Finally an update and....progress!

I've totally been neglecting the blog.  I'm sorry. Things have been way crazy around here lately!!  I had started a blog post a few weeks ago, bemoaning the fact that there wasn't any news, but then I had to scrap that when we got news!! 

We finally got notice of Davie's appointment!!!  He goes August 15th to the embassy in Nicaragua.  We are beyond excited.  I was jumping up and down when we got the news.  Not only are we excited because he has the appointment, but we are really excited that the appointment date was less than a month out from when we got the date.  The lawyer had cautioned us that it could potentially be a month and a half to two months from the date we got the appointment until the actual appointment, so having it be less than a month away was a good sign.  It's nice to have something going our way for a change!  I also learned a valuable lesson - the visa center told us to give them 20 business days to set the appointment date.  I started emailing / calling the lawyer 60ish days or so after I expected the paperwork to have been received by the visa center.  A week after the lawyer called the visa center, we had our appointment date.  So, lesson learned - don't wait to have the lawyer call the visa center to check on our application status!  I'm wondering if she had called 30 days after the paperwork was submitted if we would have gotten our date a month ago!  My new goal for when we submit the final round of paperwork is to give the visa center 20 days (or however long they ask for) and then start calling / having the lawyer call every week until we get an answer.  :)  Persistence pays off, right?  :)

I have a new job!  It happened kind of suddenly.  I wasn't looking to leave, I was really liking my old job, but I got an offer I couldn't refuse.  I started the new job last Monday and so far I'm loving it.  My new title is Controller / Financial Reporting Manager and my new company is AAON.  I'm working with a friend of mine, Rebecca, who I worked with at GT.  She's the one who approached me with the job and said she wanted me to fill the open position.  It's kind of nice to work with someone I know / am friends with.  And it's very nice to feel wanted since she kept after me until I finally caved and said I would take the job.  :)  I did feel really bad leaving the old job though, especially since I wasn't there very long!  But the new job is a much better opportunity, plus more money and not a lot more hours.  It's kind of a dream!

It's 31 days until my next trip to Nicaragua.  I'm so ready to see Davie!!!  It's been way too long - I won't go this long again in between visits, if I can help it.  Although, hopefully we won't have too many visits left to go before he's back home!!  If all goes well, he and Eduardo could potentially be home at New Years.  I'm really, really, really, really hoping that happens!  I would love to have my husband back home!  I feel like he's missed so much already the past 7 months.  I don't want him to have to miss much more!

I feel like I should have more updates than this, but I guess less has been going on that I thought.  Although the things that have been going on have been big!  :)  Davie and Eduardo are doing well.  Davie's English is coming along amazingly!  I tell him all the time how proud of him I am of how hard he is working to learn as much as he can before he is home.  He's doing a great job and I can't wait for him to get a chance to talk to all of you! 

Love you guys!

What does the future hold?

I was friended this week on Facebook by a guy I knew in high school. He dated a girl forever in high school and college and they got married a few years after college, I believe. As far as I could tell back then, they were the epitome of forever. I had no doubts that they would be together until the end. Had someone asked me to bet on it, I would have. But I would have lost. He's now married to someone else and it looks like he divorced the other girl around 2010 or so. 

A friend of mine in high school had an older brother. Most of her friends had crushed on him at one point or another, myself included. Randomly years after high school he ended up running into one of her best friends from high school and they got married. Hearing them talk about each other and seeing the pictures and considering they were both Catholic, I was sure it was forever. It didn't last three years and now they are divorced. Last I heard, he was dating someone else. 

I had to get Davie's signature on a form last week. I emailed it to him and he was able to print it out and email it back. He told me afterwards that he had wanted to read it to make sure I wasn't sending him divorce papers and not telling him. He was joking....mostly. 

My current favorite daydream is Davie and I following behind a real estate agent and Eduardo as we go room to room in a big, beautiful home, trying to decide if it's the right one for us. Eduardo is happy and running and laughing. I've got a hand on my pregnant belly and the other is holding Davie's hand. We're all happy and together. 

I don't know what the future will bring. No one knows. I hope, and Davie hopes, it's my vision that will come true. We've been working towards that vision now since we decided to take this journey almost four years ago. Every day I love him more and I feel like he feels the same way. It makes me sad that so many people that I know / counted as friends had relationships that didn't work out like that. While there are no guarantees in life, Davie and I promised each other on our first wedding anniversary that we would do whatever it took to try to make this marriage work. So I'm holding out hope. I have hope that we'll get through this process soon. I have hope that we'll come out the other side stronger than ever. And I have hope that our future will be at least close to my vision. Because if we are lucky enough to have that - and we are soooo close to being there since we already have the love and laughter, all we need is the together part - then we'll be the luckiest people in the world and life will be so good. 

We're halfway to my next visit. It can't come soon enough. 

Taking a collection

I'm in the airport waiting to go back to Tulsa after a very fun trip to California for July 4th, and I see this kid with a roller bag with a scooter attached to it! I instantly think that Eduardo would love it and I go up and ask the parents where they got it. Turns out there's only one distributor in the US, and, of course, they aren't cheap. So I'm taking a collection, because how much would Eduardo love to use this thing on his way from Nicaragua to Tulsa?? :)

Optimism Tempered With Realism

I've stopped wishing on the clock when the numbers are all the same. I know it was a silly habit anyway and I know that my wishes wouldn't really do anything to bring my husband back to me faster, but it still feels like a small part of my optimism dies every time I look at 11:11 or 4:44, etc and don't make a wish. It's time to be realistic though. And it's hard to wish for a speedy conclusion when we are already 6 months into the separation and not much closer to an end than we were when this all started. 

Technically I guess you could say we are actually 3 years into this process since we started not long after we got married. And we have made some progress since then, so I shouldn't be all pessimistic about it....

Maybe I just need a new wish. I know, I'll start wishing for each step to come quickly instead of trying to skip all the way to the end. I do tend to get ahead of myself quite often. :)

So, from now on, my wish is that we hear from the visa center soon, soon, soon. And once we hear, I'll decide what my wish after that needs to be. Because as much as I don't like it and wish we could just skip to the end, we have to go through the process to get there. So, if all of y'all could wish/pray/send happy thoughts that we hear from the visa center with Davie's appointment soon, soon, soon, we would really appreciate it. Our patience is wearing thin and we still have a long way to go. Any help we can get at this point, even if it's silly superstitious help, we'll take it! :)

Update on timing: We turned in some additional paperwork when I got back from Nicaragua in March. At that point the visa center had said it would take 20 business days for them to review everything and get back to us with a date for Davie's appointment. We're obviously waaaaaaaaaaay past the 20 days. So I'm really hoping we hear something soon. I'm going to email the lawyer tomorrow and see if they've gotten any word. At this point, I would even just like confirmation that the visa center got the additional information! I would hate for us to have been waiting all this time just to find out they hadn't gotten the paperwork! Although that would probably be our luck at this point. :) 

I'll keep y'all posted if / when I hear something! I potentially have other news that I'll share next weekend if it pans out. I'll let you know, but keep your fingers crossed that this week goes well please. I think I'll need it! 

Love you all!

Summer time

Not feeling very strong today, but since I don't have any other option, I just have to keep on keeping on. :)

I realized today that if Davie and I have a season, that season would be summer. Today is a perfect day for us to be in the pool with Davie grilling meat, potatoes and corn on the cob. I wish he was here. Last summer we had so many perfect days in the pool. I'm sad we won't have any of those this year. There are some things I just can't bring myself to do without Davie. I briefly considered putting the pool up this afternoon, but quickly decided it was going to fall under the category of things we have to do together. I don't think I'll be using the grill this summer either. At least not on my own. 

I miss my husband today. I know he'll be home soon. But I still miss him so much. 82 days until I'll see him again!! I already can't wait. :) 

Tomorrow I go to Detroit for work. I'll just be gone one night for a training on Tuesday. I haven't been to Detroit before, so I'm curious to go. Of course, with such a quick trip it's not like I'll see much, but still. It'll be one more airport to add to the list if nothing else. :)

I have my flight booked to visit Davie August 30 - September 2. Since I'm only going for three nights, we're going to stay in Managua the whole time. We'll actually do some touristy things there for a change! It should be fun. And I got a good deal on the Hilton we stayed at in January - $79 a night for by far the best hotel we've found yet in Managua. I think we paid $132 last time, so I'm excited about the cheap hotel this time! I had to pay in advance and we wouldn't get our money back if we cancelled, which is why it was so cheap. I'll take it!

Then I'll visit again for Thanksgiving and again at Christmas, when we can hopefully bring Davie and Eduardo home!

Everyone please keep your fingers crossed and send good vibes our way that we get Davie's embassy appointment date soon. We should get it any day now. We are both ready to have that date so we can move on to the next part of this process!!!!

I hope everyone is having a good weekend! 

What's in a Name?

Because I'm in the middle of a baby fever that probably won't be cooled off for quite a while, I spend a lot of time thinking about / searching for baby names instead.  I stumbled upon this post while Googling "Nicaraguan baby names" and it's funny how much it helped explain my husband's crazy names.

For those that don't know, Davie's name is actually spelled Deyvi, but he uses the "American" spelling Davie. He also has a sister named Darling.  What really cracks me up is his last name (not the last name I took, but his other last name). I've seen it spelled Henrriquez, Enriquez, Enrriquez and Henriquez. And all of those on official government / school records! It's crazy to me!

I wanted to pick a traditional Nicaraguan name for our kids, but now I'm thinking that may be harder to do than I expected! Of course Davie would be happy naming a boy Kevin, but I don't think I'm going to let that happen! :)  (Not that there is anything wrong with the name Kevin, it's a good name, but I don't think it goes very well with Maradiaga as the last name.  :P)

I can already tell that Davie and I are going to have a hard time agreeing on names when the time comes.  It's hard to find a name that sounds right when dealing with two very different cultures and wanting to pay tribute to both.  I'm sure we'll get there though.  It's just going to take some creativity.....which, based on the post I found, might be more in line with Nicaraguan naming trends that I originally thought.

If nothing else, I can guarantee our kids names will be just like everything else we've done during this relationship - unique and wholly ours.  :) 

 

6

I felt guilty, but not so guilty that I didn't still do it. I HAD TO go see Fast and Furious 6!! Davie and I love those movies and I probably should have waited to see it with him, but I couldn't help myself. :) And I've gotta say, it was GOOD! If you like that kind of movie anyway. Some of the stunts have gotten even more unbelievable and unrealistic, but it's not a movie about being believable or realistic, so I didn't mind. Davie wasn't happy when I told him I went without him. :) We'll go together to see #7 though, so it's all good. And after the cliff-hanger at the end, I can't wait for #7!!!! :)

I hope everyone is having a good weekend!!