Renovations and a Road Trip!

Whew, it's been a busy month. Before we get started with the news, here's the super-cute Thoughtful Apple Fairy.

So the people who owned all the furniture in our house came and took it all away, and we've slowly been replacing it all. In the meantime it's really barren! We got the appliances and beds, though we're waiting on some renovations before getting the rest. We wanted to repaint most of the house, and redo the wood floors which are scratched beyond belief. Unfortunately, a lot of the old paint on some walls and all the doors and windows had to be scraped off first, as it was peeling off in many places so we couldn't just paint over it. So here's Kyran helping one of the workers with scraping a wall:

And here's Jariel "helping" me scrape a closet door:

Jariel thrilled to be allowed to help paint:

And Kyran too 

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The house isn't quite done yet, but we had to put it on hold while we are taking a trip to the capital, Maputo, to pick up the car we ordered from Japan! It's at the port, but we are still waiting on all the paperwork to clear so we can go pick it up. We took the night bus down, the kids did pretty well sharing the narrow little bed:

(I love the night bus. Actually being able to lie down makes the 17 hours go by so much faster). Now we're at the Iris Ministries Zimpeto base, visiting with old friends and teaching them new games, like Pirate's Cove (and yes, Kyran is wearing an official pirate eye patch :-) ):

There's a missionary here, Laura, who was one of the first to befriend us on our very first time here in January 2008. She loves games, and over the years we bonded over many a board and card game. It's good to be back and catch up with her and our other friends from a bygone era! The kids are loving the base, they get to play outside almost all day (a luxury for these city kids who can't get out nearly as often as I'd like). It's also nice to be out of the chaotic house for a while, it was getting stressful having workers in the home all the time, hardly being able to go anywhere, and not being able to invite people over either. Hopefully we'll be able to finish up the painting and floors within the week or so after we get back, then I can finish buying furniture, make a few curtains, and actually FINALLY settle in a bit and make it "home"! I'll definitely send pics when it's all done :-).

We're definitely looking forward to having a little more freedom once we get our car! It's been challenging using the public transport, especially for shopping trips :-/. 

I should go now, but I'll close out with one more pic of cuteness:

Family Update--Kyran's Birthday!

We had a great time with Kyran's birthday party! This is the "rainy season" here in Mozambique, which means we've been getting rain about 4 days per week for the last couple months. Kyran really wanted to go to the beach for his birthday, so I prayed it wouldn't rain on the 28th and that was answered! It was a lovely, sunny day, and everyone who didn't wear sunblock came home a little too rosy (don't worry, the kids were thoroughly protected!).

There's a family working at the same base we used to, with Iris Ministries in Dondo, that have a little boy who just turned 5 and a little girl who is 3, so just about the same ages as our kids! They've really hit it off, so we invited them to share the day with us. It was great because it also gave us adults some time to talk. They seem to struggle with a LOT of the same things we did when we were there, so it's been good to try to give them advice and help them along. But boy, are we glad we're not there anymore! Anyway, so Kyran and friends had fun, he requested a very American kid meal of chicken tenders and macaroni and cheese, so I obliged. 

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I think our time in Malta last year influenced his request for a boat cake! He originally suggested that it "look like the Next Wave" (the ministry ship my parents work with), but I was able to talk him down to a simple sailboat . 

​Both kids are enjoying Kyran's "biggest" birthday present: a kitten! Our first family pet (if you don't count the two goldfish we had in Rolla). He has been asking for a cat for months now, and when I asked what he wanted for his birthday he repeated, "A cat!". A fellow missionary happened to have a litter of kittens she was trying to get rid of at just the right time, so we agreed to take one. So far "Methuselah" has hit it off well with the Reinagel clan! 

​I'm not actually sure where Kyran heard the name from, we just recently went through the Genesis Bible stories in our homeschooling, but our book just hit the highlights and skipped over the genealogies so he wouldn't have heard it from me. I think it's funny though, since he was the longest living person mentioned, and cats are supposed to have 9 lives! (In Mozambique the superstition is that they have 7 lives, which makes sense... they probably don't last *quite* as long here as they do in more developed countries).

We've been busy trying to actually settle into our apartment, which is taking far longer than I would have liked. The previous tenants still have most of their stuff and furniture here, they were supposed to come get it this week but now the wife is sick so it's being postponed again... So we have 2 fridges, 2 stoves, and 4 a/c units crowding our relatively small apartment, but we hope to get rid of half of them soon! It'll be nice for everything to be truly ours finally. 

And if you didn't see it on Facebook already, we OFFICIALLY got our residency cards today! What we couldn't do in 3 years last time, we accomplished in 4 months this time. That feels good.