I need to play a bit of catch up of some of our last days and months in Spain.  Gotta show the grandparents all the important dates!

I spoke about my trip to the US and wouldn't you know that the time I was gone was the last week of school.  I obviously didn't check that very well before making my plans.  So, I missed a little production/graduation that Karis' class put on.  Jerry took lots of pictures for me though.

Before leaving for my trip, Karis' teacher explained how I needed to attach strips of crape paper to a shirt. 
I wanted to have that done so Jerry didn't have to worry about it.  Some things got lost in translation, and I learned upon my return that I didn't do it right.  Oops!  But Karis' teacher was so wonderful and took the shirt home herself to have it ready for the play!  Wow, was she a big help!

Jerry wasn't sure what this little play was about, but evidently Karis played a bird!

I hate that I've been so out of pocket, but such is the life of moving!  And to a new country!!
We are still waiting for internet.  It will be another week.

July 30th we landed in our new home of Vienna, Austria.  We were welcomed by an entourage of IMB colleagues and what a greeting it was!  One of our team members whisked our kids away to their house while we rushed to our place to meet up with the moving truck that arrived just before us.  The original plan was that they would arrive Monday, but while packing our things up in Spain they told us it would be Saturday.

It was kind of a strange and funny experience with the movers.  The guys in Spain who came to pack us up were Spanish speaking.  However, the guys driving our things where Czech!!  It was SO crazy!  We discovered after arriving in Vienna that they were contracted out by our moving company.  It was just so funny that they were Czech.  Our language ability in Czech was just about shot after a year in Spain!  Ha!  We were so confused talking to them.  Our strongest second language is still Russian and one of them spoke Russian, so that is how we mostly communicated with them.  It was quite comical at times!

Everything seems to have made it in one piece.  One cabinet seems to have cracked, but it didn't come apart all together and  I do need to replace my breadmaker, but it could be it's just old.  A band inside seems to have worn out.

We hit the ground running with unpacking all the boxes so the movers could take all the paper and cardboard.  They helped put all the furniture back together and unwrap everything.  Then the next few days after that were spent unpacking here and there and shopping for new living room/dining room furniture, setting up a bank account, getting a cell phone and all those important things that need to be done when moving.

We had a bit of culture shock in the beginning.  Readjusting to Central Europe, but we are doing well!  Let's just say that IKEA here is not quite like the IKEA in Spain!  Ha!

We spent a few days with some teammates that were in town (they won't be moving here until December), as well as welcoming our third media team family to Vienna.  We had such a great time getting reacquainted and watching our kids play so well together!  It was a fun time!

We also visited the kids new school, International Christian School of Vienna!  Karis will be entering first grade and Brennan and Reegan will be starting primary (they don't call it kindergarden here as that means preschool in Austria).  They all seem pretty excited to get started!  We have just over a week!

I was also asked to consider getting involved with the Parent Teacher Fellowship at the school, which I am really excited about.  When we toured the school a few months ago I began thinking about how I could get involved.  I'll have to write more about this later as it's quite interesting how this has come about, but I am really excited!

We are loving our little house!!  Here is a sneak peak.
 It looks (and smells) a bit like an old homestead, but we like it!  Especially since the kitchen is new and I'm the first to use it!!  And we have a yard!  The kids are so excited about it!  Jerry and I have never had a yard that we had to take care of!  This is so new to us!!  Ha!  But we are looking forward to learning and maybe doing a bit of planting!  It needs a bit of work, but it's ok as is.  Just a bit overgrown with more dirt and weeds than plants and grass, but the kids are enjoying it anyway.  We have a lot of trees, including an apple tree and a cherry tree that hangs over into our yard!!

That brings me to the weather!  It has been rainy and cold!!  I've actually wanted to turn on some heat!!  Some days it's been about 25 degrees cooler than Madrid!  I'm not missing that hot heat, but I do miss the summer activities of swimming at our complex's pool and visiting with the neighbors!  They do have some neat happenings at the Danube River that goes through Vienna!  Swimming, paddle boating, sailing!  The cooler weather doesn't seem to be stopping the Austrians!!


So, there is a little update from us!  I'll get back in a routine of blogging at some point.  Although I have no idea when!  Thanks for sticking with us!