Going to the library

There's no reason to take a car to the library when your town has 90 miles of paths and you're renting a golf cart.  Just be sure to charge your cart's battery every night.

Passing by our house

Just three doors down from our house is a playground and the lake's boat docks and launch.

We see people paddling canoes and kayaks, swimming.....

.....and fishing.

Many of the paths are woodsy.

Passing other golf cart riders

The final stretch to the library takes us along one of Peachtree City's main roads.

In the library parking lot, our golf cart was just one among many.

We took so many pictures of fountains in Europe, we had to take one of this fountain with moving parts in front of the library.

Picking out some books.

Emilie and I love my Kindle, but we happily checked out some books we've both been wanting to read -- for free!.

On the way home, we passed this happy dog. I've seen many dogs riding in golf carts and even one dog being walked next to his master's golf cart as it drove along a path.

What to do?

We've been back in the U.S. for more than a month now and I was beginning to feel like so much time had passed, that just too much had happened for me to continue the blog. I didn't think I would ever catch up. In fact, there were still plenty of posts I wanted to write while we were still in Germany. But the last few weeks in Germany, life suddenly sped up and I didn't have the time and wasn't in the right fram of mind. And then even here, it took a month for us to get internet. What to do?

I thought about just letting the blog die as it was a month ago, but them reminded myself that one of the reasons I was blogging was to have a record of our stay in Germany. I've been telling people all along that at some point, I wanted to have the blog printed and bound as a book (there are plenty of businesses that will do that), a perfect memoir of our German adventure. I couldn't do that if the blog wasn't completed.

So, I will continue blogging, but it won't be in chronological order. I'll be back tracking and blogging as if I were still in Germany, and then jumping ahead and doing an entry from the U.S., whatever strikes my fancy. I'll indicate at the top of the blog when I add an entry from the recent past. I hope to catch up at some point, but it will take a while.

Just to recap the last month, we flew from Germany to Atlanta on July 10 and moved into David's one-bedroom apartment he had been staying in since he started his new job with Lufthansa Cargo at the beginning of June. A few days later, we moved into a three-bedroom apartment and then about 10 days after that, we were able to move into our new home. Yes, we did buy the house with the beautiful front porch. We are still, however, without our belongings, so some of use are still sleeping on air mattresses and for a few weeks, we were eating our meals standing at the kitchen counter, or in the case of Emilie and Rebecca, sitting on the kitchen counter.

All the kids began school this week and so far, so good. I'll blog in more detail soon about that.

And for those of you wondering about the golf cart lifestyle, for which Peachtree City is reknown, we are renting a 4-seat golf cart at the moment and will at some point buy a six-seater. Peachtree City has 90 miles of paths crissscrossing the town and while cars still dominate, you see plenty of golfcarts. I take the kids to school/the bus stop on the golf cart and my goal this week is to drive it to the store when I need something instead of taking the car.

Here is the parking lot at Micaela's high school.

Otherwise, all is well.  Stay tuned.

First Day of School

School begins early in Georgia.  Some counties began school last week, but Fayette County holds out until the second week in August.

Rebecca and Emilie were up bright and early.  They will both be attending Huddelston Elementary School.  I was torn about what to do with Rebecca.  She makes the cut off date for Kindergarten, but considering that she has such a late birthday, and, more importantly, that German Kindergarten teaches no academics, I doubted she was ready.  In German Kindergarten, which covers the ages 3 to 6 (our preschool plus our kindergarten), kids learn how to play nicely.  They learn songs, listen to stories and color pictures, but there is no reading or writing.  Not even letter recognition.  That all begins in first grade in Germany.

I worked with Becca a bit at home on writing letters, but she initially learned her letters and the sounds they make from a game on her Leapster, a preschool handheld video system, without me even realizing it until she began identifying letters on signs and vehicles as we walked through our little German town.  Still, she will surely be behind the rest of the class.

I did have her assessed at the local elementary school since I was torn between sending her to Kindergarten or having her attend a local preschool pre-K program.  The teacher had a short session with Becca and reported that she was doing at least the minimum of what the school expects incoming Kindergartens to be capable of.  "At least the minimum...."

We dropped Emilie back a grade as she had been pushed ahead a grade when we first moved to Germany.  Third grade should be perfect for her.

Waiting for the bus in our rental golf cart.  This will be the first time Becca and Emilie will have ridden on a big, yellow school bus. We rented a four-seater to see if that would be big enough for us and quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn't.

We'll definitely need a six-seater.  The first time David took us for a spin, I shrieked from the back seat as we sped down our driveway, "David, slow down!  You're going too fast!"  His response:  "You can't go "too fast" in a golf cart."

A very excited Emilie and Becca boarded the bus and then we raced home to pick up Micaela (a freshman at the high school) to take her to her bus stop. For the record, I couldn't stick around for the bus as it was getting late and it turns out her bus never came.  The kids at her bus stop were eventually picked up by a random school bus driver and they all arrived late on their last day.  Micaela was told at school that this would not happen again.

After waiting and waiting for Micaela's bus, we gave up and I left to drive James to school on the golf cart as we're close enough to the local middle school that there is no bus service in our subdivision. Once he turns twelve at the end of this month, he'll be able to drive the golf cart when accompanied by a parent. Kids can drive golf carts alone with a driving permit -- usually when they're 15.  James was pushed ahead a grade when we moved to Germany and we decided to keep him there, so he'll be starting 7th grade today. 

The day passed quickly and there were no frantic calls to home.

And in the afternoon, I did the whole thing again.  Picked up Becca and Em at the bus stop, went home for a snack and a talk (they had great days) and then we were off on the golf cart again to pick up Micaela and zoom right to the middle school to get James.  The high school and middle school have virtually the same schedule, so things were a bit rushed today.  I was hoping by the time we got to James, he wouldn't be wasted away in the parking lot waiting for us.  He wasn't.

I feel a bit funny using the golf cart.  Without it, I would be walking Becca and Em to and from the bus stop, Micaela would walk alone to the bus stop and then James could walk or ride his bike alone to school.  But considering the fact that we've been having temperatures in the high 90s (just a bit too hot to be walking/standing around in the hot sun for 20 minutes), there are no sidewalks, Micaela's bus stop is right on a busy 4-lane street (I do feel better watching her get on the bus and it's much more pleasant watching her get on from the seat of a golf cart than standing around), and fast driving high schoolers in their golf carts rule the paths around here (James might get picked off walking home), I'm not feeling overly guilty.  OK, maybe that last fear about James getting picked off as he walked home was a slight exaggeration. But I need all the justification I can get.

American TV

We made the kids happy a few days ago when we came home with our first flat screen TV -- a rather unimpressive 19-inch, but a TV nonetheless.  The kids have been doing remarkably well in the apartment with no computer, no wi-fi, no TV and only the few toys they brought in their carry-ons.  We survived Germany with only one TV, but here in the U.S., we'll get another larger TV for the basement playroom.

We have an HD antenna and only have handful of stations, but it's still nice.  The kids think that American TV has too many court shows (Divorce Court, Judge Mathis, etc.) and way too many medication ads with long disclaimers.  For my part, I was reminded of how disturbing local TV news broadcasts are.  There were only 2 murders in our German state of Hessen that I heard of during our three years in Germany.  Maybe there were more, but they weren't replayed on TV or splashed across the newspaper pages for days on end.   The only story that got that kind of press was a tragic school shooting near Stuttgart in 2009, but even that dropped off the media radar after a week.  The local news shows here are loaded with murders, shootings, violent home invasions,... you know what I'm talking about.  We need to get a DVR and tape the news and watch it with no kids present.

I was struck by how alarmist so much of TV "news" shows are -- such as Good Morning America and Dateline.  I'm not lying when I report that some of the features on Good Morning America have included "Can your pet's dry food make you ill?" and "What to do if a shark gets into your metal cage while you're on a shark observation dive" as well as "Hidden danger in your local sports stadium food" and "Could your local community pool be making you sick?"  Before moving to Germany, David and I were loyal viewers of Good Morning America, but I don't know if I can handle it now.

What kids will do when there's no TV

For the last few days, we were staying in a one-bedroom apartment, but today, we got the keys to a three-bedroom apartment. When the apartment agent handed the keys to me, she said, "I think you'll be very happy in this apartment. And we just put in new carpet!" That's the sort of thing, when you have four kids, that does not make you jump for joy. I would have preferred older carpet.

But the kids had other ideas. They quickly discovered that the new carpet had two different colors, depending on how it was "brushed."

And here's the result. Micaela and James both "carved" large Green Day drawings into the carpet. We weren't allowed to step through the living room for the whole day.

We came upon a fantastic music store, the Guitar Center, in the town next door and bought James a drumming block since he's been driving us crazy drumming on the counter top with pencils.

He went on to recreate his beloved drum set and the metal Lufthansa boxes we were given on the flight home made decent symbols.

We've been surviving with no TV, no computer, no wi-fi in our new apartment, few toys, no friends, but the kids have been doing great. Being able to go swimming every afternoon in the complex' pool and reading books on the Kindle helps.

Last Flight Home

Today we flew home to the U.S. As we made our way to the Frankfurt Airport, after having said goodbye to our empty house and taking one last swing in the backyard, the kids were fretting about whether or not we would get Business Class seats on the airplane. We had confirmed business class seats, but as we have discovered in the past, that can all change in the blink of an eye.

At the airport, checking on poor Guinness. Lufthansa advises pet owners to not give their pets any sleeping medication. They found that pets would be more upset if they woke up in the cargo section of the airplane during the flight rather than being aware of what was happening the whole time.

Happily for all of us, we got those confirmed seats after all. The seats are in pairs and my traveling buddy was Emilie. Right away, the flight attendants approached us with champagne, juice and games and treats for the kids.

The nicest thing about flying business class is being able to stretch out, a close second is the personal movie screen and third is the attentive service.

After the flight, I said to David, "You know, flying business class is like sitting in your family room at home for an entire day in a recliner, watching all those movies on DVD you've been meaning to see, while a servant in the kitchen cooks and brings you a "gourmet" dinner and checks on you every so often to see if you would like more wine. Then you doze off for an hour or two and wake up and realize you're thirsty and right then, your servant comes up to you with a tray of juices and water to choose from. And it continues like that for another few hours. It's quite a treat when you think about it."

In Atlanta waiting for Guinness to be brought to us.  It took us forever to get through all the necessary checks in Atlanta.  In fact, we needed to go through security, including scanning our bags and having us walk through a metal detector, to exit from baggage claim area and enter the main area of the airport. 

And then we were in our rented minivan, driving toward Peachtree City and our new life in the U.S.

Grocery Shopping in Germany: Lesson 3 -- At the Lidl

Walk 10 minutes down the path from our house, up the street and you'll be at the Grocery Trifecta -- at one intersection we have three grocery stores: Rewe (the nice one) and the Aldi and Lidl, both discount grocery stores. Of those last two, I usually shop at Lidl because it's on our side of the intersection. To the right you can see the attached bakery, Hechts, which is our go-to bakery.

A first look inside the Lidl. If I walk to the store, I put the groceries I intend to buy right into my reusable bags that I brought. I've been caught in the past where I used a shopping cart and ended up buying too much and it was struggle to carry everything home. The workers don't bat an eye when you put things into your shopping bag or basket.

No fresh veggies or fruit are refrigerated.

Margarine is not refrigerated.

Eggs are not refrigerated.

It was French week this week -- crêpe and tartes mixes, cans of ratatouille and other French items.

You see more heat treated milk that doesn't need refrigeration than you do fresh milk.

Individually wrapped cheeses, similar to Kraft American cheese slices, are not refrigerated.

In the middle of the store are the specials of the week. I have seen everything there: everyday clothing and household items, scuba gear, ski boots, composting toilets, vacuum cleaners, etc. You never know what you'll find.

Expect to wait in a long line at the Lidl and expect that you will let some people cut in line in front of you, with your permission, that is. It is expected that you will look at the people behind you and if they have only a few items, or even just significantly less than you have, you should allow them to go in front of you. If you don't, they will tap you on the shoulder and say, "I have only a few items. Would you mind if I go in front of you?" I had a lady say that to me once, I let her go ahead and it turns out she had more items that I had, but it wasn't worth saying anything. On the other hand, there was a time where I just needed to pick up one or two things for dinner and I had a sleeping Becca in my arms. People noticed right away that I was carrying a slumbering toddler and pushed me to the front of the line. That was nice.

The cashiers at the Lidl scan items at lightening speed and there is only a small space to put them afterward, so you need to be quick about either sticking them back into your shopping cart or into your shopping bag. People get annoyed if you take a long time putting your items away and slow down the already long line. By the way, I have never seen a bag boy/girl in Germany. And when it comes to paying, you can use your debit/credit card no problem, but if you use cash, give the cashier exact change, or as close as possible. It's what they expect and if you just hand them a 10 or 20 Euro bill, they will ask you if you have any change. It's normal to see people digging through their change purses for that 1 cent Euro coin.