O Happy Day!

Sturgis Falls parade.

Don't try to take this baby off a swing. She'll squeal.
"Hello."

We have internet at home!!!! Not only that, but it's 512 kb/s. I almost cried when I saw how fast it is. On top of that, Blogger has added video capabilities. Soon, you will all be tired of videos of our daughter. Maybe I can even capture some choice Almaty sites, like the two guys we saw working underneath a car propped on its side or the guy I saw doing repair work while hanging onto the window frame on the outside of the building on the 6th floor. Why don't I ever have my camera when I need it?

For some reason, Joe and I have had a very rough start over here. Nanny trouble. No internet. Our phone isn't working now. Our director hurt his back so our school is suffering while he's out. And, the infernal construction. Curses. We moved closer to school in order to avoid a lot of construction. What did they decide to do? Tear up the major intersection where we live! We were almost 2 minutes from home on Saturday, and then we realized they closed our road. No joke, we were in traffic for 2 hours. Not only that, but Sophia was having a melt-down. We got out and parked the car because walking home would be faster. As we walked home, it started to downpour. Just not our luck.

This morning, the teacher we gave a ride to work told us that her bath tub is in the middle of her room. She asked the landlord to fix that, so he pushed it against the wall, put a plastic piece along the edge and basically Scotch-taped it there. Needless to say, it still leaks. She said, "Why don't they just come to America or Canada and we'll show them how to do it! These things are possible!" I know it's an ethnocentric comment, but seriously people! There are better ways to do things!

Boy, I used a lot of exclamation points there, but maybe you can sense my exasperation. As we begin our school year, there is still furniture to be built for our classrooms. All of our school supplies, books, and furniture is being held by the Kazakh government over some customs issue. Who knows when they'll get through all that red tape. I feel bad for the people who are new to international teaching. They don't realize that you just have to go with the flow. Thank you, Egypt, for giving us the hard and fast lesson on riding the waves of international teaching.

Without much more complaining, I will now proceed to upload those summer pictures!