Many exciting and crazy things have happened since my last post.  The first one being that my little girl turned 6!!!  It's crazy how time flies... some days I feel like it was just yesterday that she was a baby in my arms.  It was the first year we didn't throw a crazy expensive birthday party for her and the first year Nee Nee and Pa pa weren't with us to celebrate :(  We still managed to have a nice time and celebrated with a mall birthday.  We went and saw Paranorman and let her go to the toy store and pick out a new toy.  She chose a Sweetie Bell baby pony that talks and the boys were excited because they got to pick out new toys too.  We also picked up cake at the store to have after dinner.  All in all, it was a nice day.

So it was a great day celebrating Caitlin's birthday, but unfortunately that same morning Miles broke out in spots and blisters.  His school had been sending out email reports that two classmates had broken out with Boston's disease a.k.a. Hand, Foot, Mouth disease.  I thought Miles would be fine because he made it the entire week with no blisters, but Sunday morning before we left to celebrate Caitlin's birthday we noticed his first spots :(  This really is a harmless virus but it is pretty contagious and the blisters can be a little painful if you have them in your mouth or on bottom of your feet.  There's nothing you can take, you pretty much have to let the virus run it's course and stay home from work and school.  By Wednesday Caitlin, Harrison, and Bill all had blisters as well.  

The pictures don't do the blister's justice, they were pretty yucky!

After being stuck in the house for almost a week, everyone was getting cabin fever and by Saturday the troop was ready to go outside and play.  Luckily for us, it snowed!  The forecast said snow and I thought "Okay, it will be like Texas and maybe snow for half an hour or an hour," but boy was I completely wrong.  This is Poland and it snowed hard for 12 hours straight!!  It was pretty amazing and I'm still shocked about how hard and long it snowed.  I made the biggest snowman I'd ever made in my life and the kids played in the snow for a while.  On Sunday, everything was covered in snow and it was a truly beautiful sight.  I'm writing this 5 days later and there is still some snow on the ground.  I'm beginning to feel a little nervous about the Polish winter.  We've had a few days of bone chilling cold weather here and it's making this Texas girl miss home a little :(

Bill cracks up at this picture because my hat looks like a nipple :)

  Since having three children, I can't remember the last time I went to a store and bought myself "new" clothes. So before we left Texas, I had renewed my love and faith in thrift stores. There are some really great ones in Austin and Arlington and I had some wonderful finds for myself and the family. It renewed my love for shopping and thrifting and I began living under the motto of "why pay full price?"

  Before moving to Poland, I stocked up on warmer clothes for the children at a few of my favorite spots in Arlington. Remember I wasn't able to go crazy because we were limited to about 6 bags of luggage for the entire family. I was really worried about moving to Warsaw and not being able to fulfill my "thrifty" side especially since Warsaw is filled with Malls. I mean there are at least 6 giant malls in Warsaw and they are very popular each with their own cinema and some of them even have a bowling alley too. It was explained to me that after the USSR fell and communism left Warsaw, people wanted access to shopping and everything modern. I mean can you imagine having to wait in line a couple of hours for things like butter and it running out before your turn... that still blows my mind! Also, my friend Margaret said she didn't own her first telephone until she was in college (and I don't mean cell phone).

  Last weekend Margaret took me to about 6 thrift stores and made me a very happy lady. I wasn't able to go crazy because this trip was for the boys but I managed to find myself 2 sweaters for about $45 zloty which is about $15 US dollars...score!I can't wait until I get to go again.

 This is the one of the stores!

Here are my finds!

Okay we are here and settled and I'm ready to post my first post since moving to Poland! I've been teaching for a month now and we are all getting used to the new routine of waking up early, walking to the bus stop, and going to school everyday. I will blog about my school and classes later but really they deserve their own blog ;) Bill just got back from Texas and it's so awesome to have him back! There are so many pictures to post, I'm not sure where to begin. I will show you pictures of our apartment first. We live in an IKEA catalog. It's a bit orange for my taste, but this reminds me of UT and the Longhorns which is nice.

Our entry way

Our very blue bathroom

The children's bedroom... Caitlin will be getting her own room soon

Our dining room

Our living room

Our kitchen

Our office... this will be Caitlin's room

This is our dryer!!! We live in the Wilanov distrct which is close to the palace and it's a newer area. I love it! It's like an apartment city with several different apartment building complexes and each one having different shops and stores on the first floor (which they refer to as floor 0). There is an organic market in our building and a pharmacy on the corner,in the building next door there is a post office and a convenient store, and two buildings over there is a butcher and a store with wonderful fruit. There are many more shops around and restaurants too. It is really convenient and it's nice to not depend on a car! It takes us about 20 minutes to get to school every morning. We are a 10 - 15 minute walk to the bus stop, 2 stops on the bus, and then another 5 minute walk. It is great to live so close to work :) We are about a 25 minute bus ride to the city center (on weekends when there is no traffic). We've explored the Old Town and surrounding area about 3 times. Here are some pics of our adventures. More to come soon...