Changes

Wow, where do I begin? Let me start by saying sorry for not keeping up with this thing. It seems that since our return to the island in September, our lives have been in a tailspin of changes. If you know me (Bobby) well at all, you know I like change. However even I have felt completely behind in all my work and my desk has been cluttered with papers to file and work to do. There is nothing worse than having an email inbox full of unanswered or incomplete emails.

I have felt that I have not had time to update the blog. When I was younger and would tell my dad that I didn’t have time to do something, he would comment about how I had been cheated and I must have not received the same 24 hours in my day that everyone else did. The purpose of his statement was to remind me that its not a matter of time, but of priority. His comment and influence sticks with me. Hence the update of this blog. Its really is a priority to me.

Now enough about that, let me get into why I decided to call this blog “Changes.” Over the last several months we have had a lot of changes in our lives. Change causes stress. Some changes are inevitable and we have to deal with the stress it brings, other changes are created with purpose and will hopefully help reduce stress as we become more acclimated to the change. Why am I writing all this? Like you don’t know about change. Why am I delaying on writing out the changes? I guess because I know that most of the people who will read this, will have the time off during the Christmas holidays and have nothing better to do than read a lot of words on our blog. Ok, for real, let me list a few of the changes….

Crohn’s. Enough said. Angie is doing better, but the complications to the disease have added enough stress of their own. The medication she is on causes some other side effects that are just as uncomfortable. We decided to reduce the dosage by half and it seems to reduce the side effects and is still working on the Crohn’s issue.

House helper. We have employed a girl to come to our house about 4 times a week to help out with the daily tasks of a stay at home – school teacher – island mom. The girl, Sana, shows up about 10 in the morning and stays until school’s out at 3:30 pm. She does a great job and now I don’t have to iron my own shirts and Angie doesn’t have to wash the dishes in between Math and Reading.

Rooms. We moved our kids into one bedroom and now use Kyndal’s old room (the smaller of the two) as an office/classroom/storage room. Our apartment doesn’t have closets, so…. well you can only imagine how we needed storage. We bought a desk for the computer and another bookshelf for school books. We moved the drying rack (remember we don’t have a dryer) to this room. Now Angie and I can walk all the way around our bed. Before, the clothes drying rack was in our room and completely annoying. The kids seem to enjoy sharing. Probably something that we would have never done in the States, but seems to work well isolated in the islands. Half the room is pink and the other half is black and red… Go Tech!

Office. Almost too many changes to count. I now have a lady from Germany working in my office along with David and an islander. So in all there are now four people in my office. We are trying to tap the European market with our travel business. It seems to be going pretty well. I’ll keep you posted on this one. All the work to get permission for additional foreigners to work for my company was a huge headache. Forms, forms and more forms… oh yeah, don’t forget that stamp. The rules and regulations are crazy but fortunately I have Pintu who knows it better than anyone. Pintu took good care of me and helped me all the way through.

More employees required more furniture, more computers, etc. I think we are all set now. However, it looks like we may be moving the office down the sidewalk. The landlord needs the space I am in and he has another one for rent down the road. We will probably be moving there in a couple of weeks. I guess the changes aren’t quite finished at the office.

New friends. We met some new friends on the boat about a month ago. We have had them to our house a couple of times… once for dinner and once for coffee. Last Friday we went out on his company’s boat for the day. It was a lot of fun. I’m sure you will be hearing more about Rizny, Asthu and Maaki. They are really fun to be around. Maaki is two and is great. I just wish I could understand half of what he says. I really need to work on my Dhivehi. However, listening to them talk to him really helps me. I think I need preschool language lessons.

House. They finally poured a cement landing at the bottom of our stairs. This really should cut down on the sand in the house. They are also putting up scaffolding. The owner told me tonight that he plans to give our home a face lift for the new year. Sweet!

Most of you know that I am a raving fan of Apple products. I try not to be obnoxious about it, but I have to brag a bit on something. We recently bought an Apple Airport Express. The Airport Express allows us to share our internet connection wirelessly all over the house. Now, this is not the part I am impressed with. Many people have wireless internet activity. The part I am impressed with is the “Air Tunes.” Right now, I am at the new desk playing my entire Christmas collection from iTunes and it is broadcast wirelessly to my living room where it is played through our stereo. Pretty cool huh? Well I think so.

As I am pecking out the words on my MacBookPro, I am also sipping on some freshly ground and brewed Starbucks coffee. I guess somethings never change.