We are here and well in Barcellona, Italy! Thank you all for your encouragement in our process of getting Isaiah’s passport and getting here. We were so thankful to get Isaiah’s passport last Friday and to travel here the next day. My father-in-law traveled with me this time and I was so grateful to have him with me. I think it would have been nearly impossible to do it on my own with a 3 month old that had to be held the whole time (he did not have a seat) and the older three who still need a lot of hands-on help (especially Naomi). The kids did pretty well on the travel and after a total of about 20 hours of travel time we made it to the apartment.
We have now been here for a week and are getting pretty well settled-in. I think I am getting more used to settling in each year, so that it gets easier each time to set up a new home. I do see that each year I am older and each additional child takes more of a toll on me and it takes me longer to feel like my body is recovered.
We are getting acquainted with the city a little at a time, which is always a process when you go to a new city like we did this year. There are some things that are the same no matter where we go though:
1. The kids become more creative. It seems like the second we arrive overseas and the kids have less toys to play with, their imaginations take off. It is almost like the mountains of toys stifle their creativity.
2. The kids want to wear their winter clothes. Whenever we arrive somewhere and I have had to bring their winter clothes out of storage, it is a guarantee that within the first day one of them will come out dressed for the cold weather (this year it was Elijah on a day when it was in the 90′s!)
3. I change the placement of some things 3-4 times before I finally settle on a spot. Upon arrival in our new apartment, I am re-arranging furniture and trying to figure out where things will go so that the place is functional for us. But usually the first place I put something is not where it stays. I need a few days to see how we all “work” in the apartment before I finally settle on a spot for things.
4. We don’t feel quite at home until we have internet and a favorite spot to eat. Right now the wonderful woman who set up our apartment for us has kept her internet open two floors below so we can catch her internet signal if we sit in the dining room. But once we have our own internet and phone set up, it will feel like home more. Plus we need that one spot where we know we can go and get a good meal. Joe tried out one restaurant he thinks might be the place for us this year (and it has a park next door!)
5. Our stomachs take some time to adjust. For some reason, even if we have been in a country before, all of our digestive tracts take a little time to adjust. We must eat too much American food when we are home in the summers!
So that is where life is at for us right now. I hope to be back into blogging more consistently now.
Praise God that you arrived safely and are settling in well. We continue to pray for all of you! I loved seeing your photos of the new place (and the video of Abby – she’s doing great!).
I totally agree with #1, which is why we don’t have many toys at our house, and the ones we do keep tend to be open ended. After all, a block can be many things, but an electronic telephone is always a telephone! (Amari’s school used that example last week, and it stuck with me.)
Glad you are getting settled.
Wow. I am more humbled by you with each baby and with every move! I have a 10 yo son who has waaaay too many toys. I sometimes wish we could move to a deserted island and leave all the “fluff” behind. But then I’d miss internet and reality television. So maybe not an island…but perhaps Italy?