1st part of week of Aug. 29th/ School Starts

The car that I test drove a week ago or so we ended up buying.  It is a 2009 Volvo XC 90.  It is a crossover with 7 seats.  It was for sale from a guy who works with Jason his friend was selling b/c his friend was an expat and had moved back to where they came from.   It is automatic which is hard to find, and they had 2 DVD players put in the back of the headrests of the driver and passenger seats.  So that is nice b/c we were never expecting our car here to have that.  The only thing is they only play zone 2 DVD's which are DVD's that have been purchased in Europe, DVD's from home are all zone 1, so none of our DVD's will work.  So the kids are excited they will get to pick out a few new movies.  So even though I miss my minivan this car is newer and hopefully will work out ok.  It took awhile to get all the money transfered and timing of things worked out so we just got the car tonight.  Now we need to work on getting the car insured and registered.  So we now will have 3 cars.  We cleared out room in the garage so the Volvo will stay parked there until we get all the paperwork figured out!  Unfortunately the people left the car a mess.  So we need to get the car cleaned out.  Figures I just had gotten my car all nice and cleaned at home and now I get this!
Tonight getting everyone cleaned up, saying goodbye to summer and getting the backpacks, snacks, and lunch boxes ready and clothes out for school tomorrow!
I didn't get their class lists until Friday, just a few days before school actually starts.  They send out via email the whole lower school list of teachers and students to everyone in the school, from preschool through 5th grade.  Jacob has another Jacob in his class.  Both boys have 20 kids in their classes and their are 4 classes per grade 1-4.  And I kept waiting for their school supply list to come out, and I guess they don't need any, they get everything at school.  For the amount the school charges I am glad to hear they buy the supplies!

Today was the boys first day of school.  I had to wake everyone up to get going.  We took pictures out in front of the house.

Then off to school.  We left on the earlier side since I have been worried about trying to park there, so we got a spot.  And then the kids line up on the playground by class.  So that was the same as home.  It was a high of 52 degrees when we were at school- a little cooler then the normal first day of school!

Amber had her meet and greet with her teachers and visit the classroom.  She has a nice man for a teacher, and he is from Sweden. And then one of the assistants is from Scotland, and then the other assistant floats between her class and the other 3 yr. old preschool class.  So for 18 preschoolers per class there are 2.5 teachers.  Overall everything seemed nice and she had a good time playing with things in the room.  She doesn't go back until Wed. morning just for 1/2 the time.

Then the boys school ended at 3:20 so we were there before 3pm to make sure we got a parking place and by 3pm the lot was full.  The boys get picked up in 2 different buildings so I went to get Sean first and by the time we were leaving Jacob was already on his way over to get us.  Sean's building is for Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade.  The boys both had a great day at school and this is what they said about it.

Sean's teacher said he was "delightful today".  Boy does he have her fooled! Ha!  His teacher is from Australia.

Sean has lunch in a multipurpose room just like at his old school, but they are allowed to sit with anyone.  He said the room is divided in half.  So those that want hot lunch sit on one side and those bringing their lunch sit on the other side.  Everyday they offer hot lunch, or a pasta dish, or a sandwhich for the lunch choices.  He said on the tables in the hot lunch area there are cups and a water pitcher and then someone comes by and sees if they would rather have milk and pours milk in their cups.  So no buying just milk here.  They have a mid morning 20 min. recess outside and that is where they eat their snack they brought from home.

Jacob has 5 people from Sweden in his class, one of them being the other Jacob. He said his teacher is from Canada.  For his lunch he eats in a cafeteria like the high school kids have.  So grades 3-5 eats in this cafeteria.  The teacher in the morning writes down who is having hot lunch and what they want, same as at their old school, and Sean's class does this as well, and then our account gets billed quaterly for what they buy.  They can also eat with whoever at tables that seat 4 people.  There is a strict no peanut products at all, so that will be hard over the year with no peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches.  For lunch they have 30 minutes to eat and 30 minutes of recess, so the boys could tell they didn't feel so rushed eating lunch like they did at their old school.  They played tag and ran around at recess.  Jacob has lunch and recess from 12-1pm so a good time.  Both boys have lockers that they put their coats and backpack in every day which is right outside their classrooms.  They don't lock. 

Their calendars are a little different, they run on a 7 day schedule.  I don't really know how to explain this well.  But today was A,and then tomorrow B, etc. On Friday it is E, then next Monday is F, and Tuesday is G, then Wed. starts over at A.  So then the diferent PE, music, French, etc.  are listed that we do that every A and C day or D and G days and such.  So this will take some getting used too.

They each had some homework tonight, not too bad.

After school we went to a park with a friend and the kids all played except Amber who was screaming most of the time.  After the park we walked down the street to where I had a referal from someone for a haircuting place and got the boy's a haircut.  The lady is from Iceland.  She has an apt. in this building and then on the next floor up she has a salon where she does hair.  So it went well.  And she gave the kids a gummy bear when they were done so they were happy.   

Sean and his spiked hair!

Tues. after the kids lined up on the blacktop and school started some of the moms (and Amber since she hadn't started school yet) went into the cafeteria.  It stays open for people to come in and chat and you can have a snack, coffee, juice. So that was nice.

I forgot to mention last week we did try the pears after letting them rippen on the counter, and they were ok.  A lot of them were rotten on the inside.  Too bad.

Today I went the grocery store and had a cart full of stuff and was carrying a big garbage can to the check out line ( you know the kind you step on and then  the lid opens to put in the kitchen).  Try carrying that and pushing a cart full of groceries with a child in it that rolls forward and sideways! So I get to the check out line and it is too big for the belt thing and there is someone in front of me so I just set it down at the end of the check out line.  Then between Amber and unloading the groceries and packing the groceries up into my bags , you bag your own groceries here,  I forgot to buy the trash can and it was the last one!  I didn't even realize until I got home I had forgotten it- ugh!

Wednesday was Amber's first day of school where her and I went into school and I stayed there with her for 1 1/2 hours and 1/2 her class was there.  It was nice.  Some of the kids in her class are from New Zealand, Uraguay, Norway, and Israel.  And some of the kids were born in Luxembourg but their parents are from different countries.   And one of the mom's name was Kerry!  I have rarely met another girl with her name spelled the same as me.  There are 11 girls in her class out of 18 kids so that will be good for her to have many girlfriends!

Wednesdays the boys get out of school at 2:20.  So we went with friends over to the park.  As soon as we got there Jacob did the zip line and fell right on his face and shoulder.  As I had mentioned earlier when I first saw this that is exactly why we don't have these things at home.  His poor face is all scraped up on 1 side and his shoulder all bruised.  Figures that pictures are next week. 
I hired a cleaning lady and she is from Brazil.  She started today.  She ironed for a little over an hour and then cleaned the house for 5 hours.  That isn't even including the basement.  It is a lot of work to clean this house with the other 3 floors and no carpeting (some rugs) so it is vaccuming, and washing so it takes twice as long.  She was very nice and we could speak Portuguese since she knows just a little English, and I know no French.  I am working on getting lessons.  So that was nice.  I think she will come twice a month.

Week of Aug. 22nd / Legoland/Castles

On Mondays is when the recycling comes by.  So I have blue plastic bags which are for certain items, then I have a blue garbage can for paper, and a green garbage can for glass.  All of these are picked up by different trucks.  And I saw some people with a brown garbage can too, but I don't know what goes in that one.  So all of these garbage cans get picked up by different trucks.  They start coming around between 7 or 7:30 and when you sleep with the windows open it can get pretty noisy!  Then on Tuesday mornings at 8am is when the regular garbage truck comes.  So I have a garbage bin that is similiar in size to at home which is good b/c with no disposal and certain items that can't be recycled we have more trash.
On Monday I found a play area inside the mall where the grocery store is and you can drop off your kids here to play while you shop or you can even leave the mall area.  Unfortunatley Jacob was too old for it, but I put the other 2 in there.  It was a very nice, clean area where they had some climby area and then play area, and crafts.  The lady working didn't speak any English but she did speak Portuguese so that helped refresh my Portuguese.  So grocery shopping was a little more pleasant with 2 less little people!
When we came home I saw that I had left the garage door open.  So at least I know that it is a pretty safe area that no one came and took anything since we were gone for about 1 1/2 hours. (Knock on wood) For now I am parking on the street/sidewalk in front of the house, so I just didn't even notice it when I drove away. 

The mail comes here by late morning and I have a mail box on the sidwalk which is a lot closer to my front door then at home.  So the mailman has a yellow shirt on and just walks down the street pushing a little cart and delivers the mail.  Today I receieved something from UPS I had ordered.  I had heard if you weren't home that they might not leave your package, so I waited until I saw him and he missed our house so I went outside to see if he was coming back.  Sure enough he did and I got my package and I asked him if I wasn't home if he would leave it and he said yes.   So either he will leave it next time or he had no idea of what I was talking about.  The UPS man didn't have the typical brown uniform on, so maybe they don't have to wear it here.  And the truck is a lot smaller than at home.

We didn't take any vacations this summer since we were moving and knew there would be a lot of trips we wanted to take in Europe.  So Wednesday was our first trip and we got up and drove to Legoland in Germany.  It ended up taking us a little longer then planned, about 5 hours.  We got mixed up only twice with the exits, so it would take a few miles to turn around.  As I had mentioned before in Germany you have to take many different highways to get where you are going.  So we are constantley getting on and off of different roads or highways to go the direction we want to go.  Here when you go to get off on an exit there would be 2 ramps on the right to choose from and it was difficult at times on the GPS to tell which ramp to take.  And the ramps are just labeled by the towns around there not by the direction- east, etc.   So by the end we just had to go really slow close to the ramps so the GPS could catch up and we would get the right ramp.  Note to self- next time bring a map so we can tell which direction we are going! 
Most of the 5 hours we didn't see much but trees, forests and fields.  We drove through a handful of tunnels through the mountains and up and down.  We stopped at one rest stop along the road and you have to pay 0.70 euros to use the bathroom.  Most rest stops also have a Burger King, but I packed a lunch for all of us so we didn't try it out.  I haven't seen any Burger Kings in Luxembourg.  The kids did well on the drive.  We took the car Jason is using and it has 7 seats so the kids aren't all sitting next to each other because that doesn't go well for long periods of time.  We also had bought DVD players that get attached to the back of the driver and passenger headrests.  So Amber could watch her own movie, Jacob watched a movie and Sean was in the 3rd row so he could watch either one. 
As I say at home it isn't summer but construction season,on the roads especially.  Well it is the same here.  There was a lot of road construction, but I think the difference was it wasn't redoing the roads it was building or expanding to make new roads here.  The German word for highway is the Autobahn.  And most of the time there is no speed limit except for places where you need to slow down, tunnels, etc.  There is a white circle with lines through it which means no limit.  And the far left lane is for passing only. So once you pass someone you have to move back over to the right lane because some people go so fast you will get hit if you stay in the left lane.  We think one guy passed us going around 150 miles per hour!  Yikes! 
So we decided to drop off our stuff at the hotel and then go over to Legoland.  It is a little harder here to get a hotel for 5 people.  There weren't many options.  So our hotel was about 10 min. away and we got 2 adjoining rooms.  Most places won't let 5 people stay in one room.
Just a picture from the website.
 We got to Legoland around 2pm and there wasn't anyone even coming in.  We really thought it was going to be crowded and it wasn't.  We got about 3/4 way thought the park this day.   It was only about a 5 min. wait on the rides which was a good thing because it was very hot here maybe high 80's (which felt good coming from Luxembourg) and Jason and I don't smell pretty when we are hot and sweaty but there was a bad BO smell in line.  Jason said he didn't think all people use deorantant over here.    It isn't a huge park, but big enough for 2 days.  They had a lot of water play areas.  And if the kids here didn't have suits with them we saw alot of them playing in their underwear and then since they would be wet they would just walk around the park barefoot and in their underwear.  I even saw 2 women walking around in their bras.   In the center of the park was a bunch of famous towns in Germany or Europe all made out of Legos- amazing!
This is a city of Legos-Netherlands
This is Switzerland made of Legos.
The famous castle made out of Legos which we went and saw later.
 Then of course they had a whole star wars section they have made out of Legos as well.  The boys loved that!  We stayed until 8pm when it closed.  We were exhausted-long day!

The next day we went back when it opened at 10am.  I was a little leary about bringing food in the day before and then I saw that they don't even check your bag and I saw one stroller that had a bottle of wine in it and of course they serve beer in the park.  So this day I packed our lunch to bring in.  So the park was a little bit more crowded but the wait for rides was only at 10-15 minutes.  So we finished seeing everything we didn't get to the day before and then went back and did what the kids wanted to do again.  The roller coasters Amber was able to go on she loved and would scream and put both hands in the air!  We stayed until a little after 4pm.  That night we had rented European Vacation on the Ipad and watched it.  We had to fast forward a lot of parts since it is PG-13, but the main points of it are funny.  A family traveling through Europe and all the mistakes they make or things that go wrong.  One of my favorite parts is when they are in London and get on the round abouts and can't get off.  He keeps saying "Look kids, Big Ben"  and they drive around the round about all night.  So that just cracks me up because the round abouts are all over here instead of stop lights.  So it is difficult to get over when you want to get off so I just stay in the right lane when I am going around so I can off, but I don't think I am suppose to be- don't tell!
On Friday we were planning on going home, but at the last minute decided to extend our trip one more day.  So we got up and drove 1.5 hours and only missed one exit this time- we are getting better at this!  We drove to a town close to Fussen  and parked the car and bought tickets to go see 2 castles.  The 1st one was the Hohenschwangau Castle- this was a 10 min. hike up a mountain and then we waited for our tour in English.

 It had beautiful views of a lake and the mountains around and the landscape.  It was a smaller castle and we saw the Queen's floor (dressing room, bedroom, reading room, writing room and living room).  Then on the next floor up was the King's room same layout as the Queen.  And in his bedroom he had a secret door that led down to the Queen's room and she had the key to open it if she wanted to let him in or not (:
The children's part of the castle was across the courtyard (:(:
Well the King died at a young age and he only had 2 children, both sons.  So the oldest was 18 1/2 and he became King.  So King Ludwig II took over and after awhile he decided he wanted a bigger castle.   So across the town and up on another mountain top was the ruins of another castle and he thought this would be a good spot for his castle- Neuschwanstein Castle.  So he had a telscope in his bedroom of this other castle, Hohnenschwangau, and was watching the construction.  So for us to see this castle we had to walk back down the mountain, go across the street and hike up the next mountain to get to it.  They have 2 buses and some horse drawn carriages that go up there but the lines were so long we thought we might miss our tour.  So we hiked 25 minutes up the mountain.  It was a little difficult with the kids.  The boys did ok.  Sean was the commentary for the horses and their pottying on the road and then when the horse would step in the poop from the previous horse, well you can imagine Sean's loud comments!  There was a little hut about 3/4 the way up that was selling stuff so we got everyone some ice cream to keep them walking (well everyone but Amber who was either being carried by me or on Jason's shoulders).
So this Neuschwanstein Castle is one of the most famous castles in the world.  Walt Disney based some of his castles off of this one.


What makes this castle so famous is that it was being built by the King and they built it for 17 years (the other castle they were living in across the mountain took 4 years).  They finished the outside and about 1/2 the inside and that is when the King under mysterious conditions died in a lake in Munich.  Since he never married, or had any children and his younger brother was declared mentally insane at the age of 24, no one took over the castle.  It was started in the late 1800's so fairly new for a castle.  The King only lived in part of it for a short time while it was still under construction.  So the tour was of the 1st floor which was the servants floor and the 3rd floor which was the King's courters.  Since it was a newer castle it had plumbing and we saw the King's bedroom had a sink in it and then a door with his toilet in it.  It was a big green leather chair and you lift a lid in the middle to sit down and go potty- ha! The passage from his bedroom to his den was built like a cave since he liked caves.  Then the 4th floor he had built a big room for the opera to perform there.  Two of the turrets on the sides of the castle are staircases.  It is a lot of stairs to get up to these floors and very winding. 
Then we hiked back down the mountain to the car and drove 1.5 hours to Munick.  Once there we went to a famous square-Marienplatz.

  All around the square are just shops and cafes so no cars can drive here.  And there is a huge clock tower-   and 3 times a day when the clock strikes 11, 12 and 5pm it chimes 2 songs with bells and then these figures come to life and dance around inside the clock.  It is called a Glockenspiel and is the famous clock of the New City Hall.  The 1st time the clock chimed was to mark the end of the plague in 1517.  So we got there at 4:45 just in time to see the 5pm show.  After that we walked about 10 min.  to a famous beer garden- Hofbrauhaus.


 It is a huge place.  It has outside seating and inside as well.  They have big picnic tables and you sit and share the table with people. They had a traditional band playing with the guys dressed in the traditional shorts/overall outfits.  We ordered 3 traditional dishes and shared them, a chicken dish, sausage dish and noodles.  Jason was the only one who ordered a beer.  But he said it was good.   And we had to try the apple studel for dessert of course and everyone liked that.  Then we drove 1 1/2 hours back to the hotel we had been staying at.  It was about as much as we could squeeze in a day! 
Sat. we got up and drove home.  But we stopped at an Ikea since in Luxembourg they don't have any, but there are a ton in Germany.  So we picked up a few things we needed for the house since they have such good prices.  Then Sat. night we tried out a babysitter and the kids liked her.  She is a junior at their school and is from the UK.  So we went down to the Grund and went to a Pub that was along the river and sat outside.

 It was quite cool only 15 C. And then back up to the city to one other place for a drink outside and listening to a band playing in the square. 
As soon as I can find a USB cord I can download my pictures.

Aug. 20th weekend

This morning we finally convinced Jason to shake down the pear tree!  He wasn't too excited about this.  Then he was even less happy when a pear hit him on the head!  Oops.  Then we drove downtown and went to the big farmers market there.  There was a huge flower/plant section.

And a bunch of fruit and vegetable stands.  We got a bunch of stuff.  And then a German bakery was there so we got some yummy raisin bread and some special morning treats for everyone.  After that we went on the big green double decker open top tour bus.  It was an hour tour throught out the city.

The boys are all sitting on the top deck.

So one thing I know I will never be doing while I am here is driving a bus.  Oh my gosh.  This big bus was driving down these narrow little streets and he was just inches away from hitting buildings or signs!  I would so get the bus stuck somewhere! 
On Sunday we took the kids to one of the indoor/outdoor pools.  This is one thing that is open on Sundays.  Here they don't have neighborhood pools.  They are just scattered around and you can go to any of them.  We all miss our subdivision pool and visiting with friends ):   This one we went to is closest to us and it looks like a space ship.  You can't take pictures  inside, but let me tell you there were a lot of speedos.  Thank goodness speedo did invent a more shorts like looking suit but I think they still need some more material in there.  I asked Jason if he wanted me to buy him one to fit in.  He thought he was just fine with out one!  Also many girls up to age 5 only had bottoms on.  Amber will be wearing a top at all times for her entire life!  Many kids in swim diapers didn't have suits on just the diaper. 
So inside the space ship there are 5 pools (wave, baby, indoor/outdoor, olymipic size with diving boards, and a medium depth pool), restaurant, and sauna area.   There are also 2 big water slides and an outdoor area in the back.  Jason convinced Amber and then me to even go down the slow water slide.  Amber loved it!

The kids had a blast.  We had lunch there and stayed well into the afternoon.

Friday, Aug. 19th

Today the boys had their last day of camp and Amber had her trial class at The Little Gym.  I was wondering how she would do with this b/c I wasn't sure if she went in by herself or I did the class with her.  So when we get there the young man tells her he will be her teacher and she is like ok.  Then when all the kids get there he calls them in and she goes skipping over.  I sit with the other parents and you can watch through the glass.  She was smiling the whole class and she had a great time.  I met a nice mom from the UK.  So I signed Amber up for the class that will start in a few weeks and it is for the whole first semester.  The woman's daughter from the UK will be in Amber's class as well.  This well also be a nice way for Amber to pick up some French too.
Amber has started to become such an independent little girl.  Starting in the spring she started having playdates with her best friend from preschool, other friends from preschool,  girls in the neighborhood and a little boy from music class.  So today after the class she asked if she could have one of the girls from class over- too funny.  She is all about the friends! (To all Amber's little friends- she misses you and talks about you)
So after class we went back to the boys camp and they were having an ice cream picnic so of course Amber helped herself to that.  When we got home she said she needed to lay down and rest.  So she got her blanket and bunny and laid down on the couch.  I couldn't believe it she actually put herself down for a nap!  She stopped traditional napping about 5 months ago.  She still falls asleep in the car if we are driving around in the afternoon for awhile, or sometimes watching TV while I am making dinner.  But today she had worn herself out.

Now that we are not at home anymore I spent some time today unsubscribing myself from all those local email lists.  And then I found a family guide book of things to do around here so went through that to get some ideas of places to go.

Thursday Aug. 18th

The boys went off to camp again today.  I am glad they are enjoying it.  Then I had an electrician come and hang a light over the dining room table.  Both the electrician and cable guys spoke some English so it has been ok to get by.  So here when you rent or buy a house they do not come with lights.  Same in Brazil.  In Brazil your kitchen could possibly not even come with cabinets and definately no appliances.  We even had to buy a hot water heater for our last apartment in Brazil.  They are bare.
So here we bought all the lights, but the one they wanted in the dining room, off the last tenants.  So we just had to have one light installed.
Then I took Amber over to this place called The Little Gym.  I was wondering if it was similiar to the ones at home.  And it was!  I was so excited.  She has been asking to do gymnastics again and I haven't seen much here yet.  So we signed up for a trial class tomorrow and she seems excited.  It is also similiar to My Gym we had at home as well.  And when I call it My Gym and Amber is talking to me she calls it Your Gym- too funny.  I keep telling her it isn't mine that is the name of it.
After that I wanted to go and check out the American Women's Club here.  So I wasn't sure where to park so I found a parking lot about 2 blocks from it and you just put some Euros in a machine and it gives you a ticket that you place in your car and you are good to go.  We walked over to the Club.  It is just in an apartment building and they converted an apartment into the Women's Club.  So we signed up for the trick or treating event.  Here Halloween is over a school break (or holiday as they say here) so it is before Halloween.  So I believe it is one area that participates in this event and then all the kids go to that area for trick or treating.  Last year she said they had 300 kids. 
At the Women's Club they also sell US food items that you can't buy here.  So I was excited and we bought some things like Pam spray, fruit snacks, baking powder, dinosaur oatmeal, and vanilla for baking.  They have a wall of items that they sell.  So we will definately be back again!
After we picked up the boys from camp I took them back out to where The Little Gym was and right next store is a place called Zig Zag.  It is a climby/play area, with a bouncy for kids.  They have a fairly good size restaurant with a small menu to eat there.  So we ate lunch there and then the kids play for free.  And of course being in Europe they even serve adult drinks here too.  And the eating area has a big glass window so you can see the kids.  The kids loved it, so I decided we better become members here.

So it was nice to have some things to do again.  We are used to being busy at home so it was a fun day!  After dinner we walked over to the park.  And if I didn't mention this before, all the parks are in the sand.  So the kids come home with sand on them and of course all over their shoes.
Jason had to go to Germany for work today.  So the place he had to go was 3 hours away so he drove there.  He got there fine, but there are no direct routes so it is a lot of going on the highway and then getting off to go on small roads to get on a different highway since there are no big roads that connect the highways.  So coming home one of the big highways was completly shut down, so it was a journey to get home.
One thing the boys are having a hard time grasping here is the time.  Here they use military time.  So 1pm here is said 13:00.  We had this in Brazil as well so we were used to it.  Even the boy's alarm clocks are in military time.   The temperature of the oven and the weather is all celcius.  So I have my little oven temp. converter chart next to the oven.  I will have to print one out for the weather, since it is always in the 20's C range.

Wednesday Aug. 17th

Yesterday at the boys summer camp it was nice for me as well since I met some new moms too.  So with one of the moms we are going to try and do a picnic at a park on Friday.  One of her sons was in Jacob's group.  So it is nice to meet people and talk about everything we are going through together and compare notes!
Today the weather has actually been sunny and hot around the low 80's.  There is no air conditioning in the houses here and yet it is suprisingly cool in the house.  The houses are made out of cinderblocks and it helps with the temps inside the house. 
Today the cable man came back out for a second time and we finally got internet and the right cable package!  It is nice to be connected to everything again (thats why alot of the blogs were just entered in the last couple of days).  And the cable package has about 8 channels for the kids with a bunch of Disney channels- a few in English, and Nick Jr. too.
We also have Skype so if anyone is interested in calling let me know!  We also did this thing called a sling box.  You buy the sling box in the states and hook it up to a DVR player.  Jason tried real quick one night before he flew out to MI and couldn't get it to work, so me being such a computer pro figured it out and fixed it -he he.  And once we got the internet connection here I log in on my laptop and can watch TV from home!  It is great.  The only problem is we are 7 hours ahead of home so of course the programs are different because it is a different time of day.  So now that we are here we buy the sling catcher to put on one of our TVs here and then the programs will come thru on the TV.  Technology is so cool!  So we try and order the sling catcher here on the UK amazon website, b/c you can't actually buy the catcher in the US and come to find out that is one item that doesn't ship to Luxembourg- figures.  But Jason's secretary lives in France and commutes to work here everyday so we could ship it to her.  So we will see how this works out.
The other exciting thing today was that I found Amber's bed rail!  Remember when I said we were unpacking and we found everything but that.  Well I remembered that it was sitting in our sitting room at home and the first day they packed our stuff they put the bed rail on the couch in there.  So all of a sudden it dawned on me maybe they put it under the cushions since it is a long metal piece that would be hard to pack.  I went up to the TV room where we put that couch and looked under the cushions and wouldn't you know it there it was!  So Amber finally got her bed rail put up on her bed.
Every night around dinner time someone lets out their cats.  There are 3 of them, really cute.  They walk down our street and seem to like our corner.  They also seem to like the lot across the street with the berries.  There must be mice over there because they sit and stare into there.  We have a fenced in yard, but one day I saw a cat in the yard watching Amber on the trampoline.  And another day I saw a cat climb the fence to get out of our yard.  So much for keeping the animals out!  But the kids enjoy watching the cats.
I am sorry for any spelling errors I make.  Unfortunatly here when I do spell check it is in German and it tags all my words. 

Tuesday School Camp

Today school camp started for the boys.  It is a camp at their new school from 9-12 where they do sports, arts/crafts, and computers for the rest of the week.  It is mostly for kids that are new coming into school and they are grouped according to grade level.   I had Jason come with me today to drop them off.  There is not much parking here as they only have 1 parking lot right now since they tore the other one up to build a new school building there.  So I am very worried about not being able to park.  It is up against the start of the highway so you can't just go around the corner and park.   But for the camp there was room to park.   After we dropped them off we drove around to find me the best route back home.  I am about 5 minutes from the school.  It is easier getting there then getting home as you can't take the same route back.  I am just starting to drive over here and get a feel for my way around.  It doesn't help that the signs are in French.  And the biggest road sign to be aware of is a triangle with an X thru it.  It means that I need to give priority to people on my right.  Kind of weird cause I will just be driving along and there will be a small side road and only going my way will there be the X and I need to let those people go first. 
The boys really enjoyed the camp and being able to play with other kids again.  We have been here for almost 2 weeks now so they were just happy to be able to see their school and meet some new friends.  Jacob had another Jacob in his group.  I never realized what a popular name that was when we named him.  Jacob meet a couple of other new boys as well.  It was a smaller group so a nice way for the boys to meet everyone. 
Here is a picture of just the building that Sean will be in.  This building is for Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade.   The building that Jacob and Amber are in is back behind where I was standing.  Between these two buildings is the open black top space for recess and then to the right of where I was standing is the playground.

Now that I have everything cleaned and organized we have been playing alot of games in the afternoons.  Amber's favorite is What's in the Cat's Hat?  And even the boys get into playing this with us too.  Or she really enjoys her Princess Memory Card game. 

Monday Aug. 15th

Monday was a holiday here so again everything was closed just like on Sunday.  The kids spent their morning jumping and enjoying the trampoline.  We do not have this at home so they can enjoy this here. 
Since we still didn't have internet we heard that McDonalds has free Wi-Fi so we took the kids and our computers there for lunch.  This one was a bigger one close to one of the malls and had an indoor play area and an outdoor climby area.    Today since it was a holiday there was not much traffic out and so we drove around the downtown area which is only about 5 minutes from our house.  And we drove down to the Grund which is that sunken part of the city that I had posted a picture of it.
The size of the products here are mostly a lot smaller then the US sizes.  Unfortunatley there is no Costco here.  I miss their big parking spaces and the buying in bulk.  So here the juice containers mostly come in 1L, well after 5 of us drink juice for breakfast there is only about 1 glass left of juice.  But the cereals come in the same size boxes as home and because of that they are too big to fit in the cupboards!

Sunday Aug. 14th

There are a lot of days here where it just kind of rains on and off all day.  Today was one of those days, but we still decided we would go to this kind of zoo/park place in the south part of Luxembourg near the border of France.  They had a bunch of different animals, but a lot of different Lemur species and then 2 big park areas.  The 1st park was just a bunch of different climby park stuff, and the second one was made out of wood. More like tree houses. 

The boys loved climbing on them.  Then after that we drove to the other side of Luxembourg, the city, and found the movie theatre and about 5 restaurants.  One of them was Subway, so Jacob was excited since that is his favorite restaurant.  But we ate at this place called Coyote Grill that has an American Based menu where even the titles of all the food are in English.  Amber enjoyed her chicken nuggets, and all 3 boys split BBQ wings and ribs.  I am sure they don't compare to Buffalo Wild Wings but its the best we got.  I got a hamburger and everyone was happy!

When we got home the boys convinced Jason to start putting together the trampoline.  So 2 hours later we had it all together.  By then they each got a couple of turns and it was time for bed. 

Sat. Aug. 13th

Today we drove out to Jason's work to pick up another car.  The company lends me a car for 30 days.  So I took the car Jason was driving and he picked up a bigger car with 7 seats, but it is stick shift.  His drive to work is pretty easy.  He makes 3 turns and then is on the main road close to our house and stays on that for about 15 min. and then he is there.  Once he drives past the mall there is not much else out there but fields, more pastures and more cows, mostly white.  Jason is enjoying his job and is busy as usual.
So now that he had the bigger car he went back to Cactus and picked up the trampoline and bought a grill while he was there too.  No one undestands the word grill here, you have to say BBQ.  So of course this store does not sell the gas tanks to go with the grill.  The guy at the store gave Jason a list of other stores that sell tanks.  And I believe that at the other stores you can buy the tanks but they don't have the gas in them.  You actually have to go to another place with some special paperwork to get your tank fillled.  So we have a grill, but it may be awhile before we actually are able to use it!
So since I only can use the company car for awhile we need to buy me a car.  So we went and test drove a friend of a friend's car that is selling it.  It was nice and we will probably end up buying it.  Since we are only here for a few years we are just looking into used cars for me.
After the test drive Jason dropped me back off at the Cactus store to actually shop there.  Last night when we were there Amber had a melt down so we got as far as the trampolines and then left.  So we forgot all the bags too.  So Jason and the kids went to the pirate park and then home to get the bags and then came back and Jason got a grill and we were good to go.  Here if you forget your reusable bags you have to buy plastic bags and they say something not very nice in French about you forgetting your reusable bag.  Good thing we had the bigger car so us and all the stuff could fit in.
When we got back Jason put together the lawn mower first instead of the trampoline, so the kids were not happy.  Then he mowed the lawn. On Sundays here you are not allowed to mow the lawn.  I think it took him all about 15 minutes and he mowed it twice, not too big of a yard.  We asked about having the lawn mowed here, since at home we have someone mow it once a week and it is not very expensive for a good size yard.  Here it would cost around $150 each time we would have it mowed.  Needless to say Jason decided to mow it himself!

Friday Aug. 12th

Today we had to go downtown,which is about a 5 minute drive, to do some paperwork with Jason and our relocation agent.  It didn't go well.  We were not able to apply for residency because you have to go downtown with in 3 days of arriving.  So no one told us this and then when we did arrive here last week it was Friday night and then the beginning of this week our relocation agent was on vacation.  Normally I guess it is ok to do within a week of arriving but this time they said no.  So now we have to go about reapplying for all this paperwork that was previously done again and this will take many weeks to get this paperwork again.  And without this residency paperwork there are many things we can't go about doing here- ugh.  From here we walked to that square area that is full of restaurants that I had mentioned before and we ate lunch at this bread/bakery restaurant and that didn't go so well either.  Jason thought he ordered the boys a steak sandwich.  I think it was called Americana Filet.  Well it is steak tar tar on bread, so raw ground beef.  And he ordered 2 of them!  On our way out we got some blueberry and chocolate chip muffins and at least those were good. 
So one of the things I couldn't get without all that paperwork above was the cell phone I ordered.  So the relocation agent took me to 2 other phone places and one of those required different paperwork that I actually had so wala I finally got a phone!  Unfortunaly while I was there I never checked to see if the internet was working and so when I got home I tried and it wasn't working- seriously what is it with the internet here!  So after dinner we go back out to the phone store.  It is in a mall a little bit further away.  So they fixed the phone and then we went shopping at this huge, huge store here called Cactus.  It is like a big super walmart .  They had this store in Brazil I believe too, but not near where we lived so I had never shopped at it before.   So as we are walking through we see a nice medium size trampoline for the backyard (or garden as they say here).  We think it will fit nicely so we buy it and Jason will plan on picking it up on Sat. when we have a bigger car.
Came home and made brownies, so it is starting to seem like home!

Thursday August 11th

Today I decided I better start ironing.  Supposingly it is very expensive to dry clean clothes here so I am washing and now ironing Jason's dress shirts.  So I will have to check out the dry cleaners once I can find one.  We bought the iron and board from someone leaving and I see it and it is huge looking and heavy.  So I figure I will get 2 things done at once- iron and get my weights in for the day!
I also decided I needed a small basket on each level to carry things up to the other floors in.  So I put one basket out and about 20 min. later it is gone.  I then see it in Amber's play area filled with her things- so much for that!
My cell phone came in today so Jason went back to the store again only to be told we can't get it until we have all the residential documents which of course we don't have.  So this could take awhile.
The cable guy came out and so we will all excited to get internet and have some tv to watch.  Well it didn't go well, no internet ever came on and we didn't get the cable package with all the channels we ordered it was just a few channels. 
Amber asked where we could go today and I told her nowhere but the park b/c mommy doesn't have a car.  Her response was "Tell Daddy he forgot to buy you a car!"  too cute.
The boys have not been liking the milk here.  Today Sean told me "It taste too cowy."  Whatever that means.  But I can't find skim milk here.  The lowest percentage I can find is 1.5%.  But of course everyone likes the chocolate milk- go figure!
Our street is a short little street with just our house and the neighbors on it and then at the end it dead ends into 2 courts.  So the boys have lots of good room to ride their bikes.  The lots across the street from us are empty with just a bunch of bushes and trees and I have seen people walking by picking things off the bushes and eating them so I decided to go over and check it out.  There are a bunch of blackberry bushes growing right there along side the road.  So we picked some and brought them in, washed them and then tried them.  I didn't want anyone eating too many in case we didn't feel good later, but all was well.  So later they picked some more for breakfast the next day.  There is also a pear tree in there, but it is so thick you can't actually walk in there and the pears are way up on the tree.  The boys tried to convince Jason to get out his latter and go pick them some pears, but Jason wasn't up for looking so obvious doing it!  Oh well.

Wednesday Aug. 10th

Today we are starting to get things back to normal again and made our first homecooked meal tonight.  The stove top has 5 burners but it is difficult to get them to stay lit and they do kind of scare me a bit. 
Since I have no car when it is not raining we go to the park.  It is about a block behind our house.  It is a big nice park.  Otherwise the kids enjoy playing outside in the front of the house.  The driveway looks like a ramp since it goes from the street down into the garage so the boys enjoy riding their bikes and scooters down it.
Jason ordered his car today from work. He gets a company car and whenever you want an automatic they take 3-4 months so it will be awhile before we get that.  Right now he is just driving a loaner car from the company.
When I unpacked the vitamins I brought one of Amber's gummy princess vitamins melted-yuck! So the whole bottle was just one big gummy.
As I mentioned before we only brought a handful of things that plug in, well today we lost another item. We brought one DVD player from home because ours from home will only play US videos so we bought some DVD players from other people leaving that are muli zoned. So Jason was hooking up a TV and our DVD player in the guest bedroom and he thought he had the TV cord but he really had the DVD cord and he plugged it in the wall without the voltage converter. All of of sudden there is smoke coming out the sides and front. One less thing we will be bringing back!
I am still busy cleaning, sweeping, mopping and organizing things. I am missing my maid I had in Brazil right about now. The people who had been renting this house the last 7 years were from Brazil, how ironic. Since the houses here don't have any closets they took the smallest bedroom on the top floor and had a built in closet put in. So that is nice because we don't need 7 bedrooms. So up on that floor is our room and Amber's room so it works out well. Amber got the biggest room out of the kids. At home her room is the smallest so that is nice for her. The rooms on the top floor all have slanted ceilings and I have already hit my head 3 times on them.

Moving In Day #2

Today Jason went back to work so the kids and I were at home with the movers.  They finished putting together the closets, hannging things and unpacking boxes.
The house is in pretty good shape.  It is less then 10 years old.  The kitchen is smaller then US kitchens but has of storage space, unfortunaly it is way up high.  It doesn't have a disposal but it does have a new dishwasher that is almost full size.  It has a microwave that my plates barely fit in.  And 1 oven that most of my cookie sheets do not fit in only the smaller ones.  The fridge is 1 door that is small size and then a box that you open within the fridge is the freezer.  The laundry room is in the basement, but is huge.  So in here I have a full size American fridge, built in shelves, treadmill, a drying rack that has to be 4 ft long and then in the corner is this tiny litter washer and dryer.   So not only are they small, they are front loaders so you have to bend way down to see in there.  The washing machine knobs are in English, but the dryer knobs are in German- go figure.  The dryer is electic and does not drain the water so when you are done drying- which so far they aren't really dry- you have to empty 2 water containers and dump them in this tiny little sink.  And then clean out 2 filters.   I wish my laundry room at home was this big, but I miss my big washer and dryer. 
Amber has been able to keep herself busy the past 2 days just playing with all her toys, playdoh, dolls, etc.  She was so excited to see everything again after almost 2 months.  The boys have been able to keep busy with movies, ipads, etc.  Thanks goodness for technology!   Sean decided he wanted to use his CD player so he got a plug adapter and plugged it in.  What he forgot to get was the converter to convert the power from 120V to 220V so he blew it up.  This is why we only brought a handful of things that plug in here since the voltage is different.  And now we will be bringing back even less things (;
I have been with out a hairdryer for a few days now so my hair has not been doing well.  When we first got in the house and I mentioned I didn't have a hairdryer, Jason said sure you do I put it in your suitcase from the hotel.  I then told him that was the hotel's hairdryer.  So when we checkout of the hotel we returned their hairdryer as well!
We still don't have cable, phone or interenet and won't for awhile-ugh!

Moving In Day #1

Today was the big day to see if all our stuff made it through customs. Yeah it did! So today was a full day of unpacking and let me tell you by the end of the day my knees were so sore from walking up and 4 flights of stairs.

 The movers have this cool lift thing they brought since there are so many stairs here.  So this lift goes up to the big doors in the  guest bedroom on the 3rd floor and brings in all the furniture and boxes.

Let me tell you about the windows and doors  here.  So all the windows are really doors. And there are no screens here. Some are full size double doors that open and others are normal window size.
So these doors open 3 ways.  They have a door handle on them and if you turn the handle one way it opens in like a door and if you turn the handle the other way just the top of the door opens and it leans in.  Or if I am opening it the top opens plus one of the hinges on the bottom so that it is hanging on by only one hinge- not good.  On the outside of the windows are metal blinds that go up and down.  Some are electric but most I need to pull or release this rope.  But when the blinds are down it is completly dark in the room.
Everything was packaged great at home and I think the only thing that broke was one of Sean's dinsours tails.  And the only thing I can't find is Amber's bed rail so she doesn't fall out of bed.
 They got all the beds set up so we were able to spend our 1st night in the house.  The boys were excited about sleeping in their new beds.  The kids got new bedding too so they were excited to sleep in their rooms.  Jason was commenting on how everything looked so new!  Ha

First Weekend Here

Our 1st full day here was busy just trying to get things organized.  We went to the mall and grocery store.  The store is similiar to a Super Target and it is in the mall.  It is really the only place we know where to go right now and we have to drive past a pasture with cows grazing in it to get to the mall.  The first store we went to was a phone store and I ordered a phone.  I guess it was a popular one since they were all out.    But hopefully it should be in soon so when I frantically need to call Jason I actually have a phone!  In the phone store Amber found a cell phone case she liked and accidently got too close to the door sensors and set that off.  So much for blending in!  Then we walked down to the grocery store and remembered to bring our Euros with us for the carts.  You put your coin in a slot on the cart and the chain releases the cart.  Then when you return your cart to the chains you get your coin back.  So of course when we were there in April we were pulling and pulling on the carts and couldn't figure out why we couldn't get one :)   
So we got 2 carts and loaded them up.  We found some brands we are used too- of course they are more expensive and some brands we were used to in Brazil.  We figured out which salami we liked.  We had a 1 in 4 chance of guessing right.  Only problem was how to tell them we only wanted 1/4 of a kilo!  The milk is all shelf stable and so was not refrigerated.  As a mom of 3 kids one of the things I was most excited about seeing was flushable wipes!  Weird, but gotta love them with kids!
We were in the store for about 2 hours- the kids were going crazy, but when you are not used to things I needed to stop and look at everything.  For those kids that don't like crust on their bread, they would be happy here.  Most of the loaves of bread are crust free.  My kids weren't sure about this.
Another note about the cart, not only do they go forward but they also go sideways.  So I was having a little trouble steering and my cart was sliding all over the store!  At check out our credit cards wouldn't work and of course we have a ton of stuff.  Thank goodness we had opened a local bank account and so we were able to use a debit card.  But overall a very nice and clean store.  Then we went back to the house and I spent the next couple of hours organizing, cleaning and putting everything away.  We had bought some items from other expiats moving back like bookshelfs, TV stands, TV , DVD player and some small kitchen appliances.  It is funny, I knew exactly where I wanted to put everything in the house and which rooms for what, except how to organize the kitchen.  When I finally made up my mind I finished everything up.  
On Sunday I finished a few things up at the house and Jason had gotten the TV and DVD player hooked up so at the kids could watch movies.  It was hard for them to be in their house with none of their things.  And it had rained Sat. so things were a little damp outside. They did walk to the park which is just a block away.  It was a very cool temperature on Sunday, only in the low 70's.  It felt good coming from such hot weather back home.  Sean asked if it was fall since it was cooler and there was a breeze.  We told him "welcome to summer in Luxembourg"  There go are little summer tans! 
Sundays everything here is closed.  So the one thing that was open and we went to was the Luxembourg US Memorial and Cementary.  It is a war memorial with about 5,000 soliders buried there plus General Patton too.  It is from WWII.  This war Jason's grandpa fought in and was close by in Germany.  Thankfully he is still alive and wasn't one of the soliders laid to rest there.  But it is a beautiful area with the white crosses and the greenest grass. 

Another park we took the kids to today had opened a trampoline area.  Yeah, this would not fly in the states.  It was an enclosed area with 12 rectanglar trampoline mats and then pads around them and they would let 2 people jump on the same trampoline at once.  The kids loved it.
For dinner we drove downtown where there have a bunch of streets and squares closed off to cars and you can walk around and there are a ton of places to eat.  Unfortunaly they take awhile to eat there and the kids saw McDonalds after walking for a bit, so that was our lovely night downtown!  But McDonalds did taste the same and the kids got smurfs in their happy meals, so they were happy!
Tomorrow is our big moving in day, we have been staying at a hotel all weekend.  So looking forward to seeing our stuff again.

Pictures of places

This is a picture of the pirate park in the city.  It has a huge wooden pirate ship in it.  It is the kids new favorite park!

This a picture of a castle in Viaden.  It is a town near the border of Germany.  We visited it in April when we went over to visit Luxembourg.

This is a one view of the city.  The lower part of the city is called the "Grund"  That part of the city is sunken and the big city walls go around it.