Ideas for Making the Most of Skype

Picture this: Two children, best friends for years, now separated by an ocean. They were so eager to chat online that they could barely eat breakfast, and now they sit in front of the computer.  Finally! 
Eagerly they exchange greetings, and for the first 3 minutes, conversation flows excitedly across continents.  Then… silence.  The awkward moment where they want desperately to keep talking, but they have no idea what to say. 
What’s a Momma to do?  This is the moment where a mother’s heart begins to question.  How can I help them through this transition?  Why on earth did I bring them here in the first place?
We recently moved overseas, and this moment has played out in our home several times over the past weeks.  Inspired to work hard at keeping in touch, I brainstormed a list of ideas to help encourage better Skype chats that feel like real playtimes for my kids.  Today, I’d like to share a few of our tested favorites.
1. Ask Questions.  Remind your kids that their friends have things going on in their lives too, and those thing are still part of their friendship equation.  I often have to prompt my kids with questions to ask.  Sometimes I know things about their friend’s lives that help with this.  If I know from Facebook that their friend was sick, or visited their Grandma, this is a piece of information I can feed to my kids to help keep conversation going.

2. Play Games.  Connect 4, Hangman, and many other games can be played via Skype. Kids talk more while they are playing together.
3. Draw and Color.  My daughter loves to color and draw, and so do most of her friends.  They like to do a 10-minute draw, where for 1 minute they both draw with red, then another minute with blue, and so on.  After 10 minutes, they show each other their drawings.  They talk while drawing, free of self-conscious silence.

4. Plan listening dates.  We often listen to an online radio station here, and it’s available anywhere.  So the kids will set a time with their friends, and they both listen.  Then they Skype and talk about the programs or songs they heard.
5. Let the kids give tours.  This can be a little dicey with an expensive laptop and a small child, so often my husband and I will carry the laptop around the apartment or playroom, and let the kids show the person on the other end anything they want to share.  Then we encourage their friends to do the same.
What other ideas have you implemented for helping your kids stay in touch with their friends while your family is deployed or serving overseas?  Leave me a comment, I’d love to give them a try.

Our Apartment

We’re now completely settled in our new apartment.  Please email me if you would like our mailing address (postcards for the kids are highly valued and carried around everywhere for days.  Just saying.  :)

Here are some photos.

As for the date stamp on these photos…  Well.  It has since been corrected.  These are indeed 2013 photos.  :)

Coming soon… observations from Sofia.

And Then It Was Time

Monday, July 8.  Flight day!  We checked out of our hotel at noon with all of our luggage.  We had 13 suitcases, 4 rolling carry-ons, and 4 backpacks.  Whew! 

We had to wait for about an hour to check our bags.  Apparently British Airways had no morning flights that day and the counters were closed.  We couldn’t get very far with all the bags, so we waited.

Then we went through security, and waited again.  :)

And then we boarded the plane.

The kids did great on the flight.  They only slept about 2 hours, so we were all exhausted when we arrived.  See?

In the next post, I’ll share some of our first impressions of Sofia!

Thanks for reading!

Fortnight of Moving, Part 3

As I mentioned in a previous post, this recounting of our moving adventures is to record this time for my children, share photos with friends and family, and perhaps to assist other missionary parents in preparation for their own move.  If you do not fit into the above categories, please feel free to skip ahead.

After spending the week in Illinois with family (links at the bottom if you missed these posts), we returned to Indiana to pack and make our final preparations for moving. 

Here are a few photos from this (exhausting) process.

(I am missing some photos here, but maybe I will find them soon.)  Anyway, we went from the piles, to the rental van loaded with 13 suitcases, 4 carryon suitcases, and 4 backpacks.

We had a very nice farewell from our church family, with a surprise party for us, where the kids said goodbye to several of their closest friends. 

We also had a wonderful 4th of July party with some dear friends, another opportunity to say goodbye.

 

On Friday, July 5, we headed to Chicago, and that is where I will begin part 4. 

Fortnight of Moving Part 2

Fortnight of Moving Part 1

Fortnight of Moving, Part 2

After a lovely visit with Don’s family, we went to see my (Alyssa’s) family on Wednesday. We are so blessed that our two extended families are only an hour apart.  It makes visiting so much easier!
All my siblings were in for the visit- we were just one brother-in-law short of a full family gathering (we missed you, George!).  Here are a few of the highlights:

Watching doggy videos on Aunt Cynthia’s phone.

Waiting for the rest of the family to join us at the zoo.


More zoo pictures.
On Friday, the kids woke up before anyone else, so I decided to take them on a breakfast date, then to see a few sites from my High School days.  Their favorite part: The new fabulous playground we discovered!







On Friday night, Milena had another surprise birthday celebration.  She was full of smiles and hugs, and it was wonderful to see her so touched by her family’s love.  Of course, I forgot to take a photo. 
On Saturday we headed home to begin the second stage of our fortnight, packing and saying goodbye to local friends.  To Be Continued…