Phil & Rachel's Shenanigans: Rachel's Birthday & Life Here

My birthday comes just two days after Phillip's, although, he is older than me by a year. We celebrated my birthday by going to worship that Sunday morning, lunch at the mall with friends from Nashville that also live here, we spent the afternoon swimming, and then we relaxed at home with pb&J sandwiches, chips, and cherry Pepsi. It's funny because I never ate pb&j sandwiches at home, but I felt the need for something simple and something that would remind me of home. Some sweet friends also sent birthday cards with us to open once we got here. That was a sweet reminder of those across the pond.

The last two weeks have been filled with school, lesson planning, walking everywhere, figuring out the grocery stores, and trying to settle into our new home. We are all doing well, but are trying to figure out how to balance it all and have good boundaries.

Our weekly schedule looks like this:

1. Leave for school at 8:00 a.m. (We have to be there by 8:30, but I like to get there a little early before the kids come.)-We walk 1/2 mile (or 800 meters) to school every day and walk that home as well.

2. We teach from 8:50-12:30. Phil has a long day on Thursdays because of his leadership class.

3. We leave and go home to work on lesson plans, e-mails, grocery shopping, cleaning, meal planning, plus the many other things that require our time.

4. We spend the afternoon doing homework with the kids and then we sometimes go play in the courtyard with a soccer ball until dinner.

5. Dinner at 6:30 (or sometimes 7)

6. Bath, family w. time, bed at 8 or 8:30.

Every other Friday we will go help with the youth night. Anna is old enough this year to play sports at school, but we will see how she is doing with all the adjusting. It is different than in the states. She will only practice twice a week for a month or two and then they will have one weekend tournament and it will be done. We aren't sure yet about that. Sundays we take an Uber to worship because it is farther away and it would take us forever to walk there. If we are staying in our part of town and need to go farther than we can walk, we take a bus for $0.17 USD. We walk to the grocery store and only buy what we are able to carry back. We also have to walk up our stairs if the elevator is being worked on or doesn't work (Thankfully, that has only happened once, but we were coming up!). 12 flights up is rough! It wouldn't be so bad (okay, it would!) if we didn't already walk everywhere! Again, it works most of the time, so we are thankful! Here are some photos of things we have done recently.