Voting

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Papa

The next day we made our way to Papa. I really tried not to have any expectations of what the town would be like. I had seen some pictures so I had a little picture in my mind, but I really didn't know what to expect. I was a little surprised as we entered town.
 
 
                                                                      
                                                                        We are here!


                                                 This is the road that our 'hotel' is on.


                  The town is more rundown than I thought it would be. The streets are very narrow. Driving here already makes me a little nervous and I'm wondering what it will be like to drive our rather large minivan here.

 
Papa is a small town, but it is very confusing and I still don't feel like I know where I am or where I'm going most of the time. I'm glad we have data on our cell phones so I can get directions.


This humble abode is feet away from where we are staying. I was feeling a little nervous at this point!
 


                                                           Our little gated community

                                               
                                                             Our temporary home.


               This is our little apartment. It has plenty of space, although the layout is a bit awkward
.



This area used to be an outdoor space that they enclosed. Looks like that tank used to have some kind of animal in it.




                                                    The front room is full of all our stuff.


                                             I'm glad we brought some toys in our suitcases.


This is the downtown walking street. This is more what I was expecting, this part of town is really pretty.

The church in the town square. They also have a fun playground  nearby. I think we will spend a lot of time down there.


It's been an interesting two weeks. There are times everyday when I think, "What are we doing here! I want to go home!" One of the hardest things for me is the language barrier. Having never left North America before, I'm not used to being unable to communicate, read or understand the language. It is still intimidating for me to go places where I might have to talk to someone in fear of not knowing what to do or say. Someone went with me to the grocery store the first time which was super helpful. It's hard to shop when you don't know where or what stuff is! I went to the store by myself yesterday, and I feel like it was an accomplishment, ha! Driving is another challenge.  Like I said, the roads are narrow, there are tons of bikers on these narrow roads and I don't know where I'm going. I got lost the other day and I had no point of reference. No mountains, no interstate, we just drove in circles for a while until I figured out how to get back to our place. From there I was able to reorient and get to where I was actually going!

The people here have been great! We've had so many people helping us, giving us advice, loaning us things, giving us rides etc. Very thankful for this community. We've stayed busy with all the activities they have going on. Carly and I went to the zoo, I've played Bunco, been to the international spouses brunch, and went swimming at the thermal bath. They have a little community center that is right by our room so we have another place to hang out. The kids started school last week and they are doing really well.  Alyssa couldn't wait to get started. They are also doing soccer twice a week so they have really jumped right in. I think having a schedule is helping them adjust. Carly is home with me, and she isn't too happy about it. She wants to go to school too. I'm trying to keep her busy here and enjoy the one on one time with her.


                                                         Off to their first day of school.


This was Mason's real first day of school. sniff  He really hadn't been away from me for more than a couple hours at a time (on a regular basis). He was so ready for it and he has done great.

 
They are making friends and seem to fit right in. I am so thankful God gave all of them the perfect personalities for this life. They are all so friendly, outgoing and resilient. They are handling it so much better than I would have as a child, and probably better than I'm handling it now. It is such a relief to my mothers heart to know they happy and handling everything well.
 
 
We found a house and are moving in tomorrow! We are excited to get into our permanent home, even though none of our stuff is here yet. There are customs issues with our air shipment and it hasn't even left Washington yet. Our car made it to the port in Germany, but has been sitting there for two weeks waiting on customs. Our household goods are enroute, scheduled to arrive at the port in Germany on May 20. I told Nate we would be lucky to have our stuff by my birthday. Luckily, we get loaner furniture and the community center provided us with kitchen stuff so we are able to move into the house. It won't feel like home for a while, but we are still looking forward to moving in.
 
 

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Vienna ~ Day 2


This is how our first few mornings looked. They we soo sleepy, they would have slept until noon if we let them. They adjusted really well to the new time zone. There was only one night that they were awake for a while in the middle of the night. I think they were thoroughly exhausted by our sightseeing during the day.

                                  Day 2 we went to the Schonbronn Palace. It was beautiful.


 

 


               They had a fun children's museum there. They enjoyed dressing up like royalty.








Their favorite part was setting the table for dinner. It looks like we are at a fancy restaurant but its just the children's museum.





We rode the subway all over the city. It was very convenient and the kids thought it was super cool.

We made it!

 
 
 

Here we are in the London airport. We all look surprisingly happy after our 9 hour flight.


All our bags made it, except our stroller. We mostly use the stroller to carry the kids super heavy  backpacks, so we didn't miss it too much.


After another flight we made it to Vienna. We got to our little apartment about 8pm local time and found a little playground right outside our door. So we went and played for a little bit before we all crashed.
                                                              
  Our apartment building. We all slept well the first night and then we got ready for our walking tour of Vienna. We signed up for this free tour with the Vienna greeters and it was great. This nice man met us at our apartment and took us all over the city. He was with us for 8 hours! He was great with the kids and gave us tons of information. It was a great introduction to the city.

                                                            
                                                              St Stephen's Cathedral


 We made a stop at a little pastry shop. We tried the famous sachertorte, chocolate cake with an apricot filling.

                                                               
                                                               The Hofburg Palace


                                             There were some old Roman ruins behind us.


The kids did amazing all day. They did very little complaining and we walked almost 7 miles that day. Our guide did a great job keeping them engaged and taking us to kid friendly places.


                                                          Climbing a tree in the park.

 
We ended the day at the Prater, an amusement park in the city. It was really fun for the kids.



                                                                
                                    Roller coasters! The one Nate and Alyssa rode had 5 loops!



                                    We ended the day with some wiener schnitzel, of course.


Friday, April 22, 2016

Our last days In Washington

 
Our flight to Europe left from Seattle, so we got to fly back to Washington for a couple days.
 
 
Mount Rainier is so beautiful! We will miss this.




                                      Carly enjoying her "coffee" at breakfast in the hotel.

 
 We decided to go to downtown Seattle one more time and hit up a few places. We had never been up the Columbia tower and the view was amazing. Washington gave us a beautiful farewell.








                                                 We had to do the Pikes Place market.


                                                             So many pretty tulips!




When I told the kids this was the original Starbucks they were really excited and wanted a picture in front. I had no idea they would even care.


                                                 At the airport with 16 bags and carseats!


Goodbye America! On the plane ready to go. The kids did great on the flight. They loved the in flight movies and they all slept for a couple hours.