Our First Couple Weeks in Slovenia

Well, we've been gone a since Aug. 28th, and our life has been a whirlwind, but we wanted to give you all an update!

Pastor Jonathan and Al from Oceanway Assembly gave us a ride to the airport on Monday, August 28th.  We loaded up our bags, and boarded the first of 3 flights.

Our little missionary kid, dreaming about his new home!

After 19 hours of international traveling, we arrived in Hungary.  Here, we stayed with Abigail's parents, where we got over jet lag, and prepared to move to Slovenia.

After a couple days, we were very thankful to let Aidan stay with his grandparents, while we went on a week-long house hunting, and prepping trip.

One of our first pictures after crossing the border into Slovenia.  We automatically fell in love!

We were so honored and pleased to meet Dr. Daniel, the superintendent of the Slovenian Pentecostal movement, his lovely wife Vlasta, as well as see his daughter and son-in-law, Tina and Andrej - who also happen to be our friends from Bible college!  They graciously invited us to their home in Murska Sobota, and we enjoyed a wonderful time of fellowship.

After nearly 2 years of talking about it, we were FINALLY in Ljubljana, our new home!  That is the castle in the background, and to the right of us, the university where we plan to take our Slovenian language classes.

We spent the next few days viewing apartments and houses, as well as getting to know our new home a little better.  Here are some of the notable moments:

1. Trying out the local market

 This is an automatic milk dispenser.  It is local, raw milk.  You can buy one of the bottles provided, or bring your own - and fill them up!  It's one of the neatest things we've ever seen!

 There was scrumptious-looking local fruit...

 vegetables...










flowers... as well as honey, mushrooms, dairy products, meats and more!

2. One of the days, we went up to the top of the castle, to get a birds-eye view our this beautiful city!  It's surrounded by mountains all around!  We also had to find the dragon on Dragon Bridge.  The dragon is the symbol of Ljubljana, and is featured heavily around the city!

3. Getting to know our neighborhood

 We were feeling brave one day, and the local pastor named Chris graciously allowed us to park our rental car in the church parking lot, so we took the bus!  The Ljubljana bus system is extensive, and easy to navigate.  We look forward to our public transportation adventures!

This is one our local grocery stores, it's actually the Slovenian (and Austrian) version of Aldi.  It was fun seeing all the grocery options!






4. Trying the local food

 We decided to take the attitude of "if it looks good, try it!"  And we did!  Honestly, everything we tried tasted wonderful!  They do lots of different kinds of cured meats, and spreads, dumplings, yummy desserts and more.

Abigail even tried this purple cheese.  We have no idea what it's called, what it is exactly, or what animal it comes from, but it was good!










5. Home Hunting
We were very thankful to find an apartment that first week we were there!  The apartment we found is right in front of a bus stop (with buses coming regularly, taking us either downtown, or to the church here in Ljubljana), there is a post office across the street, and a grocery store within short walking distance.  We signed the contract and went back to Hungary to get Aidan, and buy some furnishings for our new place.

6. IKEA

 This is what it looks like, to furnish an entire home with IKEA!  We were so thankful to find all the things we needed!  

 Waiting to load it all up!

Who needs a seatbelt, when you're hugging two mattresses, lol???








7. The MOVE

So, on September 15th, we moved into our new apartment!  After living with a dear friend, and in and out of hotels for over 2 years, we cannot express the joy it felt to have a home to call our own!  Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us get to this point!






8. Getting Adjusted

 We don't have a car yet, so we've been mostly walking everywhere.  On one rainy day, we decided to walk to our local grocery store!

 It was overall a great experience, and it was fun to see the different way they do things.  For example, when you bag your produce, you then come over to this machine, where you punch in the produce's code, and it prints out a label for you.

We loaded up our bags and stroller, balanced an umbrella each, and walked back to our apartment, with some necessities and yummy things to eat!  We are so thankful for this grocery store, called Tuš (pronounced Tush - yeah, we've had fun with that)!  It's a great location, and easy to get to!

We've also been riding the bus, which Aidan is particularly fond of!  He keeps making friends with the people sitting next to us, and he loves pushing the button to indicate we want to get off!

So what are we up to now?

We are in the process of applying for our visas (please keep us in your prayers about that, specifically for favor), we will hopefully be purchasing our Speed the Light vehicle soon (thank you, PFYOUTH!!!), and we will also be looking into schooling options for Aidan, and language school for us.

Thank you SO much for all your love and support, we couldn't do any of this without you!

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