HERE IS THE LATEST

The bad news first – The family is sick – Scott, Maddie and Alex are sick with bad colds/fevers. That leaves me as being the healthy one. It is really hard to shop as a family when your husband and kids need naps. Please pray for their health – they are all tired,stuffed up and weak.

Now the fun stuff – Where do I start. Scott left the kids and I at a shopping center for a couple hours to drive with Stevan Prost (the guy we are renting the house from) to set up power and water to the house. So the kids and I attempted McDonalds (across 8 lanes of traffic). Scott left the van (picture below),

but I was too afraid to drive it. This driving on the wrong side of the road and having the van being a stick shift does not motivate me to drive yet. We made it across traffic just fine, but the traffic in McD’s was awful – We waited 25 minutes to order our food (I guess this is the hot spot around here). The kids said this was the best day ever. That night Alex fell asleep at the dinner table in the restraunt – I have never seen him do that. It gets dark around 6:00pm and the kids are in bed by 7:00pm and Scott and I are in bed by 10:00pm at the latest (and if you know me that is not normal).

Here are some pictures of the bed and breakfast we stayed at on Friday night and Saturday. It was very welcoming. It is a 10,000 square foot house!!! The kids fell in love with it the second 6 (yes 6) dogs came out of it barking at them.

We came to find out through our stay here that the lady and her two sons started Bougainvilla Estates (the estate we are living in). Her sons live in the estates pretty close to us. They have little girls Maddie’s age. How awesome is that. So I guess you can say Maddie meet her first new friend. These couples have been very helpful to us and have shared a lot of good information for us to get started here. They even invited us to their Durban home on the Indian Sea – They stated we needed to make sure we saw the country. I still strongly believe God has his hand in having us meet these people!!!!

OHH THE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE – you think this would be every woman’s dream to purchase everything new to fill up a home. Well – It is quite overwhelming with limited stores to shop at, the hours when stores are open (most close at 5:00pm), sick family, and crunch time. We are officially in our house tonight (Sunday) with no furniture, no beds, no plates, no refrigerator, washer, dryer and the big thing no heat (it is cold at night- to give you an idea I am currently wearing a short sleeve shirt with 2 sweatshirts on and a pair of sweats with a pair of jeans over top). We bought some necessities like a blow up air mattress for sleeping tonight. We did find sheets, blankets, and a portable heater. Some furniture will be delivered on Tuesday and we have to get the rest yet. Here is something funny – We were purchasing a TV and the sales guy asked us for our permit. This threw Scott off and he said a what? A permit from the post office to own a TV. Well of course we did not – Who WOULDA THUNK OF THAT. Here are some pictures of some before shoots of the house – I will post the after pictures later(it takes so long to upload here. The kids thought it was fun blowing up the air mattresses and having cinnamon toast and popcorn for supper – YUM.

eating supper on a blanket in the living room

What we had for dinner

Our bedroom after I cleaned it

temporary beds for two nights

sweet dreams kids

Alex's room

kids blowing up matress to sleep on

OUR FIRST GROCERY/CLEANING SUPPLIES BILL – 1257.55
Plastic bag to bag groceries .21 each
1 loaf of bread 5.49

1 bag microwave popcorn 5.69
Bag of Apples 10.99
Lemon Poppy Seed muffins 15.99
Dish Cloths 32.99
Nappies (Pull ups) 107.99
Toliet Paper (18 rolls) 58.99
Portable Heater 359.99
This is all in Rand (1 USD = 7 Rand). It is very hard to shop and not know how much money you are spending. I guess you spend less when your bill hits R1000.00.

Well – we all are very tired – long days – too much out to eat food – too much bickering over little (I mean little) stuff (like I said shopping with a sick family is not that fun), but this is nothing that will not pass – I hope sooner rather than later.

We do not have phone service or internet yet, but I will blog as much as a can until than. Love you all.