Carly started preschool 3 weeks ago and has been loving it. She goes to a Methodist church just a few minutes away from us. It is way nice and I feel blessed that we found a option for her to go to preschool here in Arkansas. She is starting to learn all her southernisms like “yes ma’am” and “yes sir” and “five minutes peace” etc. I love that Pastor Dan comes into the class every Wednesday and teaches the kids out of the bible! It was pretty hard for me to let her go, as I know it is with every parent. It’s especially hard having people teach her things that are different than what I teach her… nothing extreme but up until now I have taught her all she knows and it’s a hard thing to give her up to someone else to teach her. I do love getting some alone time with Holland during the day though!
8 week impressions of Arkansas:
-There are so many mosquitos here…I am kind of surprised I don’t have West Nile Virus yet (not lyme disease, I swear I know the difference:)) . Every time I go outside to run/play with kids/take out the trash I spray myself with bug spray. I mowed the lawn last week in pants and even after spraying myself I got THIRTY mosquito bites on the backs of my legs. I couldn’t sleep that night because I itched like crazy. I decided that’s what hell is probably like - having mosquitos bites that never stop itching! The crazy thing is that I usually don’t feel them on me, they are stealth creatures. And forget about wearing flip flops outside if you’re going to stay out longer than 2 minutes because you’ll get bitten all over your feet and somehow on the soles of your feet. We are paranoid about getting any in the house because they bite us in our sleep. Casey slept with his leg out of the covers one night and woke up with bites all over his leg. Now we pump the AC at night so we can sleep with all our blankets on at night, haha. Whenever we see one flying around we stop all we’re doing, hunt it down and DESTROY it! One night Casey and I were watching TV and we just busted up laughing because we were sitting there scratching ourselves like dogs because we had so many bites on us! I have come to grips with the fact that I will look like I have chicken pox until it finally freezes here (if it ever does?) and the mosquitos die off.
- Continuing on with the nasty creature rant… COCKROACHES! For reals I had never seen one in my life that wasn’t behind a glass wall at the zoo. One night I walked in late into our room and the lights were off because Casey goes to sleep early and I turned on my lamp and a huge nasty cockroach ran under our dresser. I screamed so loud and I could not sleep that night because I felt so many phantom bugs crawling on me and biting me. The next day I tried to find it to give me peace of mind but it couldn’t find it. Please don’t tell me it’s building a nest somewhere.
-Now cute creature rave. We have a lot of cute little lizards and frogs that live in our yard. I love them because I like to think that they are eating all the mosquitos, but in reality they are probably just getting bitten to death like everyone else. Whenever I mow the lawn I get scared that I might run over one. Once I weed whacked a lizard on accident, it blended in with the grass, and it died (obviously), I cried for about 20 minutes.
- I still have a hard time understanding people here.
- I can’t wait for cooler weather
- I love Bluebell ice cream
- I miss having friends close
Even though I may complain a lot about bugs I promise I really do like it here. It is really different than the Midwest and West which has been a hard adjustment for me but the South has a lot of charm. It is so beautiful here along the Mississippi River, and people here are so warm and kind. I am really glad that I’ll get a glimpse into Southern life during the year we’re here.
