Thanksgiving from Our Hearts

Thanksgiving from Our Hearts

This time of year reminds us to stop and think about everything that we have to be thankful for.  The list is almost unending, so I will only share a few recent examples.

We are thankful for:
1. Hot water bottles that keep our feet warm on cold nights.
2. Coffee shops on every corner.  They are wonderful places to study, and there are always hot drinks.
3. Our language teacher, who laughs with us, teaches us and has been extremely patient when we need to go back over things for the 2nd or 3rd time. She brought us some home-grown oranges that were far better than anything from a store.

4. We are thankful for being able to get some emergency medical attention, even if it did mean driving to Hungary; 9 hours in total darkness on curvy, foggy, mountain roads for a 2AM shot.  Plus, who can honestly say that they've gotten a shot at 2 in the morning?
5. We are thankful for the bread store down the hill from our house that makes fresh bread and pastries every morning.  We are even more thankful for the lady in the bread store who helps us order things correctly and is always very kind.
6. We are thankful for Sahara's teachers who deal with all of her moods, but constantly love on her. We are also thankful that Sahara has decided to try the food at school and now realizes how much she loves it.  She was a little worried that if she ate Bosnian food, she wouldn't be American any more.
7. We are thankful to have found furniture for good prices, and we look forward to being able to sit on it someday, when it arrives.
8. We are thankful for all the parks around our city.  They are great places for Sahara to play, and for us to meet people.
9. We are also thankful for the people that we are getting to meet and we hope to continue to meet lots more.

10.  Lastly, we are thankful for all of you who encourage us, remember us and share in our lives.  From our hearts to yours we want to say we are thankful for you. 

                              Thankful for our 18 pound turkey and that it was able to fit in our oven.  Just to think, we ordered the "small" turkey.

                 Sahara helping me make lefse, the family tradition continues in our new home.

Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home

Mission accomplished!  We made it to our country in one piece.  Yes, Sahara's taking a flying leap off of the airplane stairs expecting me to catch her mid-air could have ended badly.   Elisa's leaving her purse and all our passports on the plane, only to find it missing after we cleared security in Vienna could have ended badly.  Thankfully though, all flying children were safely caught, missing passports found, and even all the luggage arrived on time.  We are very glad to have made it here to Sarajevo.

 We have just been here for three weeks, but there is already so much that makes Sarajevo feel like home-sweet-home.  We have a wonderful place to live, located in a great part of the city.  Sahara has a great preschool to go to and is very excited to be starting this week.  Tim and Elisa have found a language teacher.  Thus begins our full-time job for the next year; language study.  We couldn't be more excited to start, as we have quickly discovered that to live life fully here, we need to speak the language.

Side note, the snow is falling heavily outside our window, and even though it's only October, there is one little girl in this home-sweet-home who is beside herself with excitement.


So thankful for all these things which make this new place home-sweet-home. 

Flying Away Home

I keep having this crazy thought that there is an airplane just 48 hours away from taking off that has a seat for each one of our family, and that when we sit in those seats, we will begin our journey "home."  The craziest thing of all, though, is that this crazy thought is actually true.  Home; we have been waiting to have one for over four months and we are so ready!

So... to our last home, I would like to say that you wouldn't be so hard to leave if you weren't the place where Tim and I first lived right after we said "I do," forever.  Where we first got to meet our daughter and hold her tight, where we loved on our puppy, Wilson, who is not making this journey with us, and were we laughed, smiled and felt loved by so many wonderful friends who are more like family.  Thank you old home for giving us all of these irreplaceable memories.

To our new home: may we love you as much as our old home, or hopefully even more.  May you give us experiences we that could never have had in our old home, and may we learn so much from you.  New home, we can't wait to learn your new language and taste your food.  Our daughter might say "this smells different," but she is just being polite and trying to get used to all the new experiences.   New home, you already have a place in our heart, and we just can't wait for that love to grow deeper.

48 hours and the clock keeps ticking.  We will fly away home soon. 

     We found our little girl asleep in her carry on.  If she can fall asleep in that I am hoping she can fall asleep in an airplane seat too. 

New Locations; New Surprises

                            New Locations; New Surprises



So, we hope you are not thinking, "out of sight, out of mind" about us because it has been the opposite for our family, and as you have been out of our sight you have been constantly on our minds.

As we have been out of sight we have learned that with a new location there comes new surprises.  Here are a few that we have learned from:

1. If you find yourself running through the country side and you come across a live, stinky skunk, just two feet away, turn around and run back to where you came from because chances are he will turn and run back to where he came from too.  At least that's what happened to me the first time I ran into the skunk.

2. Be careful playing soccer with your friends because you just might end up giving one a minor concussion.

3. If you happen to jog through a swarm of nasty gnats, it is best to wear a hat and sunglasses or else one or two will probably fly straight into your eye. The sting from that tiny, little bug will leave you crying like a baby, and redness that will last at least 24 hours, and make everyone around you to wonder whether you made up some fanciful story to cover up your contagious case of pink eye.

4. Stomach bugs like to attack little girls at midnight and then keep them puking until the sun comes up just so she will not get a wink of sleep; and neither will her parents.  
 

Lastly we have found that in a new location, you need friends.  We know we need you, so thank you for being there! Please continue to remember us as we remember you daily.


            Still can't believe this girl is now one more year older! Today, after being 4 years old for less than a week she said, " I just can't wait to be 5 years old."  Woah girl slow down!

Fun on the Road

When Willie Nelson wrote the words of his song, "On the Road Again," he was probably not thinking of a 3 year old traveling 4,000 miles cross-country in a car seat.  Likewise, Sahara has probably not paid too much attention to any Willie Nelson song she might have heard on the AM dial between talk radio shows.  If she had, though, and if she were to make a comparison, this 3 year old would most likely say, "Willie Nelson has got nothing on me."  And to think, for Sahara (and the rest of us) this road has only just begun!

We are still in transition, and are having a wonderful time visiting family and friends across the United States.  Our trip so far has been largely defined by gas station coffee, hotel rooms, and long hours in the car.  The great thing about traveling is that we have had so many experiences, and more than enough time to ponder them.  Somewhere in Minnesota or Wisconsin, Elisa came up with an acrostic describing some of the fun we've been having on the road thus far:

Trying. Trying to fit everything into a suitcase.  This may require sitting and/or jumping on said suitcase to get the confounded thing to close. 
Realization. The realization of how diverse the different landscapes of North America are.  From bustling and exciting cities, to peaceful field after field of corn and wheat, to beautiful hills covered in forests, we have seen so much beauty on this trip.
America's birthday.  We got to celebrate the 4th of July at a parade on the main street of a charming town in North Dakota.  It was complete with antique tractors, old men riding four wheelers, and pounds of candy thrown to our bright eyed little girl who's smile lasted through the entire parade. 
Vocabulary.  Different places have different local words and expressions.  Sahara caught on quickly in North Dakota.  Upon crossing the border, she asked, "Is this North Dakota?" After hearing yes, she confidently exclaimed "Oofta!"  We knew our little traveler would fit in well.  
Experiences.  We have had so many irreplaceable experiences on this trip, the most important being the wonderful times we have had with family.
Laughs.  There were plenty of laughs to go around when we took a ride to Dairy Queen in Elisa's uncle's RV.  The look on Sahara's face was priceless.  She didn't know if she was sitting in someone's living room or a car. 



We will see where the road takes us next!
   

You Know You Are Homeless When...

Our family is embarking on an adventure.  First stop: homelessness... at least for a little while.  So, in case you ever happen to find yourself in a similar situation, here are some things you may experience.

You Might Be Homeless When...
1. Your key ring dwindles down to practically nothing and you think to yourself, really I don't need a key ring at all except for the fact that everyone else has one.
2. Your three-year-old makes up songs that go something like this.  "I have no home. I liked my old home, but now it is gone."
3. You check into a hotel, and upon getting to the room, your child exclaims loudly, "My new home! But where is the kitchen?"
4. If your calendar is planned out by what places you will stay, and how long you will stay in each.
5. Your daughter asks, "Where is my baby doll?" and one of two thoughts cross your mind: I don't want to go through all our bags to find that silly doll that she'll only play with for five minutes, Or, oh no I think we gave that one away.  Either way you will find yourself sweetly replying, "We'll have to look for it later."
  6. You sleep on the floor long enough that you begin to think to yourself, this is actually pretty comfortable, maybe even better than sleeping in a bed.
7.You drop your lip gloss into a beautiful koi pond at a historical landmark in front of a crowd of people, and your daughter starts screaming, "No, we can't loose the lip gloss too!"

We will see where this adventure takes us next.