Monday, August 27, 2012

First Day of School

We are now the proud parents of a High Schooler!
 (Mine is the one on the right, for those of you visiting my blog.)

I think her day was ok. She showed up at my office at lunch time to say "I'm in HIGH SCHOOL!" and get money for lunch, which she now doesn't have to consume in the cafeteria. 

And the boy started Third Grade. Our day started like this...
 This boy can whine better than any teenager girl. Ever. But he's mine and I love him. And by the time we reached school (we're walking now, remember) he was ok.

His teacher is one of the most popular in the school. I've been hearing about her for years, even before our kids went to school on the base, so I hope he'll have a great year!
 A military classroom would not be complete without a GIANT American flag on the wall. Right?

Our day ended like this:
Here's to an excellent school year!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

We Moved!

Wow... Did you wonder what happened to us? Did you miss me? Well.... I have a reason for not blogging for months... WE MOVED!

So Rob got a new job with a German church and we found an apartment closer to base and to the church. It was a lot of work to move, but it was worth it! We had to renovate the old apartment, which is totally normal. We just had to paint and clean. But it had a lot of rooms, and a lot of nooks and crannies! But before we could move into the new place we had to paint the ceilings, wallpaper the whole apartment, install a kitchen, and hang all the lights. Did I mention it's BRAND NEW?! We're the first renters!

It's very normal here in Germany to buy your own kitchen, even when you're a renter. After ten years of living here, though, this was our first time to get a place that didn't come with a kitchen. It was really fun to design it myself! We had lots of friends from the church volunteer to help us build and install it, so it's all DIY! (Well, flat-packed from Ikea DIY) It's not completely finished, and we're still climbing over boxes to walk around the apartment, so no pictures to share yet. But eventually....

We were SOOOO incredibly blessed through this move! We've been going to a German church for over a year now, and then Rob started working for the daughter church. So it's like being members of two churches even though technically they are the same. It's like those satellite churches in America. Anyway, between these two congregations we must have had 30 different people helping us with all the different aspects of moving. It was so amazing and so overwhelming how everyone jumped in selflessly, some even taking time off of work to help us.

This is something so beautiful about the community we're in - they are ready to lend a hand to anyone in need. They all came in their "painting" clothes, which I can imagine they have worn to bless many families just like us.

It was exactly one month ago today that we moved in and today, exactly one month later, we received the gift of internet! Oh how I missed you... I am obviously incredibly behind in posting and hope to make up for that over the next few months. We're still slowly getting settled into the new place and not ready to take pictures yet, but I have several things I want to share with you, so I will do that eventually.

Mostly I just wanted to say "Hi" and "I'm back!!!"