Moving Plans!

Grab a drink and have a seat...  I have lots to say and I'm just going to start!

Michaela and Dubai:
She had a great time!  She rode a camel... and ate a camel ...pretty sure she didn't eat the camel she rode.  :)  I never even thought that people eat camel in certain parts of the world, but a friend from Kuwait said she would find camel meat in the grocery stores.  Michaela brought back some "camel-milk chocolate"!  Cool huh?

She also had a chance to play in the sand and go sand boarding.  I'm pretty jealous because that sounds like tons of fun.  Michaela brought me back some "Desert Sand" for my sand collection though, that was neat to see...  It was more pink than any of the other sand, almost red.

Remember the movie Aladdin?  Well Michaela went to lots of Aladdin markets.  I forgot what she called them, but they have a name.  Souks? She brought back a little genie lamp that Andrea quickly claimed as her own.  :) Cute.

Oh yah, math... she did go with the purpose of doing math.  AND MATH SHE DID....  :)  Just not very well ...their Math Team got 21st place... at least it was better than 25th.  Hee Hee.  I'm not really making fun of them though. :)  It was the smartest kids from International Schools around the world... like crazy-gifted kids.  You saw those sample questions from a while back...!

I'll give her the task of posting some pictures.

Sick:
I'm not sick anymore... thank goodness.  There is this nasty cold going around and it takes WEEKS for most to get over.  I did good with the one week of really sick and then just another week of feeling tired and blah, but at least able to function.

Our move:
I always have a good reason for not writing much on the blog... This time it's the move.  There have been countless things to get finished and organized.  I've been taking the kids to all the doctors and dentists while it's still free.  I've been cleaning out closets and attics... and now I'm packing.

We decided to pack it all ourselves.  Well Paul decided, but in the end it's probably better for a few reasons.   First of all, it's cheaper of course.  :)  Second of all, it helps me sort through EVERYTHING.  I've gone through all the kids clothes, toys, books, movies, everything...  The third reason, and perhaps most important, is that we have a lot of stuff, one might even use the word "crap".  I think I've even written that on a few boxes out of irritation.  :)

Little tangent:  When we moved here our stuff fit into a 20 foot container, BUT we were moving into a partially furnished house so we didn't bring a lot of furniture.  Here in Germany we have a HUGE house and we've filled it with furniture.  :)  We have three couches.  Who has three couches?!   Makes me smile that our couches are red, green, and orange though.  :)  Thought I'd share that random fact about us.

Plus, it's been five years.  That means five Christmas Mornings, five birthdays per person, five years of vacation souvenirs ...five years is a long time to acquire stuff ...AND, we are moving home with an extra person.  We were a family of five when we came.  :)  Can't believe it's been that long!  Little Andrea has never officially lived in America yet!  There is my justification for why we have so much ....stuff.

So.  Back to the third reason we are packing ourselves...  I will shove more stuff in a box than a "mover guy" will.  I have unpacked so many boxes that seem to have been filled with more paper than stuff.  I don't even use paper.  I wrap breakable objects in clothes and towels.  :)  We can fit much more into our container if we pack it all ourselves ...and hopefully it all fits!

Needless to say packing has consumed my life.  We started a week or so ago though so we've been able to do it at an easy pace.  Today I finished Michaela, Sierra, and Scotty's room, the laundry room ...and a closet.  We pack everything we don't need in the next two months and the rest we will carry with us.

Carry it all to a nice furnished house in Nashua, New Hampshire.  We started to think about the fact that we will be arriving with only the things we can carry.  No beds, no kitchen plates, no towels, no toaster, no TV, nothing ...and our things will take probably six weeks to make it to us.  Six weeks is a long time to spend sleeping on the floor of an empty house.  Sure Target will be around the corner, but it's not as fun buying things that we already have.

...although we've sold off lots of what we have.  We can't bring back any lights or things that plug in.  That means no desk lamps, fans, kitchen appliances, freezer, washer and dryer, toaster, TVs, DVD players, hair dryers, etc...  I used my blog...  :)  Posted something in January of 2010.... and then just sent that link to my friends and started selling stuff.  We are still trying to get rid of a couch (the orange one), our wardrobe closets, and our car.  Other than that we've gotten rid of most everything.

I also have our guest room set up with "Free things".  :)  Toys, clothes, books, games, food, shoes ...just stuff  we don't have the room to take or things that I imported and it seems wrong to take it back rather than to give it to someone here ...like Easter eggs.  I gave all my Easter eggs to a family who had zero.

I invite people over for coffee with the secret intent of having them take a bag of "stuff" out of my house.  :)  Seems to work.

Should we successfully survive the packing and loading of everything we own into a 40 foot container our plan will be to start looking for a place to buy once we arrive in Nashua, New Hampshire.  Hopefully by the time our things arrive we will have our own house to put them in, maybe our container needs to sit in storage for a little bit.  I just don't want to move in somewhere and then move again.  We will have the furnished house for two months and then we can do a month-by-month basis afterwards.  The lady who owns it is super nice and she has already put some chicken soup in the freezer for us.

SO.  That is the plan and I now spend all my free time packing boxes now and the countdown is on because the movers come on Monday to start loading the truck.  Scheduling isn't working in our favor on this one because that will leave us with a solid week of nowhere to live.  We've had many offers of course ...because all our friends are awesome here, but in the end I think we'll book a hotel with a spa.  :)

I didn't realize until now that at least with the entire house packed and loaded and done with we will be able to enjoy that last week in Hamburg with our friends.  Okay, getting sad because my friends are the best and they are really the only thing I'll miss here  ...off to go distract myself with more boxes.  :(

I'm sick

I have been sick in bed for five straight days now.  I've eaten a piece of cheese, some salad, a bowl of cereal, and some blue juice during that time...

I'm pretty unhappy with life right about now.  I have things to do since we are, um... gee... leaving the country in a few weeks.

AND... to make matters worse my friend had her baby early this morning and I can't even go see her because I'm a germ ridden fiasco of a human.  :(

AND... to make it even worse... as if the upcoming move and birth of my favorite baby in Germany wasn't enough... this was the weekend I was supposed to go watch Sierra's basketball tournament in Holland.  But I couldn't.  :(

I went to the doctor and he said it's a virus and I'll be fine.  Should have guessed that one...

Paul has been taking care of the kids and getting them to school, Michaela has been a huge help because Andrea just wants her since Real Mommy just lays in the bed staring at the wall.

At least I got the computer out today.  I'd like to think that means I'm improving.  :)  I might need to call in a Nana if I don't get out of bed soon!

KE !

I sent my 13 year old daughter to the middle east.

I'll stick that on the list of things I'd never thought I'd ever say.

It will go right under, "Share the dirt with your sister." and "Don't lick the bottom of your shoe."

But, yes, my daughter is now in Dubai ...doing math.  :)

She went with the school math team and quite honestly even I would have signed up to do math if I got a trip to Dubai out of the deal.  Tomorrow she will be riding camels and sandboarding!  :)  I'm pretty jealous... even of the just the fact that she will be warm for five days ...but she sent a text to me saying she stuffed her bag with Cheetos for us so at least we have that to look forward to when she gets back.  :)

Mr. No-Man

Our new friend.  No-Man.  (Andrea doesn't do "S's")

 

Guess what?  If snow is too cold snowflakes don't stick to each other and it's impossible to make a snowman.  Crazy huh?  Who would have thought it would get TOO cold for a snowman.  Yes, it's been that cold here...  well, it was a while ago.  :)  It's just taken a while to post pictures... I've been a teeny busy with that crazy big move coming up in just five short weeks!

Anyways....

Ever since the snow first hit the ground Andrea had been asking for a "no-man".  The only problem was that, with the snow came -15 degrees C, and I learned really, really cold snow doesn't stick together ...like my Canadian husband had said... but now I actually believe him.  :)

So Andrea and I were happy to have it warm up enough to actually make a snowman.  We rolled and rolled and rolled and she loved it.  She was so excited to see the snowballs getting bigger and bigger.  She pranced around the yard singing "no-man, no-man, no-man".  :)

...and we all know what happened next.

The following day all the snow melted and No-Man's head fell off.  Luckily I saw it first and was able to fix him before she saw her new best friend ohne-a-head.  I quickly stuck his head back on and shoved the carrot back in.  Phew.

...but of course it got warmer and warmer.  Then I started wishing I didn't put No-Man right next to the driveway that we walk up every time we enter the house.   As No-Man kept getting smaller and smaller, Andrea's tears got bigger and bigger.  every. single. time. we walked inside the house.

Now there is no snow left, it's all melted and only a little pile of leaves and twigs are in a pile where No-Man once stood, but every morning Andrea still runs to No-Man's spot ...just in case.  :)

One way tickets!

It's a done deal.

We are moving to back to the States!!!

Happy is smarter than the average boy so he arranged for us to get an all expenses paid trip back home! It's a long drawn out story as to how this all came about so I'll skip it all...  I had wrote a story about how us moving home happened and I personally found my description of the events to be quite tame and amusing  :)  Apparently  even my "nice" wasn't nice... or maybe it's just that some people in the world are so two-faced, deceptive, self-serving, and fake ...and when you really look at their behavior there is just no nice way to describe it.  So I can't say anything at all ...unless you call me.  :)

Despite any drama over the past few months we are happy to be going home.  We have been "gone" for nearly five years and that's a really, really, really long time.  Don't get me wrong, it's been a great past five years.  We've made great friends, we've traveled to amazing places ...but now it's time to go home to our family ...oh, and Fruity Pebbles, Trick-or-Treating, and Chuck E Cheese.  :)

The kids are thrilled....  :)

So knowing that we were headed back to America, we opened up google maps and played einee-meenie-miney-mo with the States.  Not really... but kinda.  :)  I now have a new knowledge of where all 50 states really are ...but I still get Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin mixed up.  :)

Anyways....We had lots of different criteria for the place we wanted to live... and this time we picked a place instead of letting the place pick us.   ...and the winner was .....

**New Hampshire**

Go figure.  :)  I tried really hard for California, even Paul was voting for San Diego, but no matter how we looked at it it just didn't make sense...  :(

But we are happy with NH.  ...and we should be there in just six short weeks!

FYI

My nose hairs froze today on the way to school.

Finally... a Pretty Beech Tree!

I forgot to post pictures of our new dining room table and chairs.  :)  ...and this isn't the best picture, but I found it so here it is!  Made from ugly Beech trees that drop millions of Annoying Seeds...

It looks kinda Danish-y, but it will be our German souvenir because I was assured it was made from German Beech Trees.  :)  ...as if it mattered to me.  :)