All Dressed Up

Here we are on the top of our host family's apartment all dressed up. We had another great day out on the town today.  We left the house this morning at 9 am and didn't get back until about 6 pm.  Tomorrow the kids will spend their last day with their new friends and then Tuesday morning we head south.  We have had a wonderful visit here.  We have built a strong friendship with our host family and have found the area to be very welcoming.  I cannot really express how well the kids have done during our time here.  I know that living anywhere long term is much different than just a brief 10 day visit, but our time here has given us even a glimpse of what life would be like for us in this area.

Monsoon Bike Ride

Today, we took our first monsoon bike ride.  As you can see below, The kids rode on the racks on the back of our bikes...Desi was napping back at the house with our hosts.  We rode through a tea garden and then up through a village to a train station.  It rained the entire time but the rain was refreshing and we all had a blast.

Below is a photo of our girls with Delaney's friend, Angel.  The girls have had so much fun this past week playing together.  We only have two more days here and then we head down south for three weeks of training.  During training, we will not be able to post updates.

Life and Laundry

We took our first major excursion into town without our host/guide today.  With Tony's expert sense of direction and command of the situation we had a wonderful adventure together.

 Here is sweet Rae Rae zonked after our adventure today.  She has done absolutely amazing this past week with all our travels and new experiences. 

This is Delaney making bread from scratch.  Apparently I have a lot to learn about cooking from scratch before we do this long term. Each of the kids, even Desirae, have more experience with cooking from scratch than I do. Our host has been wonderful about allowing the kids help her cook. So much fun!

This is how you do laundry during monsoon season.  The bed serves as a clothes rack so that you can use the air-conditioning in your bedroom to dry your clothes.  We had another great day.  We are all in our room together trying to wind down for the night.

Enjoying Another Day

We had another great day! It rained this morning and the temperatures stayed mild - in the mid to high 80s. It felt quite cool compared to what we have been experiencing since we arrived.  Below are pictures of the kids playing with their friends.

Feel Their Heartbeat

Another great day winding down! We went into town today to explore the market. So much more than words can capture. The comment for the day came from Dylan after our auto-rickshaw ride into town. "You know you are sitting close to someone when you can feel their heartbeat." Love that kid! There really is no sense of personal space here but we have all adjust to that reality without any issues.

This is a photo of Dylan and a few other neighbors feeding scraps to the local wild life (pig, cow, goat, dog). After our excursion into town, we had a language lesson.  We were introduced to about 40 words.  Monsoon season is finally here! It has rained quite a bit today.  Dylan went frog hunting with his new friend this evening. They found 2 frogs.  The neighbors are going to cook them up and let Dylan have them.  WooHoo!

Everyone is healthy and happy.  We area truly enjoying our time here.  The kids continue to thrive even in a very challenging environment.  

Haven't Missed a Beat

We have had an incredible day! And Tony and I are in absolute awe of how well the kids have done.  It took us about 33 hours to get here from the time we boarded the plane in Dayton until the time we stepped into "our home" for the next 8 days. We no more than got out bags in the house and we went back out for Friday open market day.  The kids have adjusted so well even to being pushed the limits they've never experienced before.  People staring and touching their hair; walking along streets filled with animals, people, vehicles of all sorts, bicycles all honking their horns and vying for space on the roads; pouring down rain; riding and transferring from one auto-rickshaw to another - literally packed with people.  The sights, the sounds, the smells are all overwhelming yet the kids are filled with joy and excitement. We left the house this morning at about 9 am and didn't get back until 5 pm; we didn't eat lunch until 3 pm, had no naps, yet Delaney and Desirae were singing Jingle Bells in the auto-rickshaw on our way home.  The picture below is Delaney with one of her new friends right after we got back from our day on the town. We are all doing well and enjoying our time here.

 Both Dylan and Delaney made friends with the neighbors on the first day and have been outside playing and catching local wide life (frogs and geckos).  Yesterday Dylan played cricket with the local boys and Tony played soccer with the a huge group of young men.    The temperatures and humidity are stifling but not unbearable. Highs are near 100 and with humidity it feels like it about 114 or so. We have an air-conditioning unit in our bedroom that we get to turn on at night to make sleeping possible.

Mountains

During our flight we were able to see Mount Everest from our window. Kind of strange seeing mountain peaks almost as high in the air as the plane.

Here is a view to the north from the roof of the building. Himalayan Mountains.

We slept good. Woke up for about an hour in the middle of the night when the bed became filled with children. Dad gave up and moved to the floor :)  everyone went back to sleep and are still sleeping now.... at 9:30am.

We are here!

The flights went well and all of our bags arrived with us, Woohoo!
Passing time in London.

Looking out the apartment balcony that belongs to our lovely host family.

We went shopping at the local street market to pick up fresh food for the week, yum!

Ready...set...GO!

All packed and ready to go!  We leave tonight! We are filled with a tremendous sense of peace and excitement. We will keep you posted...

Counting down the days!

Only a few days until we board a plane...and then another plane...and then another plane...and then another plane on our way to the other side of the world.

We are very excited to begin this journey and to share it with our family and friends. We don't anticipate having a great deal of time to post updates and for safety reasons we intend to keep the content general.

Thanks for all your love, support and prayers!  We couldn't do this without you!

Love,
The Givens