First Weekend

After a rough time getting to sleep Friday night, we awoke feeling pretty refreshed Saturday morning.  But surely Ted's watch had stopped...it COULDN'T be 10:40 a.m.?!  Oh, but it was.  Silly room-darkening shades!  Why didn't we set an alarm?!  We could have overcome jet lag much more quickly if we had arisen a couple of hours earlier.  Ah, well.

I took my first run after brunch.  Not the wisest thing I've ever done--the heat and humidity were killer!  I managed to make it 2 miles on the high school track before coming back to the much cooler TLF unit.  It made the otherwise inadequate air conditioning feel wondrous, though!  After we fed the crew, I put Zaden down for an afternoon nap, and Ted took the rest of the kiddos to the pool.  I wrote on my blog and enjoyed the peace and quiet. :-)

We got everyone to bed at a much more decent hour...but Ted and I had a horrible time getting to sleep.  Kind of hard to feel sleepy when you sleep until nearly 11 in the morning!  We ended up watching two episodes of Downton Abbey--it was almost like having a real date night, LOL.  (Aside from the giggling kids who obviously were as un-sleepy as we were!)

Sunday morning we managed to peel our eyes open in plenty of time to get ready for church--more than enough time, as we realized later in the morning when the computers told us the REAL time was different from the alarm clock time!  At least we had extra minutes on our side rather than trying to rush everyone out the door!  We walked to the base chapel...we were nearly the first ones there, aside from the praise team.  (That tells you how early we woke up, ha!)  We met the chaplain and a few other folks before the service began.  We were able to take Lucan and Zaden to their own rooms; Kenna was dismissed after the singing and fellowship time to go with other 4 and 5-year-olds.  The older three remained with us.  I have to confess I really like the idea of having them with us during the service!  Since they don't attend school, they have few opportunities to learn how to sit still and absorb information...our homeschool style is much more laid back than what I grew up with in a school setting, so I do believe this is an important skill, especially in our media-saturated society.

The message was a good one--joy, peace, and financial wisdom from Philippians 4.  Ted and I were pleased with the non-generic approach!  He has been in military services that are pretty vanilla and said that this one was more along the lines of the good teaching he heard at the Kandahar chapel.  There were maybe 150 people there altogether.  So, quite a bit different for us, but we really enjoyed it and look forward to returning.  They have an AWANA program and ladies' Bible studies and a lot of opportunities.  We are thanking the Lord for a strong Christian community here in Naples.

We had a leisurely afternoon that included Ted taking the kids to the library (more peace and quiet for me!), which made them very happy, as they were already starting to get a bit bored with life in the TLF.  (We returned the books a mere 24 hours later...the limit is 15 items PER FAMILY!!)

In the evening we had a time of family prayer, going through each room in our unit and taking turns praying for each other and for our "home" and our time in Italy.  That night was the best night of sleep we've all had in a very, very long time. :-)

All in all, a pleasant weekend together as a family!