Another day

The kids are at there fourth day of school. Mason seems to be adjusting, each day a little easier. Everyone says to give him a few weeks and he will be just fine. I met with 3 of his teachers yesterday and they were very impressed with him and are going to continue to monitor him and help this adjustment period. We are looking forward to this weekend as it is a 3 day weekend. The kids have Monday of in celebration of Pongal...a festival celebrating farming (crops, animals, etc). They say that Thursday is the day celebrating the animals so the cattle will be adorned with flowers and have there horns painted. I feel sad for one cow we pass every day to school as he is missing one horn, perhaps they will give her a prosthetic horn that day! The ride to and from school is just amazing. On the way to school we take very main roads but the way back to the house is very different. Our driver calls it the short cut, but in essence we are cutting through the "life" of India. The road is barely wide enough for one vehicle but amazingly 2 can fit. Today some woman were laying at the side of the road, evidently resting from working at a construction site. The pulled there legs up so that we could fit through. You may wonder why would women work at a construction site, well they do very manual labor. They are often seen carrying 12 or so bricks on top of there head or carrying buckets of sand or rock. It takes a very long time to build a house. All the building are made out of concrete and wood. We have some homes going up next to us and it has taken one year to get the framing done and then it will be several more months for it to be finished.

We are still waiting for the internet, satelitte, and electrician to show up. I remember people warning us about real time vs Indian time. I truly see now what they mean. India moves at incredibly slow pace. The work will get done...eventually.

We are going to be ordering meat from a meat market this weekend that will deliver to our house. Supposedly it is fresh and the pigs and cows are fed well as opposed to garbage. I am not sure what the cuts of meat will be but we will figure it out. So far we have had tacos, chicken and noodles, pork roast, pinneapple chicken and pizza. We have had fresh grapes, pinneapple, coconut, green beans (yummm-NOT!) and carrots. Cleaning the fruits and vegetables is more time consuming but since I don't have to clean or do laundry I should have plenty of time!

The pool is coming along nicely. They were delivering more materials last night. The big trucks only drive at night to keep the road congestion at a minimal. However I have been told big trucks can be out if they pay off the police.

Please keep in touch! Have a wonderful day!

Bay of Bengal

It is hard to believe that one week ago today we were bound for India. We are settling in nicely to a routine. The kids have had 3 days of school. Logan and Emily have had great day and Mason's days get better every day. The school feels very big but is about the size of Princeville. Each class has around 15 kids in it. The elementary, middle and high school are in one building. The school has 3 floors with a tennis court on top! I really think that this will be an incredible educational experience for the kids.

Tonight we walked down to the beach. Millie is very uncertain of the waves. She likes watching them but just doesn't want to get wet. Earlier today the guard and I walked down and the guard was trying to show Millie the waves. A big wave suddenly appeared and got Millie wet and the guard got one show all wet. We laughed! She is more curious about all the smells at the beach. Her nose is constantly on the ground sniffing.

Today is my mom's birthday so Happy Birthday Mom. I hope that you have a great day.

The kids are looking forward to this weekend. On Saturday we are going to drive about 30 mins south to a village called Mamallapuram. We will do some sightseeing and eat at a resort for lunch or dinner. Mason is hoping to get a chess set as his was busted in Ted's suitcase and we are looking for a hammock.

We have arrived!!!

Well, we arrived in Chennai, India at around 11:30 pm on January 2, 2008. We had quite an interesting start to our trip. Even though we learned of this adventure 7 months ago I of course stayed up well past midnight to put the final preparations on the house and finishing the packing. Ted teased me that we could have easily moved in July if I did all that work in 5 hours! Needless to say I was exhausted by the time we left our house. We rented a 12 passenger van to haul us: 3 kids, 2 adults, 1 dog, 1 dog crate and 23 bags! We drew a more than a few looks while pulling up to the airport and unloading. Checking in went slowly, there was some form that the airlines said they needed for Millie but finally they agreed to let her on as we said the form was waiting in India for us. Then we all had to head through security. While the security officer was examining Millie’s kennel he tilted it sideways which made her water bottle started leaking. I leaned down to fix it and got in trouble as once the security exam is begun….hands off! Oops, now I know. I claimed ignorance and apologized and didn’t wind up in jail!

The kids (and me too!) were a bit nervous for the first leg of our trip. We flew from Chicago to Frankfort Germany. The kids decided they liked business class. We met a lovely couple on the plane who were from Indianapolis and were moving to England for an ISE assignment. It was great to talk to another mom who was experiencing what I was going through. I am looking forward to sharing emails.

When we arrived in Chennai the customs process went very quickly. I had to use the restroom and reminded myself when in India BYOTP (Bring your own toilet paper! Then we claimed our luggage and found Millie! She was scared but was in good spirits. They had let her out in Germany for a bit so she wasn’t cramped for too long. Then we walked out of the airport. I wish I had had my camera out as when an Indian leaves the country the whole family brings them and sees then. Our driver Baskar gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. They loaded up our luggage and we headed to our new home. The ride to the house was quite. India is very dark at night and seemed quite intimidating to our kids. But the moment we pulled into the house they were ecstatic. The house is very beautiful especially at night with all the lights on. They ran through the house and explored and stayed up most of the night! They finally headed to bed around 3 am and slept until 11 am. The boys were quite sad when they woke up as Chennai certainly does not look like Princeville. Things turned around when Noah and Harry (boys from New York who live behind our home) stopped by to meet Mason, Logan and Emily. They are quite thrilled to have friends right by our home. We have a basketball goal so they have been busy shooting hoops. The kids have also enjoyed playing with the gardeners’ children. Even Millie is enjoying playing with the gardeners’ dog Scooby (a german shepherd looking dog).

We ventured out yesterday to the grocery store, meat store and the fruit store. Mason thinks the store is better that he imagined. That was encouraging! It was interesting to see the kids reaction as we drove through the city in the daylight.

I discovered that our maid has 1 hen with 4 baby chicks on our property. That was an awesome discovery! If only I could find her eggs…oh well, maybe I need to get a few more hens! There are goats right across the street and a few cows as well. We discovered we had coconut trees (the gardeners shinnied up the tree and picked one for us yesterday), papaya, and banana trees. So far no snakes have been found! The pool has a few more weeks (hopefully not months). It has been fun to watch the progress on the pool.

On Sunday we went to church. It was an amazing experience. People from all over the world were in one building worshiping Jesus Christ! It was exiting to see so many different nationalities. The church has around 300-400 people so they are going to do a church plant (hopefully closer to us).

We walked to the beach and watched the waves. We are only about 1 ½ blocks from the beach. The kids splashed in the waves. The waves are quite big and there is quite an undertow so they will probably never swim…plus it is pretty polluted. It is a shame as India is very tropical and could be so pretty if they didn’t throw trash everywhere. There were many Indians walking and playing along the beach. I was brought to tears when this adorable Indian boy walking with his parents ran up to me and handed me a flower he had picked. The kids couldn’t figure out why this brought tears to my eyes. I asked, “would you ever run and give a strange woman a flower?” I am so touched by the warmth of the people.

Today Millie was given her first Indian bath. Sarahsutta (not sure of correct spelling) the maid has been asking about giving Millie a bath. I just kept saying sometime. Well, today I purchased a bucket for her to have fresh water outside. I was quite proud of myself when I was able to fill the bucket and carry it by myself...no one ran and offered to carry it as no one saw me! But, Sarahsutta saw the bucket and assumed it was bathday for Millie. So I got the shampoo and Millie got the cleanest ever! So tomorrow I am off for another bucket...

The kids begin school in the morning. They are excited. It will be interesting to see how different school is and how they adjust. They really like the school today and have met several kids already.

Our adventure is on and we are anxious to see what continues to happen!

Merry Christmas

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Lots going on

Life has been fairly busy. Moving to India combined with Christmas seems to be a lot for one family to do...especially me! I have spent a good part of the day searching for some gifts Ted brought from India. I hid them but can't seem to remember where. At this point I am hoping they go packed in the sea shipment.

We were able to visit my sister Karen, Matt, Allyson and Meghan in Iowa last weekend and were able to hook up a slingbox at there house. We'll see if if works or not. The kids had a truly wonderful time with their cousins and we enjoyed the visit with Matt and Karen. Ted had Karen rolling her eyes a lot as he mumbled technical computer talk! Logan found a way to entertain himself on the drive home with a paper bag!

This past weekend was spent in Indiana with the Green Family. We had a fabulous time together. We celebrated Christmas a few days early and enjoyed a delicious meal. The kids had fun seeing there cousins (both the young and old ones!). We were thrilled to hear that our neice Bethany is engaged to Andrew...we are just hoping that they wait until we return to get married!

Have house, will move

We have a house to move into it India! Let me just say I am thrilled with this news. Ted will be getting the key this week and will move things in this weekend. The house is a lovely house with a nice yard (or garden as they call it) out front but virtually no back yard. Currently there is no pool but they are installing one. I am not sure if it will be complete by January or not. We are just thrilled that we will have one. The kids are really excited about having a pool and I am sure Millie will love it as well! There is not much in the way of homes in Chennai right now due to all the expat growth. We feel blessed to have this house as the landlord has been incredible to work with. We are looking forward to making this our home for 2 yrs. If anyone ever wants to visit Chennai we have a guest bedroom for you.

Ted's work is going quite well although he is extremely busy. There is a lot to learn plus trying to get the house, vehicles and banking set up takes a large amount of time. He has learned how to iron his dress clothes since I am not there. I have had a nice break from ironing!

Our time waiting for India

I realized today that my blog header is all wrong. Instead of "Our Time in India" it really should appear "Our Time waiting for India." I feel like my life has been constantly focused on India for the past 6+ months! On one hand I am so terrified to board that airplane and move to a new land but on the other hand I am looking forward to living life once again. I am sure that friends and family are tired of hearing the "I" word just as much as I am. I am looking forward to doing things that I just haven't had time or had the energy to work on such as quilting. I am hoping to finish a quilt I began for Mason years ago, plus I have a couple of baby quilts to work on for new arrivals in our extended families!

Ted is doing well in India. He loves his work and loves being at work, could it be because there is constant electricity and no flickering of lights? I think Ted is missing my cooking which is a good thing because I miss cooking for him. The kids really like frozen pizza just the same as a nice meal, so guess what I opt for? You guessed it....pizza! The kids are really helping out around here and are really being good. Hopefully the remaining 3 1/2 weeks will go quickly. It has been great to call him on the Vonage phone number...that works awesome!

Ted is still house hunting, we have one prospect that is a really nice home but the yard is pretty small. There is no pool but they will put one in for us. We will be making the decision hopefully by next week.

I delivered our food shipment yesterday. I warned the man at the dock that this was one mother that was paranoid that there would be nothing to eat in India. Fortunately he didn't make me take anything home. One thing that we have realized we need in India is plenty of storage. India homes do not have basements so it is good to have some sort of storage room.