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.