Guten Tag,

Well, week 2 has ended and we've gotten pretty settled. We picked up our car this week and navigated the German license bureau without too much duress but it was exhausting. All of the "younger" people are required to learn English in school but many must not have passed the class. I think all of those people now work for the government! We'll send a picture of our beauty soon.

On Saturday we managed to drag the girls on a hike to the local village called Bebenhausen. It has a beautiful monastery. These pictures are of the village(you can click on the picture if you want to enlarge it). You walk about a mile from our apartment through a forest and this is what you get (see below). Of course, Jay burst into song...."the hills are alive"..... It is gorgeous and the day was beautiful. It is fascinating. It is refreshing to be able to enjoy nature during the summer (sorry Texans!).

It's hard to believe these buildings are so old and that many of the homes have been inhabited for hundreds of years. I think we came at the perfect time as the Germans love their windowboxes and their flowers. Everything is blooming prolifically. Makes me want a garden again.

Yesterday we walked to the "New" Botanical Garden here in Tubingen (there are two, one is downtown and the other is about 3/4 mile away from us). Dayna took 230 pictures in about an hour. Needless to say I will need to do some editing but again the flowers and plants were beautiful. We are thankful the days of film and developing are over! We'll send some flower pictures when we get through them all.

Today we met with Dayna's teacher at her suggestion. She was wonderful and gave Dayna a rose which was big hit. Dayna was excited to learn that they have started teaching English now in first grade rather than grade 5! We have yet to meet Karissa's teacher which makes her a little envious. We do have 3 other girls in our relatively small apartment complex who will all be in 3rd grade with Karissa. Two of them don't speak English (Romanian who speaks German and an Icelander who only speaks Icelandic). The third is Chinese and speaks a little English and a little German. So, at least she'll know a few faces on the first day. The girls also learned today that in the winter you keep a pair of slippers at school and put them on when you get there! Something new! They start school in two weeks and are anxious to get going. Of course, I won't mind either although they get done between 11:30 and 12:15 depending on the day. That will give us plenty of time to keep up with their English studies and reading!

Until next time....

My first blog from Germany

We are finally here!!

Well, we've actually been here a week! We slept last night in our permanent apartment so the girls are out of the living room. Now we can settle in at last. The apartment is small but has quite a bit of storage and efficiency built into it.

















Some highlights of this past week included filling out pages of paperwork in German (scary), driving our 9 passenger van filled to the brim from the Frankfurt airport on the Autobahn, saying goodbye to our American friends the Muths from Clemson, going to dinner at an American's home, a German's, home, and an Icelander's home, going to the market, hiking to the nearby monastery and storybook town, going to the local water park with about 1 million Germans on the hottest day of the year (92 degrees), hanging clothes on the line, going to the local market, riding the bus a lot, visiting three awesome kid's parks(they have some interesting attractions and much less interest in safety so the kid's love it, we're waiting for our first trip to the ER), going to the market, riding the train from another village (fun), going to the local market again, and feeling a lot overwhelmed!!

The first few days were really daunting. Basically, no one slept on the plane so we were severely tired but the Muths took us in. We went to the market for provisions and the girls were distracted by their two daughters. They fed us dinner and put us to bed. We all slept until after noon! We are pretty much on schedule with the time now. Most of our days have been filled with taking care of business (setting up bank accounts, registering with the government, securing insurance for the car we are purchasing etc.) The girls have three more weeks before school starts but are scheduled to start German tutoring this Tuesday for two days a week. Pray that they find some friends soon. They are frustrated with not being able to communicate to anyone. We have a few kids from Russia, Iceland, China, and not sure where else here in the apartments so they are playing a little on the playground. Who knows they may come home with more than German!

I'm still getting the hang of this thing, sorry the formatting isn't a little better. I promise it will get prettier! Keep us in your prayers. And thanks again to all of you who helped us get ready for this adventure. Your friendship and support has meant so much! Danke!