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Hola! Wow, there is so much to tell you all. We still do not have internet, so I can’t post pictures, yet, but I cannot wait for you to see the city we are living in! God has been so good to us. We are doing great. We are going through the normal adjustments, but all in all, we are doing well.

As I write, I am sitting in our “first floor” flat, which is really located on the 2nd floor. The first floor is the ground floor, so we are the “first floor.” The sun is streaming in through the sliding glass doors, and I can see past our balcony to the city street below. It is as European as I can imagine! People walking everywhere; little pastry shops, candy shops, a butcher shop, coffee shop, etc. Today is cold, but as sunny as it has been. It’s beautiful here.

We live in an amazing apartment, with very modern accommodations. We feel SO blessed! Our place is about 1200 square feet, and we have a wonderful balcony. Thankfully, it has a high wall, so I’m not so nervous about the boys falling off. ☺ It’s big enough for them all to go out there and play cars and such. The only thing is that everything here is made of stone, marble and brick. It’s gorgeous, but it echoes a ton. If any of you know my children, you know that combination is not the greatest. My boys are so loud… I’m afraid the entire street can hear us! :)

We have marble floors and marble countertops. There’s no carpet here. Our guess is that it keeps it much cooler in the hot summers. My kitchen is huge, compared to what I expected. There are great counter-tops, and a large fridge (by European standards… probably only about half the size of an American fridge.) We have a washer, but no dryer or dishwasher. I guess that’s very normal in Spain. My washer sits under my kitchen counter where you would expect the dishwasher to be. It made me laugh when I first saw it! It’s small, compared to American standards, but I’m SO thankful for it!

My kitchen has a cream marble floor, black and white marble counter tops, and it’s accented with red!! I LOVE it. Our bathrooms have a rack that heats up when the heater is on, so we have warm towels when we get out of the shower. Can you believe it? Lol.

We are still adjusting, but it took me a little bit to figure out how in the world to make it without a dryer. With three boys and Wes, I usually have a TON of laundry! We used to do at least a load a day in our large American washer… AND I had a dryer there! Here it takes 2 hours for washer to wash, and it takes at least 24 hours for the clothes to dry… sometimes longer, if its jeans or something. So, how do you do that with a family of SIX? We don’t have a clothesline, but we found a drying rack, which most people keep outside on the balcony. We have brought it in, b/c it’s so cold outside, and it’s been rainy. I HAVE to do laundry everyday, regardless of rain or shine, so we brought the rack inside. Until we figure out a better way, we will just have to make due with drying laundry in our living room. :)

When we first got here, I think I got totally overwhelmed with the schedule here. Spain keeps very different hours than our family is used to. Those of you who know us well, know that we are a very scheduled family. It’s just what is necessary for us to function as a family of six. When we got here, we had to deal with the time change, of course; but when you add the difference in schedule, it really threw me off. I think that was my first bit of culture shock. I function on a schedule, so it was overwhelming to me to not know when to put my kids down for a nap or when to feed them lunch! I know that sounds odd, but that’s truly how it was for me. The kids go to school from 9am to 2pm, but they don’t eat lunch while they are there. They have a snack at noon, and the normal Spanish lunch hour is 2-3pm, and it is their large meal. Spaniards have a snack again at 5 or 6pm, and they eat dinner around 9pm, which is usually sandwiches. So, as you can imagine, that totally messed up my schedule! We really wanted to try to adapt to Spanish culture, as much as we could, anyway.

As the days went on, Wes and I realized that we weren’t going to make it, if we kept to a normal Spanish schedule. Lol. :) Maybe we will ease into that… especially as our kids get older, but for now, I’ve adapted our schedule. So, this is our weekday schedule:
8am- breakfast
9am-drop off boys at school
9:30am- language school begins for Wes and I
1pm- Wes and I finish class, and usually try to get any business done that we need to. (Everything here closes down at 2pm for siesta, and many things do not open again until morning.)
2pm-pick up boys from school
2:30pm- eat lunch (I decided to stick with sandwiches, since I have no time to actually cook a meal!)
3:00pm- Carolina and Jonathan take a nap
5pm- they get up and have a snack
6:30pm- dinner
7:30-bedtime for the kids!

Then I spend a couple hours doing dishes, folding laundry and putting the clothes out to dry. Wes and I sneak in an hour of review from our class, and then we go to bed! It’s such a PACKED day. I’m sure it will get better as time goes on. We just still have so much to do.

We spent our first week trying to get all the details set up… like utilities, phone, internet, etc. We did have help from our team here; they have been amazingly helpful! One of the journeymen here set up all our utilities for us, and one has been helping us with our phones. Everything just takes a while in Spain. Oh, and we had to set up a bank account, and apply for a residency card. They all seem to be ongoing processes that we have to keep going back for the next “step.” Lol… such is life! :) I think it’s made a bit harder by the fact that everything closes down at 2pm.

I must go make dinner, but I will write again soon. I have to fill you in on schools and the kids... and more culture shock. Please keep praying for us and our adjustments here! Pray for our internet to get hooked up quickly!! :) That would help our adjustment, I think. Lol. We miss you all, and so appreciate all the prayers!