One week in

Our first week and a half in Lisbon has really been as easy going as I could ever have asked for. Sure, we are currently residing in the world's smallest apartment, but without a home to clean, a yard to manicure, Bible studies and play dates to attend, and friends and family to preoccupy my time, well, my time is free for the three most important people in my life.

In such a small span of time, us girls have painted our toenails twice. Natalie chose pink, purple glitter, and yellow as her first color combination; silver, green, and gold glitter as her second. Heather has never before had her nails painted, but she did this week! Natalie and I chose a deep purple for her the first time, because for some reason, she is my purple, not pink, girl. For her second time we chose yellow.

We've covered almost the entire living space with craft projects- water colors, crayons, stencils, markers, colored pencils, coloring books and paper, scissors, glue, workbooks...

Heather had never used water colors before, and I'll admit, I was feeling a touch apprehensive about the entire idea, but she did wonderfully.

My concern should have been with the more basic of art supplies. It's not like she doesn't have a history for this sort of thing.

On one of our first walking trips down Main Street, we found a lovely little jewelry and purse store, two pharmacies with all sorts of neat nick knacks inside, and an amazing place oddly named Hodenattes. The outside of this place was so deceiving- when we walked through the door, I was amazed at the beautiful setup and pretty things offered, and it was huge! The back of the store was a cafe, with what looked like delicious home baked cupcakes and desserts, loose-leaf teas, and lots of other things I'll be checking out soon. In one of the places we stopped, Natalie discovered the ultimate craft for her: a Melissa and Doug sticker face set.

20 faces, numerous eyebrows and hair bows and earrings and lips and jewels and eyes later, and our tiny place has faces hanging all around, lots of color to brighten up the walls.

Yesterday after Larry got off of work, we took the kids to Sandager Park, the only park in Lisbon. A river runs along one side of it, and within is the public pool, basketball courts, a baseball stadium, mini-putt course, horseshoe pits, and lots of play sets. We've only been here five times since we arrived!

After the park, we discovered a community rummage sale going on at the expo center near the fairground, where I made off with some pretty cool stuffs, then Larry and Natalie brought up their intense desire for ice cream, so we ate in at the Ice Cream, U Scream shop for a past-bedtime snack. Even with the sugar running through them, both girls slept quite well that night.

This weekend will prove to be an adventure of it's own! We'll be checking out a church in a nearby town, then making our way to Fargo for some discovering and dinner. Pics to come.