Weekend Roundup

I was so excited for the weekend to get here because it is a whole lot easier trying to get some things done when two adults are around...or so I thought! The kids were really difficult while we were running errands all day Saturday. Clark and Andrew seem to have endless amounts of energy and they have such a hard time sitting still. I can still hear my mom's voice in my head from my childhood saying "Sit still!" Oh, how I am now paying for the times I didn't listen to her then. Granted, we went to all new places the boys had never been before and they just want to explore and check out every nook and cranny. We are trying to be more patient, as it seems we get better results that way, but man kids can be so difficult! We ventured out to the grocery store and it is still a little frustrating for me because prices are so much higher than I expected. But, after talking to a friend I realized it will be better when our pembantu (maid) does the shopping because she will go to the local markets and get all of the fruits and veggies super cheap. I am definitely going to have to buy some stuff online and have it shipped here, just because of the cost difference.

Anyway, we found a car that we are going to buy that just happens to be silver blue, just like our Saturn. It is a van that seats eight, so the extra room will be nice. The person who is selling the car to us offered us her driver and the car to run around town Saturday morning. Seriously, expats here are so nice and flexible about stuff like that. When Clark saw the van he said "Our blue car grew up Mom!" So cute. We will have it by the end of the week. We were also interested in her driver since he will be looking for a job as well, but when Tanner started talking salary and offering him to continue what he is currently getting paid, he proceeded to hand over a page outlining his "new standards". It was ridiculous, and Tanner pretty much said no on the spot to his wage increase, his demands about not working AT ALL on Saturdays, and a few other things. It kind of put a bad taste in our mouths the rest of the day about the process of hiring household staff. So now we will have a car by the end of this week and no driver yet. We had been told that some people try to take advantage of the expats by making demands, particularly if they know you are interested in hiring them, so it is important to know what we want and what we are will to pay for it and to be firm about it. It was just kind of cruddy having that experience with someone attempting to take advantage of us.

In the meantime, I received an email from our sponsors who happened to be interviewing for an additional pembantu for their household and recommended two that she interviewed as being perfect for our family situation. I have to admit I have been somewhat nervous/gun shy about the whole process of interviewing and hiring. I tend to want to be a pleaser and not want to haggle or wrangle with people over money or tasks, but we had been told we needed to be very direct in exactly what we want and expect out of our pembantu. The language barrier doesn't help in the process either. But I was really grateful our sponsors had effectively screened applicants for us, and we interviewed one tonight and will interview one more tomorrow. We actually really liked the one we interviewed tonight. She is young, but has been working since she was a pre-teen...which is sad really. She is super nice and seemed to really take to the boys. She had a happy and kind face (very important to me). She speaks English pretty well so communicating should not be much of a problem. She had great references, so we are pretty much sold on her, but feel we should at least interview another one before deciding for sure on her, especially since she is the first one we've interviewed. While she was here the boys were watching a show and Clark had a drink of water on the couch. He apparently finished his water and just put the glass on the couch. About 10 minutes later the boys were playing with each other on the couch and she popped up from the table and went over and grabbed the glass off the couch. The impressive part about this was that you could not see the glass from where we were sitting. She just remembered that Clark had been drinking from it while sitting there and assumed it was on the couch and might fall off while they were playing. So I took that as a good sign that she is conscious of things like that. Truth be told, she is probably more aware than I am about stuff like that right now since I feel very scatter brained!

Some new friends in the ward were also kind enough to invite us over for dinner and share their Father's Day with us, and we had a great time at their home. Me and the other mom are already planning on taking a tennis class together and maybe put our kids in swimming lessons together...so that will be fun. Our kids all played great together so that was great too.

I feel like the only thing holding us back on not feeling more settled is not being in our house with our stuff yet. I can't wait to get in there...maybe it will be done early? Not likely. Just a couple more weeks though to go.