Last First Day EVER!!!

Today is my last first day of classes ever!! This morning I registered to walk at graduation and paid for my cap and gown. Just a few minutes ago I wrote out the last tuition check that I will ever have to pay for! It's unreal to think that in ten short weeks I will be graduating from college! It's such a great feeling and I can't wait to be done!!

Nick and I have decided on our health insurance, and were going to purchase it a few days ago, but found out we can't until 30 days prior to our departure. We thought it had to be within 90 days, but we were wrong! It's nice to have that figured out and basically crossed off our list!!

Worked on my Creole for a bit this morning! I feel like I know so much, however I know I will still be clue less when I get there!! Oh well, every little bit helps!

I know it wont be too long until I am boarding the plane for Haiti!!

Nikki

Confirmation

Last week we booked our airfare from Port Au Prince to Cap Haitien, or at least we think we did. However last night when we were instant messaging Jamie, he said that you CAN'T book your tickets online and that he would call for us two weeks before we came to book them. We are hoping that this has recently changed and that you can now book them online, otherwise we aren't sure what we did. We will watch our credit card statements to see if we are charged for the seats. We were never emailed a confirmation from the airlines though, so we are unsure!

Guess we will find out soon!!

44,000+ pictures!

Today Nick and I realized we have 120 gb (or around 44,000) pictures. Anyone who knows us knows that we always have our camera on us and take a ton of pictures. We always back our pictures up on either flash drives or sd cards and put them in our safe deposit box so that if our computer crashes or is stolen we still have them all.

However, with this many pictures, the price for the memory is begining to add up. We have decide that instead of continuing to back them up the way we are, we will do it all online. There is an annual fee to it, but we think it'll pay off (especially when we have kids and are taking thousands of pictures of them)!! An added bonus is that then we wont have to worry about transferring them between my computer and his. No matter where we are, we will have access to our entire photo collection.

If everything works out the way we are hoping we should have all the pictures we have ever taken available online for people to see. This will be cool because you can see pictures from when we were in Europe and Africa and else where. It will also be great when we have kids for people to keep up with them!

We still aren't sure if they will be password protected or how all that will work. We will probably keep the Haiti pictures seperate as they pertain to the blog more and will be easier to see.

With this new discovery, Nick and I have spent several hours today naming everyone in each of our pictures. This will allow us to type in someones name, ie Kiara our niece, and pull up all the pics of her (currently at 1200 but will have WAY more when we are done). This is very addicting and time consuming. In the end it'll be nice to have all of our photos online and named. We still have several hours of work ahead of us. Hopefully it will all work out, other wise we have wasted a bunch of time today!!

Nikki

Scoping it out!!

Nicks birthday is on Wednesday, and this year we did things a little different. Since I don't have a car I couldn't go get Nick his present on my own, so Nick had to take me. As soon as he saw we were going to Walmart, he instantly thought that he was getting the scope for his gun that he has been wanting for a while. However, I knew I had to play with him first a little bit.

He was really confused when I walked left instead of heading straight back to the gun aisle. Instead I took him to the mens clothing aisle and pointed to an ugly pair of shorts and said, "find your size!" His face was classic. He looked so disappointed as he said... "These are nice shorts!" I started laughing and he was glad when I said that wasn't his present.

Next we went to the baby section and I found something that said I love my Daddy and as I held it up in front of him I exclaimed that I was pregnant!! At first he didn't believe me, but after repeating myself several times he thought I might actually be. Nobody is actually going to believe me when I am actually pregnant because I joke around about it all the time!

We continued on to several different areas of the store be fore we finally got to the gun section. I had Nick distracted looking at something, then left and grabbed his scope and brought it back to him. At first he didn't believe me because I had teased him so much already. Once he realized that that was in fact his present he was very excited.

Today we went up into the hills and went shooting so that he could try it out. Unfortunately it started raining shortly after we got there so we couldn't stay too long. On the way back I practiced driving Nicks car which is a stick shift. All our trucks in haiti are sticks, so I have to learn to drive them before we go. Since we were on logging roads I was able to practice stopping and going which is what I need the most work at. I did really well and think that I should have no problem when I am in Haiti!

Happy 24th Birthday Nicholas!!!

Riding the Bus!

After my last post I decided I should check my transit guide to see if there was anyway I could get to my appointment on time via bus. Of course there was, but just barely. I called back and rescheduled my appointment, got dressed, and ran out the door.

I could have gotten there in 10 mins by car, but instead ended up having to ride four buses for a total of two hours, but at least I didn't have to pay the $25 cancellation fee. I got home just in time to take a shower and get back on the bus to go to work! I have another appointment next week, so looks like I'll be making the trip again! Oh joy!

Annoyed!

It is day two since I sold my car (I don't count the weekend cause Nick is there and can drive me around), and I have already had TWO issues due to it.

Yesterday Nick and I had an appointment to sign over our part of the lease. Since it is spring break the buses don't run nearly as often. I had one chance to catch the bus rather than the normal 4. As I was walking down to the bus stop, it goes by me, 4 mins early. I then had to walk the almost 3 miles to our appointment. There was no way that Nick had time to pick me up. Our appointment was at 4:30 and I got there at 4:29, pretty impressive I think!!

Then last night as we were getting ready for bed I told Nick that I had a dentist appointment today. He asked me how I was going to get there, and then it dawned on me that the dentist office is way across town and I don't have a car. Techniqually if I started now (at 8:30), I could probably make it to my 10 o'clock appointment if I walked, but then I would have to walk back to and probably wouldn't make it to work on time. Now I have to pay a $25 cancellation fee which really sucks because if I could have made it to the appointment it would have been free. What a scam.

This whole no car thing is going to be very annoying, I can tell already!

Public Transportation!

Yesterday I sold my car which is nice because now we wont have to store it while we are gone. However, now I will have to take the bus to work which will be a pain. I don't work very far away though so it won't be that bad, I just like to complain! Plus, I already take it to school everyday. Also, we were planning on driving that to Vancouver the next few times full of stuff to put in the barn. We will still fill Nicks car, but it doesn't hold as much!

One more step closer to being able to go!!

Also, we decided to book the flight from Port Au Prince to Cap Haitien mainly so that Jamie will know when to pick us up and wont have to be waiting and wondering when we will show up. It will take us about 28 hours from the time we get to the airport in Portland until we get to the orphanage in Haiti. It will be a long adventure, but well worth it!!

86 more days!!

Nikki

All Booked

It's official, we are moving to Haiti in 88 more days. The girls signed their part of the lease yesterday, so Nick and I purchased our tickets this morning. We fly out of PDX at noon on Tuesday June 16th. We will land in Fort Lauderdale at midnight and then have seven hours to kill before our next flight at 7:30 am. We have decided to sleep at the airport rather than paying for a hotel. We then fly into Port Au Prince's international airport. At that time we will find a taxi and go to the other side of the city to the domestic airport.

There are two airlines that fly from Port Au Prince to Cap Haitien 4 times per day each. We have been told that it's easiest to wait to book this part of the flight until we get there. We haven't decided for sure if we will wait or book it in advanced (a lot of time doing it in advanced isn't even an option depending on if the company answers the phone or not). Since we will be getting there so early in the morning we should be able to get on any of the departure times.

Nick also finally told his work that he was quitting today. I think it was kind of hard for him. He really likes his job and is going to miss it. Nick said that they were all really supportive of our decision which is good!

Now that our date is finalized, our next big project is locking in our insurance. Hopefully we will be able to do that within the next week or two.

Got to go, Kiara is needing attention!

88 days!!
Nikki

Got it covered!

Our property managers called back this morning! They are going to waive the fee for us which will save us several hundred dollars! We are very thankful for this! Looks like we will still be able to leave right after graduation which will be great!

On another note, I just had a fun photo shoot with Kiara, my niece. See the potos below! She is staying with us for the week and is SO much fun! Off to play with her!

Nikki

Move out Fee

Nick and I have found someone to take over our lease which is a huge blessing. They are supposed to be signing for it tomorrow. When I called our property management company today to set up a time for us to sign our part of it, I was informed that I needed to bring our move out fee with us. I asked what this was and was given an amount that I thought was ridiculous. Then I found out that this was PER PERSON. I could not believe that they would charge us such a ridiculous amount.

Nick called them back to see if there is any way we could get out of it. We have some great arguing points, like the fact that we have been here for 2 years, always paid our rent on time, didn't damage the apartment, and actually found some one to rent out our apartment, not only for the 2 last months of our lease, but for the year that follows as well. Therefore, we did all of the leg work for them and actually really helped them out. We left a message with the owner, but have yet to hear back from her.

So here we are, back at ground zero trying to figure out what to do. So far everything has worked out great, so we are confident that it will in this case as well! We hate to back out because these girls really want this apartment, but we also don't want to pay this fee. Plus we are really ready to leave. Hopefully we can get this fee waved, I'll update you more when we have this all figured out.

Nikki

Feels like it should be time

These past few days have felt like it should be time for us to leave for Haiti. Last week, I finished my last day of internship EVER, which was a great feeling. I also finished up the quarter as well as my last day at my current job. With everything wrapping up it feels like I should be leaving; until I remember that I start my new job next week (YMCA preschool), and still have one more quarter to finish. We are so close, but yet so far at the same time!! Only a few more weeks!!

Nikki

Haiti Pictures

COTP asks that all pictures of the children be password protected in order to protect the privacy of the children as well as their biological and adoptive families. If you would be interested in seeing the pictures please email us (greblots@gmail.com) and we will email you the password! Once you have the password please click on the link below to view the pictures!

Thanks so much,

Nick and Nikki

Children of the Promise Pictures

Missionary Health Insurance

Tonight Nick spent quite a bit of time looking up Missionary Health insurance. One problem that we have found is that a lot of companies don't insure people from Washington State for whatever reason. He did find a few that he liked, but we will have to keep looking. There are so many things to decide, like, would we rather pay less per month and have a higher deductible, or vise versa; or do we want to purchase "political evacuation" insurance; or insurance in case we get in a moto accident?

It also kind of sucks because it costs quite a bit more to insure me than it does Nick. We assume this is because I "could" get pregnant. The good news though is that it looks like it might be cheaper than what we had originally thought!

On another good note, someone turned in an application to sublet our apartment. We should be finding out any day whether or not they were approved. This would be amazing if they were as we are really wanting to leave ASAP. I have been debating the idea of not walking at graduation so that we could leave 2 weeks earlier. Haven't decided for sure, but that is what I am leaning towards!

3 more months!!

Walking with Will!

When we were in Haiti, we had a little boy named Herman staying in our room with us. Read here and here for the info on the time we spent together. Anyways, after spending a few days with us, Herman was issued a medical visa to go to the US for surgery on his club feet. For the past month or so he has been living in Minnesota. He is doing well and will hopefully avoid having surgery. Instead he will have a series of casts on his legs to help fix them (assuming this works). His host parents have nick named him Will and created his own blog. Follow his story by clicking this link.