First Snow of the Season

Fall Frolic

We are loving the fact that we have some trees in our yard with some beautiful fall foliage.  Emma and Luca were my big helpers this week in getting the leaves raked and picked up…but first, there was lots of fun and play to be had in the leaves. (Note: Samuel was working hard too, but at school)

:: Emma turns NINE ::

The countdown leading up to Emma's 9th birthday was an intense one.  For the past month, not a day went by that she did not express her excitement about the upcoming day and drop hints and requests about gift ideas.  Then when she found out we were going to have her party a day early, she began to tell others that her birthday was on November 3rd, instead of the 4th.

As mentioned previously, we had a house full of guests over her birthday weekend.  And they came bearing gifts galore that were toted around for the previous 2 weeks during their European travels.  I think their sore backs were soon forgotten seeing and hearing the sheer excitement exude from Emma's mouth all night long.

 …party glasses, balloons, candles, candy…they came ready to party!

 Not shy to being the center of attention all night long, this little girl went over the top with her "oohs" and "aahs" with every gift.  In a seriously genuine, very grateful and decidedly happy response with each gift, it made for a very entertaining night.  Her facial reactions say it all...  

  "WOW!…this is soooo CUTE!"

 "AWESOME!!"

We couldn't be more proud of our one and only daughter.  Emma, you bring so much joy and enthusiasm to our lives, a lot of spunk in the middle of your two brothers, creativity and artful living…because you are so uniquely and wonderfully made by our great God!  We pray God will continue to grow you in every way so that you will reflect His love and glory to all around you.  You are loved always...

HAPPY 9th BIRTHDAY, EMMA PATRYCE!

This note just warms my heart and reminds me just how special these moments of celebrations are in the life of our family…just 346 more days to go!

USA Visitors

November started off with a bang, as we hosted our first group of visitors since our move.  A team from a supporting church in Ohio, Patterson Park Church, was in France for a mission's trip and asked if their presence might be of encouragement to us for a few days.  We have a long standing relationship with PPC as Jonathan did his internship there in 2001, and they were one of the earliest supporters to our work.  The team leaders, Mike and Dawn, have served on the missions committee over the years and know us well, but nothing gives a person a better idea of how to pray for you than by a personal visit.

Mike, Grace, Becca, Dawn, Amy, Darlene, Chip & Karen

The team's visit was brief as they arrived on November 1st and departed on the 4th.  We housed half of the team, while the other half stayed in a rental apartment 15 minutes away.  They braved the public transportation system by using the train each day to get to our house where their meals were served.

They joyfully offered to serve us anyway they could, even when given the monumental task of stripping, sanding and staining our parisian wooden shutters on the backside of the house.  Jonathan has been having neck problems for the past two months, making the most simple of tasks difficult, so this intense manual labor was a huge help to us in completing the much needed restoration prior to the arrival of the harsher winter weather.  The job was nearly completed in two days as many hands make light(er) work.  What is left to be completed, I can now do much more easily.

The kids were off the wall excited for all the attention and company!  Games were played, walks were taken, nails were painted, and Luca's infamous weekend poem memorization was learned with their help while my hands were busy in the kitchen.

We enjoyed a night out for pizza where they were able to take in the cultural experience of tasting what a true Italian pizza is like.  Someone asked Samuel if he knew what Pizza Hut was and his response was "Yea, it's that place with the greasy pizza".  Truly, there is just no comparison to an Italian pizza!

Then to top off the weekend, we celebrated Emma's 9th birthday with our guests.  (Party post to come later).  For us, their visit came at a great time and was such an encouragement.  Our hearts were full come the end of our time together.  We hope that they too gained a valuable insight and perspective on the great difficulty in ministry and need for the gospel here in Italy.

It was an intense and exhausting weekend, not just because of being in "hosting-mode", making a birthday cake and feeding a crowd, but in addition, Samuel got sick the first night of their stay and was up until 3:30AM.  God gave me strength and kept me out of a fog until Monday when I just crashed.  I loved every minute of it and being able to host in our new home was such a gift to see how the Lord is already using this home to be a blessing to others.

Thank you PPC team for ALL that you did for our family!!

Looking back at October

October came and went far too quickly!  We enjoyed the month of moderate temperatures in the 50s and 60s with some rain thrown in the mix.  Walking to and from school with the color changes on the trees and the crunch of leaves underfoot were soul refreshing times of the day for me.  Summer gardens were turned and were replaced with hearty winter vegetables or left to rest for the coming months.  

The past month our house was filled with smells of homemade applesauce, pumpkin bread, coffee with homemade pumpkin creamer and afternoon tea. 

 The garden was turned with some enthusiastic shovel digging kids.

At the supermarket we found a somewhat descent pumpkin to carve, from the choice of four pumpkins.  We missed the experience of going to a pumpkin patch and purposely avoided f*cebook so as not to become jealous of the American traditions we so miss out on this time of year.  But maybe next year we will have a patch of our own.  Fatty batty was the kids' choice this year and Jonathan did his annual carving for them.

We participated in the community "trick-or-treating" where the kids ran from store to store collecting candy or in the case of the bakeries, warm cookies out of the oven.  Free hot chocolate, that is more like pudding it is so thick and delicious, kept us warm while the kids got their faces painted and played games in the piazza.

Then in a blink of the eye, we entered November.

The Move

September was an intense blur of days and weeks, that only now we are starting to feel that maybe, just maybe, we are beginning to rise above the chaos.  One month ago today, we received the keys to our new home.  Moving for anyone is a BIG stress—no doubt about it.  But despite the stress from long days, sleepless nights, document chasing, transitioning into a new school and community along with starting up the ministry season, with a home in process of being a peaceful refuge, God’s grace and strength carried us through, as He always does.

Here are some things I learned regarding our move (in no particular order):

• It really is worth it to pay professional movers.  Honestly, there is just no way around that hefty expense.  It’s not like we could have called up our church friends to come over with their trucks and trailers, because no one has those.  Those cute little European cars are all we got folks!  In addition, the movers had to use a lift to get our furniture over the balcony and out of the house, since nothing big can go down the spiral staircase.  The moving team of 7 guys arrived at 7:30AM and had two-and-half floors of furniture disassembled (beds, wardrobes, kitchen, desk, bookshelves etc.) and loaded into the moving trucks in 2 hours.  Just in time for a mid-morning coffee break before driving over to the new house to unload and reassemble everything before a lunch break.

Our morning job was pretty easy as we just watched, kept overly enthusiastic kids out of the way and gave orders as to where things went.  They had to return for a 2^nd trip to the house, but concluded their day’s work by 3:45PM.  And then we were left with a mound of boxes and the overwhelming burden of unpacking them all.

Did I also mentioned that they totally refigured my “old” kitchen to fit in the taverna?  They had to go out and buy material for a new countertop, but did all the carpentry work for that in under an hour and we are super happy with the final outcome.

•  Muscle toning is a huge benefit in moving.  When you carry boxes from the garage to the upper level of the house you have to climb 32 stairs.  That first week I can’t tell you the number of times I went up and down those stairs with boxes in hand.  But I definitely have some muscle growth because of it!

•       Sometimes you realize that you just can’t do it all.  After painting Samuel’s and Emma’s rooms and Jonathan’s office we realized that we physically could not handle the rest of the house painting.  I have bad wrists and Jonathan gets trigger fingers and tendinitis flare ups from work like that.  So we decided for the sake of our bodies and conserving our energies that we needed to bring in a professional for the main floor painting.  As it turns out we would have had to regardless since two of the rooms had a weird painted texture on them that needed to be sanded down before painting.  Three days of intense labor from a professional team using an electric wall sander saved us from physical injury and potential marital stress if attempted on our own.  So again, money well spent.  That job was concluded the end of last week.

• An orderly house brings restful sleep.   I learned that I do not rest well at all when my house is in disarray.  The first couple of weeks I was so extremely exhausted by the end of each day, but my mind would not let my body sleep as the thoughts of where to put things and making a check list for the following day plagued my thoughts. I’m the kind of person who can’t go to bed unless all the dishes are washed, so leaving rooms with half open boxes and clutter everywhere drove me nuts. I’m sure that is my own personal quirk, but I guess I didn’t realize how strong it was before.
• Being close to town brings independence.  Immediately we felt how much closer we are to everything.  The hourly ringing of the bell towers can be heard from our home, the supermarket, the kids’ school and of course the ice cream store all are within walking distance.  Already I feel more independent (even though I don’t drive).  As long as I am up for a 10-15 minute walk I can do all that is necessary without requiring my husband to chauffeur me around.  Love it!
• Green does the soul good.  I am absolutely thrilled about the yard we have.  I am just aching to get my hands working in the garden.  But in the mean time I have taken pleasure in the change of pace from working inside the house to trimming the hedges and mowing the lawn.  We are enjoying the final blooms of the summer from the many and varied plant flora in the yard.  Flowers just make me happy.  And the kids are so excited they can climb two trees out front.  It’s the little things.

• Moving with elementary aged children is SO much easier than with toddlers.  The last move we made the kids were 4, 2 and 1.  Craziness! It was great to have the kids pitch in and unpack their own boxes and get their rooms set up.  They were enthusiastic about it for sure, and were only slightly perplexed why the rest of the house was not so easily mastered.  Luca basically got to the boxes with toys that had been packed for most of the summer and found play much more his thing for the first week.

The house is still a work in progress but each week things are finding their place and final decorating touches are being made.  I might have an hour here and an hour there throughout the week as ministry obligations, assisting kids with homework and just doing the normal things to keep up house and meet family needs come as priority.  Hey, if anyone wants to come be my interior designer and decorate our walls, come on over!

Thank you for your prayers and encouragement to us during this whole process!  It's done and we are thrilled to start making memories here at Casa Salga.