Estamos en La Casa!

Ahhh, what a great day. We are in our house and Katie is next door to my office asleep in her own bed. The ADSL is working (took one of my colleagues 10 weeks to get ADSL!) and we are in a clean and wonderful, warm home.

The day wasn't without it's challenges, but that's just part of the experience of moving! It started with us renting a car from Hertz this morning and not being able to get out of the parking lot. The agent gave me an exit ticket for the gate but neglected to tell me it still needed validation from the security office. We literally had 10 cars lined up behind us blaring their horns! Surprisingly, we weren't frazzled. It's a foreign country and well... things are foreign to us. :-)

Amazingly, ALL of our bags fit into the car we rented. It's a small station wagon and we shoehorned all the stuff in. It was tight, but we were thankful b/c it saved us making an extra trip back to the Hotel.

The Garmin 370 (Navigation) worked like a charm and we drove straight to our place! The British pronunciation of Spanish words is a real treat.

We arrived at our house to find challenge #2. The owner (who truly is a wonderful man - invited me to go running with him where the soccer stars practice...(he's a sports agent)) had moved out the high priority things he wanted and left all the other stuff here. The house also hadn't even been cleaned and was honestly a mess from the painters and their work. Well... HIS agent was VERY unhappy with him and (you'll love this) coordinated our security guard for the neighborhood and the owner's cleaning lady to complete his move and to clean our house. :-) His agent apologized to us 1000 times and left a great bottle of champagne from his stash in the fridge as an apology. Love it.

While Becca's washer was doing our first loads of laundry and the crew was moving/cleaning... we went to see some new friends from Mountainview Church. They are a wonderful couple who culled through their camping gear and loaned us towels, pillows and a bunch of kitchen gear. Our "air" shipment arrives on Monday, so we'll be very well set then... but in the meantime, we're super greatful for our friends Rob and Chris and their generosity! While we were stopping by their place, we all took a walk in their neighborhood and shared a snack and some great coffee. It was a great part of the day.

We came back to the house still in progress, so we went shopping! Carrefour is a big Super-Target style place here and we spent a small fortune on food and kitchen appliances. We have both an Expresso and Coffee machine... so Jason can now officially function. Internet and caffeine. What else is there???

Seriously, it's so great to be here and God has truly taken care of every step for us. Moments like today are best seen through the eyes of Katie. Somehow, it's easy to see the details that didn't work out and to refuse to react with pure joy when you find (for example) all your pony's and books on the shelf of your new room. Having a young child is a great reminder of what it means to be childlike and thankful. We often aren't... and shame on us.

We're happy clams. BTW, this house has "two master bedrooms". We have plenty of space for YOU. Come and see us. :-)

Jason and the girls

UPDATE 3/5: The 2nd picture is of Katie looking out her window for Peter Pan :-)