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....