May 2013 – Greg & Meg

This is a totally random post, but I feel like life with three kids and the work here have gotten the best of me, and I just haven't made the time to blog about the simple things in our life here. I love blogging and journaling about little snippets of our life. So this afternoon, while the girls are working on homework (they have a week of vacation next week which means they have tons of homework–sounds more like vacation for the teachers only, doesn't it??), I am going to write a short post on something new in our home.

For the past year, we have rented the “upper room” from our next-door neighbors. We didn't have enough room for our living room furniture and our big long table. Also, Greg needed a quiet place to study. So, we rented a big room next door, and that is where Greg's office and our church meetings have taken place for the past year.

Last week, our neighbors let us know that they are planning to turn the big room (and the rest of the second floor area) into an apartment to rent out. They said we could have the space for as long as it took them to get the apartment ready. Also, there used to be a door to their side (easy access for us), but our landlord decided to brick the space up last week (whole other story) and so it isn't even easy to go over there anymore.

All that to say is that we decided to make some changes. Greg needs his office space. We decided to make a partition in our current living room, move some of the couch furniture to the other side, and move all of Greg's office stuff to our living space side.

I actually really like it. Our living room is long and narrow. After Greg put his bookshelves in (as the wall) it seemed so much homier (did I spell that right?). Here is a little glimpse of his “office.” And for the record, he has asked for soundproof head phones for his birthday. 🙂

The backs of the bookshelves are all unfinished. Greg looked at me and asked, “What are you going to do to those?” I replied, “What do I do to everything? I add pictures!” I have been waiting to print and frame the pictures we had taken last October since… last October. I figure it might still be awhile (and this solution comes out cheaper) so I decided to make it our family picture gallery. Who says unfinished bookshelves can't look good???

So here it is… the cozy McKinzie living room quarters:

In two weeks the visitor train begins. And it won't end until next year. There is a good reason to keep things cozy around here. 😉

Here in Peru, they swear a group of kids in to the school “Police Academy” each year. This group of kids is chosen based on their academic and social performance. They agree to be exemplary students, and to watch out for the needs of their other classmates, academically and socially. When I told Greg about it, his immediate reaction was, “Oh no! That is like the equivalent of the hall monitor. Our daughter is going to get beat up by the mean kids.” Ha!

Well, she is only in first grade. I don’t think the bullies are that vicious yet. (keepin’ my fingers crossed) Here are some pictures of the ceremony. It is always fun to observe the culture and their traditions that are so different from our own. It is crazy to me that my kids can sing every word to the Peruvian national anthem.