safely getting settled

No pics this time, faithful readers, for we are not that set up yet. But we are in Rabat and staying in our own place.

I think that the first order of this entry needs to be the now nearly weekly honorable mentions.

1st to our friends in Philly who helped us clean our house, put our stuff in storage, and pack our car for the trip to Boston. That was fabulous and without the 7 of them we wouldn't have made it at all, I'm sure. THANKS!

On the plane- the two women in our row were fabulous- one had raised her kids overseas and was used to travelling with little ones and the other was a high school student who, blessedly, was gracious about having a baby.
Sam gets a special award for sleeping nearly 17 of the 18 hours of our whole trip- what a dream!

Here in Rabat- I must publicly thank my parents who have set us up with an amazing apartment. It is about three minutes walking from them, is brand new (with an amazing bath tub), is the biggest and nicest place John and I have ever lived, has everything we need to live and lots of extras too (we have furniture, dishware, a crib, cloth diapers (thanks Kari), a washer, and then fun extras like...baby toys, a mini vacuum, binoculars, oil painting kit etc). Oh and when we got here there were beautiful bouquets of flowers and special food items like nutella and spices all set up for us. My mom has been cooking dinner for us every night so far so our life here is pretty amazingly sweet.

I guess there are just a few more big events to mention this week- 1st I got a terrible infection as we were planning to drive up to Boston and thankfully got antibiotics in time to feel better for the flight and 2nd we had a great family meal that I will post some pics of later with my mom's side of our extended family. The pics will just have to wait for now.

I know that there will be many more exciting 'life in Rabat' things to write about in coming weeks so I won't go into it all this time. What I'm looking forward to is discovering what the unique perks of life here are- what will be the things that I do as often as I can while I'm here and I'll miss when I leave. In Philly it is things like Wissahickon Gorge for walks, and culture and history stuff. In Aceh, it was the gorgeous mountains and beaches. In Japan, it was the seasonal cherry blossoms and tasty treats (like mochi ice cream).

More later...