On the plane... The plane left at 9pm and the kiddos managed to stay up until almost midnight before we pushed the issue and they fell asleep. Janet, of course cannot sleep on planes very well so I ended up watching 4 episodes of Ugly Betty on my iPod then closing my eyes for about 45 minutes. The next day was painfully tiring, but we pushed through and got over the jet lag pretty quickly!
There are over 40 buses... all filled with kids grade k-12 that drop off at the same point... mass chaos at the school! Ramstein Elementary has only 3 grades, Kindergarten, 1st Grade and 2nd Grade... and it is massive! Watching thousands of kids get off the buses and then walk to their prospective schools (all 4 schools are in the same area so the busses only have one drop off area) was pretty overwhelming! Emma and Leo took it in stride though. We are still walking the kids to school from our hotel room. Once we move into our house they will ride the bus.
I am glad they are getting the opportunity to know the school a little bit, however, so they will feel more comfortable with how things are before they have to do it solo on the bus.
Mrs Potts (teacher's aide), Mrs. Cooley (student teacher) and Mrs. Cortez (Leo's Kindergarten Teacher). The kids really adjusted quickly, I was very proud of them.
This is part of our new town Mackenbach. You see how the streets are narrow and the buildings are so close to eachother and to the street! Makes driving a little interesting!
These are our landlords! He owns the house and is also an electrician and builder so we will not have to go through a middle man. His name is Andy and his wife is Susan. They are very nice and have promised to help Russ and I with our German. This is the inside of the foyer but the furniture belongs to the people who are currently in the house so I will send pics of the inside of the house later. It has a huge open living room with the kitchen and dining room all pretty much together. Then a downstairs bedroom that we will use as an office and guest room. There are three bedrooms upstairs and Emma and Leo will finally have their own rooms. The rooms are much bigger than what we had in Kansas!
And here is our new house! It is located in a very American neighborhood, which is good and bad. The upside is that all of the kids in the neighborhood will be around to play with and walk to the bus stop with... as you can see it is snowing. It has snowed on us quite a bit since we got here but it is not as cold as Kansas. In Kansas it was in the teens most of the time, here the snow pretty much melts off as soon as the sun comes out. It is still cold... but in the 30's cold rather than in the teens cold.
The first two weeks were pretty hard, we had no phone, no car, no internet, no home... so that made it a little hard to find a phone, car, or house! But it eventually started to fall into place. We couldn't drive until we passed a German Driving Test so once we passed it, we rented a car in order to find a car to buy. Then the phone and house hunt began... so slowly but surely things are coming together.
The search for the house was the worst. The list of houses the housing office had was very slim because we are off cycle and therefore not many people are leaving right now. Every house we called about had already been rented. We had finally decided to rent a furnished apartment and then take over a friend of ours house (who wasn't leaving until April) when we happened upon a house with a sign in front. Germans do not do it like We do... they rarely put signs in their yard. They either go through a realtor (which comes with a $2000 finding fee) which we were trying to avoid. Or advertise through the paper. We happened upon the sign before the ad went in the paper. He had already gotten a realtor, but since we called him directly, we did not have to pay the realtor!!!!!!! We were the second people to call on the house, the first had gone out of town and come to find out, once we started to paperwork, more than 10 people called every day to rent that house! We are so blessed!!!!!
More later, it is time to get some other stuff done!
Miss you all! Janet
Sweet Supportive Big Sissie Emma!
There are over 40 buses... all filled with kids grade k-12 that drop off at the same point... mass chaos at the school! Ramstein Elementary has only 3 grades, Kindergarten, 1st Grade and 2nd Grade... and it is massive! Watching thousands of kids get off the buses and then walk to their prospective schools (all 4 schools are in the same area so the busses only have one drop off area) was pretty overwhelming! Emma and Leo took it in stride though. We are still walking the kids to school from our hotel room. Once we move into our house they will ride the bus. 
Mrs Potts (teacher's aide), Mrs. Cooley (student teacher) and Mrs. Cortez (Leo's Kindergarten Teacher). The kids really adjusted quickly, I was very proud of them. 
This is part of our new town Mackenbach. You see how the streets are narrow and the buildings are so close to eachother and to the street! Makes driving a little interesting!
These are our landlords! He owns the house and is also an electrician and builder so we will not have to go through a middle man. His name is Andy and his wife is Susan. They are very nice and have promised to help Russ and I with our German. This is the inside of the foyer but the furniture belongs to the people who are currently in the house so I will send pics of the inside of the house later. It has a huge open living room with the kitchen and dining room all pretty much together. Then a downstairs bedroom that we will use as an office and guest room. There are three bedrooms upstairs and Emma and Leo will finally have their own rooms. The rooms are much bigger than what we had in Kansas!
And here is our new house! It is located in a very American neighborhood, which is good and bad. The upside is that all of the kids in the neighborhood will be around to play with and walk to the bus stop with... as you can see it is snowing. It has snowed on us quite a bit since we got here but it is not as cold as Kansas. In Kansas it was in the teens most of the time, here the snow pretty much melts off as soon as the sun comes out. It is still cold... but in the 30's cold rather than in the teens cold.
I am assuming that Leo is 'driving'???
Cousins!!!!! Antares, Sky, Leo and Emma!
