Week 1 in PR

Well we’re off for an adventure! This week marks the first week away from our home in Herriman and into our new home in Rio Grande Puerto Rico. What a week it’s been. In some ways the week flew by and I can’t believe it’s already back to Sunday, but in reality it has been a long tough week for us all. Here are the highlights:

We’ve been working on getting ourHerriman home ready to rent for weeks now and when it finally came down to packing what we needed for the next year, this pile of suitcases is what we ended up with! We each planned to take two carry ons onto the plane and then we ended up packing two duffel bags full to check on. Our carryons took up a good chunk of space in the back of Hayleys van! We packed into the van, locked the doors and said goodbye to our house for a time. We all had a hard time saying goodbye but this has been in the plan for long enough now with a significant amount of prep involved that we were all just ready to say goodbye to that stage of the process. The house was ready to leave and we were ready to go! 16 carryons, 2 bags and a small dog in a kennel. It doesn’t get much more packed than that! 

We got to the airport and to our gate after hauling all those carry ons through the airport. I’ll have to say I was pretty impressed that, first of all we made it, but second of all nothing got taken away from us at security. We packed everything you can imagine: pre workout, heavy metal brackets for some shelves in the new kitchen, books galore, picture frames, and even my Bosch bread mixer! A few things got double checked but nothing was taken from us which was just a complete miracle in itself! Once we made it to the gate we were also asked if we wanted to gate check any bags which we promptly agreed to and offloaded 10 of the 16 bags we were lugging around including some bags that weighed well over 50 pounds. We felt light and relieved to get to that point. 

We had a very short layover planned in Dallas and as we sat in our plane in Salt Lake City and watched it be delayed by about 30 minutes we knew that our short layover would quickly become a run through the airport once we landed. And that’s just what it was. We got off the plane and luckily didn’t have those 10 extra bags with us as we ran through the airport and jumped on the train to get to the other terminal and got to our gate just in time to get on the plane before they closed the doors! As we sat down on the plane and caught our breath for a minute, that minute turned into a few more and another few more before we realized that the flight to San Juan was also going to be delayed. A few minutes turned into an hour and a half then two hours when they finally got on the speaker and asked us all to deplane and get something to eat before we got further instructions and waited for a new crew to arrive. As we were deplaning we all got notifications that the flight had actually been cancelled and we were given hotel accommodations, vouchers for food and a ride to the hotel and back. We quickly booked new flights for the next morning and were all 8 able to jump on the same flight luckily. We got something to eat at subway just as it was closing and found a taxi to the hotel that fit all of us somewhat comfortably.  When we got the the hotel that was “sketchy” (according to Keen) we realized just how tired we all were and fell asleep instantly. As much of a pain a cancelled flight is, we were so grateful for a bed to sleep in instead of overnighting it at the airport. Our flight the next morning was good and uneventful and before we knew it we had made it to Puerto Rico!  

We had a friend that had dropped off our van at the airport for us the day before we landed and it was sooo nice to have a car waiting for us that we could fit all our stuff and us into. We got to the house, unloaded and immediately jumped back in the van for a quick Costco run before it closed Saturday night. We realized that with the cancelled flight, we had lost a whole day that we had been planning on getting things done. So Costco was a must with no food in the house and tired as we were we knew we had to get there. After we filled the van again with food we got home and just crashed. It had been a long few days and the fatigue hit us hard. We slept 12 hours and woke up just in time to make it to church Sunday morning then back to sleep again for another 4 hours after church before we felt somewhat rested. Saturday and Sunday were a bit of a blur looking back now. 

School started this week and we knew that the first order of business this week would be getting the kids ready for school and getting all registered. We had a load of paperwork and documents that all the schools needed so we took Monday and did just that. We had to transfer all the vaccination records from home to the Puerto Rican system so we left all our records at the health department and went to each of the schools. We met teachers, saw classrooms and made sure everything was in order for school to start in two days. Most of the teachers are sooo nice and positive despite most of them not speaking English. A couple teachers (Lievs and Deshs) do speak English and I said a silent thank you for that tender mercy for some of my kids! Keen had a little change with his teacher as his first one that he was assigned to was NOT excited about being a teacher to a student that doesn’t speak Spanish. So the principal luckily switched him to the room next door and his new teacher and him hit it off right away. She had him at “You can eat snacks as much as you want in my classroom”! We felt like lucky parents that our kids are being watched out for even in small moments like these. 

Meanwhile back at the house, things continue to get done. Pepo started working on the tile in the bathroom upstairs and it’s such exciting progress! Carmelo also came to remove the old railings and put up the new ones. All this finish work is so fun to see. It’s getting so close. We had vanities delivered and shopped for a couple other pieces of furniture and it’s starting to come together like a real house up there! 

Monday and Tuesday this week were long, busy, stressful days filled with lots of worry and a few tears as we knew that the first day of school was approaching. I’ll admit that we thought multiple times about just switching to online school for the kids to make it easier on everyone! But remembered that one of the reasons we’re here is to immerse ourselves in the culture and the language of this place that we love. So we’re sticking with it.  

Wednesday morning the kids got up and got ready for school and all looked so cute in their uniforms! They may not like it but it sure makes it easy for moms. We dropped all the kids off at three different schools and, again with a few tears. Some from the kids and some from mom and dad. We knew we had to make it through the first day to have any idea how the rest of the school year would go. I worried and prayed all day. Among the craziness if these first few days, Josh and I reached a different milestone that got a little overlooked until it hit us. This was the first day in 15 years that we had all 6 kids in all day school! With Desh in first grade we reached that point. So crazy that we didn’t realize it until it hit us right in the face :)

I was trying to guess what kind of reactions the kids would have when I picked them up after their first day. I hoped it was ok and was pleasantly surprised to see a big smile on Rhens face when she jumped in the car. She told me a group of girls approached her a lunch and told her that they thought she was so pretty and looked like a supermodel! They chatted with her in broken English and struck up a friendship. That’s a win for this girl who was super hesitant about school at all! The other kids had similar reactions and I couldn’t help but tear up hearing about all my littles being welcomed into their new home. What a beautiful answer to lots of prayers :)

A few other things from this week:

We got our first letter in the mailbox this week and it was a birthday card for Keen! We made some delicious pasta for Keens birthday meal Sunday and ate it up on the deck. We found some cute furniture and picked it up Saturday when we were out. One large cabinet barely fit into the van complete with a ghetto bungee cord to hold the back door closed on our way home.  We got some plants that we had started from seed planted into larger pots. And had couches delivered for the upstairs family room! They make it look like a real home now! And had date night Friday night and went to a yummy pizza place with an awesome back story. We’ll definitely have to go there again along with the ice cream shop across the street that served the most delicious “corn” flavored ice cream with cinnamon sprinkled on top. 

What a week it has been. One for the books definitely. But one that is a good jumping off point for the rest of our adventure on this Isla de Encanto.