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.

Our new house (we hope)

If all goes according to plan, this beautiful house will be ours in a month or so. Before David left Germany, we spent hours a day looking at homes on the internet. We were sure we wanted to live in Peachtree City (the town with all the golfcarts and excellent schools) and thanks to real estate websites that allow you to select certain search criteria, such as a basement, we were fairly easily able to whittle down to a list of 15 homes. Once school let out, we began to see houses on the list getting picked off by eager buyers. I tried not to get too stressed. Other houses would be put on the market, right?

David zeroed in immediately on the above house on a street called Battery Way. Once he traveled back to the U.S., he was able to drive around and check out the houses on our list. That first weekend, he went alone and could not go inside, but was able to knock several houses off our list due to their location (now that he was becoming familiar with the area) or an exterior that needed too much work. The following weekend, he went inside 8 homes with a real estate agent and two homes jumped to the head of the pack, including Battery Way. I think it would be fair to say he fell head over heels in love with this house. He called me to tell me about the homes, sent extra pictures over the internet and gushed about Battery Way.

One thing I was very nervous about was having to enroll the kids in school (they begin August 9th) before we bought a house. It would be a very bad thing to have to switch schools after just a few weeks, but David was reluctant to make an offer on a house without me seeing it first. On the phone David said, "I would be comfortable making an offer on Battery Way without you seeing it, I'm so confident you will love it. I can't say that about any of the other houses." I told him to go for it.

The kitchen has a granite extension that 6 high stools can fit around...

.....and a nice finished room in the basement.

Did I mention it has a salt water pool and jacuzzi? I didn't want a pool, but I am definitely warming up to the idea as David informs me of how hot it is in Georgia right now.

So, it's been a big week so far. And it's the kids last week of school, so there's more excitement/tears to come.

Some minor annoyances about our life in Germany

At gas stations around our area, you cannot pay at the pump. You must go into the little store and pay an attendant. This wouldn't be that big a deal except for the fact that there is usually no place to park your car away from the pump to let other people pull up to one while you pay. As a result, I often see cars back up down the street as drivers wait for their turn to fill up their tank.

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This little garden and wall in front of our house is a pain. First of all, I need to weed the gosh darn thing and keep the rosebush trimmed, and some of you may know that gardening is not high on my list of priorities. Maybe in the future, but not now. The bigger issue is that little wall. It's a low one, but just high enough that if I park beside it facing away from the front door, I cannot open my car door. It took me whacking the door against the wall several times for this fact to become ingrained in my brain.

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When we were preparing to move to Germany, I said to myself, "Having the internet will make everything easier. I mean, you can even watch full episodes of Dora the Explorer on-line." Ha. Having the internet is a godsend, but forget about being able to watch programs and videos from the U.S. with no problems. Go to Nickjr.com, Hulu and even sometimes youtube and try to watch a video while you're abroad. You will get a message informing you that that video or program is unavailable outside the U.S. David did some research and found out that you can fool some of those sites into believing you are in the U.S., but over time, those sites figured out what we were doing and we couldn't watch the videos anymore. We finally found a way to watch some show and videos, but we then run into the problem of having a slow internet connection and at times, the video needs to buffer ever 5 seconds and makes watching something too frustrating. That's just one reason why I have bought so many DVDs for the kids these past three years.

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The grocery store where I do my weekly shopping has stopped selling my orange Irish cheddar in favor of yellow British cheddar -- not the same thing, believe me. It's a sign that this is the right time for us to move home.

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I'm not sure what is up with German electronics. Since we've been here, we've gone through 2 DVD players and the one we have now is on the fritz; our DVR is freezing up all the time; I've gone through 3 pairs of good-quality headphones for my ipod (can't do earbuds); 2 of our 3 telephone handsets won't pick up calls; James' drumset and Micaela's electric guitar -- each less than 2 years old -- have needed to have pieces replaced; we've gone through 2 vacuum cleaners and my current one just had a wheel fall apart; 2 little boom boxes have broken. Some of the items were hand-me-downs and it wasn't a big surprise when they broke, but other people have complained to me about how often they need to replace their electronics here.

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Right in front of our house is space for two cars to park. The house right next to us has a handicapped reserved spot and we are not allowed to park in front of their house. 95% of the time when I take the car somewhere, upon arriving home, I have my parking spot open right in front of my front door. I say "my parking spot" but I have no legal claim on it. It's public parking. 5% of the time, however, there is a car parked in my spot and it is usually parked in such a way that I cannot park in front nor behind it. I must park somewhere else on the street. It's not a big deal, but I still let curse words fly out of my mouth every time we arrive home to see someone else parked in front of our house. David had to find another spot on the street about 1/2 the time when he came home from work as someone took the other spot in front of our house.

When we first moved here, it was an issue, though. There was a woman who came to ride her horse in the afternoon near our house (it was boarded in the barn across the street) and when I would come home from picking up the kids at school, she would be parked in such a way that she was taking up both spots in front of our house. I finally had had it and asked the nice teenage boy across the street whose car that was and could he please ask the driver to just park farther up or father back so that I could park there, too. She never parked in front of our house again.

Rebecca's 5th Birthday

Rebecca has known that her birthday was coming up and she knew that she would have a cake and some presents, but today she seemed a bit unsure about everything.

It began with our tradition of draping our kids' doorways with crêpe paper and balloons. Becca fell asleep in the bed in our office, so I draped the paper from the window to the wall right along the side of the bed. On the morning of someone's birthday, it's a big deal for the birthday boy or girl  to be woken up and then have to rip through the paper or figure out a way to crawl through without disturbing the paper or balloons.

When I woke up this morning, Becca was in bed with me. When she woke up, she showed me the crêpe paper and showed me how she crawled under it in the middle of the night, but it all seemed to have been done with some trepidation.

When a Kindergartener has a birthday, he is greeted immediately with a special birthday song. This morning, Becca's teacher saw her coming down the hall, gathered all the kids in the doorway and they sang the little song. Becca looked a little sad and needed a hug when the song was done.

Even when she was given her special crown her teacher made for her, Becca didn't seem happy.

Some of the classmates who sang to her.  They all look a lot happier than Bex.  By the time I picked her up in the afternoon, she was doing better.

One of the highlights of Rebecca's day was talking to her daddy on Skype. She began asking me last week, "So, Mom,....where's Dad?" Yesterday, I reminded her that Daddy was in America, to which Becca replied, "Oh, yeah. America. That's in Germany." I explained, once again, that to get to America, you travel on an airplane as it is very far away from Germany.

This morning Becca said, "Mom, where is Daddy?" with some annoyance in her voice.

I don't know what we would do without Skype and the internet. Talking to Daddy helped put Becca in a better mood.

The word on Becca's new shirt means "Little Angel" or "Cherub."  I snatched up a few of these shirts when I saw them.  When you come upon kids' shirts in stores with writing on them, chances are the writing is in English. 

Littlest Pet Shop and Playmobil are awesome gifts.  Becca and Emilie will disappear up to their room and play Playmobil or Littlest Pet Shop, or a combination of the two, for hours and hours.

Time for cake and ice cream.  We ate birthday cake while we watched home videos of when we brought Becca home from the hospital in 2005.  Even our dog, Guinness, looked younger.

Becca's cake was decorated with crushed Oreos.  Just over the past two weeks, she has become enamored with Oreo cookies.  She take after her Daddy.

Birthdays are a big deal in Germany.  David always says that you don't get a lot of work done at the office on your birthday because you spend the whole day fielding phone calls from friends and colleagues wishing you a happy birthday.

I feel guilty that none of our kids have had a birthday party this year. The girls' birthdays all fall within a month of each other and with us starting the moving home business, it just didn't work out. I've promised all of them that next year, they will all have a party. I could have sworn I could read their minds: I've heard that before, Mom.

Soccer Barbecue

Today after school, the soccer team had a barbecue. We all ate Bratwurst as we watched the World Cup being broadcast on a big screen.

Right before I snapped this photo, Emilie took a big bite of her Bratwurst and said, "Mom, you know, when we're living in America, I'm really going to miss Bratwurst."  I assured her that there are Bratwurst sausages in the U.S., it may just take some trial and error to find ones that we like.  The more difficult quest may be that for a good accompanying crusty Brötchen roll.

Joking around with just a few of the friends our kids are going to miss

Some team parents engaged the kids in a lively soccer game, a more aggressive game than I was expecting.

Is tripping legal?

The grown-ups held their own quite nicely.

James steals the ball....

...takes it down field....

.....takes a shot and waits to see if it will get past the goalie....

....G-O-A-L!!  And a high five.

James guarding the goal

With coach Rajiv