For our friends in Boca Raton!

Wow! I am just realizing that we have not blogged in over two months. That is horrible...We have a lot going on. Some good and some challenges. After 6 very long months we are finally in our destination city of San Sebastian. I continue to be amazed at how beautiful it is here. We found a great apartment only about 300 meters from the beach with a great view. From our terrace we can see the water and the mountains around but not the beach. There are lights on the mountains and at night the view is nice as well. The temperatures have been in the high 60s ans low 70s. We have had a few days int he 50s but those are rare.

The girls started school about 3 weeks ago and they are doing well. I think they are understanding more everyday. They are actually being taught in the Basque language (Euskera) and that has been...interesting. The public schools teach exclusively in Basque but the private school the girls go to teaches in Basque until the 5 yr. old school year and then they do a few subjects in each language. So right now the girls are learning Spanish on the playground and from their friends in class. The school day is pretty long and they are happy when the weekend comes and we all get to be home together.

Ian and I started back to school this week. It has been boring. They assigned us to a level 2 class and we are a bit higher than that. We are requesting a change for next week so we pray our request is granted. One of our teachers has spoken to the director and agrees we should be moved to the next level. I hope next week is more challenging. We need to move forward and get this language. I feel like we are in a bit of a valley with our speaking. It is so difficult and when we try to speak the words seem to get jumbled and just fall out of our heads. Or we know the words but can not get them in the proper tense or person. You should totally give grace to everyone you know who is not a native english speaker- it is very difficult to learn and live in a second language. I have meet one girl who is the mother of another set of twins in our girls class. She is half American and wants to practice her english. She was raised here so Spanish is her native language- we meet once a week for a language exchange and she has been great at helping me know what is going on! Sometimes I feel like I am walking around in a fog- I am hoping that the smoke clears soon.

This next week I would like to get the girls enrolled in some kind of extra- curricular. I am looking into swim for Bianca and dance or gymnastics for all three. Any way we can connect with people would be great. I am thinking about joining the gym right next door and I am sure Ian would like to get back into the gym as well. He has been running but has not been out on his bike yet. He finally got his surf board last week so I hope that he will get out and try in the next week or so. I also pray that for him it is "like riding a bike".

We have several events coming up that we would like you to remember: English chat weekend in October and a movie premier for surfers in October as well. Ian and our team mates are looking for a venue for the movie premier, we are hoping that this can be used as the catalyst for some other project in the surfing community.
Thanks to our friends in Boca Raton, Fl for keeping up with us and reminding us that there are people back in the states that love and care for us...even if we do not even know them personally!

PS-If you are on Facebook and we are not "friends" please add us and send us a message letting us know who you are and how you "know" us. This is a great place to see pictures and keep up with us day to day.