgery done through them if we wanted so we plan for him to go back to Tepa one weekend to get it done. This way it is free and because we already have all the paperwork done through them we figure we might as well.
It didn't take us to long to find a good place to go here in the city. To be honest the first place we checked into was only 2min from our house and we thought it was to expensive. But after checking into a few other places we found that it was actually one of our cheaper options. So we already have our new doctor and have had our first appointment with him. He is young and its kind of nice because he still seams fascinated with the whole pregnancy thing. For example during the ultrasound the baby had the hiccups and he just sat and watched the stomach and laughed for awhile. Anyway he was very thorough and did a great job with our first appointment. He did approve me to fly on Monday to Dallas (Ill explain in a different post, its for work) but said that had we not had it all set up already he prob would have suggested I dont go. He only agreed because I'm doing well with everything and there doesn't seem to be any issues. Also with the statement that it should be the last time I leave town until after the birth. This we agreed to and we set up a date for our next appointment in two weeks. To give you all an idea of the cost here, for the rest of my dr. appointments (4or 5) and the hospital stay and all the meds and doctors during my stay will run close to 2,000usd. I feel like Iv left a lot out so for any of you that may be looking into needing health care down here if you have questions please ask. One thing I know I still have to look into that some of you may be able to answer for me is for my mom. She is coming down in November and is on several medications. I'm wondering if her pill bottles show that she can get refills will the pharmacies here refill them or will we have to get her a dr appointment and a new script. She will be here for almost 3 months and I dont think will be able to bring a full supply of all of them.

The process

First I have to start this off with something that has nothing to do with the post itself. I just find being a mommy so fun so I wanted to share that my 18mo old has found that she can stash things in her diaper, so changes have become so interesting. And the 4year old GIRL... MY PRINCESS... has some odd fascination with spitting. This is not something I thought I would ever have to deal with with Alana. I have even told her its gross, and that a princess would never spit and its not helping. The good thing is that Issac is no longer working 12 hour days 6 days a week so he is around all the time to help....AND HE DOES HELP. Hes such an awesome papi and really pulls his weight around here.

So in my last post I told you about the amazing jobs we got in Guadalajara. The next step was to find a house to live in up there. Our first trip up there we stayed at some friends house with the idea that this would help us get an early start each day in looking for a place. The good thing was they had a house phone and we were able to use that. We seriously put more min on our phones in three days than we normally do in a month and a half. The only bad thing was that these guys live (with traffic) almost an hour from where we were looking. We had got in contact with a realtor... well sort of. Here is how that exchange went. We e-mailed her on Thur saying we were interested in looking at houses the first of the next week and when would she be available. She wrote back that she would get a list together for us by then. Come Sat we hadn't heard back about an appointment so we called her. She told us to call her when we got to Guad on Monday and she would meet us. We called her when we got there on Monday morning and she said she had things to do all day and could meet with us that evening. We called her that evening and she said she had just rented all but one of the places she had to show us and it couldn't be seen till the next day. The good thing was we actually had a few things to do with our new boss that day and we had a place to go back to in town (sort of). We also managed to get some other appointments set up to view places the next day so it was semi productive. The next day we headed out looking for more numbers and viewing the places we had already set up. The realtor was finally ready for us to view the house around 2 that afternoon. We loved this house and it was the one we are getting but we spent another evening and next day looking at our other options. Its about 30min from work and we were not sure we wanted to be that far. Believe it or not my girls were so good during all this. We had toys and lots of food stocked in the truck and each day let them spend an hour or so playing at burger king. This is a big deal to my little country kids who only see burger king every so often when we visited the city.
Although the realtor was so frustrating to deal with this was only the beginning. Because we have never lived in Guad we had to get a fiador, or a cosigner who has property and a deed to prove it in the city. At the last min Issac found a friend who would do it for us but he was as difficult to get anything set up with as the realtor was and we actually never ended up meeting up with the guy in person and just went and got the papers from his parents at their house. This came during our second trip the first being a whole wasted day trip to Guad. The only reason that was a big deal is because we are running very low on funds. Issac quite a week and a half ago so we could get all this running done and I dont get paid till the end of this week. Considering we were living check to check this is cutting us to the grind. Thankfully my sister loves us very much and knows we are very close to not being broke so she has loaned us some money. I then decided it would be a good idea to throw 3-500p down the drain when I scraped up against a parked car (thank God it was in Tepa) and broke out their tail light. I was so upset and mad at myself I have never done something like that and am normally a great driver. My sister says I can blame it on being prego so I will. ;)Like I said I'm glad it happened here because we know a guy who we trust will fix it and only what we messed up and not over charge us. Also he is taking his time, I hate that for the other guy (they were actually really nice people) but for us its better to not have to pay it until I start getting paid from the new job.
So now we have turned in our papers, and the contract should be getting written up today for the new rental. (Ill explain the house better when I can post pics and stuff) Our hope is that tomorrow at 10am we will be loading up our truck and moving. I think I may have to work some on Friday but still not sure on that either. Ill post more about the job on a different post. Today we are waiting on the guy we found who has a truck to verify if he will be able to help us tomorrow and for the landlord to call and tell us for sure the contract will be ready to be signed and the keys handed over tomorrow. I guess I'm lucky they are letting us know today and not tomorrow. So here we go moving again, dont read my old posts because I'm pretty sure I swore we were not going to move again for 2 years after we found our current house. That was 4months ago, seriously God does like to keep us on our toes.
So far I have been able to focus on the fact that I know God is in all this and try to stay calm and have faith. Although I have to say I have had a few random outburst (in private of course) and the crying fit when I hit the car but all in all I'm doing much better with all this than I would have been 2 years ago. I just have to remember that this is a part of my refining process and hopefully when we get to the other side I can shine even brighter for the Lord.

We are so excited about what the future holds for us as a family and excited to be closer to some of our friends. Keep us in mind this week that things go as smoothly as possible being that we are in Mexico. lol
Thanks everyone for your great comments and although, I'm not on the computer as much right now with all this moving craziness, believe me I will be blogging again regularly soon. I have so many different things I want to write about and am making notes so I dont forget. But for now we are totally consumed with this move.