EGG HUNT!

YAY!!!

I was so happy to find an American Egg Hunt here! It was done through the American Womens' Club and it was just like an American Egg Hunt, plastic eggs and all!

I'm trying not to be sad and miss the multiple egg hunts we would go on Easter Weekend in California. It's funny how it's the holidays that make you miss home... and when you are at home you don't really think the little "holiday things" you do are so important. That's why only someone who understands would pay $40.00 to send me some Easter supplies. (Thanks again Holly....SOOOO MUCH!)

I'm not going to be greedy and be bummed out because I didn't rush from one egg hunt to the next this year. I'll just be happy that Scotty and Andrea finally got to go do a real egg hunt. :) This was really even Scotty's first one. The Easter before we left the states we were in Oregon and we did an Egg Hunt in the forest at a rock museum. It was fun, but just not the same as hundreds of plastic eggs laying everywhere. Plus, he fell and then cried the whole time. :)

I'm sure the Easter Bunny will find us in Germany too. :) ...on the 11th, after my parents show up to watch the fun!

IN the Hedge.

We have a ten foot "hedge" around our yard. It's a great place for the kids to crawl into and play, especially since it's all fenced in so they can just run free. The boy loves it. I sent them in the "bush" today with a rake and they cleared themselves a path to walk along. Even Andrea tagged along. Andrea totally loves her big brother and sisters... she follows them as fast as she can... wherever they go. :)

We got out the bubble maker today. Andrea, of course, loves bubbles. She wanted to hug and carry the bubble blower everywhere... and in the end I think she tipped it over and bubble juice got into the motor. :( So I think she killed it... We'll dry it out and see. I'm sure Germany has another for sale somewhere... Germany is cool like that. :)

No signs of any rodent or avian fatalities today. :) Someone wrote a comment about a "face scanner" on the cat door that will scan to see if there is a mouse in the cat's mouth before unlocking the door? Sounds NASA-like... and expensive. I tried to google it, but all I come up with is CAT Scans... So Mr. Anonymous, please tell more. I might be be willing to pay the thousands it would cost. ...or maybe I'm just gullible. :)

Killer Kitties.

My cats are extremely violent. I can't believe the number of small, defenseless animals they have killed in the few days the cat door has been installed!! I feel terrible!

Saturday morning we had caught three mice that they had brought in through the cat door... and that was before 8:30AM!!! That's not even counting the dead one I caught Skwaky with at 3AM, the night before!

It was after I found a live, hiding mouse that I decided the cat door was officially closed for good. This was getting bad. No more... "I'll open it just for a little bit". The cats were clearly out of control.

Five minutes after the door was shut down I heard a cat trying to get in and couldn't believe I saw this!! I was so MAD! This poor little bird. :( Look closely... my evil cat Velcro is LICKING HIS LIPS!

I'll just have to keep them inside and accept that I will forever have a litter box I guess. I can't have them killing everything that moves. We've never had this problem before and we've even lived by fields before. Maybe German rodents are just dumb.

Currently we have set up the cat door to let them out - but not in. So, yes, I'm aware that they are not prevented from killing... only prevented from returning their kill to me as a token of their love. Right now that's the best I can do.

The cats can get out, but have to bang their head on it to get back in... which they do. It's like them knocking on the door. We unlock the door and let them in after verifying their mouths are empty.

We looked online for any magical devices to prevent them from catching things. Bells, Beeping collars, even this ridiculous cat bib that is just like a bib that a baby would wear. It's supposed to drag on the ground and make sounds as they "stalk" their prey. Dumb cats.

I read that bells don't work.
The beeping sound every seven seconds from TWO cat collars would drive me nuts.
The bibs are just plain silly looking. You would have to sedate my cat to get him to wear that happily. With the bib on they wouldn't even fit through the cat door!

I will look into kitty counseling maybe. Maybe there is a "How to Tame your Inner Tiger" course I could send them too.

In the meantime I'm the best mouse catcher there is. :) ...but I will be getting some live traps just in case there is one that is too fast. Paul and I tried for HOURS to catch one the other night. It hid everywhere, under the couch, in the curtains, in between the radiator thingys... We probably looked ridiculous jumping around when it ran too close to us, bowls and brooms in hand. We never caught him. We barricaded the two doors leading to the rest of the house and went to bed. I woke up to the mouse sitting in the hall, staring at me. Luckily I never go anywhere without my trusty mouse catching bowl. He sat perfectly still and let me put the bowl on him... It was like he was ready to be taken outside. :)

- Maybe a pet mouse would make the cats bored with them.
- Maybe I should get more toys for the cats so they don't want to pounce on live animals.
- Maybe in a few weeks they would have caught all the slow, dumb mice in the yard and only the smart, quick ones will reproduce and make "smart and fast" baby mice that my cats can't catch.
- Maybe I could drug my cats with cat nip... Would that make them feel more relaxed?

All I know is a three month vacation to the states just got complicated! We'd come home to a hundred rodents and feather piles all over!

I'm dating moms.

I was in a Starbucks with Andrea last week. We were enjoying the sun and the pile of toys they have there. :) A woman sat near us and her young daughter started playing in the toys too. THEN the mom spoke English to her daughter!! A few minutes later another English speaking mom and HER daughter showed up...

My chair was facing away from them and I could just hear them talking to each other. They were British, but I was desperate... I wanted to talk so bad. I can only talk to Andrea for so long every day, and she never talks back! :) I decided I HAD to say Hi - They could be my new BEST GERMANY FRIENDS... It was then that I realized,

- Approaching someone who is alone is much easier! At Mom #1's first word of English I should have piped up and said something. Waiting made it awkward. Lesson learned.

So as I waited longer I sat there debating on what to say. Andrea didn't help, she completely ignored the other little girls, who were probably a year older. Finally, one mom left to go place their order and I made my move. I said "Hi, I can't help but hear you guys are speaking English so I just wanted to say Hi. I just moved here a few weeks ago and thought I'd get away from my unpacking and have a break." (or something like that)... I thought it was pretty good. I was SO proud of myself for doing it.

After I spoke I realized that with your "Opening Line" you need to include a question so they have something to say back other than, "Oh, neat."

I quickly figured this out and asked if she knew any good parks within walking distance. Thank goodness for kids and the endless generic topics of conversation the generate.

In the end, I spoke to these two women for a while. I learned they were on their way to a playgroup up the street and they gave me the name of it. After the THREE WEEK Spring Break I'll have to make it back there and check it out... Maybe I'll see them again. One was friendly, One was slightly irritated I was making moves on HER friend. :)

I thought of this only because I've been assessing the moms at school and I've been picking out potential friends. :) During this THREE WEEK Spring Break I was thinking of inviting one of my "future friends" over with her three kids for a playdate. BUT: What if she says no? What should I suggest we do? What if she has already decided I'm NOT her type? :)

AND... I know when I send the email I'll check back every hour to see if she's responded yet!

I'm sure other 16 year olds out there understand what I'm talking about.

Smart Monster

I had my first parent/teacher conference this afternoon with Scotty's teacher.

He's smart! AND It's my right as a parent to brag about it on MY blog.

His teacher said he was the only one to know all his letters... both uppercase and lowercase; AND he was the only one who could count past 100. He can write his name beautifully and is a joy in class. Okay, I threw that last part in there. He is getting used to structure and rules, but all in all he rocks. :)

I still wonder where he learned all this from... I never taught him all his letters. I know he got all the numbers as we rode the buses during his entire first year in Denmark. We always watched and waited for the right bus number. :)

He's the fifth youngest in the class but my little monster is smart! YAY! :)

My Second Squeaky Friend

Day Two of having a cat door in full operation.

Day Two of having a live and FULLY ACTIVE mouse in the house.

Our cats have always had "in-n-out" privileges. This eliminates the need for a yucky litter box which I can't understand why anyone would want in their home. Ewwwww-ey. It's taken us this entire month to figure out where to put our cat door because our "apartment-house" is the TOP two floors of a quite large house. We didn't know how the cats could get down without breaking a paw... We thought about one of the two balconies... but then how do they get on/off the balcony? Would a ramp up the side of the house look a little tacky?

Trust that it's been a big source of stress for me since I refuse to do the cat litter thing for much longer. Especially since Andrea has recently found it and thinks it is sandbox. WAY GROSS!!!

We decided to "take a window out" at the bottom of the staircase leading UP to our first floor. "take a window out" means "smash it with a hammer". This window is on the ground floor but has a pretty tricky jump involved since it opens out over the basement staircase going down... apparently it's not that tricky if those dumb cats can do it with a squiggly mouse in their mouth.

So Paul installed this cat door Sunday. The furballs figured out how to work it on Monday. I've captured a mouse on both Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm not sure what I'll do when I see that they have brought one of those cute red tree squirrels inside. Guess I should find the animal control number before I need it. :)

Skype-Less

How sad I am without my Skype phone. With my super skype phone I could call the US and Canada ALL I wanted for $4.00 a month. AND... everyone could call me just as if they were dialing a US number.

We have seriously been trying to get the internet ever since Paul arrived and he got here a month before us!! Maybe we are missing a key step in the process... and it doesn't help the process is carried out in German, but we are getting nowhere. I take that back. We have a phone line.

I realize that I do have internet or I couldn't be online typing this... We have one room in the house that will "borrow" internet from the neighbor; but for skype to work I guess we have to plug the phone into something... something that we don't have yet. A router maybe? I'm SO not the one in charge of this... The one in charge of this has been all over the world for the past three weeks. Now he is in Copenhagen and comes home on Friday.

This Friday is also the start of Spring Break here. It is THREE WEEKS LONG!!! We still haven't figured out what we are doing. Our choices are:
- Drive to Holland to see the tulips.
- Fly to Pisa to see that cool leaning tower and eat ice cream.
- Hang out in Hamburg and "get to know" our new town.
- Spain. I added this one today, there are some cheap all inclusive beach deals in Barcelona.

My parents are coming to visit next month so we also have to make sure we get the Guest Room, currently known as the "Cold Room", up and running. It needs a bed for starters! :)

The kids are doing great in school. They really love it, especially Scotty! He is drawing these detailed pictures now where he never drew anything before. He is writing random math problems down and writing the alphabet over and over again. He tells me what all the words start with. He sings the songs from his music class and wants to show me how fast his gym shoes make him run. :) He is really enjoying it and never complains about going!

Michaela went to a friends house yesterday so that made us both happy. She starts soccer this week and tennis after the Spring Break. Her classes are much harder than at ISAa and she's having homework even! :) She is still checking out five library books at a time from the library and gets a new batch every few days. This library will save me millions!!

The saved millions I can spend on her clothes because, believe it or not, Michaela keeps outgrowing clothes! ...and my young daughter has developed expensive tastes. I draw the line at 50 euro T-shirts though. :) I can remember what being a girl was like though, so Michaela should appreciate that and appreciate that I do understand. I'm the cool mom remember. But not too cool, I don't want to be the mom who tries to be cool. Then I'd just be the annoying wanna be cool mom. :)

I remember Keds. Keds were plain white shoes, but they had a blue "Keds" patch on the back. My MOM wanted to buy me the $5.00 identical white shoes... I wanted the "Keds" patch on the back. I don't remember how much "real Keds" cost. I think I ended up getting "Keds"... spoiled brat. I'm lucky, Michaela is pretty reasonable when it comes to things like that, but I don't think she would have got the "Real Keds" out of me. :)

Anyways... Sierra has joined the choir and has a performance coming up... I had to get her a school shirt to wear to it. :) She is in the drama club which I think is... nice. :) She has a week long trip to an outdoor "science camp" as soon as they get back from Spring Break. She is so excited about this and asks me to pack everyday. She says packing is the best part! Good thing my little world traveler likes to pack! She starts a rock climbing class at school after the Spring Break too..

Andrea is having fun hanging out with me at home. She plays with toys all day because when the rest of the herd comes home she just chases after them and tries to be included in their video games, movies, homework, etc... Picking up KE and RARA and Scotty from school is the highlight of her day by far. She will always drop what she's doing and run for the door when I ask her if she's ready to go get them. :) I've met a few moms that have little ones too, so we'll get her some friends to play with soon...

Little Poozie is sick right now though. :( She just has a fever and feels "blah". I give her some Tylenol and she poozles about a while until it wears off and then she is blah again. :( To make this worse my last four bottles are broken. The nipples have all ripped on the edge so they leak. I'm not sure why they all ripped within a week of each other but I'm not buying more so we are done with bottles. I threw them all out. :( Then I tried to buy a sippy cup but couldn't find any good ones. I don't want one that's like a bottle. I want a regular ole' sippy cup. I'll keep looking, there's another baby store at the mall.

OUUU the mall. The mall here just doubled in size. It's a huge place now and it's really just a few minutes from my house. How cool is that!! Aren't you excited Happy?? Michaela and I went shopping today and checked out all the new stores. My plan is to ditch everyone and go this weekend so Daddy can have some quality time with the kids. :)

Well that was a lot of typing. Oh, and I'm getting a new dishwasher on Thursday. YAY! I'm so excited. The one we have now is really just a "Dish Wetter", it doesn't wash anything.

Okay, I'm done now and headed to bed. OH, It's finally warm. Today it was borderline hot. Not really... it was around 20. But if you have lived in below freezing temperatures for months than 20 is reason to celebrate. If Andrea felt better I would have packed up the kids and headed to town for ice cream!

Now I'm done. OH WAIT. :) Yesterday I had to go to a school meeting... so I left the kids here and checked with the woman downstairs to make sure she'd be here for the whole 60 minutes I was gone. The kids were told to email me every 20 minutes with an update.
First update: Andrea had the biggest poo ever!!!!!!!!! We changed it so can we have candy? :) I said yes.
Second update: MOUSE IN THE HOUSE!!! :) Cat door was installed yesterday, they already brought in a mouse. A live, fully active mouse...

So I came home to find some children sitting up high on stools and chairs playing video games. They had few suggestions to where they thought the "lost" mouse was. I got Velcro (our cat) and made him find the mouse for me and somehow, by PURE LUCK... I caught the fastest mouse on the planet. Dumb cats...

Okay, now I'm done and headed to bed. See what happens when I don't have a phone to talk to anyone on...

...and I'm NOT proofreading this. :)

To replace the Mercedes...

I got this! :)

Well, I don't have it yet... I'm just so excited to show everyone! :)

It's the prettiest car ever!! As long as it passes it's "240 point physical", it will come home with us next week...

He killed it for ME!

My husband loves me so much he "eliminated" the before mentioned Mercedes that I hated to drive. He made it so I'd never have to drive that big, ugly, EMBARRASSING thing again... ever. :) He killed it for me. He did it out of love. He did it for me.

He fed the Mercedes regular gasoline.

The Mercedes is supposed to eat diesel.


HA! This happened a couple days ago and it's finally a safe topic to discuss with some humor... so I can now publicly make fun of him. Mr. VP of Technology filled the diesel car up with regular unleaded. :) Yup, that's right Erin! I immediately thought of our trip to Prauge when we thought you did the same thing... but you DIDN'T. :)

He did. :) I love you HONEY! HA!!!

I'm just sooooooo glad I didn't do it. :)

Happy Green Day

I'd like to tell Germany that today was St. Patrick's Day. It doesn't appear that anyone here noticed. :) Not that it's a huge holiday or anything, but at least America tries to milk some decorations and cards out of the day. I didn't see anything here that was shamrock-y or leprechaun-ish... no pots of gold or green beer either. :) Perhaps I wouldn't have remembered either if it wasn't written on my American calender.

Like a good American mother I dressed my children in green... but had to make a green bracelet for Sierra who doesn't own anything green. :) At the school there were a few people running around in green, I was happy several of the boys in Scotty's class had green on though because this morning, as I was putting a green shirt on him, Scotty didn't believe that it was "Green Day" and that if he didn't wear green then people would tickle him. (I didn't want to mention PINCHING because my son doesn't need any new ideas...)

However, today was the best Germany day yet, only because it was warm! Sad that 10C (50F) is warm to me... but I guess that's a survival mechanism that kicked in a few months ago. Seriously, I've been surrounded by ice and snow for FOUR MONTHS and it's getting a bit tiring. If it snows again I will cry.

I guess it wasn't all good... Paul left us again. :( After a week in Bulgaria he is now in Romania. The only thing I know about Romania is that I saw them play in the World Cup many years ago when my dad took me. He bought me a Romania T-shirt. Maybe Paul will buy me a new Romania T-shirt... better make it a sweatshirt. I'll google Romania's weather later, but it sounds like a much warmer place. :)

...and here are this year's green dinner pictures. This is now an official tradition because when I mentioned I might not do it this year because I didn't FEEL LIKE IT.... :) The girls were both disappointed and Scotty didn't even know what we were talking about so I had to do it again, and I'll probably have to do it every year from now on. I"m running out of creative ways to "eat green" though. We had some of the same from last year: artichokes, green noodles... I think our new green items were unshelled pistachio nuts (HOLY COW these were expensive!!), green sour cream, green cheese sauce, green mayonnaise for the artichokes. :) The green mayo was a bit odd to look at, but when I use it to make tuna fish sandwiches for lunch tomorrow I bet it will look even worse!!!


Awwwww... This makes me smile. This is what I wrote about St. Patrick's Day for the past two years...

St. Patricks Day 2008
St. Patricks Day 2009

I'm the NEW mom.

So...

I met the moms from Sierra's class. They served caviar, smoked salmon, special cheeses, Green Tea from Japan, and champagne. It was served to us on a fully set dining room table under a huge chandelier. The house was a mansion, I had to be "buzzed" in.

Everyone was very nice and friendly though. Funny the woman I found the most outgoing to welcome me was the Danish woman. She's moving to Texas at the end of the month though. :) I think they are a nice group of moms though.

...just not exactly a group like moms like me. I don't have a nanny or cleaning lady and I make my own dinners. ...and I wore jeans. :) We'll see how it goes. I decided I'm just going to be me. I'll keep wearing my jeans and converse... :)

I missed my old friends when I got home. I missed regular ole' people just getting together and talking. I missed muffins and chocolate cake and rolls from the bakery... and plain ole' cheese. I miss Denmark. I'm just happy I have a friend coming to visit this weekend. I need a familiar face to talk to.

This week I meet the moms from Scotty's class. I'm sure it will be fine. Showing up as the "new mom" is not very fun though. It's scary and a little un-nerving. I admire the girls for doing it over and over again for all the new schools, classes, and activities they start. At least I have Andrea to bring along to talk to if I get lonely.

Stuff...

- Michaela checked out FIVE books at the school library today. I figure I just saved $50.00 by not having to buy and import them.

- I made banana bread to take to meet some moms tomorrow. Sierra laughs and says I'm trying to make friends. I say, "yep".

- Scotty has a book from school he is learning to read. All about the word "the". I love it. AND he has homework that he is so proud of.... :)

- I assume this is ground beef. But how do you know what percentage fat it is? I'm so confused...
- I've been driving a Mercedes this week. It's been a real treat. Thanks to my husband for leaving it for me!!

- My parents are coming to visit next month. That's when I'll finally get to schedule a hair appointment.

- German classes are all full so I've decided to teach myself by using You Tube. Don't laugh. I started today and can count to 20. ...kinda.

Andrea eats too much snow and won't put a clip in her flyaway hair. Her new eating snow trick is to walk in the snow until it sticks to her boot and then eat THAT snow. Yum.

- Paul comes home from Bulgaria tomorrow. He's been gone all week... :(

- I just googled Bulgaria to see where it was. It's under Romania. (Doesn't help huh?) Here's a picture so everyone can learn something today.

- I think I cool because I made Bulgaria's pictures post. I feel so computer nerd-ish.

- I'm now realizing Bulgaria is probably warmer than Hamburg.

- Now I'm mad at Paul.

- He better bring me a present. Something warm to wear would be good...

- I JUST GOOGLED Bulgaria's weather. It's 7 degrees C! IT BETTER BE A GOOD PRESENT. I'm still in -3 land... See how cold my car was after it's drive to Denmark?

- When you start to google Bulgaria's weather you know you should turn off the computer and just go to bed.

Gut Nachten.

You Tube taught me that today. :)


PS... Remember that Mercedes I have been driving? Here's a picture of it. I swear at it daily. If I wouldn't get hypothermia I'd walk.

Pay for Car Wash or Just Buy a New Car?

I saw this... and it made me think of something that happened over the weekend...

During my final hours in Denmark I got a car wash for the Loving Volvo.

Guess how much it cost at the drive through gas station car wash.

Keep in mind the Super Deluxe Wash in the States is $5.00, AND if you go to the special car wash store and they clean it inside and out, then it is $12.00.



Danish Gas Station Car Wash =
$30.00!!!!!!!!!!

It's the same thing. Soap is sprayed. Big fluffy rollers come down. It gets rinsed. The same, if not LESS, things happen during the entire five minutes. It wasn't dried and nothing made my tires shiny. :)

THIRTY DOLLARS??!!! How dumb is that? How dumb is it that I paid!!!! (Not so much, because it was my last purchase with the company gas card.) :)

The vacuum was $2.00 for ten minutes. I was satisfied with the vacuum for 10 kroner. :) See, it's not all negative.

Michaela is home! WHOO HOO

Michaela has returned!! She had a great time on her trip to England (of course), and I was happy to get her home... especially after a big snow storm delayed their Friday evening flight home by an entire day causing all of them to SUFFER through a night at the Hilton. :)

I had left Germany Saturday morning and drove up with Sierra though our own snow storm on our way to get Michaela. I couldn't believe how much snow fell through the night, and right after it was nearly all melted. :( I'm so tired of snow. It's been over three months now and I just want to be warm.

The plan was to pick up Michaela from a friend but they were still stuck in England. :) By Saturday afternoon they were able to get a flight to Copenhagen and then most of the kids fit on a flight to Aarhus, a few were stuck taking the train... Once at the Aarhus airport they took a bus directly to the school where we picked them up from. I don't think the kids minded the canceled flights and personal buses but the grown ups that were chaperoning looked as if they'd seen better days. At least they made it home in one piece. :)


The three of stayed at our friends house that night so Sierra could have some time to play with her best Swedish friend from Denmark. :) We had a really nice time there and ate so many really yummy foods. Swedish food is good! :) Thanks to their whole family for being so great. My FAVORITE PART was watching the movie Spirit and having some really great snacks!! :)

Sunday I had to say good bye to our Loving Volvo as we dropped it off at Paul's work and took the five hour train back here to good ole' Germany.

Even our trip back home was plagued with Michaela's bad travel luck... After we arrived in Hamburg we transferred to the S-bahn to get to our house. I was feeling pretty proud I had maneuvered us through the HUGE hauptbahnhof station and actually found the right train to take us straight home. Turns out that OUR train stop was shut down for construction. If I understood German I would have undertsood that was what the train driver was telling me right before the train stopped right before our stop and started going backwards... all the way back to where we had come from. Yippie.

We got back off at the HUGE hauptbahnhof train station... right where we started. We didn't know what else to do so we just back on the same train and decided to walk once we got to the furthest stop or call Happy. I didn't really want to call Happy because that meant Andrea and Scotty would have to go out in the cold snow... so I decided to make my oldest two children suffer and walk. BUT we saw a bus that looked like it would go to our house. We hopped on and luckily it went right where we needed to go!

I will make Michaela write all about her trip. :) She came home with gifts for the family and Scotty hasn't left her side since she's been home. He really missed his big sister.

Despite a long day of traveling Michaela had to start school the next day (Monday). AND we had to go early so she could get her schedule and her locker, etc..

Monday was a success! Michaela loved it and I was happy to drop her off in a class full of other 11 year olds. The other girls in the class looked normal. I assessed them pretty quick... then I judged them based on their looks. :) AND If you say you don't do this then you are not telling the truth. :) They looked nice and normal. No crazy outfits or make up. No whispering and pointing... just smiling and waving and asking her questions about where she was from. P.S. We are cool because we are from California... just so everyone knows... :)

She liked her class. Her say was as fun as a school day could be. I think she will fit right in and like it here.

So until I start complaining, I love the school. :)

Walking home from school!

Andrea's favorite part of the day is going to get Sierra. :)

Here is Michaela on her way to England!!!

Scotty in the school cafeteria.

I found my friend the Pillsbury DoughBoy! He's been hiding in Germany!!





This is how you turn a biscuit into dinner for kids. :)

Yummy!

Helping build a closet. Do you like her peacock hair? :)

Her favorite tool is a small screwdriver. :)

leaving DK pictures...

Andrea helping me unpack. :)

Our house in Denmark... all boxed up.

Confused cat.

Tired little girl...

...who was not in the mood to move.

I usually take pictures with my good camera... but for taking pictures of the condition of the houses we are arriving into and leaving, I'm using my "not as good" camera. However I can't seem to get the pictures off of the good camera with all my kid and fun pictures on it... so here are some pictures I took from the "not as good" camera while taking pictures of scratches on walls and dents in the floor.

The "not as good" camera is in England right now with Michaela so I can't run around taking pictures to show to post my promised pictures.... Perhaps MY HUSBAND WILL HELP ME!

I did get the web cam to work and took my mom, and the laptop, on a tour of the downstairs. :)

Ride to school.

I know I was super excited about our house being so close to the school, BUT Andrea insists on walking everywhere herself. This morning it was raining slushy rain outside and I wasn't up to it because I am really cold. I've been cold for two weeks. :) (Oops, not supposed to complain about the fact the only warm room in the house is the bathroom where I am sitting right now).

Today I had to go to the grocery store and get the dry cleaning so I had to take the car out anyways... However, even driving them requires a long walk from the nearest parking lot. From the parking lot to the school would normally take 5 minutes, but it would be five minutes of Andrea crying and flailing about because she wants to walk.... not on the sidewalk, in the dirt and mud next to the sidewalk. So we let her walk and it took 15 minutes, less stressful though. :)

THE POINT of my writing: On the way to school Scotty said, "Mom, don't tell the teacher to tell me things because I already know them all." :) He said he knows where to put his name tag and his new gym shoes and rocket lunch box. I love the school even more because it's just like the preschool the girls have been in. The American teacher is so cool, she is so nice and friendly and laughs all the time. :) I left Scotty sitting at a table doing a worksheet. He was learning about the number three and was supposed to draw three pigs in the fence and write his name on the top of the paper. I CAN'T WAIT to see his pigs!!!! :)

Andrea's asleep so I'm off to try to organize the house... still. It's not going very quickly... I have a few more boxes I think. They are the ones that I open and then quickly close and move to another room because I don't know what to do with what is inside. Another IKEA shopping trip is planned with a friend on Friday. :)

First Day of School!!

School started today for Scotty and Sierra. My 11 year old is off in England somewhere having the time of her little life with all of her closest friends. I drove with her from Germany to Denmark on Sunday and Monday morning she caught the first flight to England. :)

I miss her... we all do. I know Sierra wanted to tell her about her first day of school this afternoon. Scotty needed her to help him with the "really hard part" on the wii. ...and Andrea gets so excited when she sees her big sisters I can't help but think that her terrible mood tonight was due to missing her big sister, KE.

However this morning I was happy to just get two kids set up at school. I was at the school for THREE hours getting things arranged, not sure why... We showed up early at 8:10... after a nice 20 minute walk in the rain. School starts at 8:30 and Sierra started class easily enough, when her class came walking up the hall and saw her they all ran to her yelling, "SIERRA". :) Then a boy came up, shook her hand, and said "nice to meet you". :) She was feeling pretty good about the day after that. She had been a little nervous I think.

Then we had Scott's "interview" at 9:00. He was cute enough during it and shyly answered all the questions he was asked. :) I do admit to being a bit worried about if Scotty would choose to throw a monster fit in the office about something and get kicked out before he started. :)

Interview lasted 30 minutes or so, we got to the new classroom around 10:00... snack time. I was pleased that I had a granola bar in my backpack as a snack for Scotty. I had to buy his lunch from the cafeteria, get his big coat from upstairs, change a poopy diaper... and before I knew it it was 11:00 and I was finally leaving! (only to return a half hour later with things the kids still needed.)

Scotty wasn't actually supposed to start today, but during the interview the headmaster guy asked him if he wanted to and he said yes! So we went to the classroom and he was thrilled beyond words. He had the biggest smile when he saw the kids all gathered around the calender, which is one of his favorite things in our house, he loves to know what day it is and what is coming up... He just smiled and jumped. :) - Oh, and on the way to school Scotty said to me, "Make sure you tell the teacher to tell me how to do things. YOU tell her so I know how to do things." It was much cuter coming from him as he jumped from puddle to puddle in his snowsuit carrying his little inside out umbrella on the way to school. :)

Since I didn't plan on Scotty staying I had to go to the cafeteria and buy him a lunch. Then I went home to get him shoes for gym. Had to be tennis shoes without black soles. Guess what? I only own black soled shoes for the little boy who jumps in mud puddles. I had one pair of dress shoes that were probably two sizes too big, they had brown soles so I brought them back to the school. :) Going back to school meant I could also drop off Sierra's indoor shoes and pencil case she had forgot in the stroller. It was just a LONG morning rewarded by.... coming home and having Andrea take a nap for a whopping 60 minutes. I was able to clean the kitchen in perfect silence. Ahhhhh..... (sad what makes me happy nowadays...).

SO - I LOVE THE SCHOOL. It's very American. :) Scotty will start learning to read and do math. Sierra already has some homework with due dates that she is anxious to meet in order to impress her teacher, who is so bubbly and outgoing and enthusiastic.

The school makes me happy. So far. :) Who knows, I could be complaining and wanting to go back to Denmark in a few weeks. :) I can be pretty moody you know!

Really... sorry it's so boring without pictures. Soon, I will try my best. I've just been a little busy here. Moving countries take a bit of effort... especially when there are four kids involved!