A Furlough Nightmare

I hate being startled awake by a nightmare.  You know, the kind where you wake up, heart pounding, palms sweaty?  This morning I was shocked awake by my first 'furlough nightmare' (hopefully not the first of many!).

In my dream, we had just recently arrived back home and it was our first trip to church.  It was awful.  Somehow, in my lack of practice in owning and dealing with a car, I left the car unlocked in the church parking lot, with the keys inside, and it was stolen, along with everything we owned (which was in the back of course).  Then, while I was trying to grasp that reality, the church service started.  It was then that I discovered that one of my kids somehow made it to church still wearing their pajamas.  And another would not sit quiet and was talking in her loudest voice during the sermon.  And somehow, my brand new hair cut would only stand straight up-- no amount of water would make it lie down.  And I had forgotten to put on any makeup.  And in a few moments, the service would end and we'd be trying to visit with friends and people who support us and we hadn't seen in 4 years or more.  Yeah, definitely a nightmare!

You may laugh, but in many ways, furlough (coming home for a time after being away for years) can be really stressful!  Here, we're used to not much selection, and there aren't high standards for how we look.  I mean, when your only choices for new clothes are whatever the grandparents might toss into a package, or something from one of two second-hand clothing stores in the only 'town' about 15 minutes down the road (that, not having a vehicle I only get to maybe twice a year), well, shopping doesn't happen much!  After I woke up from my dream, I remember thinking, "I'll just have to plan a quick trip to Walmart right away to pick out some makeup."  But then, the more I thought about it, I almost had a panic attack.  I mean, aren't there like four whole aisles of makeup, with like a dozen different brands to choose from?  Ok, I take it back.  I may show up make-up free to church that first Sunday after all!

And, having been away for four years, I have no idea of what's in style these days or not.  Well, aside from friends who have recently returned from their furloughs with tales about how neon is currently very popular.  Seriously people?  Neon??  Well, there still are a few more months to go... maybe everyone will have gotten that one out of their system by the time we get back. :)  But, really, the thought of walking into a big store and being overwhelmed by the selection (and the prices!) and trying to walk out of it with decent clothing for my family feels like a nightmare in and of itself!  In only a slightly joking way, I've had friends say that they just look for whatever is on the manequin and just get that, since they know at least that looks ok!  That's sounding better and better!  So if any of you out there want to help me out in that department with tips or whatever, I would be more than grateful! :)

Hopefully I won't have too many more 'furlough nightmares'!  But it is reality that as much as we are anticipating our upcoming furlough, there are a lot of ways its going to be both hard and stressful.  So, please, have grace on all of us, especially if you see us standing frozen, staring dazedly and confused at some aisle in Walmart or the grocery store, staring at the selection of like 50 different brands of cereal and trying to figure out which one to buy!

Living in the 'Here and Now'

I've got a bad case of "Furlough Fever", as a good friend of mine so aptly calls it.  Even though we don't even begin our furlough for a little over 5 months, it's all I can think about.

When I think about our upcoming furlough, I am a mix of both absolutely exhilarated, and totally stressed out!  We are 3 1/2 years into our 4 year term.  And we have, and will continue, to spend a good deal of time making plans for our upcoming furlough in the few months we have left of our term.  We already spent a good month shopping for the best airline tickets to get our family of 7 home in June.   Now, while those details are set, there are a myriad of other details that need to be planned and taken care of in the weeks and months ahead.  Things like finding a hotel room (or probably rooms, for our family of 7!) for our overnight in Sydney.  Shopping for and purchasing a car that we can use for our year home (again, much more stressful from over here.  Thankfully we have a few people keeping their eyes open for us back home.)  Trying to figure out the best option for schooling our kids.  I had really gotten my hopes up on a Charter school in the town we'll be living in, but unfortunately when enrollment for the upcoming school year opened, it was already 'waiting list only'.  Now I'm in the midst of researching on-line schools and various home-schooling curriculums and trying to figure out what will work out the best for our family.   And trying to figure out an orthodontist (and whether we can even really afford it) for some necessary care for one of our kids.  And spending hours thinking about all our family, friends, supporters and churches that we need to (and want to!) see while we are home.  And trying to figure out how we're going to cover half the country to do all that, while homeschooling 4 of 5 kids in 4 different grade levels.  And how we are going to visit everyone that we want/need to see in just 12 short months!  And how it's really going to be, bringing our noisy, messy, very energetic family of 7 to live with my parents, who are totally used to their quiet, clean, peaceful life.  I'm getting stressed just thinking about it all while typing!

At the same time, I am SO excited when I think about furlough.  I can't wait to be back with family.  To not have to miss out on all the family get-togethers, bbqs in the back yard, birthdays and holidays.  To be there for a cousin's wedding.  To just hang out, over meals, or lounging on couches, catching up and letting the kids get re-aquainted (or get to meet even!), aunts, uncles and cousins.

I'm looking forward to having the option to go places!  During this school break, I have caught myself thinking "next year, I'll be able to..."  take the kids to the beach/park/zoo/museum/historical site/National Park/restaurant/etc.  We'll get to eat foods we haven't gotten to have here (non-homemade pizza, real ice cream, grapes, oranges, peaches, kiwi fruit, you name it!).  Matt and I can actually go out somewhere for dates (what are those????)!  Our family loves camping and there are so many National Parks I would love to let my kids experience.

I'm even excited about going into stores and getting to try on clothes and find ones that fit!  Rather than trying to guess from a picture on the computer if it's the right size and how it will fit on me!

And I'm thinking about my kids.  For Matt and I, this will be a homecoming.  For them, it will be leaving EVERYTHING they know and are comfortable with.  Elijah has never been to the U.S.  Julianne was only there as a baby, so everything she knows about it is from pictures and the stories we've told.  Even my three older kids who have been there before were only 3, 6 and 8 years old when we left it last.  So they only have fragmented memories and ideas of what the U.S is even like.  They will be leaving all their friends, their home, and it won't be all fun and easy for them.  So as we try to make plans for our furlough year, we are trying to take into account what they will need.  My friend Mandy wrote a great blog about furlough and TCKs (Third-Culture-Kids).  You can read it HERE .

Stealing Mandy's idea, here is our family when we left the US in 2010:

 And here is our family now:

But while all this thinking and planning and dreaming is going on, I have to keep reminding myself that I need to live in the "Here and Now"!  Just because we have, and will continue to, spend countless hours in the future making plans for our upcoming furlough, it doesn't mean that I can check out here.  There is still half a school year for the kids to get through.  Another village stay in March-April.  And all the other jobs and responsibilities we have just with normal life.  I'm finding it hard to not be daydreaming about furlough, or else spending hours and hours researching various things related to our furlough time.  Daily I'm reminding myself that 'NOW' is also very important and that I need to just live one day at a time.

Christmas 2013

There is just something fun and special about traditions.  Things our family does the same every year to celebrate Christmas.  Some of our traditions include putting the kids to bed on Christmas eve and then setting up the packages under the tree and filling the stockings and getting everything ready for when the kids walk through the door into the front room on Christms morning.

Ready for the kids (some sneaky little elves snuck out at night and hung candy canes all over the room, much to the parent's surprise!)

Another tradition:  Our kids aren't allowed to just 'get up and go' on Christmas morning.  Matt and I go out first, get the Christmas music playing, light candles and then we have the mandatory filming of each kid walking out into the front room.

Then it's time for opening presents.  We like to take it slow and enjoy the gifts as they are opened.  We often pause for a hot chocolate and brunch break.  (Depending on how many gifts there are, sometimes it's just after all the gifts are opened.)

Hot chocolate break

Christmas Peeps to go with the hot chocolate

For brunch, we have our traditional egg casserole and sweet bread.  Most years we have cinnamon rolls, but this year, due to sick kids and sleepless nights, I cheated and used some cinnamon-raisin bread we had been gifted by a friend.

Once the presents are opened and brunch is over, we just lounge around, reading new books, building new lego sets, playing with new toys.

'Christmas with the Kings' is also a part of our annual tradition.  I think the tradition started years ago with 'Boxing Day with the Kings' and eventually became Christmas Day instead.  Now, I can't imagine Christmas in PNG without our 'family'!

We enjoyed Christmas lunch on the verandah with roast chicken and all the trimmings.

 Then we spent the next few rainy hours playing games, watching movies and just hanging out.  When the rain stopped, it was outside to jump on the trampoline and play on the slip-n-slide.  We finished off the day with more movies and games and lots of Christmas goodies.

Catching air!

Thanks to Phil King for many of the great photos!

Christmas Eve 2013

In my opinion, Christmas isn't Christmas without a Christmas Eve candlelight service.  It's just something that's been a part of my Christmas' for as long as I can remember.

I've been thankful that we've been able to continue that tradition here, even in PNG. 

This year however, there was no Christmas Eve service.  Instead, there was a Christmas play, put on in the afternoon.  It wasn't quite the same as singing carols by candlelight, but it was an amazing play (written by a friend!), that shared the story of Christmas in a memorable way.  It was a play about a group of teens putting on a Christmas play, and what they learned in the process.  And, three of my kids were able to take part in it.  Nathan was a shepherd.  Kaitlyn played the part of Mary.  And Elijah even had a cameo appearance as the toddler Jesus.

Being chosen to play the part of Mary

The Wise Men visiting Jesus

 A big thanks to Karen Weaver for the good photos!  (You can tell the good ones from our blurry ones!)

After the play, we spent the rainy evening eating warm soup and sitting around the lighted Christmas tree, with candles glowing and reading the Christmas story.

"Be Joyful Always.... Give Thanks in All Circumstances.."

This verse in 1 Thessalonians is my mantra for today.  I think I've already repeated it to myself a dozen times this morning so far, and I've barely got the kids out the door for school today.  But honestly, I'm having to repeat it over and over to myself because I'm having a really hard time following it today.

Today is Thanksgiving.  Or at least, it's supposed to be.  But here, it's just a normal school/work day.  I've gotten fairly used to that over the years.  But this is the first year (I think in our 10 years in PNG) that we are doing absolutely nothing to celebrate it.  And I'm having a hard time with that.

It's not that I'm not thankful.  I have SO much to be thankful for.  But finding joy today when I just want to cry is more the issue.  Maybe I can just chalk it up to hormones, but really, it's more than that.

Last year, we had probably the most "Thanksgiving-like" day that we've ever had here.  You can see it HERE.  We did all the traditional Thanksgiving things... hang out for the entire day, eat way too much food, play games, chat, re-visit the leftovers in the evening.  It was wonderful.

But this year, after hosting Thanksgiving get-togethers for the last couple of years, I just am tired.  We've had tons going on and I just honestly am not up to hosting a big get-together.  I guess a part of me is discouraged by feeling that unless we host and invite and plan, no one will invite us to something.  And so, we aren't having Thanksgiving this year.

I'm planning to have a special dinner tonight, just for our family, between helping the kids with their homework and Matt rushing off to play Floorball after dinner.  Not quite the same.  And it won't be a fancy turkey dinner complete with all the fixings.  (This year, it would actually be possible to procure a turkey -- it's not always possible--- but it would literally cost over $80 to buy one!!!  So even though it's is possible, it ain't gonna happen!)  But it's hard to go through our non-holiday, knowing that back home, loved ones are getting together and laughing and talking and eating turkey and we are just having a 'just-like-any-other-day' here.  It's easier to handle when we have plans to get together with friends and celebrate with them. 

But, since that's not happening this year, I'll just try to keep busy, and go on a Facebook fast so I don't have to see everyone's Thanksgiving posts, and keep reminding myself of how much I have been blessed with and try my best to "be joyful always."

A Lego Party

On Tuesday of this week I realized that we had talked about throwing a belated birthday party for Justin on Saturday.  (His 7th birthday happened while we were in the village.)  So I quickly emailed out invitations to his friends and tried to come up with ideas for a party.  Then it hit me.  Lego!  My boys love lego and spend hour after hour playing with them.  So a lego party it was!

As I looked online for ideas, I once again felt how hard it is to party plan here in Ukarumpa land.  Back home, all the shops and such are just down the road where you can buy party decorations or favors or whatever you need.  Not here.  Here, basically I have to use whatever we might have managed to bring over, or what I can make myself.  So I had to get creative.  Thanks to Pinterest, I found some ideas (and tons more that I just couldn't possibly do here).  I'm totally kicking myself now for not buying several Lego minifigures while I was in Australia in August to get Elijah's teeth fixed.  I literally stood at the Lego section in Target for a good 20-30 minutes staring at them, not able to figure out if I should buy some or not (the curse of returing to the excess of the 1st world after living in the 3rd world for so long!).  I ended up not buying them, and now I really regret it!  They would have made awesome party favors and game prizes!

We ended up with several Lego-themed games.

A "Guess how many Lego are in the jar" game.

Pin-the-Head on the Lego Man.

As usual, E had to get in on the fun.  Getting him to head the right direction was a challenge though!

He finally went the right way, and ended up being one of the closest!

A Lego relay race where the teams had to carry the all the Lego from one bucket to another, using only a serving spoon, and once they had all been transfered, be the first to build a tower using all the Lego.

Then we had presents........

E commandered J's new birthday cars!

 .....and cake.

Lego brick cake

"Lego"-men Jigglers

After the kids had eaten their fill, it was outside for a Lego pinata. 

Apparently, a pinata made out of a cereal box, toilet paper rolls cut in 3rds and tissue paper is just too strong.  We finally resorted to Matt pitching it to Nathan like a baseball, and that did the trick!

Candy!!!

We ended the party with Lego play.