On Saturday, we finally met the DiCocco’s. I had first found out about Billy, Trace and their family through my friend Sarah, who had met them at Mars Hill church. Trace writes a blog, which I began stalking as soon as I knew we’d be moving to South Africa. Strangely enough, my other friend Sarah and I later figured out that the family I kept going on and on about used to be her neighbors! Such a small world. The DiCocco’s have been living near Johannesburg for several years doing ministry with a few different organizations. I loved reading through her blog, seeing the pictures, and imagining what our life might look like once we moved to South Africa. As our move got closer, I began to email Trace and she would answer all my crazy and not so crazy questions. It was so wonderful to have someone over HERE who used to live right near us and knew all about the transition process. Since we’ve been her, we’ve continued to email and we also made plans to meet up with them to check out a ho...
One of the first things we will have to acquire when we move to South Africa is transportation for our family. When we spent time there in 2008, we were fortunate to have made a connection with a lovely couple that was going to be visiting the USA for almost the same amount of time that we would be in South Africa. We were able to rent their vehicle from them for a much better rate than we ever would have found through a rental agency. To make this deal even sweeter, the car was an automatic. Yes, I am one of those people who has never mastered driving a stick shift. I've tried, many times in fact, but as many people know, sometimes it's just enough that I am able to keep my automatic on the road! There are many, MANY reasons why it would be better for us to by a car with a manual transmission. First off, they cost way less to buy and maintain. Automatics are not very prevalent in South Africa, which means the ones they have cost more and it's harder to get parts for them...
And just like that, our time in the US is finished and we are back home! Here is a quick recap of our time away: Darin flew out to Germany at the end of May and a few days later the kids and I headed to Oregon. We saw one nephew graduate from high school and another get married. We also got to help out behind the scenes with a graduation open house and rehearsal dinner, which were a lot more work than I had remembered! The kids went swimming with their papa, out for smoothies with their cousins and shopping with their aunties. They rode bike around the neighborhood and hung out at a local park. Family dinners were plentiful, with different groups of people around different tables almost every night. Next stop was Michigan, where the kids and I met up with Darin who had been from Germany to Honduras while we were with my family. It was SOOOOO good to see my main man again. If you know both Darin and me, you are aware that one of us can be kind of high strung while t...
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