We love our new apartment!  It has a lot of light and has a clean, contemporary feel to it.

I love that it has a designated laundry room with a separate washer and dryer!  Our first apartment had the washer/dryer as one unit and it was right next to my dishwasher in the kitchen without any space to move laundry around.  It took 6 hours to do one load of laundry because each wash and dry cycle was 3 hours long, and you couldn’t do another load of wash as another load was drying.  For doing laundry for a family of five, this was “less effective.”  J

The fridge is to the right of the oven and the freezer is on the left.  There is cupboard space above them, but it will prove to be useless if I don’t get a stool to reach everything!  I think I’m figuring out the stove.  I know I’m not using a tenth of the bells and whistles it comes with.  Simple for me is better.  I finally found the English instruction manual which has helped.  One thing I’m learning is that it cooks a lot faster than any oven I’ve ever used.  I have to lower the temperature to be 30 degrees less than the recipe calls for and still cut the cooking time in half in order to not burn the food.  It’s very efficient!

We've actually had to add two large metal shelves to the left and right of  the table against the side walls to help store food and appliances because there isn't enough cupboard space to hold everything, especially with 1500 lbs. of consumables coming soon.  We're also trying to be creative with the lack of counter space.  This kitchen would be more appropriate for a single person or couple cooking smaller meals.  Oh well...we can't be picky, just noting some things we need to adapt to.  It definitely feels like an IKEA kitchen--simple and clean, but I think the quality is better.

We love the bathrooms, especially the sinks. 

A lot of shelving.  I hang my long dresses up in Thomas' closet.

Nice tub!  Wasn't expecting that!

Nice shower too with different water settings and a seat.
Wasn't expecting that here in Angola either!

We love the counter space and storage underneath the sink.
We haven't had that in our other two houses here.

The kids loved running around before our things got here.  You can see how dirty the floors were if you look at Thomas' socks.  There was a thin layer of dust/dirt throughout the house.  That's why they had ladies cleaning when we got there! 

Master

A beautiful light hanging over what is supposed to be the dining area.

As I was walking around, figuring out where to tell the movers to put our furniture (the embassy loaned furniture), I walked in on the kids doing this mediation as Rhea danced around them.  They said they were celebrating the new apartment.  Goofballs. :)

The moving team--they don't look overly happy here, but they are really nice guys.  It's not a very fun job to be movers in the heat of an African summer.

 All three kids setting up their rooms by making their beds first.

We left our first apartment that was next to the loudest disco tech in Luanda, a week and a half after we moved here, and they put us in temporary housing until they found us a permanent place for us.  It was small, and very dark because it didn’t have a lot of natural light, and it only had one bathroom.  Still, we made some good memories there and we took advantage of it being right across from the embassy (swimming in the pool, playing on the playground, etc).  Never in the history of our 15 years of marriage, has Briant ever had a commute that was less than 35 minutes.  It took him 30 seconds to walk home.  J

Our last moments in the apartment:

Good-bye TDY!

The LDS branch we attend held its Christmas party at the church on a Saturday a few weeks before Christmas.  Something that we’re learning about Angola, is that their definition of time is much different from ours (e.g. took 5 weeks to get our internet)!  They are very laid back and don't stress about time.  The party was supposed to start at 3pm, so we had our driver drop us off at 2:00pm because Briant and his singing group had to practice.  So we left our apartment at 1:30pm.  At 4:10pm the party started.  We told our driver to pick us up at 5pm because we thought two hours would be long enough for the party.  Unfortunately we had to leave before the party really got started!  The branch president wanted each auxiliary to present something—a song, or skit.  Briant, as the mission leader, sung a Christmas song in a little choir made up of the full-time missionaries, branch missionaries, and a few people that are preparing to serve missions.  They sung and Bri also played his Irish whistle for an interlude and accompanied the singing for one verse.  It was beautiful.  He did a great job (see the video below).  I also joined the Relief Society group in singing.  We had to leave after only half of the groups presented, with the food still staring at us.  The kids were starving, so they discretely grabbed something off the table really quick before we left.  Oh, I forgot to mention, that the air conditioners weren’t working (a common Sunday occurrence for us unfortunately), so we were a bit uncomfortable in the late afternoon heat of the building.  I have noticed that when we are sweating and fanning ourselves, the Angolans don’t seem uncomfortable or affected at all by the heat!  I’ve concluded that they’ve become accustomed to it.  I’m hoping that we do too…quickly.  :)

Hanging out with the American Elders, waiting for the party to start.  

Elder Cook from Idaho.  We love Elder Cook.  He translates for my kids in Primary during singing time and he translates for us during Sacrament meeting through our headsets.  I may have recently mentioned that I have a cute niece named Madison that I could hook him up with when he goes home this summer if she goes to BYU Idaho, and after she serves her mission (if she's still thinking about it).  :)

Waiting...

Still waiting...

The program finally started.  :)

Getting their costumes on to act out the nativity.

Amy and I were in charge of getting Santa to the embassy for a visit and a little party.  We had it on the last day of school before the break.  A lot of the embassy families were going to be gone traveling over the holidays, but we still had seven or eight families with children that were here.

We had low key activities like “Simon says,” and musical chairs with holiday music.  The kids also glued cotton balls onto a countdown Santa they colored, to count down the last 12 days of Christmas.  I went to the internet, and of course pinterest for ideas of things to do with the kids, but everything called for craft supplies or food items that we don't have access to here.  Still, the kids had a ball.  Simple is good.  And everyone brought a snack to share.       

Our Santa was Jesse, one of the Marines that was good enough to help out.  After she sat on Santa’s lap, Rhea said, “I know that’s not Santa.  It’s just one of his elves.” 

 The kids had fun, and most importantly, it put us all in the Christmas spirit a little more.  It’s not easy to feel like it’s the Christmas season here when we’re in the middle of summer!

We have internet again!!  We’ve been without internet for 4 weeks now.  Not an easy thing to do!  We paid for the internet five weeks ago when we found out we would be moving in to our permanent apartment, but it took this long for them to hook it up.  Long story…maybe someday I’ll have the desire to write about it.  For now, I want to catch up on our lives over the last month.  

As much as I'm tired of seeing boxes after all of the moving this year (2 big moves, and 2 smaller moves here in Angola), I'm glad to see the kids getting some use out of them!  Here are a few ways the kids used them in our temporary housing before we moved:

Savvy set up a personal office space, pinning her drawings and supply holders onto the boxes.   

You never know when you need a ninja sword in your office.  :)

Rhea made a teaching area where she could play school.

Savvy created a "sled" for Rudolph that we got from G-ma and G-pa P.

And Thomas, cut a box apart and then connected the pieces back together by overlapping them.  This made it look like a box that was in one piece still.  He called me in the kitchen and said, "I'm tired of this box mom," then threw it in the air and kicked it, so it seemed like he was really strong and kicked the box into pieces.  I had him put it back together and kick it again for a picture.  :)