First Week of School

Well today is Friday of the first week that the kids are in school.  I wondered what I would do with myself since the kids are in school all day, and I have forgotten that EVERYTHING takes longer than I thought it would.  My days are chock full of things to do.  I am hardly home- just going to the grocery store is a 2-3 hour affair.  I am hoping for an afternoon where I can read, but even today doesn’t look like that is going to happen.  I need to go to the store to return a broken (new) phone that Chris just bought and the girls need sport (commonly known as Gym) clothes from the uniform shop.  Can’t have any old sport sweat pants. Have to have white polo, all must have the school logo.  And the phone is very important.  Hopefully my wonderfully clever husband can get the Vonage up and running this weekend, as we now have internet full time and a German phone!

Here are some of the highlights of the week; good, bad, and the ugly:

Kids are doing great transitioning to the new school.  Maggie is doing great going to school all day, every day, and she doesn’t seem as tired as some of the others.  She is working hard on learning what is asked of her.  Today we were working on spelling.   Get a load of these words- smart, skip, smack, to name a few.  She is trying very hard to master them.  Sometimes I think that we under estimate what the kids can do.  By the way, and this is for my dad, her teacher is Scottish, with a lovely brogue to boot.  Mags might come back sounding that way too.

Bren is doing ok.  He loves his teacher, who is planning a sleep over in “the hole” (the cafeteria) of the school sometime soon.  He is already told that he is going to have a field trip to the planetarium, and so far has had no homework.  He has made friends, and seems genuinely happy.  He has been exhausted from the week- so tired we have sent him from the dinner table to go to bed early.  Some short tempers because of the tiredness too.

Will has read to his teacher, who has commented that he reads quite well.  The little homework that he has had has been a breeze, and he is settling in well.  He hasn’t mentioned any friends at school, but he didn’t in the US so much either.  I’m going to check up on that at Pick up time.  The time change and all the activity hasn’t seemed to slow down his energy at all.  Frieder ( the relocation guy) is looking for wrestling for him.

Em has made a few friends, both around here and at school.  We ride the train to school with a few families, and they have girls her age.  She had a rough time last week thinking about going to a different school, but I must commend St. George’s for their helpfulness in her transition.  Again no homework for her, but I think that is going to change next week.  I hope it does.  She has begun to go to “Guides” (British girl scouts) with Charlotte (Karen’s daughter) and I think that might be a good outlet for her.  In a word, this week is better!

Chris seems to be jumping into his job full force.  He is as busy as ever.  Next week the hours become a bit longer for him.  The plan as of right now is that we will see him a bit more in morning some days.  There is no word as of yet about his work visa, and no complaining from Chris.  He is glad that our trips to IKEA have grown smaller so that he doesn’t have to put so many things together.

As for me, I am making my way.  Many things are the same, yet so different.  There are things that I seem to have forgotten (blocked) out.  Like the oven.  It took getting out the computer to translate the different settings.  I think that I finally have it.  It will take making a loaf of bread to be sure.  The dryer is another process that took longer than I plan to figure out.  And I am sllllloooooowwwwwwwllllly meeting other moms at the school.  (One as of today.) Seems many people drive their kids to school, and there aren’t as many people watching their kids on the play ground.  At St. George’s, the teachers are out there.  Most parents drop off and leave.  I have caught up with a few friends that are here from the first time, and that has been fun.  It is nice that we have the group from JCI to band together. 

We are working through the change, and I can see progress.  The house is coming together, we have a car, and we are on the time zone.  It has only been a couple of weeks!  This weekend we are planning on going out as a family to the Neanderthal Museum to see an Exhibit on the Wooly mammoths.   I hoping that it will be interesting, and if not it will get us out of the house.  J

Our First 2 Weeks

I thought I would take this time to cover the first two weeks of our move.  I think we have settled in a bit and trying to get a normal routine going.   There is still things to do - but we are close to being "moved in"  For the next post - I will upload some pictures for all to see.

Dec 27 - We jumped into relocation mode after a very nice Christmas.  It's time to move out of the house and into a hotel.  We focused on cleaning the house and have it ready to sit for a while.   We had a little panic when we found water in the basement - had a plumber come right away.  Don't need any flooding while we are gone.  Got alot of work done this day and we all (including dog) stayed in a nice suite at the Residence Inn.  A little cozy.

Dec 28 - More cleaning and organizing.  The movers showed up and shipped our air shipment.  It felt good to have everything shipped.   We had a very nice dinner with Chuck and Nancy and we said Good Bye to them.  (and cake too - thanks Nancy) Dawn stopped over to say Good Bye as well.

Dec 29 - Head out day! - With the house shut down - all we had was 6 people, 1 dog and crate, 10 suitcases, 4 backpacks - and 2 laptops and we had to get it all to Chicago.  Maureen's parents joined us at the hotel and we headed out.  They were a big help to us to get everything there.  I felt bad for Maureen's mom as she was pretty sick - but she hung in there.   It was a beautiful day for a drive and our fears of driving to Chicago in a snow storm vanished.    Stayed at the Double Tree near O'Hare.  Nice that the rooms had some space so we could stretch out.  Kids got to swim in the pool.  I dropped off the rental van.

Dec 30 - So now all we had to do was get all the "stuff" above to the airport for the flight to Germany.   Maureen, Kathy, the kids, and all the suitcases rode over in the hotel shuttle bus.  And Don and I drove over in their truck with the dog and crate.  (remember this route is all about the dog - Grand Rapids had a lovely airport).  Of course, we got there extremely early and it could not have worked out better.  The shuttle bus dropped them off right outside Lufthansa right at the same time Don and I showed up.  We got all checked in - walked the dog for a bit and sent her off in the crate.  She wasn't happy.  We said Good Bye to Maureen's parents and headed off to the plane.   It felt like such a huge relief that after all the planning - we were finally leaving.  We met up with the Karel's at the gate and it was a good time.  Cheers went out as we saw the luggage and dog crates being loaded onto the plane.  The flight was great.  Kids slept well.

Dec 31 - Arrival Day - We touched down in Dusseldorf and saw the tons of snow they had received.  I was snowed on pretty good in my previous trips - but this was more.   All 10 suitcases made it.  But no dog.  We had to search where they delivered dogs and we found them at the other end of baggage claim.   They didn't even ask for her paperwork.   All that work and trips to the vet and USDA.   I rented a large van and actually got everything in.   We stayed at the Gut Hohne hotel which is an old castle that has been converted into a hotel and spa.  It had a pool.  The rooms were nice and spacious - but we knew we didn't want to stay long.   It is New Year's Eve - so we hustled to a store to buy groceries as things would shut down for the next few days.   The hotel hosted a nice dinner for us - 5 families who all arrived on the same day.  After a quick dip in the pool - everyone was exhausted.  

Jan 1 - Spent the day in the new house seeing what was set up.  Learning all the switches and kids playing with the laundry chute.  Found an Italian place open for dinner.  I watched some of the UM game.  Big mistake.  

Jan 2 - Decided to move some of the furniture around which means disassembling and reassembling as nothing fits up and down the steps.  Maureen's friend Karen invited us over for a traditional English meal.  It was wonderful.  Took the train to church in the evening for an English service.  The train stop is literally a stone's throw from our house.  

Jan 3 - Holidays are officially over.  Today I have one main objective.  And that is to go pickup Maureen's car.  I had put a deposit on one in my last trip.  The dealer agreed to let me finalize it when I returned.  So off to the bank (had to pay cash) - then to the dealer.  The dealer gave me all the paperwork for the car and then off to the German equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles for registration and have plates made.  The office should really be called Department of anything beaurocratic.  Long story short, I was successful.  Then back to the dealer to pick up the car.  And drove Rosalee home.  (kids name our cars)  Maureen and the kids spent the day shopping for things taking the train.  We only had beds in our house - so we needed a few things as we had checked out of our hotel and would spend the first night in the house.   It was fine - through very empty.

Jan 4 - Woo  Hoo - shipment arrives.  The truck seems small to me - so I was a little concerned.  Turns out they split in two and the rest would come the next day.  Our clean empty house now was filled with boxes and paper.  But it was like Christmas unwrapping everything.  And I do mean everything.    The ice on our road made furniture moving treacherous.  Left the lights on in the new car - oops - now we got to experience calling their version of AAA to jump start the car.

Jan 5 - Our first trip to Ikea - followed by hours of assembling furniture.  The house is starting to take shape.
Jan 6 - Our next trip to Ikea.
Jan 7 - And one more trip - I think I am done with Ikea.

Over the weekend - it felt like home.  Emmy had a nice event with some of the girls in the area.  We did some "skyping" which was good. Maggie skyped with her friend Megan.  They were so cute just playing with each other in front of the computer.

Jan 10 - First day of work and uniform shopping.

Jan 11 - First day of school. More to come on that.

Sorry for being so lengthy - but we want to make sure we capture the highlights of our stay here.

WHEW...........

OK. Wow. We can relax. Made it from hotel to airport - checked in; of course dog paperwork was non issue. Through security. Sadly said bye to dog as she cried and tried to get out. Now sitting at lunch and all we need to do is sit and wait. We are overlooking the tarmac at terminal 1 and I can help but scan the gates looking for a springer spaniel running out there. Oh well - maybe relax tomorrow. Kids did Awesome.

End of December

We are done!  Well, at least the majority of the stuff is done.  We are currently in the hotel, our stuff is with us, and we are moved out of the house.  The airship has come and gone, and so the planning phase is done.  If I work hard, I think I might be able to have the house up and running (well) in Germany in a couple of weeks!  Up and running (not so well) on the 4^th, when our ocean ship arrives.  I feel like I just took a final exam and it is now time to relax for a bit.  And then the grades (i.e. our stuff in the ocean shipment) come.  I’ll see how we did!  Let’s hope all the planning paid off.  I’m sure that there will be a couple of trips to IKEA in the future.  That doesn’t sound like a hardship, though.

Chris was in Germany for the first 2 and a half weeks of December, which always changes the mix.  He was able to do several things over there to help make sure that we are in the house fairly quickly.  Fieder should have the keys for us, basically when we land.  And the beds are being put together right now.  Chris  has applied for our residency visas so that we can get the stuff on the 4^th, and we have a car.  We name our cars, and this one is Rosalee.  She is bright red and I am hoping that she is not a magnet for tickets.

December was busy for everyone.  Back in Michigan we had band concerts, elementary school concerts, and all the getting ready for Christmas. We sold our cars. And we were getting the dog settled to go.  This is just one sentence, but boy it involved a lot.  The dog needs to be up to date on shots, as you would expect, but there are also special microchips, special paperwork, special tags, special timing on  when it will all be done, special everything.  While Chris was arriving in Germany, he saw an American that was bringing in her dog.  He caught up with her and found out that not only do we need special everything, we need it certified by the USDA.  And so Kerrie and I were off to the USDA right before Christmas to get it all done.   We won’t know if we did everything right until we get to the plane tomorrow.  If that dog gets accepted as luggage, we did it right. 

December also began the season of good-byes.  We will miss you all, but I am ready to start saying hello to people.  Good-byes are rough.  Nuf said.

So today we are on our way to Chicago with Mom and Dad Cadwell.  WE were concerned that the weather might be a bit scary- you never know what Michigan might hold.  We are totally thankful that it is in the 30’s and there barely is any snow!  We can see the grass through.  Did I tell you that we had been praying for that?  Wa hoo!  Let’s hope that the snows around the country won’t affect our leaving.

So there is one last big piece of the puzzle that is not in place.  Please pray that Chris’s work visa comes through soon.  He has applied, JCI has moved us without it, but it was also supposed to be in place by the middle of December.  Legally, he can’t work in Germany without it.  There is a small grace period, but it needs to be in place.  Thanks!

Mail Forwarding

We wanted to let everyone know about our mailing address while we are in Germany.  If you send us mail, you can send it to Johnson Controls and they will forward it to us once a week.

Our address is

Chris Norton
Johnson Controls IAS

5757 N. Green Bay Avenue( X34A)

Milwaukee, Wi 53209

USA

We would love to hear from you. 

New Car

I got back from Germany this week - last time before we move over.   I got a few things done; biggest was finding a car for Maureen.  woo hoo .

Flowers

                Tuesday was the last day of the women’s bible study.  The women surprised me with roses and a spiritual bouquet.  What a thoughtful gift!  I was totally blown away by it.  Since I am coming back (and for those of you reading this, I AM coming back!) I didn’t think that they would do anything special other than pray over me.  It was so touching.  And so it begins.  Closing chapters, saying good-bye, and moving on.  This is not easy. 

                 I love the roses.  Chris and I prayed a novena (9 day prayer) asking St. Therese of the little flower to help us pray for discernment before we went house/school hunting in October.  Each place had roses- the school had a bowl full and the house had some planted on the property.  A sure sign that we were on the right path.  Now there are some from the group.  Love it!  That along with the knowledge that these women are praying for us is just fantastic.