Camera Phone Dump

Prior to Nathan and Reni's arrival, a common refrain around here was, "We'll wait 'til Daddy gets here."

Ellie would ask a question, "When can we do this?" or "When will we go there?" and I would answer, "Wait 'til Daddy gets here!"

For more than a year, Ellie has been begging for a pet.  In the midst of our year of support-raising, that was obviously impractical.  I can't remember at what point, but somewhere along the way, we told her that she could get a bird when we got to Albania.  That is not an unusual pet for apartment dwellers here.  We thought a bird would be relatively low maintenance and she has always been very keen on the creatures, wanting one that would sit on her finger ever since she saw Mary Poppins sing, "A spoonful of sugar..."

Once Ellie and I arrived in Albania, I would get the question at least a couple of times per day, "How many sleeps until I get my bird?"

On Sunday we scouted the location of a pet shop.  On Monday we returned with our bird cage (which Nathan had bought here during his visit last December).

The pet shop

After a bouncy ride hooked to Reni's stroller, Abigail made it safely home.

(Above) -- I walk in to see the kids are showing Abigail a movie on the Kindle.  What is Abigail watching, I ask.  Ellie replies, "Angy Birds Break Out of Jail."

On Monday and Tuesday we had our first sessions with our language helper, Vera.

At MTI we learned some excellent language acquisition tools that are giving us a lot of confidence in our language study!  The four of us (Anna, Abby, Nathan and I) can understand (and mostly) say I/he/we/they am/is/are studying/eating/playing in the stairwell/bathroom/living room/bedroom.  Next session we learn past and future tense and we'll be throwing in more verbs and locations to boot!  It really is a lot of fun and a time that I look forward to!  We hope to do three sessions per week with Vera.  This will be outside of our formal language class which starts next month.  The are numerous bonuses to these kinds of exercises over a traditional classroom style of learning such as much more practice in mimicry and other forms of vocalizing, having the learner drive the pace of the material imparted, and learning in an atmosphere that encourages the language gates to 'stay open'.

On Monday I had the pleasure of meeting a couple fresh off the plane to meet their new son, a little guy who has been living at Reni's first home in Elbasan.  I can't believe it's been nearly 7 years ago since we were traveling over here to meet Ellie the first time! I can completely remember the bundle of nerves and excitement preceeding 'the first meeting'.  Kerri is helping them out much like she assisted us during our stay in Elbasan so I know they are in good hands.  If you want to follow this family's story, they blog over here.



I posted a lot of these images from a mobile device so they're not in proper, chronological order... Following Ellie's visit to the clinic about her swollen eye, we met up with a couple of sweet fellow missionaries here.  Krystal was so sweet to treat Ellie to her favorite (which I think you can only find at Qendra Stefan): a brownie!!!

Until they got here, Skype was a great way to keep in touch!  So glad I thought to snap this photo as a memory.  Though Nathan may not love it so much... it was rather early in OH.

Alas, our snail is no longer with us.

Ellie was celebrating to find chocolate chip cookies.  Yes, she definitely has a big sweet tooth!

Yesterday we were finally at a place to unpack Ellie and Reni's homeschool curriculum and resources.  Today they will have a half day of school with their teachers (Ellie can hardly wait!).  This afternoon we are all going to ride along with Nathan while he goes to 'driving' school with Mandi in our 'new' Caddy.  Nathan knows how to drive a stick shift, but he's never before driven in Albania.  We'll just say the unofficial rules of the road can be a little non traditional.  Also, the girls have not been out and about since landing on Saturday night so we thought this would be a nice opportunity to see more of the city, plus for all of us get us out to a larger shopping center to pick up some essentials.

Seriously, though, when you pray for us, please pray for our safety when we travel.  The roads here can be treacherous (and it's not comforting to think that we have had our drivers licenses longer than 99% of the drivers on the road).