First Day of School and family introduction to Rumbai!

The girls started school today. Ella in Kindergarten and Ainsley in Pre-K 3!

Our biggest adjustment is that both girls come home for lunch. A at 11 and E at 12 then E goes back to finish her day while A stays here with me and the Ivah!

 

We are still in the guesthouse so they girls are picked up by their own special driver instead of the bus/van that will pick them up with the rest of the kids in our new neighborhood. They Love it!  (seriously spoiled rotten)

 

Ella has a hard time with anything that doesnt follow the pattern she has planned. We had a gate at St Rose that we would wave goodbye from after assembly and there is no gate here so she got a bit teary on the first day, and I promised her a treat if she made it to Friday....well, luckily she came home and said "i dont need a treat I want to go to school just because I like it!" Yay!

 

Its a tradition here that new families get introduced and "Gonged" in at morning assembly after a few questions like 'whats your favorite food?' (Ella=smoked salmon, Ainsley=noodles???)

The principal here is the most even tempered calm spoken and at the same time excited person I have ever met, of course Ella loves her :)

 

We are very happy with how welcoming everyone has been:)

 

A Loooooooong way to a new home

"HOME?

Yes I am HOME!

HOME is WHENever Im with you."

We arrived safely in Rumbai after a Looooooooong 31 hr trip door to door. Whew.

Really though it wasnt that bad, the girls were great, They slept on both flights and loved the service from the nice Singapore air ladys (which we told them NOT to get used to, its coach from here on out ;)

 

 

We hit a small bump in the road in PKU airport customs. we were dropped off in the wrong part of the new airport and had to go through immigration the wrong way, which they were none to happy with. Then we get to customs with 6 out of the 18 bags that the want to search, including the ice chest full of venison yikes! Little did we know traveling with a baby makes things very easy in customs. every bag they opened as soon as they saw baby items, it was "Oh, for baby?" and bag was closed. this was especially fun when the shy Indonesian opened my breast pump and we had to use charades to explain what it was and he turned bright red and didnt inspect any more bags. :)

Coming in you arrive early in the morning and have to try and stay awake as long as possible to start adjusting to the time zone. I think because of the baby and the limited sleep I have been getting it wasnt so bad for me. Ainsley did amazing, actually, she made it to 6pm the first night.
Jet lag however got the best of Ella....

 

I have been nervous as can be about this whole house staff thing. So strange to get use to. Then I found out they were going to be at the house to meet us when we arrived. Ahaa!
Turns out, not that hard to get used too :)We went to the park to try and stay awake while our bags were getting unpacked.

 Dylans favorite part was the couple bags we did unpack, they didnt like how we folded our clothes and the following day they were all refolded. My closet looks like a table at the Gap.

I think I will like it here.

 

 

Farewell Houston....

You have given us two wonderful years full of friends and family, another beautiful baby girl and fantastic memories. We discovered a new community with a church and school that we adore, and Houston for some reason is always good on our waistlines ;)
Luckily it seems, in our world that all roads lead back to Houston.
Maybe I'm naively optimistic and I should be more sad..... after all people change, neighborhoods grow, friends move....
But the building up to this departure has lead me to believe whole heartedly that our family is following a path laid out for us, its up to us to go discover it.

and to that....

 Adieu Htown,
till we meet again