23 January 2008             

Post #14:  Missing Wal-Mart

 I can't believe I am saying this, but I seriously miss Wal-mart!  I know, that's pathetic, but it's true.  I can't even write in the third-person on this one, because I feel I must personally accept responsibility for this disgusting yearning for the Every Day Low Price!

Tonight, we ran out of baby formula, and knowing I would need some in the morning, I went for a walk after dinner to get some at the grocery.  I'm pretty sure we've been to this larger store, which is about a 10 minute walk away, as late as 8 p.m., so I was quite surprised to find it closed when I got there at 7:30 this evening.  Seems to me, store and shopkeepers pretty much open and close whenever they feel like it.  It's common for most businesses to be open from 7-1 and then closed from 1-4 in the afternoon, and then open again from 4-7 or 4-10 p.m.  Makes me wonder if the siesta is popular here.  Maybe Spain isn't as far off as I thought.  Let's see, Sicily is 90 km north of here, so that may put Spain at what...a couple 100 miles?   Hmmm...?

Monday and Tuesday were spent mostly around the flat.  We went out and played some soccer on Monday, and then on Tuesday we worked on a project for homeschooling.  The kids wrote their own blog, and took pictures to form a web album to go with it.  They wrote about the differences between life in Malta and life in Stevens Point.  They had a lot of fun doing this, and I was able to show them how to form a proper paragraph, including a topic sentence, supporting details, and a closing statement. 

Tuesday afternoon, the boys had another great soccer practice.  I took some pictures, so I will include them with this post.  This week, Zazu and his partner, Coach Wayne, switched groups, so Ian and Addison had Wayne.  He also is a very good coach.  They have magnificent drills that they put the kids through to hone their skills.  We're quite impressed.  Dave sees similarities to his way of coaching basketball; their philosophy of building fundamentals and then piecing the skills together, so that before the kids know it they're running plays. The drills teach them to pass strategically, and to handle the ball as they would during a game.

One drill they did was like a game of keep-away, or tag.  Two boys had to try to steal the ball from you (each kid had their own ball) and if they did, then you had to join hands with them and go after the others.  Ian and Addison were among the last four to get “tagged”.  They did such a good job of running away from the attackers and protecting the ball at the same time, you'd never know they were rookies!

We saw a girl about Rachel's age on the other team with Zazu this week.  Now we're thinking we need to get Rachel signed up, too.  She's excited about it.  She's not made any friends here yet, so she'd be thrilled to get to know at least one girl near her age. 

Dave's been looking into renting a van for the time my parents are here.  Since the streets are crazy confusing, the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car, and Dave will be driving a vehicle he's fully unfamiliar with, we request serious prayers for safety while traveling over the next couple weeks! 

Bill and Shirley are scheduled to fly in Saturday night.  They have a condo on the seafront for their first week, and then they'll spend a few days with us before flying home.  We're so excited to have them here with us.  We will set up a tour itinerary with them, so they will get to see some nice sights while here.  One of the things we're eager to do is get on one of the many tour boats and tour around the island. 

Without a local Walmart, we have sent a list of things for my folks to bring along with them; things like:  coffee, coffee filters, wash clothes, super glue, baby cereal and formula, pancake mix and syrup.  There are other items on the list, but you get the idea.  They're packing an extra suitcase for these things. We packed much of the same, as we weren't sure these items would be available here, but our supplies are dwindling already.  Anyone interested in volunteering to deliver our next shipment about a month from now?

Truly, I never thought I'd miss Walmart, but here I am, wishing I could zip over to one now and bring home all kinds of goodies.  One thing that's really going to be tough is finding reasonably-priced birthday presents for Nathan and Addison.  The prices really limit the choices.  You feel like you're throwing money away when you know you can get things for a third of the cost at home.  Ah well, we'll surely have to splurge for the boys.  And we'll just appreciate things so much more when we get home, although with the current trends in the stock market, maybe this experience is just priming us to deal with rising costs at home in the near future.

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