The team is complete!

We had been looking forward with great anticipation to Nathan and Reni's arrival as well as the girls, but especially the boys after the disappointment of them having to delay another 48 hours.  Saturday morning we went to the village for kids' club.  Ellie actually tried to sing a few of the songs (in Shqip) and befriended a few of the older girls.  They were very sweet and patient with her.

A game similar to Pictionary was good for picking up a few new Albanian vocabulary words!

We look forward to contributing a bit to the program ourselves next week!  We can't wait!

I thought Saturday night would never come, but it turns out my list took me longer to complete than I expected (as everything here usually takes me longer than I plan for) and I was scrambling to dry and put away the last of the clean dishes before we had to scoot out the door at 7:15 to catch our ride to the airport with Arjan.  We saw their plane fly right over us while we drove down the autostrada.  They were so close to making their landing, I could read the Turkish Air logo (in the dark) on the tail wing.

I wish you could have seen Ellie's squeal and rush to greet her brother when they finally made it out of customs.  They were both all smiles and laughter that didn't stop til they went to sleep.  They didn't stop chattering the entire ride back to the apartment.

Nathan said over and over what an amazing trooper Reni has been these past 12 days.  He said when they finally got on the big flight from Chicago to Istanbul, Reni literally fell asleep during his first bite of supper and didn't wake up until breakfast was being served.  He reportedly was quite confused.  That "breakfast" was served around 1:30PM Albania time, so when he went to bed here Saturday night, he only stayed asleep about 5 hours.  Then he was up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 4:15!

It was a huge help for Nathan to have the help of the girls in getting his carry-ons on and off planes and through airports.

Today we wanted to take a walking tour to acquaint Anna and Abby with the neighborhood so they would know where they could buy what they needed, take the children to the park, and go for a run.  We strategically planned our route so we could take a coffee rest at the Skytower's revolving coffee bar which has excellent views of Tirana and is an easy way to point out where important landmarks lie in relation to each other.

As we walked back along the Boulevardi, I noticed a new-to-us memorial in a corner of the park.  I've mentioned before that the bunkers which used to be so prevalent throughout the country (about 24 in every square kilometer) are now becoming a rarity.  There was actually one preserved and created for visitors to walk inside and see.  As we were about to leave another rarity appeared... a guided group of tourists!  I knew the day would come, but it was still a surprise (this was actually the 2nd batch I've seen in 3 days).

Part of our original "plan" in this transition was that Nathan was going to fly to Germany on the 15th with our colleague, Mandi, to purchase our car.  I know it probably sounds a little odd that we would leave the country to buy a vehicle, but there are a couple of very good reasons.  The first is, the selection of quality used vehicles in Albania is quite limited.  The roads here are VERY rough and so any used vehicle would come with a higher-than-average risk level for future mechanical problems.  The second, more serious issue is the fact that many vehicles in Albania are purchased outside the country's borders.  To avoid paying import tax, many individuals will immediately claim their vehicle was stolen upon entering Albania.  Then, the VIN number is put on a registry of stolen vehicles and any attempt to drive said vehicle out of Albania will result in the vehicle's impoundment.  We've heard a percentage as high as 3 out of 4 cars having been claimed as 'stolen'. To be good stewards of mission resources, we followed the advice we were given by numerous friends to purchase one-way tickets to Germany (a country with a good selection of used vehicles with low mileage and driven relatively lightly) to find our wheels.

Obviously Nathan missed the flight on September 15, but Mandi went ahead and purchased a vehicle on our behalf.  Nathan had found it online and Mandi acted as our purchasing agent.  He returned to Albania with it late last night and brought it by this afternoon for us to see (he has to drive it to an office on Monday to finish the paperwork on it).  The kids were over-the-moon excited to see it (in their lifetimes, we have never purchased a new-to-us vehicle).

We are so grateful for the gifts of our generous supporters which made it possible for us to buy this 2009 VW Caddy!  She is going to give us so much more independence to travel between Tirana and the village in this season of living here in the city!  She holds 7 and has plenty of room for Reni's stroller in the back!  For practical maintenance reasons we purchased a manual transmission.  If I'm ever going to drive it, I'm going to have to go back to driving school!

The kids had to check out every square inch of the interior.  I think she passed!  We're going to call her Qershi (Chair-shee) which means cherry.

It's SO good to be altogether again.  We have a good bit of work in front of us to sort out the kids school books and plan out our school year, which is getting a really late start already.  I've registered us for language classes, but we're still waiting to hear when classes are going to be offered.  We have a starting date, but we're not sure yet if class will be MWF or Tues/Thursday and I'm more than a bit curious to know this detail as it could affect the children's ability to attend co-op.