Getting Pierced

Well getting Karis' ears pierced turned into a language and cultural learning time for Jeremy and myself.  I thought I had researched it online but evidently not.  The store that I thought said they did ear piercings, don't do them in the Spain stores even though their website said that they did.  They informed us that we needed to go to a PHARMACY to get her ears pierced.  Well her birthday was on SUNDAY...which most pharmacies are closed on Sunday {most all smaller stores are}.  So we drove around to about 15 different pharmacies in two towns looking for a Pharmacist that did them.

With NO LUCK.  

Karis = SUPER disappointed.  

However during our quest on Sunday there were two pharmacies that said that the Pharmacist that did the piercings would be there on Monday.  So after school we were off again to get Karis' ears pierced.  Went to BOTH Pharmacies and were told that they either didn't do piercings there or that the Pharmacist wasn't working!

{insert: frustration here}

Once again we were on our way home with NO EARRINGS.  

We have a Pharmacy two blocks from our house but we've actually NEVER seen it open, it keeps VERY short hours AND closes down for siesta in the afternoons.  But as we were on the way home, it was OPEN.  So I went in and asked...which the translation was something like: do you all make holes for children? After clarifying that Karis was at least one month old {they pierce girls ears here early}.

They said YES!   

This Karis' recap of the event:

 I was so happy...

then it HURT, the gun "hurted", 

then I was so pretty...I love my star earrings! 

This is how Jeremy and I recall the experience.  A little stressful.  It ended up that the Pharmacist wanted US to mark her ears for the piercing.  Jeremy has a slight obsession with  aligning things correctly and since I assumed the piercing professional {aka Pharmacist} would do it- we were clueless as to where those pin marks needed to be.  HA! It took awhile.  

Notice Karis' smiling face per first piercing, then the tears afterwards.  Now for weeks I've been explaining to her that it would hurt {kind of like getting a shot} but that she'd have to get BOTH SIDES done, one after the other.  I made her watch YouTube videos on it and the cleaning process...she was educated. she was informed. She was adamant that she still wanted them.   

However when knowledge met with life experience, the two collided, Karis REFUSED to take her hand off her other ear and of course the Pharmacy was about to CLOSE for the day!!!  So she suggested us coming back TOMORROW evening to get the other one done.  I was like...absolutely no, there is no need to drag this out {plus Karis going to school with only one ear pierced...kids can be ruthless...she was already "strange" because her ears aren't pierced...then only to have one done...NO THANK YOU...no need to infuse more drama/trauma into this situation}.

So I reminded Karis that once she got the first ear pierced, she was COMMITTED and needed to follow through.  Then I had Jeremy hold down her arms, I held her head and with TREMBLING hands the Pharmacist pierced the second ear....ONLY the gun misfired, there was blood. A second attempt was made to push the earring the rest of the way by hand {Pharmacist thought she may end up creating another hole doing it that way} So she took it out cleaned everything and the THIRD time was the charm.  

The Pharmacy staff felt so bad about botching up the piercing...that Karis got a 

sucker, 

balloon 

AND 

a new umbrella

{worked like a CHARM- she carries around the new umbrella like a badge of honor}.

So there you have it.  Lessons learned.  Karis does LOVE her earrings.  I catch her scoping herself out in the mirror often! =) So for her the pain was worth it.  

Also photographed was "Rai" her classes stuffed animal.  It was her turn because of her birthday to take Rai home with her and photo document their adventures together during the week and put them in his story book.  HA!  

Around the House

Well I'm stuck in the house with these sick little ducklings, so I snapped a few photos of some different things about housing in Spain.  I don't think its necessarily exclusive to Spain but its just a little different than life in the good ol' Southern states of the US.

This is our dish rack, its actually built into the cabinets here in most apartments.  Super convenient and keeps stuff off the counters.  Most folks also use it to store their dishes a well.  One stop shopping dry AND store!  

Notice the SUPER dark "blinds" these are roll down  black out curtains that cover the outside of all of our windows and patio doors.  They are AWESOME and needed since it stays daylight here until 11PM in the summer!  When we want light we just roll them up and VOILA want it dark, for say... the girls bedtime or wanting them to sleep past sunrise...roll them down and BAM darkness. 

Our front door has a spider lock system...steel beams go in all directions through the door frame when locked.  Jeremy is  a big fan of this security feature, we had something similar on our door in Peru but it was exposed on the backside of the door, this system is all internal.  It also has the classic European knob on the center of the door (which Karis asks why its there almost every time we come in the door)

The bidet- also not exclusive to Spain however the girls were FASCINATED by it...Karis called it the "little sink" for awhile.  We turned the water off to it, so now the girls hardly pay attention to it. 

The "laundry room".  Typically the washing machine is outside on a little closed off "terrace off the kitchen" or its located in the kitchen.  Our landlords put in the washing machine for us as part of our rent (such a blessing) however she literally put the smallest washer you can buy here in (it fits 4 towels in it if I cram them in).  We also totally splurged and bought a dryer that we caught on sale.  Its super dry in the summer (clothes dry on the line in like 1 hour) but during the winter it takes almost 2 days because we get no  direct sun where our apartment is in the apartment complex and hanging up the clothes inside our apartment was a disaster, the girls were CONSTANTLY knocking clothes off {sometimes intentionally but most of the time it was accidentally} so it still was a struggle for me with all the laundry these very ACTIVE little girls create.  I was trying to make it work but Jeremy said that for my sanity it needed to move from the "want" to the "need" list.  However, I still try to line dry most of our clothes because using the dryer really bumps up the power bill and utilities here are expensive.

Let's Catch Up

Well to say its been awhile would be an understatement.  However since I'm basically under house arrest because of all my sick little chicks....just kidding about the house arrest part, but it does feel like my wings have been clipped a little, but dragging around small sick kiddos can be a light form of torture, so except some updates in the coming days.

For now lets catch up, since our first day in Spain we've done a few things.

• Found an apartment.  
• Put together lots of furniture from Ikea.  
• Enrolled Karis in pre-school (which is pretty much mandatory here and starts at age 3).  She is still adjusting and having a hard time being in all Spanish from 9 to 4 but seems to be making friends despite the language block and is picking it up...she LOVES her teacher.  
• Jeremy completed all of his paperwork for the first year of his residency visa (the girls and I start our paperwork in May)
• Prayer walked in our neighborhood and several other parts of Madrid Sur (South Madrid).  
• Jeremy has started building relationships with a few of the Evangelical Pastors near our town.  
• Jeremy has started mapping and researching Madrid Sur
• We have our team over each week for team prayer time (such a blessing)
• Jeremy has been able to share with a few men that live/work near us.
• Did an "amazing race" scavenger hunt around downtown Madrid, put on my our team leaders (it was a fun day of getting to see some awesome places around town- sad moment was we got pick-pocketed on the bus- we lost Jeremy's new iTouch 5- even sadder Jeremy figured out who did- two latin guys). 
• The IMB teams hosted the chapel service at the Baptist Seminary (which was a great time, it was also sobering that with all the faculty and staff at the Seminary- I think we equaled their numbers with all the IMB team/families that were there.)  Jeremy meet two Peruvians studying that...one was from the high jungle so it was fun talking "jungle foods" with him.
• Today Jeremy is at a Symposium on Church Planting and Organic House Church and there are 18 or believers there to discuss these methods and what it looks like in Spain.  
• We also went on a trip with our team leaders to Andorra and went sledding.  Jeremy and the girls had never been in that much snow before- so it was lots of fun for the entire family.
• We've also had our fair share of illness circulating around the family: ear infections.  strep throat. fevers. sinus infections. head colds. skin rashes.  lots of NO FUN.
• This month we are putting together a prayer piece for Madrid and planning on some intense times in prayer walking (with the girls being so sick, J might be praying solo)

assembling our apartment

Karis' big 1st day

Addie's ABSOLUTE favorite activity- feeding the ducks in Parque Retiro (like Central Park of Madrid), we also have to ride the train into the city to do it, which is her second favorite thing to do

making a snowman in Andorra

Addie's only moment of really enjoying playing in the snow...this jungle bunny was too cold...although she loves EATING snow.