A Time of Firsts and Lasts

Last night was our last night in our house of 7 1/2 years.  When we first moved to Paraguay, we lived in a Paraguayan home with a Paraguayan family for one month.  During that month, we found the perfect house for us to rent.  We absolutely loved it!  It was very modern, it was beautiful, it was in a safe closed-in condominium, had 3 bedrooms that we could grow into as a family, had a playground right outside our front door and it was VERY affordable.  We could not have asked for a better place to live.  I remember when we first moved in and our stuff was still being shipped from the U.S.  We started out with a mattress on the floor, curtains on the windows and 6 plastic chairs.  We decided that it was the perfect chance to get a dog and potty train him!  After all, we didn't have anything it could chew up, we didn't have any carpet for him to pee on and we didn't have a whole lot to entertain us at night.  So, we bought 2 puppies.  That ended up being a huge mistake and we had to find one of them a new family.  But, Toby, our ever-faithful cocker spaniel has been with us since the first month we moved in.  And bless his heart, he has watched as we brought 3 little ones home from the hospital.  Our children, and our dog for that matter, don't know any other home.   So, as we had our last night in our home of 7 1/2 years, I got a little sentimental.  And it was somewhat ironic that there we were with the same plastic chairs, all of us sleeping on mattresses on the floor and those same curtains hanging on the windows.  But life has really changed!   Now we have a house-trained dog who prefers to sleep rather than chew on anything and 3 kids who never allow us to even remember what life was like when we had little entertainment. 

I can't believe that on our last night in the house, I forgot to take a picture of "the last supper"!  I really wish I had taken one!  But, I did get a great picture of the last bath that the kids took in our giant bathtub.  But since Emma is already 5, I will refrain from posting naked pictures of her and her siblings. 

Here is our empty living room, except for a borrowed table and those same plastic chairs, along with the toys we left out of the container for the kids to play with over the next few months.

And here is our fancy entertainment center.  A cardboard box and a computer for a TV. 

Today was our last day in the house because the time had arrived to move over to the SIM house (which we will be renting for the next few weeks).  We don't actually have to be out of our house until Wednesday, but since the buyers of our refrigerator decided it was time to pick up their purchase, we felt it was time to make our exit from the house.  While I spent the morning packing the rest of our stuff, the kids played with Rocio and our neighbors, Joaquina and Regina.  They are going to miss their little friends so much! 

Playing Barbies with the girls. 

Walker playing in his "toy box".

Rocio reading to Olivia.  Everytime I looked at Rocio today, she was loving on one of the kids.  My kids are going to miss her so much!  And I have a feeling that she is going to have a pretty hard time not getting to see them all the time! 

We took all three of the kids over to the new "house" for the first time today.  Emma had already gone over with me and all three of them had actually played with some of our missionary friends at the SIM house in the past.  The SIM house is owned by the organization Serving in Missions.  It is an organization that sends out medical missionaries all over the world.  Their headquarters for Paraguay are here in Asuncion and they recently started renting out space to missionaries outside of their organization.  They have a house and several cabins that are furnished.  It turned out to be perfect for our situation because it is close to the church building, has very adequate space for our family, has a wonderful outside play area for the kids and for Toby, has internet service and is very affordable.

Here is our cabin!

And here is the fabulous playground . 

We are renting two rooms with a kitchen in between.  This is our room. 

And this is the other view of it.  We have lots of beds in both rooms!  And it is still very messy since we have been dumping stuff from our house in it all day long. 

And this is the little kitchen that joins the two rooms.  I am going to have to find some kind of storage for all of the food we still have!  Most people who stay here just come for a week at the most, so they don't come with a lot of food like us. 

We are in a time of firsts and lasts and I have a lot of mixed feelings.  We were all kind of excited today to be moving into a new place and having new experiences.  But at the same time, it is pretty sad to leave behind a house that has so many memories.  The house that is the only home my kids have ever known.   And to leave behind neighbors that our kids are used to seeing almost every single day.  And our poor dog has been so confused!  He was terrified that we were going to leave him at the house, I think.  And now even he is having to adjust to a new place too.  And the SIM house has 4 dogs already- he is not exactly at the top of the totem pole here!  We also had the first dog fight today, which scared both me and Emma to death.  And woke poor Olivia up from her nap.  But all in all, it has been a very blessed day!