Milestones

Milestone #1 - Residence Visa - Many of you know that we have been living in limbo about our residence status here. We've been here for almost 6 months and assumed we would have passed this milestone several months back. This milestone is the key to getting a bank account, a post office address, being able to buy and register a car in our name and, of course, travel across the border in our small town. This milestone is not totally passed - I'm deciding to call it a Mile - Zone as opposed to a Milestone because it isn't passing quickly (= We have a job, we've signed the contract (that took 6 days) now we need to wait for visa paperwork to be completed. Hence the zone concept.

Milestone #2 - Layla starts pre-school and loves it.
Yes indeed. She has gone three days this week and is doing well. In her words:
"I cried a little bit, but it was okay."
" I had some trouble today. I was grabbing. But it will be okay."
" We need to put the juice box in this pocket on my bag. It leaks in the other pocket." (she's majorly attached to her little rolling bag she takes to school!)
"I said (arabic word arabic word arabic word) and (somethign like an arabic word?) today in school!"

Milestone #3 - We are not going to look for another house to move into.
We had been casually looking for a slightly larger house. We could really do with one more room to use as a guest room/other things, but we just aren't finding anything that we like as much as our place. One GREAT thing about our house is that no one could build another house near us that is two stories tall. If that happend, I'd have to wear different clothes in our yard and one of the things I love about our yard is that no one can see in and I can wear whatever I want. Also, because we've been in our house for 4 years, the rent is super low compared to market value these days. We've never met our landlord, but from what we can tell from our agent, he is very happy to have us stay in the house and doesn't want us to move. Consequently, we've been given permission to make some changes/improvements to the house.

Milestone #4 - Ryan sleeps through the night. Oh wait. That isn't happening yet.


In the picture above, Layla is a week from turning three years old, Ryan is almost 4 months (yes, he is a big kid) and I am 37 and Tom is 42 (= We are definitely feeling our age these days! Thanks to all of you who make it possible for us to be here in so many ways.