We're Here!

We arrived just over a week ago. It was an overnight flight from Miami, delayed a few hours but otherwise a decent flight. Decent because I slept the whole time! :-)

Lisette became ill from the altitude as soon as we landed. Poor baby! She was white as a sheet, John had her sit down right in the middle of the chaos that La Paz airport was at 7 AM. He gave her water and she improved considerably. Nicole and I had to visit the ladies room so we missed most of the drama but I was very happy to see Lisette had pink lips instead of blue when I returned. There were half a dozen people there to welcome us (and look after my baby) so we whisked through the diplomatic lines (so cool!), gathered a yelping Buddy (poor puppy!) and climbed into the three vans that were waiting for us and our 85 lb. Lab and our 10 large suitcases.

We spent our first week in a beautiful two story condo with incredible views of the mountains and city. It was a four bedroom luxurious deal but a house was found for us which was actually even more beautiful. John calls it the "Soprano House" due to its opulence. Our eventual house is under some major renovations...supposedly it will be ready in January but we're preparing to make this house ours for at least 6 months.

The house has only 3 bedrooms but they're all master bedrooms. The girls have to share a room but we've also given them the entire third floor which includes a huge open space they'll use as a study/TV room. Not a bad deal. Jake's bedroom is huge as well, he has two twin beds in here and the only Internet access as we're borrowing the wireless connection from the Marine house across the street. Yes, the Embassy Marine guards live twenty feet away. Great for security of the house...not so sure about the security of our two beautiful teenage girls! Ha!

We've hired a maid. Her name is Dominga and she started work yesterday. She's a sweetie but she's not Lilian so I'm not quite as happy. I'll keep you posted! :-)

I became sick as a dog on Friday...possibly something I ate or drank. The water isn't potable here so we all have a water distiller in each house, our apartment one stopped working - possibly before I last drank from it. We moved into the house on Friday so that was fun. Thank goodness for wonderful Embassy help. My stomach troubles turned into throat and sinus trouble on Saturday. May as well get it all over with at once I guess! Today is much better, just a little weakness and sinus ache left. Nicole's home with a sore throat but her energy level seems good enough for school tomorrow.

Jake is conditionally accepted at the school but has been doing terrific! Knock on wood! I think his teacher is an angel! His best friend from Argentina is in his class. They begged the teacher to sit closer to each other but she was smart enough to sit a two girl buffer between them. The whole acceptance issue was a problem when we first arrived. As opposed to what was indicated via email, they were only going to have him "audit" for the first four weeks which gave him no protection at all, they could show him the door at any time. Thanks to a few puffs on the oxygen mask, we approached the superintendent and asked for the status change and got it. Normally a conditional acceptance is for a semester but as Jake is apparently doing so well, they've offered us a quarterly review...so he may be completely accepted as soon as October. The elementary principal has been doing back flips for us, being exceptionally friendly. Although I appreciate her effort (she could have been very nasty), I can't quite warm to her. We'll see.

No word yet on my job. I need to take the Spanish test but that won't be for a week or so. I'll try to be good about stealing Nicole's laptop and getting a blog in daily. Supposedly it takes about three months to get Internet set up here. Third world? Yup!

Miss you all! Love and Besos!