First day...ish...

Bet you're all wondering how our first day with kids went...well it didn't. :-)  We still had some de-escalation training to finish up and had to have our TB test finished so they postponed our first day with kids until next week.

So in place of the "first day of school" post, I'll try to give you a better understanding of what life is/will be like here.  We have a big house.  It has 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms for us. We have chosen to put both kids in the same room so we can use the 3rd bedroom as a personal living room/craft room for us.  The rooms are actually quite big so it's not a problem.  When we finish getting everything unpacked, I'll post pictures.  We have a communal living room, kitchen, dining room, and office area.  Finally, there are three boy's bedrooms all with their own bathrooms.  "Our" rooms are all separate from the rest of the house and can be locked to keep our section private.  We have a private entrance through our room as well.

There are a total of six cottages all next door to each other.  Three boys cottages and 3 girls cottages.  We live in Cottage 2.  We will only be houseparenting boys.  We are the "relief parents."  All houseparents work three weeks on, one week off.  When the houseparents from Cottage 1 have their off week, their boys come live in our house. The next week, when the houseparents from Cottage 3 have their off week, their boys come live with us.  The 3rd week, we work as backup parents...basically help with doctor's appointments, help shuttle kids around, etc.  And then, we are off for the fourth week.

At capacity, each cottage can have up to 8 kids.  Currently, one cottage has 6 boys and one has 4.  The boys range in age from 3-19.  Once they graduate high school, the kids are assisted in finding a college to attend or another place to live.  All the kids go to school "in town" (2 miles down the road).  They get breakfast and lunch at school.  As housemom, I'm responsible for feeding them afternoon snacks, dinner, and an evening snack...and all meals on the weekends.  We treat them as part of our family.  If we run errands, they run errands.  When we go to church, they go to church.  We all eat dinner around a large table (think Duggar's). 

We are really happy here.  I'm not so naive as to think that life with lots of boys of varied pasts won't be difficult at times.  Still, we are thankful for this opportunity.  We have peace about our decision to be here and truly feel God's presence in this decision.

P.S.  Any questions that you all have?  Anything you're curious about?  If you know me at all, you know nothing's off limits!  Ask away!