Try Something New: Bulgarian School

Here's another new one. Bulgarian school.

The kids started Bulgarian national school today. Homeschool is going great. Really great. Of all the things I feel like I am failing at right now, homeschool isn't one of them. I'm so thankful for that. It's all God!!! I'm grateful for the time I have had to invest in my kids through this transition to Bulgaria, but we recently decided to look into Bulgarian school for a few reasons. One reason being that I have got to learn this language if we are going to plant our lives here, and study time is non-existent with things as they are. Another reason that I will share (though there are many more) is that our kids are begging for friends. They want to go to school, and they desperately want to learn the language so they can have friends here. And what is the best way for them to learn the language, the culture and make friends? Throw them in the deep end. 

Our plan was to look into a few schools for the kids to possibly start after Christmas, and take some time, a little more time, and pray. But when we went to visit the school that is a stone’s throw from our apartment, the director, who was very nice, said if we wanted our kids in that school, then we must put them in now. She can’t guarantee that there will be an open slot for the kids if we wait, but she also promised that they would do everything they could to make this a good transition. So we got the documents in order on Monday, met their teachers and got their books Tuesday, and they started this morning. 

My brave babies. They amaze me!

It went GREAT!!! They love their teachers and each made a few friends. Kate said, "I basically hung out with ALL the girls." But she has a "best friend" who sat beside her and helped her throughout the day. So good!!! She said she understood everything, and while her class did English, her teacher had her translate all of the English into Bulgarian. Kate hung in there and got the job done with only a little help from her teacher. Amazing! 

Thomas had a great day as well. He likes his teacher, got to play in the gym and in the snow with his new friends and while he has no idea what anybody's name is, he says he made friends. Ha. 

So 'Try Something New: Bulgarian School' was a rousing success, and for today, and hopefully many days to come we have thumbs up all around!

We are so thankful for how God went before us today, for how He gave patient teachers and new friends. We are thankful that Kate's 2 years of Macedonian school are helping her with the language here. We are thankful that they are looking forward to going back tomorrow. Yes! We praise the Lord for this and so much more. He is good!

We know there will be hard days. Different culture. Different style of learning and discipline. Different. There will be days when different may feel really bad or really scary, but we are trusting that the Lord has led in this and that this is for the good of our whole family and our long term witness here. We will give Him all the glory as we watch Him provide for our every need in every place, every day. 

Try Something New: Boza

"Try Something New" is back. It may not be quite as exciting as our Try Something New: SE Asia Edition, but Bulgaria may have a few surprises up its sleeve for our taste buds and sense of adventure. We regularly think we know how things are going to go here in Bulgaria because we lived in its cousin country for 9 years. Same cultures, similar language, same cuisine... or so we thought. There are far more differences between the two than I ever realized and why wouldn't there be? I mean, why would anything be easy?! No. Not when God still has so much to teach us, so many more ways to humble us. So instead of getting frustrated, we've decided to embrace it.

For starters: BOZA! Not bozO. Boza. We have tried boza in Macedonia before, and well, we were far from impressed--like exercising our gag reflux not impressed. But we heard that Bulgarian boza is different. It is thicker and sweeter, but still, it's a fermented wheat drink.... Your mouth is watering now, isn't it?!

So to truly embrace our host country's cuisine and have a little family fun, we decided to pour a glass, and toast to new adventures. Watch the video to see reactions. 

Isaiah's reaction is my favorite and may or may not mimic my own. Poor kid. I think he really thought it was chocolate milk. Kate said she liked it on camera. So once the camera was turned off, I called her bluff and told her to go ahead and finish her cup off and I would pour her some more. That's when the truth came out. We may not be the biggest fans, but we definitely had a great time trying something new. 

Cheers! 

Here is a link with more info on boza, and if you really want to try it for yourself, come on over and we'll film your reaction to this fermented yeast drink. 

Try Something New - Hairy Fruit

Peaches are fuzzy. Apples are waxy. Cantaloupes are rough. Watermelons are hard. But this...

 This prickly, spiney fruit looks kind of like a bald man with hair plugs.

Rambutan. 

I found it pretty funny that when I googled it, wikipedia informed me that in Malay-Indonesian cultures it is called rambut which means "hair." And in Vietnam it's called chomchom which means "messy hair." See, I wasn't too far off when I compared it to a bald man's hair plugs. Messy hair fruit. Yes!

It's not a fruit I would think anyone would ever even attempt to eat. But here, it is in season and for sell by the truck-load. So we picked some up. It's been a while since we have done an official "try something new." So this looked like it would be a great way to get back into the swing of things. I pulled off on the side of the road and bought a bag full. I probably shouldn't have bought a whole bag full, but for all I knew we may have been on the edge of striking tasty fruity gold. 

Kate examined it thoroughly for us, and Brian chopped into it.

The inside is kind of squishy, like a juicy stress ball. 

It was after Isaiah shoved the whole squishy middle into his mouth that we realized there is a pit. So we had to sweep it out of his chubby cheeks. 

Thomas decided he wasn't a fan. I think the final vote was 5-0, the winning vote deciding that we did not strike fruity delicious gold. Oh well. It really wasn't bad, but for now we're gonna stick with bananas and apples as our go-to fruits. We enjoyed our hairy fruit adventure.

Our try something new endeavors have fallen flat too many times. But maybe next time we will find something we just can't live without. I hear rotee is amazing. We'll see...

Sticky Falls and The Walking Street

Last weekend we decided to go exploring. There are lots of fun and interesting things to do in and around our new city, and we had been chomping at the bit to get out and enjoy some of them.  Everyone was finally well, and while our little Thomas still had four stitches in his head, we decided to not let that detour our plans.  Saturday we headed out to the sticky waterfalls which is a natural waterpark of fun! Hiking through the cool mountain water is the way to hike in this green jungle heat. 

 We had a blast climbing up and down the falls--I'm talking off the charts on the fun-ness scale. It is a giant natural (with the major on the nature) waterpark where the climbing up is as fun as the going down. It's more fun, in fact, since the sticky falls are, well, sticky, there's no sliding down, until you hit a mossy spot and then things can get wild. We almost lost Kate. I think Brian caught her by the ankle and she dangled for a minute. At least that is how it played out in my mommy brain.  But that one moment of terror was light and momentary compared to all the wet and wild fun we had. And as you can see in the background of the picture above, the people enjoyed watching us enjoy ourselves. The paparazzi followed us into the mountains too. A couple of them just cut in between our littlest man and us to grab him and get some selfies with him. He cooperated for the most part, and when he made it clear that he was done, they just took pictures from afar.  (And sweet, protective reader, our little one is ok. We are making sure he is safe and happy.)

We all loved it and will make it a regular stop. And you can see more pictures of our waterfall shenanigans here.

After getting Thomas's stitches removed, we decided to head on down to the Sunday night walking street. It's another kind of jungle where the only coolness was the sweat dripping down our backs.  The Sunday night walking street is a treasure to anyone looking for state fair like foods with an Asian flair, souvenirs of any kind, foot massages, and even live music and dancing. Basically it is the state fair that rolls out every Sunday night.

We found a parking lot and rode the Song Teew in.  You remember those? The truck with the benches in the back.  This was Kate's first ride and every person has to document their child's first ride in a Song Teew.  

So pretty.

There's the food. I mean, this was like 1/1000th of the food. There are little vendors set up like this every where. Fried food, wrapped food, food on a stick. Blended fruits, wrapped fruit, fruit on a stick. Pink noodles, green noodles, noodles on a stick. Ok, so I haven't seen noodles on a stick, but I wouldn't be surprised...

Here we have a yummy potato on a stick. The potatoes are crispy, salty, and oh so good. 

There's wrapped veggies, also known as the spring roll, served with sweet and spicy sauce. There's wrapped banana, fried with sweet sauce on top. And then there's the fried milk. Yep, fried milk. If that's not straight out of the state fair, then I don't know what is.

(Ok, so I called it banana milk for the first 15 seconds. Whatever.  I have had three children. The end.) And can we just replay and watch how Thomas keeps chewing and chewing and chewing? I guess he eventually swallowed it. The consistency left much to be desired. Think cottage cheese, except sweet, with a crunchy outside and sweet creamy syrup on top.  

Kate loved her meat on a stick accompanied with peanut sauce.

After walking forever looking at cultural beauties and bargaining with their sellers, why not top the night off with a foot massage?  We haven't had our feet rubbed down yet, but it's on our list of new things to do.  Stay tuned...