Our trip and first days here

Greetings from España!! This is my first blog post from Spain so let me catch you up on our trip and our first few days here...

We arrived at LAX around 4 pm. That meant that we woke up at 2:30 and left Simi Valley at 3 AM. And yes, we actually did sleep some that night. I think we went to bed around 11. 3 1/2 hours of sleep isn't too shabby! And we had no trouble getting up at 2:30. Everything was packed and in the car, so after a quick shower, off we went! It was surreal riding through California one last time! LAX was pretty empty and we made it through check out just fine. All of our luggage was under the 50 lb limit, phew! Here is our luggage shot...we had about 20 pieces of luggage, including carry-ons and car seats!

Our first leg of the trip was from LAX to Dulles, DC. It was about a 5 1/2 hour flight. Cael and Gus sat together, while Coen and I hung out in the row behind them. Coen and I slept for about 3 of those hours and Cael was quite entertained by the movies on our iPad that FBC gave us via the iTunes gift cards. The flight passed quickly and we arrived in Dulles in good spirits. Our layover there was 3 1/2 hours. It gave us time to eat lunch and stretch our legs.

Here is Coen...he had many opportunities to wander around and get some of his energy out!

Here is Cael enjoying some of his new toys, also courtesy of FBC!

Here are my boys looking at planes out the window...

And then, before we knew it, our time in US was over. We boarded a plane and off we went! I think it was in the airport and while we were boarding that it hit both Gus and I that we were actually leaving the US. It was a little sad but mostly very exciting. All our years of planning, praying, and hoping were coming to fruition!! Here we are waiting for the plane to take off, in our seats...

The flight went pretty well. Thankfully, since we paid for 4 seats, we had an entire row to ourselves. Definitely the way to do it with 2 little kids! No one to bump into or apologize too. The boys ate dinner and then immediately fell asleep. We had kept them awake almost the whole day, so they were utterly exhausted! Out of the 7 1/2 hour flight, they slept about half of it. Not too shabby. There were a few moments of boredom but overall, honestly, they did great. I know many people were praying and I think that's what made our trip go so smoothly!

Once landing, we went through immigration/customs. The line was pretty long but once we got to the front, we passed through just fine. The police officer who checked our visas was shocked we were moving there. We've actually had a shocked reaction from pretty much everyone we've encountered out and about that realizes we're moving here.

And then a sweet American couple from the church brought their very large van to pick us up in Madrid. Good thing they had such a big car because we barely squeezed in! But we made it and drove 4 hours from Madrid to Toral. We are currently staying in Toral. It is a pueblo village about 30 minutes outside of León, the city we will be living in. The church in León, that we are working with, also has a Bible institute in Toral. There is a large facility here with 2 locations that people come from all over Spain to attend the institute and camps during the summer. So we are staying here until our apartment is ready. When we arrived, a STM from Grace Community church was here. It was soo fun to spend time with some Americans and they loved on our kids so much. They left this morning, but I will post more pics about them later.

On Friday, David took us into León. David and his wife Loida are GCC missionaries, whom we have come to work with. David has been really kind in showing us around and helping us get settled. He took us to our new apartment, which was very exciting!! Here are the boys on Friday, as we walked around León...

Here are some pics of our new place. I took these from my iPad, so they're not the best. Nor is the lighting. Here is the living room...the ladder and tools are in the middle, but you can see beyond them to the windows, which is where our couch will go...

This is our kitchen. It's nothing but walls right now but you can see the pretty wood flooring!

Back to the living room, this is our built in bookshelves the architect built. He painted the wall behind that cool blue color. And the top/outer row of shelves slides back and forth. They're really cool! And will hold a lot of books, which is a good thing because Gus has a ton of them!!

Here is Cael looking out the window...

Here is our view out the living room window...

We love our apartment! It should be ready this week. We are excited about unpacking and staying unpacked for a long time :)

As we were driving back to Toral, we saw this big bull up on the hill. Love it!

Ok so I will post more pics. Please keep praying for us. We're adjusting well. And enjoying our time here with the church and all the new people we're meeting. Our boys are used to the time zone now, as are we. And we are thankful to be here!!