Egypt Continued

So the next highlight of our trip, after moving into our apartment, entails nausea. No, not the flu…we found out I’m pregnant! We didn’t know before we left, but after my period still never came and then the all-day nausea hit, we got suspicious. We bought a pregnancy test from our local pharmacy across the street and came home to give it a try. It read invalid the first time because the tests here aren’t just the classic “pee on the stick” kind. They feel more like they belong in a medical laboratory…you have to “collect a sample” then place precisely 3 drops on the card, no more no less, with the included dropper. I thought trying to do all that at home was silliness so just used the classic “pee on the stick” method, which did not work. I flooded it I guess. So after buying another one the next day and actually following the very specific instructions, we got a fast positive result. It was pretty exciting actually! We weren’t totally planning on this pregnancy, though we were open to it happening sometime soon, so we were both pleasantly surprised and excited--including Michael, despite his little act of “deer in the headlights” when we went to take a picture of us with our test stick.

We went to a clinic the next day for a blood test to verify it and it too came back positive. We’ve got a baby growing! So by this time I was actually already 5 weeks pregnant.

I’ve now had my first prenatal appointments here at a medical center with an English speaking OB/GYN. At 13 weeks we got an ultrasound to see how things are going in there. It was so amazing to see a little baby, growing and moving inside of me right there on the tv screen. He/she (I feel like it’s a he) was kicking his little legs and looking so cute! It was still really small, only a little over 2 inches long at that point. His measurements matched up with my dates, his heartbeat was good, and his placenta is nicely attached. So everything looked really good! It has to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, knowing I was actually seeing the baby growing inside of me. What a miracle it all is…

So at the point I’m writing this, I am now 18 weeks along and my uterus is supposedly about the size of a cantaloupe, with baby at an astounding 5 to 5.5 inches long–pretty impressive for starting out as a single cell, I’d say!  I’m starting to show now, but it’s still not totally apparent to the general public that I’m pregnant. (Tummy pictures to come shortly!) And when I lay still and concentrate, I think I have felt some little movements inside of me. It’s hard to know for sure because I’m not totally sure what it’s supposed to feel like, besides what I’ve read and heard from other people. But I think I’ve felt little fluttery feelings in that general part of my abdomen.

My morning sickness is pretty much gone now and I only feel sick if I get hungry, so I try to stay aware of my hunger and when I ate last. I do still throw up occasionally, which is always fun (not!). I feel like my energy level has come back up too. From the end of my second month through the third month, I was super tired and spent much of my day napping on the couch. But now I’m feeling more awake and don’t need so much nap time. Some smells have been bothering me too. We had to throw a few bars of soap away that we bought here because they were so sickly perfumed I wanted to throw up every time I smelled them. And when that kitchen garbage starts smelling like death, Michael has to go take care of it so I don’t lose my stomach contents. But overall I’ve felt pretty good during my time being pregnant. I’ve heard of much worse cases of morning sickness so I count myself lucky.

Welcome to Egypt!

April 25, 2010, 3:00pm we stepped off the plane at the Cairo International Airport, after 22 hours of travel and only a few hours of sleep on the flights, and embarked on our adventure. I had seen the pyramids from my plane window as we flew over Giza and was already excited to see what lie ahead for us in Egypt.

Signs in the airport were in Arabic and English so it was easy to find our way through the big airport. At the restroom I was greeted by a friendly attendant who handed me toilet paper to dry my hands on and, I assumed, wanted a tip from me in return. I played dumb tourist and smiled and walked out as I was not about to tip for using a public restroom and only had my large and valuable US dollars on me. Culture shocker number 1: Egyptians think you should pay to use a public restroom, even if, as we later came to find out, the bathroom is poorly kept up and has no toilet paper, as in the case of the restrooms at Karnac Temple.

Seeing Egypt from my window

We made our way through the airport, purchased our tourist visas, changed some money into Egyptian Pounds, went through passport control, luckily claimed all our pieces of luggage, then headed out into the throng of taxi drivers anxiously awaiting their next passengers. "Taxi?" they all asked as we passed (something we would come to hear constantly as we walk anywhere). Michael used his Arabic to negotiate a taxi ride to our hotel while I stuck close by him, quietly taking in my first views of Egypt. It was hot, but definitely not as bad as I was expecting (we just needed another 3 weeks to allow Summer to really hit), and the airport looked large and new and quite first-world. We only had to drive about 15 minutes before we saw slums and realized that yes, Egypt really is a third-world country.

As the warm breeze blew in on us through the open windows, and Michael conversed with our driver in Arabic, that first taxi ride was a great time to take in the views of downtown Cairo. Mosques, with their tall minarets, dotted the landscape surrounded by buildings, apartments, and narrow roads filling all the space in between. Laundry was hanging out over most balconies and the dessert sand was visible in the distance. It was all so new and different and it was neat to just take it all in while we drove. I was glad to have a seatbelt as traffic was busy and crazy. As we came to find out, most taxi drivers remove their back seat belts or buckles, or both, so I was pretty lucky to have a functioning seat belt on our 30 minute ride.

We arrived safely at our Maadi Hotel, checked, got our luggage put down, then collapsed on the bed in our small, but nice room. We were both tired from our long hours of travel, forwards in time, and it was too much to think about what time it should have been for us in the US. A 10 hour time difference from Utah to Cairo makes for a pretty good case of jet lag. We were told it's best to stay awake until a normal bedtime hour, so we got off our bed and went exploring our hotel. Up on the roof of the hotel we had a great view of the surrounding city.

We arrived a day later than everyone else so we weren't sure what the rest of the group was up to, but we ran into a couple of Michael's classmates on the roof who informed us of the group's schedule for the evening. That evening our whole group convened in the lobby and we all walked to the church building for a little orientation meeting and security briefing from the embassy workers of the ward. By this time we were exhausted and just wanted to sleep, so we when finally got back to our hotel, we hit the sack in an attempt to sleep off the jet lag.

Our second day here we got to go to the pyramids at Giza and ride camels! This was definitely a highlight.

View as we drove by

Standing on the big pyramid

Love that camel face!

Our camels and guide

The sphinx was also really cool to see!

Michael with his friends Andrew, Jeremy, Shawn and Trevin and Mr. Sphinx

My kiss with the Sphinx

We loved our trip to the pyramids and it was a great kick off to our time in Egypt. We stayed in the hotel with the group that whole first week and we filled our time with exploring Maadi, eating the yummy cheap local food, getting cell phones, getting our first cases of the runs, finding apartments then moving into our apartment. Everywhere we went it seemed there was someone to tell us in their Arabic accent, "Welcome to Egypt!" or, the other favorite, "Welcome in Egypt!"

Countdown to Egypt

My graduation is 19 days away and our move to Egypt for Michael's Arabic study abroad is 20 days away! That's right, one day after I graduate, we are out of here! We're getting pretty excited! We've sold our apartment contract so we'll move our stuff out and put it in storage a few days before we leave. We will miss our family and I think I will miss the United States and the normalcy I'm used to, but we're ready for an adventure and learning to navigate in a whole new environment. I'm glad Michael speaks Arabic--he will make life a lot easier while we're traveling to and living there. We're waiting to find out if he got the scholarship he applied for to see if we'll be there a full year or just the 3 months with his BYU program. We should be finding out the end of this month, which means we may be over there already before we find out.

One more week of class, one research project and 20 page paper to finish, 800 more NCLEX practice questions to do, and one take home final exam and I'll have completed my BS in Nursing. Wow, sounds stressful when I put it that way! It's going to be a busy next two weeks.

We've had a nice Easter and General Conference weekend. Michael's parents came into town for the weekend so we got to spend time with them, Trent and Adrienne, Steven, and Grandma and Grandpa Pope. We spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's with everyone Saturday night and spent Easter Sunday there watching General Conference and we had a delicious Easter dinner. It's always so nice to be with family.

I just got back Wednesday night from my sister Maelyn's wedding in St. Lucia in the Caribbean! It was a fabulous trip! I stayed with my Mom and Dad in their hotel and my brother Joseph and his wife Lorie came too. Maelyn and Peter got married on Monday, March 29th in a beautiful gazebo on an ocean resort. It was a very sweet ceremony. In our time there, we had fun together touring the island, swimming in the ocean, kayaking, eating yummy food, and riding the zip line through the rain forest. It was hard to come back to real life after such a nice vacation, but I'm back and I think I'm adjusted again after having vacation withdrawal symptoms.

And another year of school begins!

So much for being a regular blogger! When was my last post?...June?! Well, needless to say, we enjoyed the rest of our summer and were sad to see it come to a close. I went to Girls Camp with my ward in August as an assistant leader (it was great except for the terrorist mice in the cabins!). Then we had an nice vacation with Michael's family in La Jolla, CA. It was after that trip that we dove back into school...not exactly what I felt like doing, but then again it's nice to be back in school, with a schedule and a routine, expanding our knowledge... I'm finally down to 2 semesters until I graduate and become an RN! It's about time! Having started school in Fall of 2004, it's been a long haul.
My nursing semester consists of adult critical care nursing, psychiatric nursing, and (in order to get me up to 12 credits to be full time) self-directed studies. I chose to study up on different natural childbirth methods. No, I'm not pregnant, but I just think pregnancy and birth are so amazing, and facinating and I love to learn about it. And it will be great to know when we do have babies!
Oh, and I passed my State board exam and am now officially an Licensed Practical Nurse! I have yet to find a job as one though...Job searching - ugh.

Happy Birthday Michael!

Michael turned the big 24 yesterday on the 16th. We did a bunch of fun stuff to celebrate since school is finally over for the summer and we actually have time to play. We stretched our festivities out over a few day and started off going out to dinner at the Brick Oven on Saturday evening. It was delish! Then on Monday night we went to Trafalga in Orem and played miniature golf until almost midnight and rode their little motion machine ride and played air hockey. When we were golfing and we hit the hole on the course with the windmill, we were disappointed to find out it wasn't moving and the little door that tries to block your shot wasn't coming down. Michael, not being satisfied with that idea, went around back of the thing to see if there was anything he could do to change that. After he didn't come back for a few minutes I went back to see what he was doing and found him literally inside the base of the windmill turning some knobs. Despite all he did, it still didn't work so we guess the power was out on it.

Our festivities continued on Tuesday (his actual birthday) with a day at the Holgo Zoo in Salt Lake City. Our favorite things there were the elephant show, the black bears fighting each other

(we think they were playing, but they got pretty into it), the giraffes, and the orangutans. Since it was right by the zoo, we took a brief look at the "This is the Place" Monument on our way out. It is pretty amazing that the Mormon pioneers made it all the way

across those planes and over those mountains.

We were pretty tired of walking around after that so we finished off the evening with dinner at the Myan restaraunt in Sandy. It is such a cool atmosphere! While we ate we were entertained by the cliff divers then we went and explored the rest of the place after we were done eating.

Then tonight we are going over to Trent and Adrienne's house (Michael's sister and her husband) for one last birthday dinner. I'm bringing over the alfajor cookies that I made for Michael's birthday dessert. They are cookies that he loved to buy on his mission in Santiago, Chile. They're made of two soft sugar cookies sandwiched with dulce de leche in between them and covered in chocolate. They're fun to make and way yummy.

It's been a fun birthday week!

My Entrance into the World of Blogging

I've been saying for a long time that I should figure out how to do a blog since it seems like everyone and their mom has one these days. After some encouragement from Michael's cousin Bridget, telling me how easy it is, and due to the fact that I finally have some free time, I have finally done it! No telling how consistent I will be, but I think it will be fun to do and share with family and friends.