Later in the afternoon I asked the boys to empty the laundry basket and put their clothes away. So then at dinner I asked if they had done that. Jacob answers "Well I did part of it" I said "Ok, next time I am only going to give you part of dinner. The part I am not going to give you is dessert! Ugh!
Tonight the boys were messing around while they were suppose to be getting ready for bed and Jacob ends up hitting his head against the door frame. He had a huge bump on his head. No dilated pupils or throwing up so I think he will be ok.
The enter key seems to be broken on my computer now- lovely! Tonight it started snowing. The kids saw it right before bed.
Monday morning the snow came back and it fluried all day. Not alot of accumlation, just enough to make it a mess to drive in and harder to park on the streets. After school Jacob and Amber shoveled the driveway!
Here everyone has 2 sets of tires, one summer, one winter. My friend told me the other day that the police were walking down her street making sure all the cars had on their winter tires and were fining those who didn't. The fines could be as high as 130 euros!
This morning I had an appt. at a Dr. office. My appt. was at 8:15 and so Jason took the kids to school. It was the first appt. of the day. I got their around 8:05 or so. At 8:35 I asked the receptionist if the dr. was in yet and she said that she was coming from the hospital and should be here soon. A little before 9am she starts by calling in a patient. Then 10 min. later another patient is called in. So I go back to the receptionist desk and ask why I haven't been called yet. She said oh the dr. called you and said you weren't there. I was not happy. I said she never even came in the waiting room. She is calling people from the hallway and I am sorry but I must not have heard her and you know I was in there, so how could you cross my name off the list without even checking the room. Did you ever see me leave? So by the time I left it was close to 10am!
From here I went to the tennis club close to our house to see about lessons for the kids. The boys had been taking tennis now for 3 years and Jacob more then that. The lady told me that tennis school runs from Sept. to July and they are full for the boys ages, but have room for Amber. I couldn't believe that they don't have different sessions that you could sign up for throught the year. So they got put on a waiting list I guess. I think sign up is in July for the whole next year!
I volunteered in Sean's classroom this morning as they were doing a craft activity.
Tuesday it was very icy in the morning and after I dropped the kids off I was walking back through the gravel inbetween the cars parked and slipped and almost fell on the hood of the Mercedes next to me with my keys in my hand- that would not have ended pretty!
My driveway is a little bit icy on the top part and I was worried the car would slide down it since it is so step!
This is a picture of the driveway in the fall, so no snow.
Before I picked Amber up I ran over to the Woman's club. I was there a few weeks ago and had picked up some cake mixes for Amber's b'day cake. I am making a 3 layer checkered cake. And I picked up 2 white cake mixes and one lemon by accident instead of white. So I found the other white one I needed and then got Jason a nice Luxembourg picture book for Valentine's day as well.
After I picked Amber up and we had lunch we went to her gymnastics class. Today was the start of the new session and I switched days to Tuesdays. On Thursdays the class was full at 16 kids. Todays class had 4 kids. And normally it was only around 8 or so. So it was a nice small class.
I had met a woman before that had her daughter in this class and the mom spoke English great and for some reason I thought they were from the UK and I told Amber she would have a little girl in the class that would speak English. So when we get there and I start talking to the little girl I guess English is the only language she doesn't know. The mom speaks Danish to her, the father French, with her one set of grandparents she speaks German, with local friends she speaks Luxembourgish! Oh my- 4 languages she knows and she is only 4- pretty cool! Unfortunalty for Amber, English is not one of the languages the little girl knows.
Here I have met a few people who don't really believe in marriage. They live with their partner and have children together but never want to get married.
Tonight Jacob came home from school and said that one of the boys in 4th grade was leaving for boarding school. He just found out about it and said goodbye to everyone today. He is suppose to be like one of the best swimmers here for his age group so I think it was something to do with that? Of course Jacob didn't really know the details. He didn't really play with him much.
Wednesday morning Amber woke up with a cold and drainage coming out of her eyes. So she stayed home from school. Her eyes were completely crusted shut this morning. My friend had refered me to a pediatric clinic close by. I called a little after 8 and got an appt. for 8:45. So of course there is no parking so we had to walk a bit to get there from the car, but it was a nice office with quite a few dr.s there. We even saw another friend there with her 2 younger ones as well. So Amber has a virus and she got some cough medicine and eye drops. The eye drops do not go over well, so we will see how long this takes to heal!
We had to go to the pharmacy to get all the stuff, and she prescribed a dose of Vit. D as well. She said children until age 5 get a vit. dose in Nov. and Feb. It is a tube of liquid that I just dump in her drink. So I bought the medicines, a fever/pain reducer and a thermometer and my total bill was 33 euros! I don't have any insurance here b/c we have to submit everything back home so I just pay out of pocket and then submit it later. But considering how expensive things are here, this was cheap and the dr. visit was 44 euros.
So Amber and I had a nice morning. We did her valentines that Jason had brought back from the states and we put stickers and lollypops on them. She is so excited to give them to her friends. The week of valentines they will be celebrating Carnival at school, and she gets to dress up and do a parade at school. This is kind of like Halloween. So now all the costumes are out at the stores. I got her the snow white dress for this. Then she took a nice 2 hour nap this afternoon. Sure, 2 years ago I could barely get her down for naps, now when she stays home I ask her if she would like to take a nap she glady goes upstairs and gets all cozy in her bed!
Jacob's guitar teacher had to cancel lessions tonight so I didn't mind not having to go back out in the freezing cold. It is 10 degress and windy!
Thursday Amber was crying and crying for an hour this morning about her ear hurting. Oh no, we were just at the dr. yesterday and they didn't say anything about her ears looking infected. So she stayed home today as well. I give her some tylenol, drop the boys off at school and call the dr. back to get another appt. It was later in the morning and we got in and saw a different dr. Another woman, but I liked her a little better. She said that Amber doesn't have an ear infection but that her drums were red, so she gave her some ear drops. So back to the pharmacy which has 3 parking spots. Today they were all full so I sat right by them with my turn signal on and waited until someone left. This street goes into a round about and then onto a major road so not a lot of street parking. Amber was a little more willing to take the ear drops verse the eye drops.
Then today I could go back and pick up Jacob's passport at the Embassy. It was still so cold out and last time we were there we had to wait outside for 45 min. So I bundled Amber up in her snow pants, scarf, etc. With her being sick and I had no idea if we would have to wait. The street over I found one spot that my car barely fit in, so the tail end of my parallel parking was sticking out a bit, oh well.
We got there and hallelujah there was not a line! You can only pick up passports from 11:30-12:30 so this is about 5 till 11:30. The lady took our passports and let us right in. So we were in and out in about 10 min- whew!
Today was groundhogs day. I don't think they really get into that here, but Jacob's class was waiting to hear if he saw his shawdow and of course he did. But they had to wait until early afternoon to see the video due to the time difference!
Jacob's good friend here started writing a blog about all places they have visited here. Jacob enjoyed reading it!
Today, here is a tradation that they have a celebration of light. Basically a celebration that the days are starting to get longer with light- thank goodness! So you will see kids go around to houses with candles in a lantern and singing and then of course they want candy or a little something in return. We saw a group of boys walking down the other street doing this tonight. And so when we got home after bball practice Jacob got out some candy and put it by the door, but unfortunately no one came by. But my friend here did come by with a plate full of homemade good old usa chocolate chip cookie bars! The kids were very excited about that! That was very thoughtful of her, especially since they don't sell chocolate chips like that here. They were yummy!
Friday Amber was back off to school, yeah! I had coffee with a few moms and then off to the store which is not fun on a Friday since it is super crowded. On Friday's I normally go to the superstore since I always need something more then groceries. Here in the stores in addition to having meat, deli, fish, and bakery counters, they also have a big cheese counter. Here people just buy chuncks of cheese. It smells so bad by this counter. I am not a big cheese fan so I haven't bought any chuncks of cheese yet. Of course they have a refrigerated section right next to the counter with package cheese as well. They do sell packets of cheese for cheese fondue. That I like and we eat every once an awhile.
This week in Amber's class they have been reading the book The Three Billy Goats Gruff and doing crafts, playing and doing things related to the book. So one day when Amber was absent it was cooking day and they made toast and put on goat cheese and some honey on it and baked it. I guess the kids liked it!
When I picked Amber up from school she asked if she could have a friend over and I said not today with her being out the last 2 days. So then she starts crying. We get home, have lunch and then I find her in a little bed she made for herself on the couch ottaman falling asleep. Good thing we didn't have that friend over! So she got a little over an hour nap in.
Jacob went to a friend's house after school and then the mom brought them back to school for their basketball game. One of Sean's friends was there and he came up to talk to Sean and stared at Amber and then said to Sean "Your sister looks nothing like you." So funny.
Tonight we watched Tangled (Disney's Rapunzel ) for our movie night. Can you guess who picked it out? Sean. So Amber got the Tangled movie for Christmas along with some other Rapunzel toys and just loves this right now. Every time Amber goes to watch this movie the boys always end up watching it with her. They both like it as well. I don't blame them. It is like a musical with all the singing and dancing and I enjoy it as well!
Sat. Jacob had another bball game and he didn't get much playing time, but he was able to score a basket so we were happy for him!
My nice friend from home had shipped us a box of things and I had gotten the notice this week that when they tried to deliver it I wasn't home. So that means we have to go to the post office in a busy area and pick it up. So I left that for Jason (: So we were mailing them something as well. It was one of those padded envelopes and it cost almost as much as her bigger box she had shipped - crazy costs here! Someone also had ripped the side of her box to see what was in there. Good thing for us they didn't like the foam stickers and things (:
After the game we went to Aldi in Germany. It is about 30 min, away. You cross the border and then it is just a few minutes away. Some people had been talking about this place where things were so much cheapier. So we got an almost full cart and it was only 82 euros! Here in town just about one layer in your cart will be close to 100 euros. It is a smaller store, and they only carry some things and of course everything is in German.
Tonight Jason and I rented The Help movie. I had gotten to see only half of it on the plane ride home so I am glad I got to see the other half. It is a good movie.
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