The Big Move

It seems that we were able to find a suitable new apartment after all. We made the deciosion late Friday night on the new villa we will be living in. It is the ground floor and much roomier than our current second floor. Saturday we looked it over again with the landlord to see what needed to be done. Sunday and Monday we packed. Monday evening we moved everything in. Now it is Tuesday. Both housed are a bit of a hazardous area, but I'm sure by the end of the week the new house will feel like a home and the old house will be completely empty.

I'll be offline a few days while we get internet installed at the new house. I'll catch you all up next week on anything else going on in our lives.

Family Happenings

As fate would have it, Dina will not be coming. Things have a way of changing and I'm sure this is for the best too. Actually, Nate and I both had a "feeling" about this a while ago. I am feeling great and doing well, so we are going to try to go it alone for now. I have been doing housework, laundry, school, and still doing fun things with friends. I figure if I ever want the "farm" I better get used to being self sufficient. Of course we won't push things too far. If my body says things need to change, we will do things differently. So family and friends don't need to panic that I'm over doing it. I rest plenty.

I do however finally have a working vehicle. This has made the greatest difference for me. Now I am free to run about when I want to. This week alone I have gone out more than I usually do in six weeks. It's been fun if not a bit exhausting. It feels good to be busy again, its been too long a time that I've holed up in my house without interacting. So this is one great change!

School is getting better. Hannah is catching on more to the rythm of classes. Ethan is somewhat of a distraction. We're working with it though. He has his own school work which he enjoys. I guess I could say life is good. Everyone is pretty happy. What more can I really ask for!

PS. Correction to my last blog. Nate did do dishes with me! So he doesn't draw the line there. He is deffinately stepping up to the plate with this baby!

Dissapointed

Well Dina was supposed to arrive last night on the 16th, that wasn't able to happen. She was stopped in immigration in the Philippines. We thought we had all our paperwork in order. But, as is too often the case with immigration everywhere, there was a new rule that our friends here hadn't heard of yet. We have one more paper to get. It will take us another week to process that and then she can come.

I feel bad for Dina, it was a long hard day for her by the time we found out what was going on. She battled the best she could. In the end she had to go home. But we'll get it all sorted out. Hannah and Ethan were especialy disappointed, Hannah had a cry.

In the mean time it was a good lesson learned for us. Next time we will do our research better. However, Nate has been rising to the occasion lately. He has done more housework this past week than in the past few years! Well maybe not quite that long, but he is being very helpfull. So I will still get things picked up and vacumming done while Dina is not here. I can't vouch for help with the dishes though. I believe he draws a line there :)

Getting Practice

A friend of mine came over with her 2 1/2 month old baby boy. Hannah had the chance to hold him and feed him a bottle all by herself. She did a great job and enjoyed it immensly. She's been wanting to hold and feed a baby for quite some time. Ethan also "held" the baby, though with much more help and a much briefer session.

Great practise for next year!

More Soccer

Here are a few pictures of Hannah that dropped off the last soccer blog. She had possesion of the ball a few times which was pretty exciting. It is nice to see her putting in the effort to go after the ball and not be too shy.

Soccer has been a lot of fun for all of us. Here are a few pictures of both Hannah and Ethan. Hannah is the flying ponytail. That is how I could always identify her on the field. Ethan is ofcourse the little cutie with the big cutie :) Nate is a good coach, and he is able to run around a little better than I can.

The first week we did soccer Hannah was in an older age group for 6 & 7 year olds. Mostly boys who have played a few years and were too aggressiver for her. She was too intimidated to join in. The last week we went I asked if she could join the 5 year olds, much more her playing style. She ran her heart out.

My Bedroom Back

Yesterday I was the energizer bunny. I had loads of energy. Even at night when I really was exhausted my legs still wanted to keep moving. I had one of those "it can't go another minute" moments. I know I am supposed to take it easy, but sometimes it just can't be helped. We have a little apartment and have been sharing a room with our kids for about 9 months. We did this so we could use their bedroom as a kitchen rather than use the room we were using as a kitchen. Our previous kitchen was at the top of a long flight of communal stairs in our villa. It is now a storage/laundry room.

Anyways, there never really was enough room for the bunk beds in our room. Separating our beds was a set of wardrobes for privacy. I always had to squeeze one way or another to get by either to make the kids beds or open my closet. Nathan has been sick of it longer than I have, but yesterday was the last of my tolerance for the situation. I pushed, pulled, heaved and hoved. Now the kids live in the new kitchen/their old bedroom. I had been using about a third of the room as a school room, no longer. Their bunk beds are pushed up against the corner wall. Their closet is butted up against the foot of the bed. Then I strung a sheet to make a privacy curtain between the kitchen and their beds.

Our bedroom now feels enormous, even though I added two pieces of living room furniture, a desk and soft chair. The living room now hosts school. It feels a little larger since I removed the desk and chair.

Of course the entire house was trashed after the rearrange. Everything under a bed, on top of a wardrobe, and hiding elsewhere had to be shoveled up into the living room. I did manage to get it all cleaned and put away today. So for a few weeks at least I will feel like the house isn't crowding in on me.

It really was a fun project. Every once in a while a woman just needs to tear into the house and cause a little havoc.

Reading Marathon

This week I hare reread the Little House on the Praire books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (Minus one book I have lost) I have to admit, when I read these books I realize what a life of leisure I enjoy. I know they are childrens stories, but they hold a wealth of information about Pioneer and Homesteading life. I am amazed at the amount of work Pa and Ma Ingalls did each day to make sure the family had food and clothing. Once upon a time in my life my own mother worked long hard hours to do the laundry and put up food for the family, but those days are long gone.

What really impresses me the most is the family attitude toward work. Laura doesn't shirk an unpleasant task but meets it head on. They take joy in their work and go it with a cheerful attitude.

I have a long way to go to get up of the couch and dig into the messy house around me. If you have never read Laura Ingalls Wilder books, do so. They are delightfully written and charming tales from an era of American Histoy that really is foreign to us now.

One thing as I read I found very distrubing. Everyone pretty much hated the Indians. The prevailing attitude of the day regarded the phrase "the only good Indian is a dead one". How a society can reach that collective opinion about another group of people constantly amazes me. yet I know today the same types of statements are made around the world by various groups. Sad and distrubing is the words I have for such sentiment.