Apartment Life

It's been a long time since I actually talked about US on here, right? So, here goes a little update about where we are, k?

We said goodbye to our big wonderful house on the seminary campus at the end of October. We are so thankful for our time there...what a blessing it was!!

We moved across town into a very not big apartment. :) We are very close to Asas though, so that's a plus for sure. It was a crazy time packing up and getting things ready to go and then going and getting settled into this apartment, but thankfully we are now in a good routine here and things are a bit more peaceful around here. :)

Even though it is pretty small, it's a great place to live. The other apartments I've seen here are very cramped. As far as apartments go, this one is perfect for a family with 4 small children. It isn't as cramped. The living room/dining area is one great open space, so that's so nice. The rooms are small, but not too small. The bathrooms are also tiny...hardly room to close the door (so I don't). :)

The kitchen doesn't have any counter space. It also doesn't have any cabinets for the food (just enough space for the dishes...some of them). And there is nowhere to hang clothes here...nowhere outside, just a couple of racks here in the apt. It takes forever for the clothes to dry. We also don't have any closets for the kids. It's...interesting. :)

There's nowhere for the kids to go outside. We live on the 2nd floor, but even the apts. on the first floor have no yard area. All the apartments are in buildings and the doors are on the inside of the buildings...no doors leading directly outside. They don't have a park or anything near here either, but we do take walks with them, esp. Joel in the evenings when he gets home (it's hard for me to get out during the day with housework and Cass napping and such). We've resorted to the boob tube alot while living here. Given the limited play space/no outside option and also the need for quiet when naps are taking place (since we are in such close proximity to the napper), it's a good option here. Plus, we have cable here and Discovery Kids (dubbed in Portuguese...it's good for them to hear Portuguese though, so another good thing about the TV).

So, there are challenges to living here, but it's also really fun at the same time. It's really cozy, I always know exactly where the kids are at all times (ha ha ha...a friend of ours said, 'yeah, under your feet,' but not quite), it's easier in some ways (less space to keep, less stuff to deal with, etc.), it's great to have Joel so close...he has more time with us at lunchtime and is home sooner in the evenings, I have a great washing machine here (we are probably actually going to buy this one and sell ours), hmmm, what else?

To sum it up, it's small, it's challenging, but it's fun. So, we're enjoying our time here, although we're also very grateful it's only temporary. ;)

We will probably be moving to the new house (different house but on the same seminary campus) sometime around Dec. 12th. Such a great little house that we are going to. We left a pretty huge house to come to this tee-ninesy place. Maybe God planned it that way so when we go to the new house (which is a good bit smaller than the first house, but way bigger than this apartment) we will feel like we are just swimming in all that space. :)

Thanks for asking how it's all been. More updates to come (kids, school, etc.). But it literally took me all day long today to write just this little bit. Now I'm going to add a video and maybe some pics and call it a day. :)

Here's a little virtual tour...



Isn't this so cute? I looked down from my chair this morning and this was my view. Had to grab a shot of Eissa's cuteness.
Cass crawled (more of an army crawl, but not really...you'll see it soon) out of her pants. Too funny. The other kids got a real kick out of it.
Doing school (this was taken yesterday).
I got me some aipo!! :) Can you tell I'm excited about my celery? I haven't seen celery since we left the states. My portuguese teacher gave this to me yesterday...she had told me that she sees it sometimes...rarely, but she does see it. She just happened to see it again not long after we had talked about it and she got me a present. :)
This was taken today (these pics are not in any kind of order). Gigi has seen better days. This was after Eissa fed her a snack. Eissa: "Baby snack, Mama, baby snack."
The girls ready to head out...Eissa saying, 'there's Cass, Mama.'
Playing together.
There is a built-in desk here...you just unlatch it and lower it and voila. Grady thinks it's super cool.

Alright, now I'm off to make some chicken salad (mix for sandwiches) with my celery...woohoo!!