So… we have really jumped in since we got here. TJ and I have a fairly packed schedule and it is getting even more full as time goes by. We have pictured a schedule of our classes, it’s the colorful one :).

First of all, we love where we live which is in a small apartment, but we live around lots of single people and a few married, but it’s a really tight knit community right here where we’re at, and it’s really fun! TJ and I often go outside to eat lunch with a bunch of people right after we put our girls down for a nap. There are some new apartments being built, and we were supposed to move in to them before the semester was over, but we asked to stay in this apartment till the end of this semester because we really like the location. The new apartments are up on a hill, and not as easy to ride a bike or take a stroller down to class, so we thought we could draw out being in these apartments even though they don’t have showers and a laundry room.

 

What our day looks like: We get up anywhere from 5:30 am to 6:30 depending on when our girls wake up, we get ready for class, and even though we have roughly 2 hours to get ready every day, we seem to have a difficult time making it to class early (before 8). Class starts at 8 and Ava’s childcare doesn’t start till 9, so one of us brings her to the cry room where we watch class on the broadcasting TV for an hour, then take her to “tiny town” which she LOVES. Ava comes home with crafts very often, and seems to have a blast, which comforts us so much. They give us a pager when we go to class in case they need us, and we have yet to be paged, so we’re happy about that.

On Wednesday’s and Friday’s we get together with our e-link group, which is a group of roughly 15 people in our class and a few of them being staff members living here on campus. The purpose of it is to get to know people better, and to share questions and struggles with about classes or whatever. The staff can let us know if they see something they see we need to work on, and they even encourage us to do that for them. They have a part in evaluating us to make sure we’re on track. We are really enjoying elink, and are excited to get to know our group better… we already love them!

 

We get home after class, we eat lunch, and try to get some homework during the girl’s nap time in the afternoon. On Wednesday’s and Thursday’s TJ has work detail (required campus work), which is in the mechanic shop… he’s loves is except for Thursday when he got a piece of metal lodged in his eye… :/ (He was wearing safety goggles). Because I’m a mom, my work detail is cutting rags for people to use for cleaning.

 

There are several nights that we have people over for dinner or people invite us over. It’s been really fun to get to know some people around here and we’re looking forward to doing that more. We love to eat outside our house at the picnic table and just invite random people over for dinner.

 

Something we’ve been praying about is where to go to church and what ministry to get involved in, because it is a requirement that you find a church and ministry to be apart by a certain time. Our desire is to do a ministry as a family, so that we can include our kids, and be able to work together instead of separate. We went to one church, the people were really sweet, but we just didn’t feel right about attending there when we left. The next week, we randomly had a conversation with a staff member on campus who was talking about his church and their desire to disciple families within the church, and that they wanted new students to get involved in this type of ministry. We were really excited about this opportunity and right away thanked God for answering our prayers so quickly and started attending this church… today was our 2nd Sunday and we really love the church, we feel like God is really blessing us. So as far as our ministry right now… we’re just going to be building relationships right now… one step at a time.

 

On another note, Penny turned 6 months on the 1st of September. Her personality is really popping out, she has started yelling at us I guess you could say. She’ll be in her jumperoo, and she’ll just start screaming/yelling at us because she wants to get out. It’s fun to see her come out of her little shell. I loved the pictures of Ava and Penny there because it looked like one of them said something, then they just started busting up laughing. Penny is like a little celebrity in class, she gets lots of googly eyes, and several people love to hold her during class (there is not nursery for her), which is fine with me.

 

Something else that has not naturally happened before has just occurred in these past couple of weeks. Ava made a friend. There are some missionaries staying in the apartment next to us and they have a little girl named Shadai, and she is about 5 months older than Ava, and when they met Ava didn’t feel threatened by her in the least like she does many 2 year olds… they just started playing, and were instantly friends, Shadai kept saying, “Ava my new friend”. If you knew Ava well right now you would understand how excited I was. It’s not that Ava doesn’t get along with anyone, but this girl was different. Ava and Shadai could play together for hours without worrying about sharing or pushing or who has what. They are just content playing together, and it has made my heart glad in a way I can’t explain.