6:25a.m. –wake to Ben screaming wildly. It sounds like he has a foot stuck through the side of the crib, so I jump out of bed and race to the boys’ room. Nope, he’s just impatient to start his day. I free him from his little prison and let him become a free range toddler.

6:30a.m. – Microwave a mug of leftover coffee from yesterday (coffee’s expensive here, so we don’t waste it!). Respond to Ben’s repeated requests for “bottle! bottle! bottle! bottle!” by getting him some milk. Turn on burner of steel-cut oats that have been soaking since last night.

6:40a.m. Step over foam blocks which are spread all over the kitchen floor. Find some real clothes to put on. Get out bowls and our fresh, local maple syrup to go on the oatmeal (we got the syrup from a “sugar shack” on a language school field trip recently). Put away last night’s clean dishes… we have no dishwasher here, so it’s all by hand for us.

6:51.a.m. Change Ben’s diaper, pick out some clothes for his day. Take several gulps of coffee, toss dirty dishes in sink to find and clean some counter space (this is in extremely limited supply in our cozy little apartment, so no meals can be made until this is done!).

7:01a.m. – Dish up the oatmeal, drag kids off of the couch and get them to the table.

7:14a.m. Read kids Bible story from Jacob’s kids Bible – Noah’s ark today. Have to yell the story so Jacob can hear, since Ben is shouting “open! open! open!” over and over. Can’t figure out what he wants. Try to fit in a few bites of my own food.

7:24a.m. Realize that Ben was actually trying to get me to “close” the book (he gets his opposites mixed up a lot right now!) so that I would come remove the raisins from his oatmeal. Remove all of Ben’s clothes, since he has dripped oatmeal on everything. Resign myself to the fact that he’s not actually going to eat oatmeal even when raisins are removed, so I let him down.

7:28a.m. Wonder why I’m still feeling so tired. I stayed up a little later than usual last night, but not too late. Steal 10mins while Jacob is eating and Ben is playing to check email.

7:38a.m. Shoo Jacob to his room to get dressed while I clean up the table and wake Tim (he’s the night owl in the family, so he takes care of the kids when they get up late at night, and I cover the first part of the morning with the kids and let him sleep in a bit!).

7:44a.m. Send Jake to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Break up fight between Ben, who is trying to close the bathroom door, and Jacob, who is pushing it open, since he’s scared of having the bathroom door closed. Breathe a prayer of relief that this squabble was broken up with no broken noses involved, as Ben is the exact height of the doorknob right now. Make Jacob’s lunch.

7:59a.m. While Tim reads Ben a story, hurriedly help Jacob get his jacket, vest, shoes, backpack, hat and gloves on. Kiss him goodbye and watch him walk to the bus. Sigh of relief that the craziest part of my day is now over. Get Tim’s breakfast ready and clear the table. Realize that I’m tired because the last coffee we made yesterday was decaf. Dump my unleaded cup and get a new batch going.

8:13.a.m. Get Ben dressed (for the second time), pick up some toys. Get Ben’s diaper bag ready to go. Retrieve Ben from outside, since he doesn’t yet have socks, shoes or coat (does this boy have mischief written all over his face, or what?!). Get Ben ready and sit on the front step with a steaming new cup of coffee, watching him play out front while we wait for his ride to show up. Take a few deep breaths of the cool morning air; listen to the birds chirping. Enjoy the fact that leaves are finally coming out on the trees.

8:30a.m. Ben’s ride appears. Chat with her about possible attendance at a banquet at the language school this weekend.

8:36a.m. Wash dishes. Take hot shower. Get dressed (back into jammies – love having afternoon classes!). Throw a load of laundry into the washer and start making Tim’s birthday cake – THE flourless chocolate cake that we only make twice a year (so our clothes continue to fit us).

9:00a.m. Clean up toys on the floor and move furniture so Tim can mop this morning… don’t even want to tell you how dirty and gross the floor was! Send a few emails.

9:58a.m. Move the laundry over and realize that I forgot to check the dryer for toys before putting the last load in… silly me. Pull out a whole bunch of foam blocks along with the still-warm laundry (see pic – all of the blocks on the floor went through the dryer cycle)! Strip the beds, get a second load going.

10:05a.m. Study time! Browse Haitian newspapers for a good article to discuss in our current events class. Find one on the challenges of morality and virtue in a corrupt society. Look  up new vocab words (I learn: corrupt, benchmark, stagnation, sanctioned, and a cool French word that doesn’t seem to have a good English equivalent(?): an adjective meaning something that cannot be overlooked). Debate doing some errands, but need to stay near the cake for a while longer; the apartment is smelling divine with all that melty chocolatey goodness in the oven!

11:06a.m. Remove cake from oven. Eat toast. Wish I was eating cake! Begin homework for my other conversation class, in which I’ll discuss my devotions – Luke 12 today. Read the passage in English and then in French, looking up some more vocab words (this time, it’s getting drunk and corporal punishment) so that I can articulately share about it.

11:45a.m. Finish devotional/study time. Get dressed for real this time (our school has a dress code, so we wear nicer clothes to class).

11: 58a.m. Realize that I need cash to pay for Benjamin’s daycare (he goes across town to an in-home garderie run by a wonderful  Christian couple!). Drive 6mins to the local pharmacy that has an ATM inside that doesn’t charge a foreign transaction fee – important to us since our bank accounts are still back in the US.

12:24p.m. Run in quickly to the grocery store to get raspberries and whipped cream to top off Tim’s decadent birthday cake. Pity the cashier, who has to do everything in two languages until her customer lets her know if they’re an English or a French speaker (this part of town is officially bilingual, instead of just French). I choose to chat in French.

12:49p.m. Lunchtime = leftover barbecue chicken, Mugadarra (Lebanese lentils and rice) and cauliflower.

1:05p.m More dishes. Prep iced tea and snacks to take to class. Head down the hill to the admin building, thinking about how much I have enjoyed in a campus environment this year.

1:30p.m. – Class begins: my turn to pray. Wish praying in French didn’t still make me nervous – the usage of subjunctive in prayer still takes time for me – I don’t like doing it on the spot! We discuss our current events articles. I bust out my new vocab, hoping that I’m pronouncing it all correctly!

2:20p.m. Break #1. I make a phone call (in French) to a local soccer league for one of the beginning language students (speaking on the phone is extremely hard in another language – makes you realize how much we rely on body language!).

2:30p.m. Second hour of class – we all share from our devotions. We revert to English for the odd word here or there, but otherwise class is all at French at this level. It’s fun.

3:20p.m. Break #2. I make a second call to someone else at the soccer league. Breathe a (slightly guilty) sigh of relief when this person speaks English to me.

3:30p.m. Our third hour of class – grammar. We learn some new verbs, and work together as a class to construct a story with 10 new verbs and 5 new adjectives.

4:25p.m. Class done for the day! I listen to the local French equivalent of NPR as I drive to the garderie to pick up the kids. The main story is the same as it has been for weeks here – student protests across Quebec (they’re arguing against tuition hikes).

5:21p.m. Home again. My wonderful husband has cooked up some burgers for dinner. Slow down mentally and enjoy eating in the sunshine with my family. Check on the chocolate cake – it looks fabulous! It won’t be ready to eat until it’s chilled overnight – c’est dommage (that’s too bad!).

5:57p.m. Walk the kids up the hill behind our apartment building to the campus playground. While Jacob swings and Ben slides, Tim and I talk about plug-ins for our family website.

6:52p.m. Help Jake get set to take a shower (it’s his new thing and he loves it– he stands in there singing “it’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring”). Get Ben into jammies and take care of the dinner dishes.

7:14p.m. Scrounge Jacob a bedtime snack, read him his bedtime stories (we alternate between a chapter book, kids French curriculum and picture books of his choosing – tonight it’s French). While Tim puts Ben to bed, I “snuggle” with Jacob until he falls asleep.

8:27p.m. Reluctantly drag myself out of bed (it’s hard to lay in bed for an hour in the evening and not fall asleep!). Set up movie to watch in French. We watch Secretariat, pausing in various places to rewind and listen again to parts we didn’t understand the first time through. Heartened that we probably got 90% of it… such a different experience from the beginning of the year when we arrived and it was like pulling teeth to watch a movie in French!

10:32p.m. Fall into bed, exhausted, but happy. It was a good day.

On August 14th, we will fly from Boise, ID to Orlando, FL. Then on the 15th, we will drive to Ft. Pierce FL, where our partner organization, Missionary Flights International, is located. We’ll check in with MFI, ensure that all is well with our shipment (which will comprise all of our household goods, and should hopefully have reached them a couple of days before we arrive), and then on the 16th, fly with them to Port-au-Prince. Wahoo!