Happy Anniversary!

On Sunday, September 27th, Ashlee and I celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary. Ahh, just think: one year ago today we were just flitting about the wonderful canals of Venice and now, here we are, burning coal and trying to stay warm in Mongolia.

We celebrated our special day with a little happy hour at our house (complete with bread, cheese, and real French wine!) and dinner at our favorite (read: only) restaurant in town: Pamukkale. We got our usual -- grilled chicken with french fries, white rice, cole slaw, and a carrot salad. While it's a far-cry from Maggiano's, it was still delicious.


In other news, my work is still up-and-down as always. There are some days when everything just clicks -- like yesterday I had the absolute greatest time with a class full of 35 11-year-olds. I taught them a couple tongue twisters, we played "Teacher Says," and we sang some songs. When the bell rang some of them groaned that class was over and they ran up to me to ask when I will teach them again. On the other hand, however, I had a class today of 17-year-olds in which a group of 5 or so surly boys in the back really got on my nerves. The good news is that the "good days" are what makes this whole experience worthwhile.

Downtown Olgii

Olgii had some gorgeous weather this weekend so we took a nice walk. Here's some pictures of our new 'hood:

This is my school.

Here's our supermarket. The word "supermarket" is actually a Russian word that is used by both Kazakhs and Mongolians. Check out the alphabet. C's are S's, Y's are U's and O's, and P's are R's. Welcome to our world of confusion.

This is the bus to UB. It can take anywhere from 40 - 60 hours.


Here's Olgii's main square.


This is Ashlee's work. How appropriate that the health department is in a building the color of Pepto Bismol?


This is the school that our friend Laura teaches at. I like the statue out front. It looks like a Soviet soldier is fleeing the school in terror while holding his gun out behind him and wildly shooting.


This is the government building. Yes, that IS a statue of Lenin.

Winterization

Well, September is almost over and Fall is already in full swing. At the moment, walking around Olgii sort of feels like a scene from a movie set in medieval times where all the people in a village are getting ready for battle. Only in our case, instead of waging war against the French (or a horde of orcs for all those LOTR fans) we will be fighting the elements.

What I mean is that everyone is busy "winterizing" their homes, apartments, and offices. This is basically where they double-pane all of their windows and seal every nook and cranny with anything they can: wool, Scotch tape, and (in the case of Laura's school) a home-made mixture of water, flour, and dirt.

You will also be happy to hear that our hashaa family installed an opening window in our house. Now we have a little piece of mind when our carbon monoxide detector goes off because of our coal fires.

Anyways, like I said, September is almost over. In fact, we are sitting here on a lazy Saturday morning (although we did spend an hour handwashing an entire load of laundry) thinking about what we were doing exactly one year ago. That's right, tomorrow is our 1-year wedding anniversary! We will be celebrating with a night out on the town tomorrow. Note, when I say night out on the town, I mean dinner at the only real restaurant in Olgii: Pammukale (sp). It's actually a nice place -- we can even get grilled chicken! Is this really the Peace Corps??

Want to Know What 2 Tons of Coal Looks Like?

Well, winter is officially on its way. We spent the afternoon stocking up on coal for those winter fires -- which we have already starting burning by the way. Our hashaa father (pictured above standing in front of the truck) helped us arrange the delivery of two tons of coal. Not only did he facilitate the transaction, but he also helped me carry all of it into our fuel room, which is just inside our front door!

Popcorn!

We figured out how to make popcorn in Mongolia!

Step 1: Assemble ingredients (popcorn kernels, salt, and Tabasco sauce) and consult Peace Corps cookbook to make sure we don't burn the house down.

Step 2: Heat oil in bottom of pan and drop in three kernels. Wait for those to pop.


Step 3: Add more kernels to hot pot.

Step 4: Shake pot and wait for kernels to pop.

Step 5: Season to taste and enjoy!*

*Good movie optional. We chose to watch Friends.

Routine, Routine, Routine (Scott)

Those of you out there who avidly read this blog are probably wondering why we haven't made any recent updates -- I mean don't you enjoy living vicariously through our wild and crazy Mongolian exploits? Well, to be honest, there is not really anything exciting going on. Ashlee and I are both trying to keep busy as we settle into our professional lives here in Olgii. We are working hard to establish routines to give our lives some structure and, if you haven't been able to tell from our previous posts, Mongolia is not exactly crazy about structure.

Now that we are in our third week here, I think that we have effectively divided the household chores. Ashlee is in charge of all food (including planning and preparation), all shopping (grocery and otherwise), and using every single pot, pan, and cooking utensil we own when making meals. I am in charge of getting water from the well (we have a 10-gallon or so jug that makes me stronger each time I carry it across the yard), chopping coal and keeping our firewood box stocked, and cleaning every pot, pan, and cooking utensil we own after the Messy Chef cooks our meals.

Every weekday we wake up at 6:30am. Actually, scratch that -- Ashlee wakes up at 6:30am after which she immediately checks to see if the power is on before switching on our electric kettle and powering up the computer for our morning e-mail and facebook checking session. Around 6:45am she has to forcibly drag me out of bed. My excuse for staying in bed later than her is to give her first dibs on the outhouse -- hey, we've only got the one outhouse for the 9 people living in our hashaa! For breakfast, we alternate between bread with butter and jam, suutei boda (white rice with milk, sugar, and cinnamon), kash (sort of like cream of wheat), and oatmeal along with tea for Ashlee and coffee for myself. I absolutely love the French press that I brought with us, but I am running out of coffee. If anyone who is reading this wants to send a care package, coffee is at the top of the wish list! While we eat, we usually hang out with our best "friends" -- Monica, Chandler, Joey, Ross, Rachel, and Phoebe.

Surprisingly, the weather has been relatively warm during this past week. Actually, let me clarify that for all our Californian friends and family: when I say "warm," I mean sunny and mid-60s during the day and not having to make a fire to keep our house warm at night. With that said, word on the street is that this weekend will be bringing some gorgeous 20 degree weather our way! Woo hoo!

Generally we both start work around 9am. While this is already the third week of school, I still do not have a schedule, although one has been promised to me. Basically I must track down a different English teacher every day and invite myself to her lessons the following day with the hope that she will meet with me that afternoon to make a lesson plan. Fortunately things have worked out so far and all the teachers ("counterparts" in Peace Corps lingo) are excited to work with me. So far I have co-taught around 30 classes and solo-taught 5 classes. The classes themselves are 40-minutes long and I have found that the secret to a successful lesson is to have a solid lesson plan. The students -- grades 4-11 -- love to play games and so long as I act like I know what I'm doing, they seem to respond well to me. Just the other day I taught a 4th grade class and the kids were so adorable as I taught them Simon Says with English commands (Sit down! Stand up! Be quiet!) and the Hokey Pokey. They all also seem to love tongue twisters and I generally start each lesson by writing one on the board -- anything from "Freshly fried fresh fish" to the classic "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." The older students write them in their notebooks and I can hear them practicing them in the halls.

The kids here, really the entire country, absolutely loves songs and music. I mean not a day goes by that I am not asked to "sing a song from my home." Now anyone who has not been to Mongolia might not understand this, but Mongolians have a song for everything and perhaps their favorite past-time is sitting in a circle taking turns singing songs while a vodka bottle is passed around. Such times are incredible to witness -- everyone here seems to have excellent voices. They are not "pitchey" at all! Anytime I am part of one of these circles I always dread the awkwardness of the moment when my turn comes and I try to stutter through the chorus of whatever American pop songs comes into my head. Usually the only thing that comes to mind are my versions of Christmas carols, the Happy Birthday song, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. I know, I'm lame. One of these days I'll actually sit down and learn a song that I can sing on command. For now, however, I will rest on my hazy rendition of "Yellow Submarine."

Back to our daily schedule -- Ashlee and I have been fortunate so far to be able to meet at home for lunch every day at noon. We generally eat leftovers from the night before, but if Ashlee wants to butter me up for something she'll make grilled cheese sandwiches with sliced tomato. We usually get to hang out a bit -- maybe watch some "Friends" -- before getting back to work around 2pm. My afternoons are usually reserved for lesson-planning with my counterparts for the next day's lesson. Each lesson plan takes about 40 minutes and I'm generally home by 3pm. Although this past week I did help teach an extra afternoon English lesson for those graduating students who want to prepare for the mandatory English language aptitude test they must pass before enrolling in university. I think the lesson is something that I will begin to teach regularly...however, I am usually the last to know.

Ashlee usually gets home around 4pm and from then on we just kill time until dinner. We have found that the one thing that we can look forward to regularly here in our Mongolian lives is (surprisingly) good food. With the aid of our three American meals at Laura's house every week, our handy Peace Corps cook book, and Ashlee's willingness to try any recipe that sounds good, we have definitely been eating well. Just last night Laura made cheeseburgers, fries, and chocolate cake. Looking forward to such meals -- and the immediate gratification they provide -- is what gets us through the day. It sounds pathetic, I know.

So yeah, when we are not at work, eating delicious food, or showering on Wednesdays and Saturdays, we can generally be found nice and snug in our little house obsessing over Facebook, watching Friends, watching movies, or playing Scrabble. Yep, wild and crazy, we know!

Food: Olgii Style (Scott)

Ok, I know that some of you are wondering what our food situation is like here so I thought I'd make a little post dedicated to the topic of food.

I'll start by saying that since we are in the provincial capital, we have relatively great access to a wide variety of foodstuffs. I mean don't get me wrong, it's not like we've got a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods here in Olgii or anything, but I have heard enough horror stories of PCVs stationed in the countryside who don't even have potatoes in town to make me really appreciate our little supermarket. Mongolia-wise, it is pretty well-stocked. We can buy fresh bread, butter, eggs, yogurt, peanuts, tea, cookies, rice, pasta, Heinz tomato spaghetti sauce, jam, and Snickers bars -- so pretty much all the essentials. There's even a little side-section with Western-style toiletries, although they are a bit expensive.

Here in Olgii we also have the option of shopping at the Bazaar, which is a large open-air market where pretty much everyone and their mother sets up a stall to sell all sorts of odds and ends. It was at the Bazaar where we found a toaster oven, a water boiler, a rice cooker, a kettle, and different cooking utensils. The market also has a section where several different vendors sell assorted fruits and vegetables -- I think they are mostly imported from Russia. For the time being, there seems to be plenty of items to choose from (tomatoes, apples, grapes, cabbages, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, etc.) but I hear that it is an entirely different situation in the winter. I guess that is when we will fall back on the canned fruits and veggies available at our friendly supermarket.

In addition to the supermarket and Bazaar, there are also little shops ("delgors" in Mongolia) all along the main road. These stores are all alike and they sell pretty much the same items: soft drinks, candy, beer, vodka, cell phone units, and cigarettes. Did you know that here you can actually buy one cigarette at a time?

So yeah, Ashlee is officially in charge of our food situation here. The reason for this is because she absolutely hates it when I accompany her to the store. She likes to plan menus in advance, make nice little lists, and take her time perusing every aisle of her chosen store. I, on the other hand, am incredibly impatient when it comes to shopping and, if it were up to me, we'd be having grilled cheese sandwiches every night. Ashlee also likes to flip through the pretty awesome cook book that Peace Corps gave us -- it is a compilation of recipes by past and current Mongolian PCVs put together by Paul, our medical officer, and it features his likeness on the cover -- and plan meals that can take anywhere from 1-3 hours to cook. But hey, during this past week cooking has proved to be an excellent past-time, particularly when the power goes out.

Cooking-wise, here in our house we have (in addition to the items mentioned above) a one-burner electric stove, a water distiller (no stomach parasites for us!), and a butane-powered gas stove to use when the power is out...which has happened more frequently than we expected recently. Apparently someone forgot to pay the bill to Russia or something so our power has been out for pretty much most of the past two days. We're not exactly in the loop here, so we are sort of the last to know of these goings-on. To be honest, I don't think power outages significantly affect the lives of most people here in Olgii. Perhaps the major inconvenience is not having lights after dark, but they are perfectly happy cooking over wood-burning stoves and it's not like they need to keep their fancy laptops charged so they can watch Friends all night long.

But yes, with all that said, we are definitely adjusting to life here in Olgii. We (and when I say "we" I mean Ashlee) have put together a few solid dishes that are relatively easy to prepare and are also palate-pleasers: grilled cheese sandwiches with sliced tomato, hard-boiled eggs, egg-fried rice with veggies, and garlicky vegetable soup. Last night Ashlee spent almost three hours making black beans, flour tortillas, and Spanish rice. It was delicious and -- I can say it now -- worth the wait.

I think I have already mentioned that we eat with our fellow Olgii PCVs (sitemates in Peace Corps lingo) three or four times a week, and on those days we are definitely treated well. This past Tuesday Laura made mac 'n cheese (with Velveeta cheese from America) and pizza. She was going to make chocolate cake, but the power was out so she couldn't use her little oven -- she used her butane stove to make the pizza and her wood fire to make the mac 'n cheese. Tonight she is making a curry.

Oh yeah, on Friday nights we all gather at the local Turkish restaurant and treat ourselves to a night without having to wash dishes. Ashlee and I were thrilled to find grilled chicken (beautiful white meat and not the greasy dark meat we had in UB) and the desserts are quite nice.

Well, that about wraps up my food post -- here are some pictures to go along with it.

This is our Peace Corps Mongolia cookbook.

Ashlee chopping veggies -- I don't know why it posted sideways.

Ashlee's 3-hour meal: black beans, hand-made flour tortillas, and Spanish rice.

My favorite meal: grilled cheese sandwiches with sliced tomato.

Care Packages (Scott)

Woo hoo -- we got mail! Aw, and I thought it was just going to be another run-of-the-mill Tuesday here in Mongolia. Instead Ashlee came home this afternoon with two packages that were sent to us by our loving parents back home in California. There was just so much excitement! We got clothes, DVDs, toiletries, mac 'n cheese, trailmix, and different spices to mix up these Mongolian dishes. We even got a fun-size bag of Sour Patch Kids (my favorite candy) which I devoured in minutes under Ashlee's disapproving gaze. Thanks, Moms and Dads, for the wonderful treats! Here's some pictures:

Olgii Hike

We spent most of this past Saturday hiking a couple mountains here in Olgii. We saw some stunning views and got to spend some quality time with our new sitemates. Here's a picture and a link to some more.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2423463&id=6006255&l=1767eb4782

Senior Picnic (Scott)

I spent my Sunday on a 14-hour picnic with one of my counterparts and her senior class. School works a little differently here -- the students stay in the same class through their entire academic career. Thus, my counterpart has been teaching English to these same kids for the past 5 years. As a result they are all extremely close -- which actually helped to make me feel even more like an outsider at times.

The day started at 8am when we all gathered at the school to hitch a ride in a large stakebed truck. Our destination was a spot in the countryside about 20 kilometers from Olgii. It was a beautiful (and bumpy) ride. We must have crossed 7 or 8 different little rivers and we only got lost 5 times. It's funny, the whole "men not asking directions" issue must only be an American thing. Our driver had no shame stopping at any ger or house we saw along the way, shutting off the engine, and beckoning to anyone who would walk us to the truck to verify we were on the right road. At one point he solicited directions from what must have been a 6-year-old who was fishing along the river banks.

We made it to our picnic site by 9:30 and the students wasted no time setting up camp. The entire set-up process was like a well-oiled machine. I never heard any directions given, but each student took to his or her own task. A cooking tent was assembled, wood was gathered, two fires were built, blankets were thrown down, and a volleyball appeared out of nowhere. It was definitely a well-stocked picnic. Over the course of the day we ate three separate meals (first a course of different salads, then a soup, and then a meat and potato dish) and there was always hot tea and cookies spread out for snacks.

The entire time I was just so amazed at how much energy these kids had. I mean they were constantly doing things. The only time I saw them sit was when they would eat. Other than that they were playing volleyball, wrestling, jumping rope, competing in relay races, singing songs, or dancing. When I explained my amazement to my counterpart, she asked me what American students do. I replied that most American students like to play video games, fiddle with their cell phones, or fool around on the internet. I also told her that perhaps America's biggest problem at the moment is obesity and heart disease. I didn't notice an ounce of fat on any of the students at the picnic.

So yeah, for the most part the picnic went well. There were a couple of times when I felt sorely out of place. Although these kids have been studying English for over 5 years, they are not at all accustomed to actually using it and they are terribly self-conscious about even trying. Thus I often had to rely on my very rudimentary Mongolian and Kazakh to communicate. It was great getting a chance to see these kids out of school though and I am happy that I went. I will be honest, however, and say that when 10pm rolled around and the 10ft bonfire had burned down to ashes, I was ready to go.

The ride home was a bit of an adventure. Call me a paranoid American, but a couple times throughout the day I tried to ask the driver if it would be difficult to navigate our way home in the dark -- like I said, we got lost 5 times in broad daylight! Each time I asked, however, he would just reply, "Kemjok" -- which is Kazakh for "It's ok!"

Needless to say we got lost a few times. My counterpart assured me that it was normal though. Each time our driver wasn't sure of the way, he would stop the truck, turn off the engine, and send a student out in the darkness to find someone who lived in the area. The student would return within a couple of minutes with a person who lived in a nearby ger who gave our driver directions and then we would set out on our new path -- only to get lost again 15 minutes later.

It was 11:30pm by the time I finally got home and I was bushed. The last thing my counterpart said before saying goodnight, however, was that the teachers at our school will be having a picnic of their own next week. So I guess I get to do it all over again on Saturday!





More pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2423948&id=6006255&l=e14ae7cd0d

Photos!

Want to check out more photos of our Mongolian exploits? Go here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2423670&id=6017317&l=749f448824

(I'll have Scott post some links later!)

Shower House

We're clean! One of the benefits of being in a larger city is that we have access to a few more amenities than our friends in the countryside. One such luxury is a decent shower house. We have just such a shower house about a 10 minute walk from our house. For 1,300 tugriks (about 1 USD) you get 30 minutes of hot water in a private stall with a locking door. That's right, we're big city kids here in Olgii.

Just so we don't feel that we are abusing our privileges, we have officially designated Saturday and Wednesday afternoons as our shower days. We have gone twice so far. Now here I am on a Saturday morning quivering with anticipation for my shower later today.

Ah, Ashlee and I were just joking last night about the good ol' days when showered everyday. It was like paradise...

PS - Between shower days, we also have the option of boiling water and bathing right here in the privacy of our own house using a "tumpun." See the picture below.

Pictures

Here is link to some pictures I posted from training:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2422373&id=6006255&l=4884bc22f9

Here's another link to pictures of our house if you're interested:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2422325&id=6006255&l=8131f7ea35

We're in Olgii, Baby!

That's right, we're in Bayan-Olgii living the Peace Corps dream. We arrived back on August 22nd and we have spent the past two weeks feeling our way around our new city and setting up house, the culmination of which was establishing our very own internet connection. Yep, we have to pull our water from a well and use an outhouse, but we have wireless internet. Go figure.

But yeah, I think that we really lucked out with our placement. Olgii is the capital city of our province and it boasts 30,000 people and an airport with one unpaved runway. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but the city, along with the province, is overwhelmingly Kazakh. While mostly everyone seems to know Mongolian and they recognize that they live in Mongolia, they closely identify with their Kazakh culture. The reason I say mostly everyone is because there are people like our 80-year-old hashaa grandmother who, although she seems to have traveled all over eastern Europe, only speaks Kazakh.

Olgii is a bustling little city perched near the Russian-Chinese-Mongolian border. We are a 3-hour plane ride from UB, but if you aren't able to fork over the $600 for a round-trip ticket (yikes!) you have to suffer anywhere from 40-65 hours on a bus that takes you down into and through the Gobi Desert (double yikes!).

The people here in Olgii all seem wonderfully nice. From what I have heard, since Olgii is predominantly Kazakh and Kazakhs are predominantly Muslim, our new community does not have many of the vices enjoyed by the rest of Mongolia -- particularly public drunkeness, which is fine by us. Although, thinking about it now, I'm not sure exactly how Muslim Olgii is. I have not yet seen the mosque, I haven't witnessed any prayers, and we're about two weeks into Ramadan and I haven't noticed any fasting. Then again, whenever we are not at work, Ashlee and I are snugged up in our little house watching Friends. Ah, it's good to be reunited!

Speaking of work, I am officially a secondary school English teacher working at School #4, which is about a 5-minute walk from my house -- something that I will definitely appreciate come winter time and its -40 degree weather. My school has 1,500 or so students and 7 English teachers. At the moment I have a pretty loose job description. My only directions so far have been: (1) teach English; (2) help the English teachers with their English; and (3) develop an English club. It sounds pretty straightforward, but things work a little differently here in Mongolia than they do back home. For starters, there doesn't seem to be a set class schedule -- or at least one that I can figure out. I mean one class I taught was 80 minutes and the others have been 40 minutes. Also, I think who ever is in charge of the bell is a bit schizo -- sometimes it rings once and other times it rings about 20 times. I mean this morning the bell rang for class to end and I thought it was a fire alarm.

Speaking of alarms, we got our first snow yesterday -- I know that alarms don't seem to be related to snow, but let me finish the thought. So yeah, I woke up yesterday morning, extricated myself from my twisted-up sleeping bag, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and stepped outside my front door for my 20-step jaunt to the outhouse when I was greeted by a burst of freezing air and a spectacular view of Olgii's mountains blanketed in snow. Did I mention that Olgii is surrounded by mountains? They are spectacular. Anyways, it seems that summer is definitely over and fall is making a mad dash into winter. The kind family that lives in our hashaa (compound) and whom we rent our house from came over as soon as they noticed we were bustling about to check on us. When we first got here we made it clear that we come from California where the world pretty much ends when the mercury drops below 60 degrees. They found this hilarious.

After our family was assured that we were alive, they proceeded to show us how to make a coal fire. Here in Olgii wood is scarce and heat is essential, so we get to burn coal. So they built a huge fire which warmed our little house right up. After they left, I checked the batteries in our carbon monoxide detector and sat as far from the fire as possible, completely paranoid that some invisible fumes were coming to assassinate my brain cells. The fire burned all morning and day and kept our place nice and toasty. When we came home from work and before leaving to our friend's house for dinner, we built another fire following our family's instructions. We came home a few hours later and we were welcomed in by our screeching carbon monoxide detector. Awesome.

Now, for another loose transition -- speaking of dinner, I forgot to mention that we have two other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) living with us here in Olgii. Both of them came last year and they seemed to have adjusted to life here in Olgii quite nicely. They have both been incredibly welcoming and very excited for us to join their little PCV family. One of them, a fellow TEFLer from Florida, is an incredible cook and she has made it clear that we are welcome over to her house for dinner three nights a week. We've gone twice so far and we have come home so ridiculously stuffed that it was almost like Thanksgiving. The first night she made sweet and sour beef, pasta salad, and lemon cake for dessert. Just last night she made burritos with fresh salsa and fudge cake. It was amazing.

I have to go for now. I've had the afternoon off but Ashlee had to go into work and she is just coming home now. I don't want her to walk in and realize that while she has been running around town with her counterpart I have been sitting here on my bum surfing the internet.

PS - Sorry for the seemingly erratic post. Hopefully now that we have access to the internet we can make more regular (and shorter) posts. Also, after spending two months learning two languages, it is surprisingly difficult to write (and think) in English.

Quick Follow-Up

Here's a list of things that we do NOT need -- thanks though!

• Ramen noodles (and any other type of noodles for that matter)
• Rice (again, any type)
• Other feminine products (besides tampons, I've never seen such a selection of pads in my life)
  
• Salt, pepper, sugar, sugar substitute, flour, yeast
  
• Candy (although, its kinda different)
• Stray dogs and cats
• Soap
• Shampoo + Conditioner (they like to combine things)

Wish List

Hello all!
We made it to beautiful Bayan Olgii and our internet is finally up and running! (Email us so we can Skype!) But more on Olgii later.

Now, on to more pressing matters, like a Care Package Wish List! Here is the initial list; we'll keep it updated on the side panel as well.

• Ground coffee (Scott likes the "strong"/"bold"/"extra coffee-y" stuff -- specifically Starbucks "Espresso Roast" or "Extra Bold Italian Roast") - another PCV also introduced Scott to "Starbucks Instant Coffee", I don't recall such a thing, but if you find it and have the means to send it, please do!
  
• Tylenol
• Can opener
  
• Theraflu (any and all formulations) -- especially the Nighttime kind. We've had colds for about a week now.
• Dry Erase markers (keep 'em coming)
  
• Hand sanitizer
• DVD's
• Ziploc bags (gallon-size)
  
• Pajama pants for Scott (Men's Large/Extra Large + Long - he's a 36 x 34 in regular pants)
• Peanut butter (in a PLASTIC jar)
• Ranch and Italian dip/dressing mix (or similar things)
• Lipton onion soup mix
• Easy recipes
• Canned chicken
• Oreos
• Tortillas
• Velveeta cheese
• Baking POWDER
  
• Harry Potter books (PLEASE!!!!)
• Thanksgiving/Christmas fix-in's (canned pumpkin, cranberries, etc.)
• Tampons
• Letters
• "Teacher" supplies (like posters you might see in Kindergarten classes with the alphabet and other useful learning aides)
• Scott wants to decorate his class with pictures/posters of places around the world
  
• Office supplies (specifically pens and good markers)
• Tea (Earl Grey & Chamomile)
• Hot Cider (in a packet)
• We'd like to decorate our house with pictures from home. Please send some!
  

Just a quick packing tip -- we advise sending packages via flat rate USPS boxes. This means you can cram as much stuff into one box as you can make fit and weight doesn't matter. If possible, remove items from larger packaging and send in ziploc bags -- i.e. when sending a DVD, just send the actual DVD, and not the whole plastic box.

We miss you all so much!!! Hopefully the blog posts, Skypes, emails, phone calls and all will be much more frequent now - there are so many stories to tell! Scott is taking pictures of the "house" for ya'll to see right now, so we'll be posting again soon :)