Shane's small update

Hello everyone. Jessica pretty much summed it all up in her post below but I just wanted to add a bit. The two job interviews that I have tomorrow are entry level; however, the starting pay is just a few thousand less than what I ended up making with Spinellis after 8 years with them! So not all that bad. But as Jessica pointed out it is simply temporary, on my part, until the Subway franchise gets closer to reality. I have applied for the franchise and have heard back from them that they are sending me their Offering Circular and that I should receive it in about a week from now, that is the next step in the ownership process so I am excited about that.

We like this blog and intend to continue to update it. Especially when little Oliver joins us :)

Oops!

We kind of left everyone on the edge of their seats about our situation and haven't updated since! We are back in beautiful New Hampshire. We arrived back 330am Thursday morning after our flight was delayed for 4 1/2 hours! But we made it home in one piece, and thats all we cared about. For me (Jessica), its just a waiting game now. I'm in the home stretch of the pregnancy,so everyday feels like an eternity! I'm 35 weeks, so I have 5 weeks to go. It feels like I've been pregnant for about 3 years and these last 5 weeks feel like ANOTHER 3 years! Its good to be back home, though, and not worry about the medical aspects of having a baby abroad. I'll have my own midwife and I'll be able to understand what the people at the hospital are saying to me:) Our childbirth classes start October 6, so I'm excited for those, I squeezed in just in time, I will be 39 weeks for the last class! Theres a chance I might be going to it with a baby! It will be a good chance to make friends with some other new moms in the area.
Shane has two job interviews tomorrow which is very exciting. Both are low skill, customer service/sales positions, but we just need something to hold us over until we know more about Subway and it gets up and running. If all goes well, by tomorrow night he will have a job in Concord!
Thank you everyone for all of your support during this crazy time in our lives...but at least it makes for some good reading!

Has it really been a whole year already!

Ahhhh what life throws at you sometimes. After a closer inspection it appears that we do not have the finances that we need to be comfortable for the year and beyond here in Scotland. After much prayer, talking, and council it has lead to and abrupt turn-around. Jessica and I will be heading back home to the States tomorrow.

See you a lot sooner rather than later...

Goodbye wee Scot.

More Subway

What Shane didn't bring up was the circumstances of his hiring. When we went into Subway for him to apply, 3 people handed in their CV's to the manager. Shane went up to the manager and said he'd like to talk to her about the job. She said that if he had time right then, she would talk to him. She was too busy, so she scheduled another time, was sick, so scheduled another time. At that talk she basically described the job to Shane as if he had it. She signed him up to do unpaid training the next day, and when she checked on him while he was doing his training said to him "I knew you were going to work out!" While he trained, several other people handed in resumes. He starts his regular shifts tomorrow. We are incredibly blessed that this process went so quickly and in Shane's favor. This can only be attributed to the amount of prayers said by ourselves and our friends and family about the need for this job. We want to thank everyone for their support during this trying time. This job has shown us that Heavenly Father still keeps us in his thoughts and does listen to our prayers!

Job update and gass prices fun

Well, I got the job. That was some easy stuff. Worked the 5 hours (unpaid training) last night. It went smooth. I have eaten at Subway so many times before that I didn't really even need them to show me what to do with the sub making. They kept asking me, "Are you sure you have never worked at a Subway before?" LOL.

Thank you all for the well-wishings. It is comforting. One of the biggest challenges that Jessican and I have faced is being away from our social support structure (i.e. our friends and family).

And now for the fun of it I took a picture of gas prices over here in Scotland - you think you have it bad?

This picture was taken near our flat, probably a 3 or 4 minute walk. That is 90.9p (p = pence which is like our cents.) a liter!

Lets do some quick math. 1 US gallon = about 3.8 liters. lets mulitply 90.9p by 3.8 and you come up with £3.45 a gallon roughly. So then now lets convert that into USD per gallon at the conversion rate of 1USD = 2.05BP and you get about $7.00 a gallon.

$7.00 A GALLON!!!

My classes + a part time job??

Well I got the seminar calendar and I was surprised to see when my classes meet. For the most part I only have ONE class a week and they don't actually start until October 1st:

Mon 1 Oct: 2-4pm
Fri 5 Oct: 9-11am
Fri 12 Oct: 2-4pm
Fri 19 Oct: 2-4pm
Fri 26 Oct: 2-4pm
Fri 2 Nov: 2-4pm
Fri 9 Nov: 2-4pm
Fri 16 Nov: 2-4pm
Fri 23 Nov: 2-4pm
Fri 30 Nov: 2-4pm
Fri 7 Dec: 2-4pm
Wed 12 Dec: 1pm
Fri 14 Dec: 2-4pm

This for a price tag of $17,000 tuition and $14,000 room and board :)

Well, I have been assured that I will be very VERY busy with school work while not in classes.

In addition, I may have landed a part time job working for Subway. Today I go in for a 5 hour (3pm-8pm) Unpaid training session. After that they will decide if they will hire me on. The pay is minimum wage at £5.35/hour. Which doesn't seem much until you convert that over to the USD in which case I am making $11.oo/hour.

Well, It will cover groceries anyway. If I get hired on I will be working 20 hours a week (The max that I am allowed under the student Visa) and I will be working day shifts. Although I was warned that I may have to do an occasional night shift if someone becomes ill or goes on vacation. Didn't seem bad until I learned that this Subway is open until 4:00am!!

Jessica and the new Pram (stroller for all you Americans)

Here is Jessica modeling off our new pram that we picked up today. Mom - we got the one that you liked best :)

Look its for twins!!

Pictures!

These are pictures from my first baby shower. Mom threw it at her house. It was a lot of fun. During a game of pass the parcel, I had to chug a baby bottle (I only chugged an ounce, it was hard!), Hilary had to perform "This little piggy..." on a doll, and Megan had to change a diaper on a doll blindfolded! It was very impressive. We also played a game where everyone drew a picture of a baby on their heads, Irene won for a beautiful rendering of a dancing baby!

This is shower number two, thrown by my visiting teacher for the summer, Robyn Felch. It was on her mother's lakefront property, the weather made it a bit too cold to enjoy the water, though. I was very surprised by the party, but I am not good at showing surprise, it usually just comes out as confusion...

Here are pictures of us at home before we left and at the airport with all of our luggage (keep in mind that is everything we have to live on for a year...and a whole suitcase of that is Oliver's!

Its only Tuesday!?

It feels like we have been here at least two weeks, and it has been four days. I think its the not have a job, school, or money, so all we can do is lounge! Today we went to Woodside Medical Center to get set up with a doctor. Of the 5 people we dealt with, I understood one of them. It was a very frustrating experience. Its very frustrating to know that they are speaking English, but not know a word that they are saying. I am attending an antenatal (aka prenatal) clinic tomorrow to orient myself with the center and I think also with the hospital, Queen Mothers Hospital (the locals call it Queen Mums). We shopped for prams yesterday and found one we liked, and it was the cheapest one in the store, £140, so about $300. This is what it looks like : http://www.mothercare.com/gp/product/B000IEPORM
We also have the option of buying one in America and paying to have it shipped. This one is $180 http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3429530 so that means that shipping would have to be $120 to make the other one worth it. I know that buying the American one makes more sense, but I'm still drawn to the Scottish one, probably because I got to push it around and stuff in the store.
The interview that Shane was supposed to have today at Subway fell through because the manager felt ill and went home early. Hes going to try to intercept her tomorrow. Its tough not having a phone, it would make everything a whole lot easier because people could actually get a hold of us. It was a real Scottish morning this morning, very wet and dreary so my mood has been a bit down all day. Also I have been reading a book called "From Here to Paternity" its just a journal that a man kept while his wife was pregnant. For some reason it makes me sad to read it. I know I should stop, but I'm intrigued. The next book in my list is, well, I can't remember the name, but something along the lines of "Snow Flower and the Secret Letter", a book that will definitly not cheer me up as it is about Chinese foot binding, but mom recommended it.

Campus

This is my campus!

Just wanted to post a quick update and let everyone know that the flat rent and utility bills problem has been solved. We took a visit to campus today and I met the three professors that will be teaching my program. It is rather interesting how they created the program. I only have one class a week! However, much course work in the mean time. Things are starting to look up.

I went in for a job interview today and it will continue tomorrow working part-time at a Subway restaurant of all things. It is literally just around the corner from our flat, perhaps a 1 minute walk. I imagine that I will find out if I get it tomorrow. It's not glorious but it will bring in some much needed cash until I can find something better.

Got some pictures of our flat here. I am trying to upload a video of our flat but I am running into problems doing so. I meet all the criteria but it is just not completing the upload. Will post it when I figure this out.

Journey around Glasgow

The library is not open on Sundays so we are not able to post / check email. But hey, guess we shouldn't be doing that on a Sunday anyway :)

It appears as if we will have to open the Easy Access bank account. After doing a bit more research on it it doesn't seem like it will be too bad. Today we are off to the University to talk to the department head and learn about how my classes are going to work out. In addition, we will learn how we are going to pay for our rent and utilities - hopefully.

After a few days here in the city things are starting to get a little better. We have travelled a TON around the city and must say that the public transportation is fantastic. It takes a little bit to figure out how it all works but once you do getting around is very easy. I wouldn't want to drive in the city that is for sure, but it looks like I will have to figure that out as well by the time my parents come out to visit.

So we went to our church ward on Sunday and it went really well. Our chapel is the stake center. There are 9 wards that belong to the Glasgow stake. The odd thing is that our building, and chapel, is rather small for a stake center. The members of our ward are all really great and very helpful - which really does go to prove that the church is the same everywhere. There were about six other Americans that go to our ward. In fact, we have quite the cosmopolitan ward because we also have some Chinese families and African families. We even have plans for Thanksgiving all ready. One of the Americans, who just got married to a Scot, puts on a Thanksgiving dinner for the Americans every year. Can't wait! Oh, and I should mention that if we take the bus to church it costs us £5.00 or just over $10.00. We will be able to walk most of the time I imagine, just not when it is raining.

On Saturday we went to Ikea. Really huge place. It was about a 20 minute bus ride. Here is a picture of it here for the Camerons.

Also, I have a photo of the Mitchell Library. It is the largest library in Europe and it is only a 5 minute walk from our flat. The library is 8 floors, 6 of them are public access.

Will probably post again later tonight to update you all on our progress.

Cheers <---- You see that. I am slowly converting into a Scot!

Scotland - Glasgow

Jessica and I have safely arrived! We arrived yesterday, Friday 07 September. <-- Look I have even converted myself to writing the date the ye 'ole English way.

We are currently trying to figure a lot of stuff out. They really kind of throw you in here and you have to fend for yourself. After finding our apartment, photos to come soon, we were off to the bank to start a bank account. Well, first to a currency exchange. We need to have a bank account, not only for our own funds, but that is where our apartment rent is drawn from. They require you to have a bank account so they can directly take the money out of it each month. Our first snag came when we tried to get a bank account. The Bank of Scotland told us that we have no credit here in this country, they require a 3 year residency, so we can not get a bank account. We can apply for what they call an Easy Account which gives us a debit card but only allows us to withdraw £300.00 at a time. I can assure you that our monthly rent is more than £300.00. Banks are closed until Monday so we will see what we can do then. Stay tuned for the next episode of: Jess and Shane vs. Bank of Scotland!

Our apartment is very nice looking. It is much larger than what we imagined it would be. As I said, pictures to come shortly. The second snag arose when we tried to take a shower. COLD WATER! After finding the hot water tank, which also runs the electric heat for the apartment, I figured out how to get hot water. But wait, there doesn't seem to be a way to only turn on the hot water. We have to run the apartment heat at the same time. This is going to be fun in the summer! Going to try and talk to the land lord to have him explain how it all works. Stay tuned for the next episode of: Jess and Shane vs. Apartment!

So is it odd that I don't exactly have my classes yet? Fortunately, I just received an email from the department head with the course layout but I don't know when they start, what time, or where. Monday I am going to try and track the department head down and talk to him about it all. Stay tuned for the next episode of: Shane vs. Education!

Today, Saturday 08 September, we are off to journey the city of Glasgow. Trying to find things, such as this library that we are in now, the church, Ikea (Cameron's you jealous?), and figure out the bus/train/underground system. The local grocery store, C0-Op, is rather small and about a 15 minute walk. We purchased a little but it looks like we will have to buy as we go.

So our status for now is: We are in Glasgow, in an apartment that we currently can't pay for, no bank account so the apartment we can't pay for is currently also our bank (hope we don't get robbed), have no way of telling time because I destroyed our clock when I plugged it in without a converter - felt a little like the travelocity gnome, no Internet at our apartment that we can't pay for, not sure how to pay for the utility bills that we are using in the apartment we can't pay for, and the whole reason why we are here - I don't know when, where, or if I have classes!! Stay tuned for more. Who knows we may be home in a couple of weeks lol.

Nerves!

Well I haven't tried this bad boy out yet, Shane has been hogging the site! It is 8 o'clock Wednesday morning and my stomach is in knots! I don't know how sleeping is going to be tonight. Its not a bad nervous that I am feeling, just a "I'm moving across the Atlantic 8 months pregnant with no income" feeling. It is daunting, but everything has worked out for us so far (all of it with a fair bit of stress). I think that we just both need to learn to be patient and let things happen instead of worry about them non-stop (thats me more than Shane).
So I'm doing the laundry now and then the real packing begins! We have the baby's suitcase packed, but that is all, so I think its going to be a long day for both of us!
Now I will attempt to put up pictures, though I don't know if it will work... The first one is a profile shot. His head is in the middle and facing up and he's pressed right up against his torso, so that his torso is shooting upwards. You can see a little hand behind his head. The second picture is...well...showing that he is Oliver and not Lily!

A visit with Gram Sargent a few days before we leave

My grandmother will be selling her home that she has owned and lived in for decades. My father grew up in this house! It will be the last time we see my grandmother before we leave for Scotland and the last time I will ever see this house. Many fond memories here in this small home.