Settling in....

For those of you who have been following our blog, we are finally updating.  It will be a short one, and I will start catching up from previous weeks without internet service.

We are alive!!!!!!  We are in our apartment. A very quaint (small) upstairs 2 bedroom in San Francisco de Dos Rios, San Jose, Costa Rica.  We are about a 12-15 minute walk to school.  The family that we live above is wonderful-husband (Leo) and wife (Maribel), 2 daughters 13 (I think, forget her name), 11 (Sofia) and a son, 8 (Luis). They have 2 dogs, 1 bird and fish. They have been so nice and welcoming to all of us.

The last couple of days has been a whirlwind of buying stuff for the apartment, start up things, and trying to remember the cultural differences in the needs of everyday items (for example buying a three prong adapter to be able to plug in all of our stuff!)

Last night we ate cold pizza left over from the previous night when the team was still here, that was a blessing to have that pizza because if it wasn't for that, we would not have had anything to eat! This morning I made instant oatmeal for the kids using luke warm/hot water from the shower because I wasn't brave enough to try the stove just yet (it looks a little sketchy:/).  Needless to say, we limped through our first night and first morning!

The kids are doing ok.  Leyton is really having a hard time. We have regressed in our potty training efforts and him just being down right difficult--fits, arguing, fighting, ignoring, crying and saying "I want to go home".  Emme is doing better, but she has had her issues as well.  They are both having problems with the language and I think that is the biggest struggle for them (I know how they feel).  They also have become very clingy to us--which if anyone knows our kids, that is not normal! But I completely understand that they are unsure of their surroundings and feel safest with us.  Tonight was an improvement, Leyton called this apartment our home and both Emme and Leyton got to play with the kids downstairs and Emme said, "I can't wait to learn Spanish."  Hopefully that attitude continues!

This week we are going to map out our walk to the Institute, find our pulperia (mini store), find our panderia (small bakery), and just get our bearings in our neighborhood.  Next week we will be heading to the project to work on some small projects that Steve Thomas has planned for us--he is getting Bruce as much as possible before we start school! Ha Ha!!

We start school with orientation August 28th and will find out all of the details about classes, schedule, kids information, etc.  Can't wait for that! 

Other than that, that's about it for us!  It has been tough, but today definitely has been the best so far!

Will catch up on posts of the last 3 weeks--shew! I really need to get better about this blogging stuff!  PS- for all of you, I'm not good at this, so please be patient until I work this into my daily or weekly schedule!

Love to you all!  Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

In Him,
The Crawfords

PSS- If anyone has skype and would like to add us our user name is: thecrawfords519  Would love to video chat with anyone!