getting situatedhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

You can’t buy beer here. That’s right. We are in Dallas and alcohol sales are prohibited in an 8 mile radius that we are smack dab in the middle of. Strange, but true.

Also, we live on church row. There must be 10 churches that line our street, one after the other. It’s strange that our small community can support this many churches, (big ones too). Or maybe all the churches in Dallas are on our street? But get this. None of them are Episcopalian.

There is no HEB here. They have what’s called a Minyards and Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, which is terribly cute by the way, a big diff from the super centers we are all used to.

They also pick up the trash two times a week. What’s up with that? Luxury!

They have alleys here. Not used to those.

Women work the lawn refuse truck. The one that comes down our street takes up the whole street, and moves slooooowww. They don’t care. They slowly plop out of the truck one by one. The are smoking, overweight, and wear hardhats. I will try to snap a pic next time. Its weird, because back home, nobody smokes, they move fast and they are usually pretty fit. On our street anyway. You go girls!



There is a high school close to us that I cant help but marvel at each time we pass by. Its has about 10 Artichoke lamps in its main hall. I later found out that this was a private school. But still. Artichoke lamps. 10 of them. In a school. Must be nice! here is a pic

Our summer home that we are staying in is a spacious 3bdr 1.5bath that is straight out of Hyde Park. A home like this would run 300k easy, but to people here, it’s just an old bungalow in an “affordable” neighborhood. It’s weird because every time I take akello out for a jog (that’s right JOG) I look around and think im back in Austin living the high life.

We bought a baby jogger off Craigs list just before we left Austin and we also picked up a new car seat. Tony and Natasha had lent us their Graco all in one and it was time we power washed it and gave it back to them. So now we just have a baby stroller. Thinking about getting an umbrella stroller. Thinking.

But the thing now is, if he falls asleep in the car, we can’t take him and the car seat out anymore and just take him to in the house. Now we have to unbuckle him in the car and lift him out and take him by hand into the house. This hasn’t worked for me yet. Now usually I would just keep driving until he wakes up, but with today’s petrol prices, that’s not an option.

It has taken a bit to get going over here. This house was vacant and the gas wasn’t turned on, meaning there was no hot water. I was so icky and gross by the second day that I had to take a shower. So I get the water going and step in the shower. I put my leg under the arctic water and my body started to go into shock. My body started shaking and my throat swelled and I couldn’t breath! So I just took a sink bath. We got here on Friday and the gas guy showed up on Monday. Not too bad. The air conditioner was on, so nobody here is complaining.

Sunday we went to go have lunch at Uncle Joe’s house. I walked in, grabbed a beer, took over the shower, ate some bbq and then marveled at his Internet connection. Our internet didn’t get hooked up till today, and we didn’t bring a tv with us. So with the information void and the lack of normalcy (no hot water) we feel like we are in another country. Or camping or something. When we were at Joes house all we watched was NASCAR racing (he lives in Midpark) so we still don’t know whats been going on in the world since the 7th. Has Katie couric been fired yet? Is the View still on the air? Has Clevland lost the NBA finals yet?

After taking some days to get the lay of the land and with Theresas first day of school behind us, we are setup and running smoothly. Theresa LOVES her school work and is learning from “cha cha” a Mexican national who is training the classes. Every time her name is mentioned at dinner or something I imagine that skeez of a latin tv personality whose name escapes me, but sounds something like that. I think she did a Dr. Pepper commercial or a geico commercial? CHaro? Chara? I cant remember. Anyway. Theresa loves it and is beaming everytime she talks about it. We are all very happy to be here and to be afforded the opportunity for Theresa to take part in the training and for me to run around dallas all day with Akello. Im so Mr. Mom its not even funny. On theresas first full day at school I finally realized what its like to be with a baby for most of the day on your own. No wonder there are all these mommy groups. It gets lonely! Nobody to talk to. And the day is loooong. Ups and downs, tears of joy, tears of sadness.

Nobody said Pimping was easy. But now I have walked in those crocs myself.



Akello loves his new place here. The living room belongs to him, like it did back home. The place looks awesome. We pretty much just live in the living room, kitchen and one of the guest rooms where we have an office setup along with our clothes and akellos baby station.

Every weekday looks like this.

Wake up at 7, give him breakfast. Fruit and cherrios.
Free play until he starts getting sleepy usually round 9
Put him in the baby jogger
I jog, akello sleeps, from 9ish to 10ish
Wake up and leave the house at 10:30 to make it to our 11:00 appointment.
Story time, little gym, swim lessons, a museam, or thrift shopping depending on what day
Lunch at 12:00 at home or out and about picnic style. Then home by

Tired of writing the schedule. Moving on.

Akello is such an eater! He is pretty much eating anything and everything that we put in front of him, xept for banana. We are still keeping him away from sodium and spices, strawberrys and peanuts. But other than that…watch out, because if you blink, he’s got it in his mouth. He is getting a little better at chewing. He’s funny though cuzz he gets so excited when the food comes to the table. His whole body shakes with excitement.

Theresa is learning a great deal, and has to come home and do a lot of homework. She tells me little things that she learns and re-iterates how well we are doing with akello or what we need to work on. Like today she said, how do you expect him to sit in his chair and eat when you walk around the house eating cookies. Hmmm….called out! Right now he is in his sensitive period for movement and its important to let him move when he wants to. I was teaching him “feet first” as he would make his way off the mattress to the floor but Theresa told me to let him go head first if he wanted to, this way he learns about his body easier and faster and he’s not in danger or anything. Hmm…so

Stuff like that. There is some other stuff that we are doing good on like order in the house. Putting everything in a spot and keeping it there. Theresa attributes that fact that we did this at home to helping to ease akellos transition to the summer home, where everything hasn’t moved since we set it up.

I have been writing on this blog little at a time since we got here so that I could post once the internet got here. I spend half my free time at night blogging and the other half thinking about/writing the curriculam for my classes that I will be teaching in the fall. Luckily, There is another teacher teaching intro to filmmaking as well who taught the class last year, so I am just going to follow his syllabus this year. But I still have to come up with what I will teach in the Broadcasting class. They taught it last year, but the teacher sucked and they didn’t do much of anything but break equipment. Its really weird b/c I need all kinds of equipment to teach my class, but I cant order it till late august, and its like, well, what do I teach then, and that’s if they give me the equipment that I need. Its all very weird. So for now im just trying to write the classes day by day as if I didn’t have any equipment for at least 3 months. That’s how long the other teacher had to wait to get his equipment. Hmm,,,,let’s start with the history of broadcasting shall we!