RIGA, LATVIA!!!

After almost 4 weeks of waiting, we finally found out that our next assignment will be Riga, Latvia!  It has been driving Bri crazy to wait for the news.  He has checked his email no less than 50 times a day, but I'm pretty sure that number is much higher. ;)  We always checked his email when we went to bed around 10pm because that is 5pm in D.C. which would be the end of the workday.  We had a feeling that his CDO would click "send" right at 5pm to give the news on whatever day he decided to send it.  Sure enough, it was right at 5pm that it was sent!  The wait was over.  It was a nice way to end our day, because this was the same night that Savannah got stitches on her heel. :)

We have heard this city described as "beautiful, quaint, lovely, cold in winter, gorgeous in the warmer months, safe, full of parks, full of Christmas fairs that make the winter fun, and it would be a slice of Latvian honey cake in comparison to Luanda.  Sweet and gone before you know it."  

A cold, 1st world country sounds really nice right about now.  :)

For a family living in Luanda, this picture of the "Riga Central Market" literally brings tears to our eyes.  All of that fresh produce!!!!!   And I'm pretty sure I can buy sweet potatoes there that aren't full of maggots. :)

Language training will be in Russian.  It will begin after we leave Angola and will last 9 months.  It's a 2 year assignment.  It's actually a Political-Consular job so Briant will have 1 year as a Political officer and one year as a Consular officer.   

Latvia was #2 on our list of bids.  With a lot of prayer, we researched it well and talked with other LDS families there.  They all had wonderful things to say about it.  We'll make the most of our time here in Angola now while being excited for our future in Latvia!

So this week we are grateful that "it could have been worse." :)  The girls are constantly doing cartwheels and handstands in our apartment on the tile.  I would love to prohibit them indoors, but we don't have an "outdoors" to do them.  So they're allowed.  But Briant and I have had to remind them several times to make sure they look behind themselves before they do them so they don't hit someone or something.  And, as we've had the kitchen glass door hit a few times by cartwheels, I reminded them that they shouldn't do cartwheels next to or coming out of the kitchen.  Well, this wise counsel was forgotten, ;) and Savvy did a cartwheel as she was leaving the kitchen.  Briant happened to be right behind her, carrying a stoneware plate full of chicken (we had just gotten the plates a few weeks before to replace our plastic plates with BPA or other harmful chemicals :) ).  The plate cracked at the impact of her heel hitting it, and food, sauce, and stoneware went flying everywhere.  The plate shattered into a zillion pieces, and as soon as it hit the floor, so did Savvy grabbing her heal, screaming.  Thomas and Rhea joined in the crying when they saw all of the blood.  They were very concerned about her.  As kids, they assume when there is a lot of blood, that someone is going to die.  :)

(I had to grab these pics before we took her to the nurse.  These were taken after we had a grip on the situation and had cleaned up most of the blood, food, and dishes:)

The blood flowed quickly out of her, before we could even process what had just happened.  I ran and grabbed a cloth and the first aid kit while Briant put pressure on her cut.  We couldn't see the extent of the damage for a little bit because there was so much blood, but then we saw what looked like a serious laceration, too serious for bandaids.  Even in her pain, Savannah said, "It's all my fault.  I shouldn't have done that!" 

 We were afraid because we didn't know if the embassy nurse could handle her wound, and if not, where we would go to get good medical help.  We chose to start with Tracy, the embassy nurse.  We loaded Savvy up in our car and met her at the embassy.  I think she was as shocked as we were by the size the cut, but she kept her composure and witts about her despite all of Savannah's crying and screaming.  Not an easy task of course.  :)

She started out by washing the cut with sterile water, which started the screaming.  The open wound did not like the water.

After drying it, Tracy applied some durabond superglue to see if that would hold it instead of stitching it closed.  She had to squeeze it shut to see if the glue would hold, which only caused more pain to Savannah.  Seeing that the glue wouldn't hold, we decided to do stitches.  Tracy tried numbing the cut, poking it several times all over, which was one of the most awful things I've witnessed.  I usually have a strong stomach when it comes to things like this, but I had to turn away. It looked so painful and I could't blame her for screaming.  Briant was holding the leg with the cut, while I layed my chest over Savannah's back to help keep her from moving while I also held her other leg still.  

We tried to distract Savvy with a movie that she chose, but she was only able to watch about 30 seconds of it before the poking started up again and she couldn't be distracted from her pain.

Those pokes lasted a lot longer than we would have liked, but Tracy wanted to make sure it was all numb.  Unfortunately, the medicine didn't work.  AT ALL!  She started stitching her and she felt everything.  She stopped at 8 stitches, even though she would have liked to do about 12, but the pain was too much for Savannah.  She covered all of the stitched and non-stitched areas with steri strips in hopes that it would help everything come together and heal.  Needless to say, we were all grateful after the hour and a half of screaming and pain to be done.  

Here's Tracy, our wonderful nurse.  She was amazing.  Talking with Savannah, trying to distract her, and being so patient.  She sent Savvy home with a foot boot to protect her heel, along with crutches so she can stay off of her foot.  We were so grateful that we didn't have to find a hospital and deal with the long wait time there.  We also walked out of there very grateful that no ligaments were cut.  It could have been worse.

The next two days, Savvy stayed home from school, and got used to using the crutches and recover a little bit from the emotional trauma.  :)

 

She wanted to cuddle on the couch a lot with mom over her two days home.

First day back to school.  She was mentally and emotionally ready to go back and deal with not being able to participate in P.E. and swimming.  :)

Tonight we had family night, and the kids felt like performing.  They sang a song that they've been learning in music class.  They had a ten-minute rehearsal, and this is the result:

 

Nice to know that even though our carbon footprint has never been bigger than it is here in Angola with all of our online food orders, not recycling, everything we eat or buy is imported, etc., at least the kids are getting the message (for future implementation).  :)

It’s on days like today that I look to our “countdown wall” to see how many days we have until we leave on vacation to the states.J

I should be at work right now, but Briant called in sick for me after I fainted twice this morning, on and off the toilet, as I was dealing with intense stomach pain and cramping.  Bri had been talking to his mom on the phone (catching her at the end of Mother’s day there because we ran out of time with the missionaries here using our phone and electronics to skype home to their moms and visiting with our friend Aaron that is here without his family).  Luckily Bri came in moments before I fainted on the toilet, and then after I came to, he helped carry me to bed where I passed out again.  My body apparently didn’t like something I ate yesterday.  My guess is that it was the grapes.  Grapes are hard to find here, are very expensive, and they only come in one variety.  Red, large and seed-full.  This was my first time eating them here.  Bri knew how much I wanted them to use in my favorite poppy seed pasta dish with chicken, celery, etc. so unbeknownst to me he went searching for them and bought them for me for Mother’s day.  Thomas made me breakfast in bed with eggs and grapes that he had washed, halved, and seeded.  We decided to make the pasta dish the next day after we bought celery (if we could find some that didn’t look pale yellow and flavorless).  Needless to say, after this morning's drama, the rest of the grapes will probably not make it into anyone’s mouths.  I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

This experience came the morning after Mother’s day where we went to church and had the generator break down at the beginning of our 3 hour block of church meetings.  We sat and sweat for 3 hours.  It was only Mother’s day for Americans so we didn’t have a special program or anything to distract us from the sweating.  :)  And Mother’s day came after Saturday when after giving English lessons at the church, we drove straight to the kids’ school for a fair.  We sat in traffic for 40 minutes to get there for only an hour left of the fair, and then drove an hour and a half back home in traffic.  It would have been probably double had I not turned off onto some side road that took us through some sketchy areas of town that we were totally unfamiliar with (probably shouldn’t do that again), but ended up taking us far enough to bypass the traffic.  We had no idea where it was going to take us, and a few times we thought we should turn back, but I felt that we wouldn’t have been any worse off than the traffic we would be sitting in.  We still can’t figure out where we were, but it worked out so perfectly because it plopped us out on a major road that we recognized and we literally didn’t have another drop of traffic the entire way home.  I was so grateful because it really is stressful to drive here.  I said a prayer of thanks.

Despite the traffic, we found some things to laugh about (besides the crazy driving:  2 lane roads made into 4 lanes, being literally only 6 inches away from other cars on all sides, motorcycles going wherever they wanted to).  There was an accident with a large open truck carrying beer cases that had gotten hit by a large tour bus.  Beer bottles fell off the truck and sent glass onto the opposite side of the road from the truck, which was our side of the road (that had finally become clear of traffic after passing a garbage truck causing all of the traffic.  We accidentally missed our turn off, so we would have had to turn around onto the other side of the road where all the traffic was because of the beer truck accident—traffic everywhere!!).  All around the beer that had landed on the street were Angolans grabbing multiple unbroken bottles of beer and walking away.  While trying not to drive over the glass, we all had a good laugh as we watched people running around with free beer and how the situation was being handled, Angolan style. :)

So, here is our list of things we are excited to go back to in the states this summer (besides our wonderful family and friends).  I don’t want to sound like we’re complaining (although I think we're entitled to some!), but rather noting the differences between a large city in a 3rd world African country and suburban U.S.  I don’t think we’re asking for the moon, just the basics we have taken for granted for so many years of our lives:

* Silence or at least the ability to hear other things besides sirens and horns ringing in your ears all day

* Fresh produce that won’t make you sick!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* Fresh produce that's not rotten and looks normal in color and size and doesn’t look like its been dropped a zillion times before it got to the store

* A variety of produce—more than one kind of apple or pear, along with berries! melons! grapes! spinach and other greens!

* Non boxed-on-the-shelf milk and other dairy products like sour cream, cottage cheese, and yummy cheeses!

* Deli meats, sausages, and other meats without questionable quality and flavor

* Drinking water from the tap at home and in public

* Being somewhere where we don’t stand out because of our light-skin

* Safety to walk around freely and feel pretty confident that the person walking by you isn’t going to jump you

* Walk out of a store or anywhere with purchases or money without worry

* The ability to dial 9-1-1 if there is an emergency and know that there is help on the way, and quickly

* Good health and dental care

* “Normal” drivers—I’ll take Vegas, Utah, California, Oregon, and even New York drivers any day!

* Paved sidewalks and roads that you won’t fall in to

* Street sweepers that can control the amount of dirt on the streets

* A regular, organized and sanitary system of trash collecting

* Fresh air, not obstructed by the stench of the sewer or still water growing “who knows what” nearby

* Other deodorant users besides us, thus contributing to the quality of air we breathe as well

* Street lights and road signs, including business and home addresses!  

* Wide streets!

* Parks and playgrounds!

* Things to do like Thanksgiving Point, Amusement parks, museums, theaters, university campuses

* LDS temples!

* Church with a/c, good lighting and non patio plastic chairs, in ENGLISH without headphones :)

* Libraries

* Little Caesars, Dominos, and any other fast food and sit down restaurants with yummy food!

* Cheaper prices

* Hikes, bike riding, running, walking, and any other outdoor activity you can think of

* Consistent power and high speed internet service

* Being able to plug something straight into the wall without a transformer or adaptor

* Ice

* Being able to park my car without having to pay some local just to park on public property for him to “watch it” and come back knowing that my car will not be scratched up or broken into

* Costco, Walmart, Target, and other stores that have a selection of high quality goods

* Central a/c in your house or apartment

I’m pretty sure there are things I'm missing but this pretty much sums it up!  The United States, despite its many issues, is a pretty wonderful country to live in.  The patriotic spirit in our family is growing!

These pics make me smile!  Here are a few of the Elders talking to their moms on the phone and skyping.  They were on cloud nine for at least a week after they talked with their families on Mother's Day.

I'm a little behind on some posts, so I'm playing catch-up. Bri had his 42nd birthday a few weeks ago!

The kids had this hanging up on the hall door so he would see it after he woke up.

I always love that I can tease Bri about how old he is because he'll always be older than me.  But instead of making him feel old, the kids and I wanted to remind him of how great he is and how he is still "Mr. Incredible" to us.  We call him Mr. Incredible because of his superpower ability to find things we have lost.  This was a self-dubbed name which the kids and I have humbly and whole-heartedly embraced as we recognize our need for him.  After struggling to find something and running out of steam to keep looking, we will call upon Bri saying, "Oh Mr. Incredible.  Can you find..." and it seems like its within minutes, sometimes even seconds that he will find it.  Immediately after he    finds it, he raises both arms in the air with fists clenched, and says in a loud superhero way,"I AM MR. INCREDIBLLLLLLEEEEE!!!!"

The day before his birthday we went to teach English class at the church.  While Briant was attending a baptism on the first floor, I taught the English students how to sing "Happy Birthday" in English.  We practiced singing and then when Briant returned from the baptism, we surprised him with singing.  Some of the English students were still at the baptism, so not all could be there.  But it was still a nice surprise for him.

So to feed his ego on his birthday, we had a "Mr. Incredible" theme.  If he had been turning 10, and I had been more on the ball to order supplies three weeks in advance, we would have had Mr. Incredible balloons, plates, cups, streamers, etc.  Instead, we made him a card and a week late, gave him a Mr. Incredible t-shirt and toys(he set those up in the bathroom to see every morning and before he goes to bed at night to help inspire even more "ego dreams" than he already has).

We spent a few hours at the embassy swimming and having Nerf gun wars.  Bri and Thomas were especially loving the space at the embassy to play.  The Nerf guns have added a whole new element of fun to our apartment living as well.  It's something else to do in the space we have since we don't have a yard or public place outside the embassy to play with them.

                                                 

Simple brownies and ice cream with a candle.  He put one candle in his brownie and lit it before we could put 41 more.  :)  The kids made him some notes and things for him.

Here’s Bri taking a nap on his birthday under a blanket given to us by our wonderful friend Marc when he drove our car out to Virginia for us.  He used it to cover up our stuff in the back of the car.  It’s one of our favorite blankets now!

 Bri, riding Thomas’ rip-stick after the kids went to bed.   42 years old, but still able to maneuver around on a skateboard.  He was feeling pretty great.  No “mid-life crisis” on his birthday this year. J