Thanksgiving 2011. Lots to be thankful for...

Thanksgiving was nice. We combined forces with another family in our ward (the Youngs) and invited the sister missionaries. Because of our lack of transportation, we decided it would be easier to have everyone come to us. After our stuff arrived late and stinky, we started to get worried about hosting. Our house is large enough that we were able to sequester all of the smelliest stuff in the loft, basement, or garage. We spent two days shuffling items around, then scrubbed down the main floor, and hoped for the best. Things turned out surprisingly well. The food and the company were great and the leftovers will probably feed us for a week.

This Thanksgiving season, we are especially grateful to be living under the same roof and to be together as a family.

Also, we are thankful for the newfound freedom provided by our most recent delivery. We finally received our new car (a Volvo SUV) November 28th. Unlike our other deliveries this month, it arrived pristine and beautiful. After 3 months without a vehicle, we are so, so glad to have wheels again.

James says our new car is “fancy” and he is right, it may be too fancy to take with us to our next post. In the meantime, we will just enjoy it. Ordering a Volvo was the fastest and easiest fix for our transportation woes and we are grateful to have it. Our commute to church and Emily’s commute to the boys’ school are now 15 minutes instead of 1 hour and 20 minutes. Hooray! We have also decided that rear parking assist is the best invention ever (especially for folks living in Europe where the parking situation is atrocious).

An Occupational Hazard

The other two crates from Abidjan were delivered the Monday following the Marine Ball. We discovered that the African moving company employees used some “interesting” (aka ridiculously bad) packing technique in several cases, but (considering the circumstances of the move) Emily was surprised to find nearly everything intact. Well, almost…our luck held until the last crate.

Unfortunately, in the third crate, we found a significant amount of water damage in several boxes which was probably sustained during storage prior to shipment from Abidjan. Some items were still wet, some were moldy, and everything from that crate stank to high-heaven… musty, musty, musty! Fortunately, many of the items are either salvageable or replaceable. There are only a couple of things which we were truly sad about… according to Jay, this is another indicator that we are schlepping around too much junk. He is probably right… and obviously, this situation presents a perfect opportunity to downsize.

Anyway, we have insurance, so everything will be okay in the end. The most annoying thing is that we have to spend the time going through and documenting everything. And then there’s the fact that we have to clean/wash nearly every item since most of the shipment either smells musty or like the nighttime air in Abidjan (smoky, because W. African waste disposal commonly involves burning a lot of trash). Ugh! Em’s mountain of laundry is colossal, but hey, at least we aren’t paying our water bill. Also, live and learn. We didn’t have the option this time around (due to the evacuation), but for our next pack-out, Emily is totally prepared to be obsessive/compulsive about proper packing.

Just a couple of photos to document "the grossness" for posterity... of course it is impossible to adequately describe the vileness of the smell... ugh!

Marine Ball 2011

Our furniture and household effects were delivered near the middle of this month. So now, we have places to put our clothes and our house does not echo nearly as badly as it did. There was some sort of a mix-up and our shipment from Abidjan was delayed for an extra week in Antwerp. Thankfully, once the moving company realized their mistake, they bent over backwards to rush our crates to us.

The boxes with Emily’s formal attire arrived the evening prior to the annual Marine Ball. Since clothing is expensive here, Em was very grateful that she didn’t have to go on a last-minute shoe shopping trip. With the contents of our luggage, some internet shopping, and the few boxes delivered, we were (thankfully) able to scrape together something presentable. The ball was held at a fancy hotel downtown and we were glad that we had an opportunity to go and support the Marines and our good friends/neighbors from Abidjan (Detachment Commander McCart and his wife) who are also posted to Madrid.

Our first visitor- Aunt Heather!

Jay’s sister, Heather, visited for a week at the beginning of November. She came with a friend from law school (Kim) and they did an impressive amount of touring in the short time they were here. We all enjoyed their visit very much. We were able to tag along on a couple of short trips to sites in Madrid (a churro-hunting excursion and a visit to the Prado Art Museum).

Heather enjoying suckling pig, a Segovian specialty

Our favorite outing was a day trip to Segovia, a town about 55 miles away from Madrid. It is a 1 hour drive, but since we lack a vehicle, we all took a high-speed train. This boys thought this was pretty cool. Segovia is a lovely place with beautiful architecture and interesting food. The photos below are of our favorite sites: the Roman aqueduct, the cathedral, and the castle. One of Emily’s favorite parts of the excursion was the drinking chocolate at the panaderia… so yummy! James and Simon liked the castle best and insisted on ordering all of the pastries with sprinkles. We’re not really sure why but, when you’re a kid, apparently sprinkles make everything taste better.