Junior Now Has a Name!

Guess what!!!!!

It’s a Girl!!!!!

The doc is 90% sure, he says that if was going to be a boy, "something" should have shown up by now in one of the ultrasounds! (He's German, so he's very proper.) And yes, I walked directly out of the doctor’s office and right into a baby store and bought a little pink outfit! I have it hanging up on my bulletin board in my office right now.

So, everyone, say hello to:

Abigail Celia Mendez!

Here’s her little outfit hanging up in my office!

So that's all the news for today! Joel and I are estatic and bouncing off the walls!

Love,

Julie and Joel

March - and the Rome Countdown has begun!

Well, as of March 1, we have 90 days until we leave Rome! Joel and I are bogged down in the all the complicated processes of trying to plan a move and switching countries already! And of course, throwing a pregnant woman having a baby right in the middle makes life a little more exciting.

So for February, the embassy world in Italy was all about the Olympics. I'm really glad they're over! This was not a big month for us at home - we had to stay around town "just in case," which never materialized, thank God.
I did get to see the First Lady though, which was very cool, but I did not get to shake her hand or have my picture taken with her, so that is really a bummer. Not for lack of trying though! I got in a few "side" pictures, which I guess will have to be good enough for now. (That's me in the center with the blue shirt.) Oh, well, one day. Oh, and Carrie Shrug and Dorothy Hamill were there too, and I didn't get my picture taken with them either. Stinks.

So what else happened in February? Oh we did have the Chili night which was a lot of fun. I had some of the best cornbread EVER, next to Granny Andrews' cornbread, of course. Junior seemed to like the chili, amazingly enough. And my partner and I have been working on this "Departure Guide" for our Departure Seminar coming up in two weeks. Amazing how such a simple project can turn into a huge monstrosity. It's now about 63 pages long, and we are just praying at this point that it's done. (Being reviewed at the moment.) Oh and they finally did the interviews for our replacements this summer, but it hasn't been announced yet.

Baby News: No, we don't know what it is yet. Do you think we could have kept that quiet a whole month if we did? What we do know is that Junior is a Boxer. At our last appointment, he/she was just punching away and dancing a jig a the same time! As soon as the doctor brought the camera-thing around, Junior seemed to know what we were doing, and turned around and refused to move and show us the goods for the rest of the visit. Completely annoying. Of course, Joel would say it gets its stubbornness from his/her mother. I say someone's father has got a bit of a hidden stubborn streak himself.

Want to join in the Baby Pool? (yeah it's amazing what's online now-a days.) Go to: http://www.ExpectNet.com, Game name: WhatsJuniorMendez. Enter in your choices.

Joel and I have been working quite a bit on the baby stuff this month, trying to figure out all the fun paperwork details it takes to bring a rugrat into this world and get it on a plane and into another country at the age of 6-8 weeks. Plus, we're starting to work on all the fun other details of our move. We think that we've got our house assignment for Croatia, but we haven't got any pictures or anything official yet - just stuff through the grapevine.

Oh, and here is a different picture of Junior at 18 weeks! Yeah, mom had to get into the picture, too! And yeah, I am pooching way out there now. The Italians at work come up and talk to me about "il bambino" in Italian. (Il bambino, come va? - The baby, how is he? I respond, Lei e bene. She is well. Qui e? What is it? Non lo so. I don't know.)

So here's the deal: our next appointment is next Tuesday, the 7th. Will you all please join me in negotiating with Junior to face front and show us the goods? I keep telling him/her that there will be no cool things in the nursery if I don't find out which gender to buy for (Bribery is starting early!). I'm also trying guilt. I'm a mom now, so I can, right? hahaha

March for us is packed full of work, work, and more work. Joel just seems to run around like a chicken with his head cut off, he stays so busy. (He stops in every once in a while to lecture me on eating lunch.) And unfortunately, it looks like I'll be running around like that this month, too. We have the a trip to the Naples military base, the Departure Seminar, the Regional Education Director's visit, a small Orientation session, the Community Auction, and zillion "important" meetings that everyone has all decided we just have to be at. I'd like to say that April is going to slow down, but that would probably jinx us.

We're counting down the days til we're back in the States and hopefully we'll get to see many of you again! You might have to come to me though, I think I'll be stuck in one spot for a while this summer!

Love,

Julie and Joel

January is over, February has begun!

So we are finally through January. This month went really fast, and all of the sudden I am overwhelmed by the mental lists of everything I need to get done before we pack out and leave Rome early this summer.

Oh, and January also marked the end of the morning sickness, praise be to God.

(This picture is Junior at 12 weeks.)

The last doctor's appointment went well. Junior has two halves to his/her brain and a stomach and sleeps with his/her arm over his/her head like Joel. And is stubborn like his/her mama, because we couldn't see what he/she is yet. (Well, it was a little early yet. Hopefully Junior doesn't get his/her Mama's lack of patience.) We have another appointment in a week or two, so I'm really hoping we get to see the goods then, as I am just dying from the not knowing. Did I say hopefully Junior doesn't get my lack of patience?


(This is me and Junior this week - at 15 weeks. I am really sticking out now and am definitely getting big!)
Bets are being taken around the embassy if Junior is a he or she, and everyone has different theories - from the way I'm carrying to looking at the Chinese calendar.


The time I spent propped on the couch this month has been on the net, investigating baby STUFF. Oh my gosh, it's crazy out there. Do you know they have invented baby LUGGAGE? Complete with individual compartments for baby shoes, etc. And I was pregnant-brained just enough to have it on my list for about ten minutes because well, we travel a lot, so of course Junior is going to need luggage. Yeah, haha, until I saw the price and realized I'd be carrying another piece of luggage on top of my own, and a baby and a car seat all on the plane. Thank goodness my sanity returned.



And to prove I can talk about something besides the baby:

In between the billion holidays we had in January (we get both Italian and US, so that is really cool some months) Joel and I have kept busy with work. My job was re-announced because they are hoping to get someone in it in time for me to train them before I leave. And we had our annual Volunteerism Week and Volunteer Appreciation lunch. We also had a "State of the CLO" Town Hall, where we told everyone what we had been up to for the past 6 months.

Life around the embassy is picking up speed the closer we have gotten to the Olympics, and looks like it will consume the month of February. I'm not expecting to see Joel much this month. Oh guess what? The Today Show is coming to Rome next Monday! If I can sneak out of the office, a couple of us are thinking of going and trying to get on.

In my down time, I've been desperately trying to work on my scrapbooking and get caught up on everything before we pack up in May. Right now the wedding album is spread out across the dining room table. Joel hates it, but I've just finished the pictures of the ceremony, and have yet to even start looking at the reception! In other words, I've got a long way to go, and it looks like this wedding album is going to at least be a Volume 1 and 2. I'm looking forward to having this done because soon it's going to be time to start the baby album (see it all gets back to the baby somehow.)

We went out to an Indian restaurant with a bunch of friends, and it was sooo good. I love Indian food. Currently Junior hates marshmallows and only sometimes likes chicken. It's something about the texture I think. Cravings kind of go all over the place, but are mainly Americana type food - yesterday it was pancakes and French toast. McDonald's seems to be a favorite too.

Also in February is our annual Chili Night, and our American Breakfast Fundraiser (hence the French toast cravings). My partner and I are also working heavily on all of the newcomers for this summer, and getting all of that set up. And this website project that she and I have been working on for months has finally gone live, which is a huge accomplishment and a big deal for our embassy, so I'm excited about that.

That's all from Rome for now. It's been yucky and rainy and cold here this month. I'm starting to get a bit of cabin fever, which I'm sure will be around for a couple more months at least.

Talk to all of you soon!

Love,

Julie and Joel

Goodby 2005! Happy 2006 from the Mendezes!

Hi all!

Yes, I didn't send out a blog last month. I tried, wrote the whole thing out, and then the darn thing didn't save, and I was just too pooped to write the whole thing over again.

To catch up from my last email - November was good, my dress DID arrive in time for the Marine Ball, and looked fantastic. I LOVE Ebay, got my fabulous dress for like $50. And it arrived about 24 hours before I had to wear it, AND it fit. Barely, but I'm not complaining. I just didn't breathe much that night. Oh, and I got an award from the Marines that night - a Certificate of Appreciation, but it was still cool.

After the Marine Ball came Thanksgiving, with 10 people at my house. I spent a week cooking. And we also went on wine day trip with my job.

Oh wait, there was just one little thing between the Marine Ball and Thanksgiving.

Some of you might had already heard about this, because Joel and I stink at keeping secrets. (all right, I stink at keeping secrets.)

Joel and I found out that a little junior Mendez will be joining us next summer. July 29th approximately. Yep, read that again, you heard me! Yes, we're thrilled and excited. And Joel is arguing with me about nutrition and vitamins and all that junk. (No, I didn't drink wine on the wine trip. I was trying too hard not to puke from motion sickness on the bus.)

So, anyways, back to the story. To me, Thanksgiving was all about trying to cook this smorgasbord of food for 10 people and not hurl from the smell of turkey, and trying to act perky while everyone was at the house, hoping no one would notice. But everyone had a great time and enjoyed hanging out. So much, I barely could rid of them that evening, so I could sleep.

We started letting the news slip a few weeks after that, once we went to the first doctor's appointment and saw the heartbeat. Let me tell you, that is SOOOOOOOOO cool. And another cool thing about Italy - they do sonograms at every visit, so I will get a new picture of the baby every month. I'm about 10 weeks right now, and according to the books, the baby has ears and can hear us talk to it now, and had organs and is growing bones and stuff. It's gross, but have you ever thought of growing bones? It's just disgusting enough to be cool.

And to answer all questions, I will be back in the States to have the baby, and yes we plan to find out the sex. We have already picked out names, but we are not telling the names until we find out - who knows when we will need the other name?? And we made the doctor check VERY closely - there's only one in there, no twins.

And our doctor's visit was on my 30th birthday - yes, the big 3-0, so that was a pretty darn cool birthday present.

We also went to go visit Zagreb, Croatia, the week before Christmas. That's where we will be moving next summer after Rome. And I think we are really going to like it there. Nice little city, quiet (compared to Rome) and I think a good place to raise little kids.

Christmas was quiet and almost boring. Since I don't do anything else but sleep it seems, we woke up to open presents, I slept on the couch, woke up to make Christmas dinner, laid back on the couch, and that's about it. Joel played with his toys all day - Santa brought him an IPod. Don't worry, I racked up some nice gifts too. I got a nice flatscreen monitor for my desktop. I had my first major hurling experience with dessert that day. Oh well. Junior DOES NOT like blackberry cobbler.

Today is New Years Eve, and I hope all of you have exciting thrilling plans. I'll be sleeping because that's all I do. I will be glad when this first trimester mess is over. I don't fit in my own clothes already and am starting to move into bigger clothes.

We don't many big plans for January. Another doctor's visit, and a couple small events for work.

Don't forget to make your New Year's Resolutions for 2006. And you have one more day to complete any you didn't finish. I plan to scrapbook today as much as I can - I'm really far by hand on my scrapbooking.

So that's it for us this month. Talk to you all soon!

Love,

Julie and Joel

November Notes from Mendezes

October is over, isn't everyone thrilled? I lived through a Oktoberfest event in the rain, a bus trip to a bazaar, and Halloween. Of course, November is gearing up to be busy, and I'm already looking at ways to call in sick for the entire month of December, but hey, at least Halloween's over.

The Halloween event turned out well. We had about 300 people attend and great complements. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. Afterwards, I headed straight home, walked right into my bathroom and into a hot bubble bath and crawled into bed. After a full day of sleeping, I was almost recovered.

Joel got to go back to the States for a few days this month and ate Chinese without me. Yeah, I almost didn't speak to him for a whole day about that, especially when he went to my favorite pancake house too. I couldn't go because of the Halloween event. Well, all marriages have their little quirky times, right? I guess we're lucky if our main problem is Chinese food. Seriously good Chinese food. And he did get to say hi to the Rumbaugh clan, too. Sheesh.

Yesterday we had a day off, (Italian/Catholic holiday, All Saints Day - the day after Halloween), and we went and had lunch in Frascati, a small town right outside of Rome. It was pretty good, a little different than Roman pasta. It's amazing, after a year I can actually tell the difference between the pasta and sauces in the different regions of Italy. Joel and I will never be able to eat in Olive Garden again. There wasn't much more to the town, except where we ate, so we headed back home.

This month: We have the Marine Ball this weekend (Can you all join me in praying that my new dress arrives in the mail by tomorrow, and also fits?) , and Thanksgiving at our place. I'm having folks over to scrapbook one weekend, and my office is organizing a wine tour. We have Veteran's Day off next Friday, but no clue what we're going to do for the weekend.

On other news, there is a reason why Dell Computer's stocks are down. Their customer service is awful. After 6 months of hassle trying to get our laptop repaired, it's finally all back in one piece. However it runs worse than molasses. If it wasn't a 1 year old computer, I'd throw it away and start over. Sheesh again.

The cats are doing well. For a month or two they seemed to be having a fight as they literally refused to touch each other or be in the same room. I think they've gotten over it thought, this past week they are back to bathing each other and licking each other to death. It's so funny, Puzza will actually hold Obe down so he can wash Obe's head for him. Okay, maybe not funny to you, but it is when you're seeing the martyr look on Obe's face.

Now that I've bored you all enough, I will say Happy late Halloween, and Happy early Veterans Day!

Flag of Croatia

And here is the flag of Croatia.

(Aren't you proud of me, I figured out how to add pictures to the blog.)

Map of Croatia and Zagreb

Hi everyone - I wanted to show you where Croatia was. We'll be living in Zagreb, the capital. Now you can't see it, but across the Adriatic sea is Italy, and we can still drive to Northern Italy by going through Slovenia. (Thank goodness, I will need my pasta fix.)

Oh, and Split is where we went on vacation last summer.

Mendez October Email to the Masses

Yes, it's the middle of the month already. I was trying to wait until our laptop and DSL lines got fixed, but sadly it's going to take a few more days to get all of the kinks worked out.

The most fun thing we did in September was go to London. LOVED it. LOVED it. (Did I say that already?) Did the double-decker bus tour, Shakespeare tour (I can now show you the empty lot where a house that Shakespeare once slept in stood), a tour of the Globe theater where I got to have my picture by the stage, ate Indian food galore, and saw two shows, Mamma Mia and Death of a Salesman with Brian Denehy. It's really expensive in London with the British pound compared to the dollar, but we had such a wonderful time, we just have to go back again. This is us at the Tower of London.

At work, September was also the great month of orientation. We had a BBQ at the DCM's (2nd in command under the Ambassador) residence for all of the newcomers, and our Tri-Mission Orientation to orient everyone to living here in Rome. The Ambassador started showing monthly movies at his residence (September's was Madagascar, this month is Bewitched). We spent most of the month also working on Halloween and Oktoberfest planning for October, and my Co-CLO went to two weeks of training back in the States. September also saw one of my biggest work goals being realized - the start of the SNAP program here in Rome. This was a grant through the State Dept to hire a Local Employment Advisor, who helps family members find jobs outside of the embassy. So, she finally started last month and she is rolling right along, which is great.

Oh, and I took this jazz singer workshop for a week at a local university with this American jazz pianist who was in town. Very cool.

So last week we had Oktoberfest which was nice event. Would have been much nicer if it hadn't poured down rain all throughout the event, (we were trying to have it outside on a patio, but ended up under a large covered walkway) but hey, get enough German beer in folks, and they don't care too much about the weather. I ended up with a cold that I'm still trying to kill.
This month we are already finishing up with Halloween, and working on plans for a Thanksgiving reception, a Christmas market, Tree Lighting Ceremony, and a Children's Santa Party to round out the year. We've got a lot going on event-wise as you can see. We are at Mgmt workshops all this week, and we start going out to visit the schools again next week. Oh, Saturday we went back to this cool bazaar at the NATO base that I went to last year with a huge busload of people. It's a crazy time in the CLO office.

Joel, that guy? Yeah I see him around occasionally. He tries not to be a workaholic though his job does tend to lean that way. But lately I've been lucky enough that he comes home at reasonable times. He's started playing basketball with a group of men once a week, and has become the unofficial poker game organizer for the embassy. He's gotten pretty good, and has even won me some spending money at the last game.

So, that's it for us. You guys write back, and tell me how everything is there! I hope you are all getting less rain than we are right now. It rains more here, than it did the weekend we were in London. Sick of the gross weather.

Love,
Julie and Joel

September 1 and Alls Well!

Hi everyone! So, Happy Labor Day weekend! (And happy birthday to my sister Nancy!)

We found out where we are moving to next year: Zagreb, Croatia! We are very excited - this is a great place, right across the Adriatic from Italy (and where we went to the beach on our vacation). Of course the capital, Zagreb, is not on the beach and that is the only bad part about it. It's in the northern part of the country, but it does have five different thermal baths (heated springs) within driving distance. (Can you say "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday"?) I probably won't be able to work at the embassy there, it's pretty small and doesn't have that many family member jobs, so I'm starting to investigate working for myself while there. We will be just a five hour drive back over to northern Italy and the military base in Aviano (Yeay, I still have access to the PX!) and we can easily travel to Italy, Austria, Germany, Hungary, etc. It's going to be fun. It's definitely cheaper to live there than Rome. And maybe it doesn't sound as cool as Italy, but it will still be a very neat place for you to come visit!

That's the major news for the month. I went on a major scrapbooking rampage over Faragosto weekend (It's the Italian 3 day weekend for the summer, kindof like Memorial and Labor Day rolled into one.) and got 42 pages done. Then I ran out of pages, so I'm stuck until I get more. My goal is to get completely caught up before the end of the year. Kindof a monumental task. I'm half-way through the wedding album and got up until March of this year.

What does Joel do while I spend all this time scrapbooking? Playing Major League Baseball on the Playstation. I'm not sure I should have gotten him this game. He plays a general manager and not only plays the games, but trades and runs the stadium. It's great training for the day when he becomes General Manager of the New York Yankees (while I'm famous on Broadway). Please, whatever you do, don't buy him any playstation games for Christmas!

School starts next week here, which means I lose the teenager that works in my office. And we are drowning in event planning again - I've been enjoying my break from all that. My partner has to go back for training for two weeks in DC; we've got 2 major orientation events this month and the new Ambassador decided to throw a reception next week at the last minute; and we have Oktoberfest and Halloween coming up in October. Aah, my leasurely summer is over. I already miss it.

Joel and I are heading up to an agriturismo in Tuscany tomorrow. An agriturismo is a "tourist farm", kind of a B&B on a working farm. They're all different, some of them are on wineries or serve meals of their local crops (fresh olives, etc.) and it's very cool. The one we are going to has a pool and we can rent horses, and we're close to this town called San Gimingnano that makes THE MOST AMAZING WHITE WINE. I'm not kidding. It's the only white wine I've ever liked. And we are going to take our bikes so we can ride around in the hills of Tuscany. It just sounds cool.

So that's it for me. I've got to go pack and get us ready for the weekend!

Julie and Joel

Happy 1 Year Anniversary in Rome for Mendezes!

Yes, it's official, we've been in Rome for over a year now (only a week over, but hey.)

I'm still trying to work out the kinks in this blog website, sorry guys. It only cooperates to a point.

July was a month of travel for Joel and me. He had a business trip in early July to Milan, and I said, hey what the heck, and went with him. I hung out in Milan while he worked, and then we played around Milan together. And no, I didn't do anything exciting or see anything important. I tried to get tickets to see "The Last Supper," but they were sold out. Joel and I did take a boat trip on the weeked on Lake Cuomo and looked around Bellagio. George Clooney owns a house on the lake, but we were too busy sightseeing to hang out with him. He was heartbroken, I'm sure.

Then surprisingly, Joel and I actually got a week of vacation! We didn't expect to get any time off this weekend, so it was a bit of a scramble trying to get everything booked in time. This is what I wrote for our community newsletter.

"We just got back from a week in Split, Croatia, and had a marvelous time. After a "leisurely" (aka. a local) train ride to Pescara, we boarded a catamaran ferry over to coastal town of Split (www.snav.it); which was a great boat and only took about four hours. The best way to get your place to stay is to step right off of the ferry and speak to one of the many people holding up signs that say "Sobe" or "Rooms." These are very inexpensive, and almost always have their own bathroom, AC and often have a little kitchenette also. The other possibility is to call the hotels directly -- (in Italy, travel agencies book only in "packages" and can take a while to confirm and book). We tried calling a hotel that was full, however the receptionist gave us a great referral to someone who rented a small studio right beside the hotel. We were right on the beach, and also were allowed to use the hotel's pool. The beaches in Croatia are mostly rock, but the water is very warm and very clean. It was wonderful and we spent most of our time laying out or in the water.
Eating and shopping are great in Croatia as it is very cheap! For every American dollar, you get about six Croatian kunas. It became a game for us to do the math on our purchases and realize that after a five course meal with wine, we only spent about $30-40 for both of us to eat! We purchased some very interesting pottery at the huge bazaar next to the Diocletian palace, and the island of Hvar is well known for their fields of lavender and lavender products. Dining out is more casual than Rome, being more of a beach town atmostphere, and there is no reason to get very dressed up for dinner.
If you are interested in historical or seeing the sights, Split's Diocletian palace is in fantastic condition and very interesting. On our last night there, there was even a "Diocletian Festival" celebrating the city's Roman history.
Croatia's cultural influences are very mixed due to their history of being "ruled" by other groups; from Rome, Venice, the Turks, Austria and Hungary. Did you know that Marco Polo was supposed to be Croatian? According to our guidebook, he was "taken" from the island of Korcula when the Venetians took over control of the area. These influences are reflected in their food also. (By the way, please don't try their pasta. If you've eaten in Italy, you will be sorely disappointed.)
We were very happy with our time in Split, and if you are looking for a laid-back, relaxed vacation with a great beach, we recommend it. It would probably be a location for families also. For more information on Croatia, check out www.Croatia.hr."

Anyways we went to Croatia and had a fabulous time. Wonderful warm beaches and lots of sun. I got a tan. Not a dark one, but a tan nonetheless. If you know me you know what an amazing accomplishment that is. Joel was almost unrecognizable he got so dark.

Other than that, we've not done much other than work. My new partner in my office started, and has been a great addition. She's been trying to get caught up, and I've been just trying to get projects that I've started accomplished. (By the way, if you wrote New Year's Resolutions, you only have 4 1/2 months left to complete them.)

Coming up: Our new Ambassador arrives, and we work some more. Joel's boss is out of town for the next few weeks. Trying to get all of the pre-planning done for the rest of the year in my office before the end of the month and the busy season starts up again.

Love,
Julie and Joel