Baby Pictures!

Kaidan Spencer Neitzke finally entered the world at10:26 pm last night, weighing in at 7 lbs and 2oz, measuing 19 1/2 inches long. He's got ten long fingers and ten perfect toes.

Here are a few pictures that I stole from my brother's. Despite the less-than-perfect quality, and my bias as an aunt, he is a pretty darn cute newborn. More pictures to come. :o)

Daddy and Kaidan


Looking like a little old man :o) His eyes are dark blue


Mommy Manda

In Process

After more than 26 hours of labor, my sister-in-law Amanda is finally fully dialated. Her little boy should be within half an hour!

A Minnesota Minute

Well, the temperature here was -21 degrees Farenheit this morning, without windchill. Brrr. But, I got such a warm welcome at church that the cold didn't matter a bit. I've never had much of an experience of "going home" to a church and really being excited about it--looking forward to people I haven't seen in a while and catching up with them. There was even a bonus pot-luck afterwards! I just want to say thank you to everyone from the GM E-Free church. I have been so greatly blessed by the comments left here, and from the messages my parents so often pass along to me. "So and so says hi and asked us how you were doing. They said to tell you they're praying for you." Wow. Who am I that so many people (who are not related to me) should take in interest in my life and the time to pray for me? I'm really humbled. So, to everyone I got to see this morning, and to everyone I unfortunately missed (due to the bitter cold), thank you. Thank you so much for all of your support during a time when I really need it.

In other news, no new nephew yet--my young sister-in-law is still very much pregnant. You wouldn't know it to see her from behind, but a view from any other angle tells the real story. She's going to be one of those people that every other woman hates: wearing her pre-pregnancy jeans within two weeks. We're all jealous, Amanda. But, hopefully I'll still get a chance to see the newest Neitzke before I head back. And if God has other plans, then I guess I'll just have to settle with pictures for a few months. I'm pretty sure the amount of love I have for him will remain unchanged in either case.

Here are a few pictures of Lake Superior to close off this Minnesota Minute. Enjoy.

Home

Today I'm writing from at home, in Minnesota. :o) There is lots of snow, and it's cold. But for the next two weeks, I'm home.

Pressure

This post is about different kinds of pressure. First, air pressure. When bike tires are inflated with the proper amount of air pressure, it is a good thing. For example, I realized that my tires were a lot lower than I orginally thought. So, last night I got them inflated. I immediately noticed a difference, and today I shaved nearly 15 minutes off my morning commute. WOOHOO! my 35-40+ minute ride only took about 25 minutes. I was soooo excited. I felt a lot less exerted when I got to school. It was nice.

Rilegous pressure is another major focus right now. There is a neighboring coutnry, which you might know as the proimse land, that is having a lot of problems. Of course the sentiment here is all completely negative and one sided. I'm supposed to make my outside bulletin board speak uot against what is going on. I'm supposed to have my kids do writing exercises condemng what is happening. And for their other language class, they are writing and drawing pictures with bleeding, dying, crieing people. And my kids are smiling about it. It just feels wrong. My flatmate even went to a demnostration the other day, where they were shouting "Daeth to I...", and she said we should go because it would be a lot of fun. I chose not to. I certainly don't thing Isr is blameless, but I cannot condone all of the one-sided hatred.
And yes, a lot of thnigs are spelld worng on purpose. :o) You have to be caerful here.

The other kind of pressure I'm writing about is job pressure. I'm really not enjoying my job right now. It's hard. It isn't fun. I spend a lot of time raising my voice to levels that just can't be good for it. I'm exhausted at the end of every day. If ever you've asked how you can pray for me, this is definitely one area of my life that needs a lot of support right now. For myself, I'm really praying that God would keep me in the right attitude (especially since I don't necessarily appreciate the admin all of the time), that He would give me joy, and that He would put His agenda on my heart each day--that I would accomplish in my kids' lives the things that God want me to especially if they aren't curriculum-related. I'm getting there, but it's taking a lot of time, and a lot of effort.

Good news for the day: I got my passport back and my residency! Hurray! HURRAY!!!!! That was a huge blessing and answer to prayer. Now I am officially legal to work here, and even able to leave the country and re-enter again. Yay!

Well, I'm still at school and it's getting late. Thank you so much to everyone who has asked my family about how I am doing, for all of your prayers, and until next time,
~Nikki

'New's

Hello again, hello.

Time here is going by quickly. I can't believe it's 2009. For New Year's Eve, I worked, went home late, and almost went to bed early. Exciting, huh? :o) My flatmate and I were watching TV, and around 10:30 she decided she'd had enough, so she went to bed, saying she'd set her alarm to get up at midnight. I stayed up, but dozed on and off until about 12:10 (I did hear Farah's alarm go off at 11:55ish, but that was about all the celebrating she did). Then I went to bed too. Honestly, I needed a good night of sleep. I've been sick for a while, and with the constant need for AC and the total lack of moisture in the forced air, my throat condition really isn't improving. But, I'm looking into a humidifier, which will hopefully help a good deal.

Oh, getting back to an earlier post about my Christmas morning. I figured it would probably be a good idea to let my extended family hear it via word of mouth before posting it in cyber space. Like I said, Christmas morning here, being Christmas Eve night at home, I got a phone call from my family. My mom was wrapping presents, my dad was wrapping presents, and my little brother...? He informed me that he had gotten married that morning! No heads up, no notice. Just, "I got married this morning." ! Like I said, he's a punk. Mino, if you're reading this, you're a punk. (Well, you're cool for reading this, but a punk otherwise :o) Little brothers aren't supposed to do those sorts of things.
Ah well, what can you do? I suppose I should say that I knew they were engaged, and had gotten a marriage license, so it wasn't a total surprise. So, welcome to the family Miss Amanda. Oh, gosh, I guess it is Mrs. Neitzke now, isn't it? Geesh. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you two and my soon-to-be-arriving nephew when I get home. Congratulations on both accounts. (And I obviously get to hold my new nephew more than anyone else because I will get to see him less than anyone else).

PS. I have to say that the ring set my brother picked out is gorgeous. I'm pretty much in love with it. Good job Mino. (I call my brother Mino--pronounced like the words me-know, even though his name is actually Jonathon. There really is no good explaination).

In other news, only one more week until I go on break again. Hurray! My kids have been all over the place this week, which has been really hard on me. Mostly, they've been off the walls again. Not nearly as bad as when I got here, but still, I can't stand, can't handle, and certainly don't want to have to shout/raise my voice that much. It just isn't fun for anyone. But, today they had a really good day. They got candy on the way out the door for the first time in a long time, and they ended the day with a smiley face. I told them that if they got a smiley face every day from now until next Wednesday, then we would have a party during the last period next Thursday. They need something fun to look forward too.

Oh, something else I've been wanting to post about for a while. Hee hee (I've been busy, and the internet has been down a lot lately). Things you don't really see in Dubai (particularly in Sharjah, where I actully live):
Girls that are white
Girls in skirts above the ankle
Girls on bikes
Something that many people saw at 6:00 last Thursday:
A white girl, in a skirt above the knees, on a bike. (The skirt was a bit of an accident, really. I didn't think about it until I had left my building, at which point I didn't feel like going back to change).
Moral of the story: I'm not taking (paying for) the van to school anymore. I bought I bike, which I now ride to school. I make a grand total of one turn, and it's about a 40 minute ride both ways. So far, I like it. I'm out of shape, but that's ok, which makes riding that much better for me. I'm not sure exactly what the distance is, or how to figure it out, but maybe someday I will.

Well, I'm still at school, and I have a lot to do. Thanks for stopping by, and thank you so much to everyone who has prayed for me recently (and for the past 23 years). Right now I really need it, but that's another story, and I'm in a good mood, so I'll leave it alone for now.

~Nikki