YOU GET SOME HELP!!

(This post is continued from the previous one.)

 

So John was gone, and I had 4 kids in a new country.  So what did I do?  Prayed like crazy and asked a precious friend of ours to come help me!  Amy flew from Atlanta and spent 10 days with, and we had a BLAST together.  She is high energy, fun, and so kind when I turned a 20 minute drive into a 2 hour drive (which might have happened multiple times!). 

She came with surprises for each kid and for me.   Look at this ring...4 hearts for 4 kids.  I love it so much!!

 

We did task-y stuff and adventures together.

(Check out the bad moods in this picture!  Thankful for someone who loves my kids enough to love them through transition!)

 

 

She made cake pops with the kids.

 

Since there are pools EVERYWHERE here (including swimming times in schools here), and none of my kids are good swimmers, I signed them up for swim lessons. 

 

Jacob started out like this, but by the end, he was swimming and jumping in and being a little fish.  This from the boy who didn't even like to get his face wet in the shower.  : )

 

I cooked awesome meals with things I have been missing for a year...like BRUSSEL SPROUTS!!!

 

 

 

We celebrated the 4th with some American food..hamburgers, baked beans, potato salad (made by Z!), and shortcake (made by Z!).

 

 

One of our big concerns was about dogsitting.  Catie has been terrified of dogs, and we prayed for grace and breakthrough as she lived with a dog for 6 weeks.  And guess what?!?  For the first 2 days, Lily (the dog) was super scared of all of us...except Catie.  And that gave the 2 of them some good bonding time.  All the kids fell in love with this little sweetie.

 

 

 

I started a "Thankful Tree," and at dinner we would each say something we were thankful for and write it on a leaf.  It really helped us to keep thankfulness in front of us!

 

 

So even though we missed John...A LOT...we had a fun 2 weeks.  And got a lot done!  Found a pediatrician, toured schools, started learning our way around, got the kids swimming.  But most of all, I just felt so happy that we had learned some things in our first country and did some things differently this time...we rented a car, I cooked healthy meals, we did more fun stuff.  Yay for learning and growing!

 

And Amy, you SAVED.MY.LIFE!!!!  I can never thank you enough!!