Moving in!

All of our stuff has arrived from Michigan and we are almost all moved in. It has been a long couple of weeks living in the hotel and we are very happy to be in our new place. Ken and I came at the end of October for a house hunting trip and looked at 11 houses and apartments (they are called "flats" in France). It was like being on our own version of House Hunters International. The house that we ended up picking was a 3rd floor apartment (no elevator) on a quiet street, but very close to Ava's school (7 minute walk), the tram and a market that is 2 mornings a week. I don't have a car here, so the location was a huge factor. It was Kens 3rd choice, but my 1st choice - he ended up deciding that since I would be home more, I could have what I wanted! I think (and he does now too) that this house best fits our family and gives us enough room, but not too big - I don't want to spend all of my time here cleaning!

We packed up our sea shipment on December 19 and 20. This was a bit tricky because we shipped most of our furniture from our house, toys, clothes, etc, but we were still going to be living there for a couple more weeks. On January 6, our air shipment got packed - mostly clothes and Christmas presents. We got our air shipment delivered this past Monday and our sea shipment on Friday.

I was so excited to see that container!

We don't have an elevator and our staircase is too narrow, so our stuff came in through the window.

The movers unpacked the boxes, unwrapped the furniture, and assembled the beds.

We have worked hard all weekend and almost everything is unpacked. Ava has school all day tomorrow, so I can finish the last of the unpacking and organizing during Becketts nap. I will try to post some pictures later this week. We had a bit of a problem hooking up our TV's and computer here. Ken had talked to someone at Best Buy before we left and had bought converters so that we would be able to use them out here. Well, I used one with an old TV that we brought just to watch DVD's on and totally killed it. I forgot to tell Ken that I tried one and it failed (oops!), because yesterday when he tried setting up our desktop, the converter didn't work again and now that is dead too. Ken called the company that makes the converters and filed a claim, so hopefully we can get some money back because now we are down a TV and computer. How am I going to watch "Friends" when he plays video games???

Ken did manage to get our internet, TV and home phone hooked up last night thanks to Keith who came over with a converter that he knew worked so that we didn't destroy the new TV that Ken just bought. I can now call the States, however, the time difference is a bit of a challenge. Ken and I were so excited to try to watch TV last night, but we were pretty disappointed when we couldn't find anything in English. French TV is "interesting" - I am not sure how else to describe it. They don't show stuff like that in the States! I will have to figure out how to block some specific channels when Ava is able to work the remote!

We were able to meet the neighbors that live on the 1st floor of our building. They have 2 young daughters - 4 years old and one and a half. They invited us over for breakfast this morning - thankfully they speak English!

Beckett may have found a new girlfriend!

This week I have to actually start cooking meals since we aren't in temporary housing anymore. So, tomorrow Beckett and I will go to the grocery store and see what new things we can come up with for dinner and try to adapt some recipes from home with what I can find here. Ken found a new app on the iphone that you can just put your phone up to a word and it translates it for you - I will be using that to try to figure out what I am buying! Tuesday morning is the market. I have walked through, but never bought anything yet. It is probably the only place you can buy produce, bread, and fresh seafood with a few tents filled with rugs, clothes, toys and bras in between. Should be interesting....





Friday was a really good day. I think that I am always a little happier because it is a Friday. Even though I am a stay at home Mom now, I still look forward to the weekend just as much as I did when I worked. Having Ken home gives me some extra help with the daily routine and sometimes I can even escape during naptime! Anyways, Beckett and I took the tram to take Ava to school. We had the "tram ticket enforcers" sweep the tram and make sure everyones tickets were valid. I had never seen them before, but there were 4 or 5 of them in matching coats that start at the back of the tram and work their way up, checking all the tickets. I must admit, there was a time or two that I ran out of change for the machine and bought a 1 way ticket instead of a round trip ticket. Thankfully, I was legal this trip! After we dropped Ava off at school, we headed to Meghans house for playgroup. It was nice to talk to other English speaking Moms that are in the same situation and have kids the same age.

After we picked up Ava from school, we picked up some lunch. Ava and I have been indulging in desserts with lunch. I never did that at home, however the pastries in France are so good that I just can't pass them up. I try to justify it with the fact that we do so much walking here. There has to be an end to the dessert with lunch. Maybe next week we will do better...

After naps, we had a visit from the "rentokill" man to take care of our mouse problem. He put a box of poison behind the cabinets in the kitchen area and another in the bathroom. I am not sure what "rentokill" means in French, I just hope that he takes care of it and I don't find it dead next week.

Friday night we walked around downtown. I think that is the best part of living down here. It is so easy to put the kids in the stroller and learn the city. We are not pros yet by any means, but we are starting to be able to get places without taking out our map every 5 minutes. The difficult part of living downtown is that most restaurants do not open for dinner until at least 7:00 which makes it very challenging trying to feed 2 little ones before they get too cranky. Another hard part is that most of them don't have high chairs either. We have been to a chain restaurant called "Hippopotamus" a couple of times and that is pretty kid friendly. Last night we found Le Gruber - it opened at 6pm and had a high chair! The high chair was from the 40's and wasn't very sturdy, but Beckett was contained, so I was happy.

Ava was very happy with her meal!

There's a man that goes into all of the restaurants at night and sells roses. Beckett kept reaching for them, so he gave him one.

We all slept in this morning. I think that everyone needed to catch up a little bit after our first full week here. We met Keith and Meghan in the city for coffee and chocolate croissants. I know I have to stop but they are just so good! They have a daughter in Ava's class, so we let Ella and Ava run around with the hope that they would tire out and take good naps this afternoon. Well, Ava had her hands in her pockets, tripped and landed on her face. She let out the most horrific cry! When Ken got to her, her whole mouth was full of blood. When we cleaned her up, we checked and none of her teeth were loose, however she chipped one tooth. Once she calmed down, she didn't seem to be in too much pain, so I will take her to the pediatrician this week to have it looked at. I am sure that will be interesting!

Ava did pretty well the rest of the day. She took a nap and we have been giving her ibuprofen. She didn't really bring it up until we were walking and trying to find a place to eat tonight. She was in the stroller and goes "I know why I got hurt today. The ground didn't like me today." Poor girl!

We ended the night at Europ' Cafe. Alot of the cafes have outdoor seating with heat lamps in the winter. So, instead of dragging the huge stroller inside, we decided to eat outside - Ava thought that was pretty cool.

We got our washer and dryer delivered on Thursday, so tomorrow is going to be laundry day. The French could take a lesson from the Americans when designing washers and dryers. Mine here can only fit a quarter of my normal laundry load and it takes over 2 hours for the washer alone. I am glad that we paid the extra 50 EU for the quiet washing machine because it is going to be running every day.

As I was finishing this up, the mouse (aka Mickey) made another appearance. I guess the poison didn't work yet. I thought that mice slept at night. Ken promised me that they did so that I would sleep. It is almost midnight...I guess they stay awake at night:(

Our air shipment is getting delivered on Monday and our sea shipment was scheduled to arrive in France today. Once our sea shipment clears customs (should take about a week) we can get out of here! I can't wait!

Week 1

What a week!! I can't believe that week number one is over. We have had many great things happen - met new friends, Ava started school, Ken started work with his new team and we started to learn our way around the city. We have also had some bummers - we are still waiting on our shipments, language is still a huge barrier (and will be for a long time), Ken usually doesn't get "home" from work until at least 6:30 (all of the French seem to work really late), and we are living in a hotel with a mouse. On the plus side, we haven't had any major meltdowns or fights, so I think we are doing pretty good.

This past weekend we had plans to get to Ikea for some armoires (our new place doesn't have a single closet) and we had to order a washer and dryer. Ava ended up getting sick on Saturday morning so Ken had to tackle Ikea by himself. I think that jet lag and all of the changes for Ava finally caught up with her. Thankfully she was sick for only about 4 hours and by 9 am she was acting like her normal self and was ready to eat again. In the afternoon we took the whole family to Darty, which is like a Best Buy, to buy a washer and dryer. We were able to find a nice woman, Aida, that spoke English. She even gave us the name of her 16 year old daughter that is looking for babysitting jobs. The bonus is that her daughter speaks French and English! In the states, I would never be up for this, but in a month or so, we may be desperate for a night out, so I am going to set up some times for her to come and watch the kids while I get some stuff done around the house and pray she isn't a psycho! Anyways, Aida ended up selling us a washer, dryer, microwave and vacuum. The washer and dryer are getting delivered tomorrow which is a good thing because even though we have laundry facilities here, it costs 5 euro for the washer and 4 euro for the dryer. Our microwave was fine, except for when Ken was bringing it in to the apartment, he somehow opened the door and the glass plate fell out and shattered. It is still on the to-do list to get a new one...

Our new apartment is only a 7 minute walk from Ava's school, so Beckett and I have been going there in the mornings to clean. It isn't so much fun for him, but since it is empty, I can just let him run around. The vacuum box was also great entertainment this week!

Ava doesn't have school on Wednesdays, so we made an appointment to go to the Prefecture to fill out some paperwork for our Visas and to obtain a French drivers license. The Prefecture is the same thing as our Secretary as State. After 2 hours there, the kids and I ventured to the other side of the city to turn in some papers to get Ava registered in the school system. Even though she is enrolled and has been attending school, she was not registered. Two days a week, Ava will stay at school for lunch and have an afternoon class. In order for her to stay for lunch, we need tickets to the "canteen" and they won't sell me those until I get her registered. There should be an easier way but there isn't. The good news is that we found it and are a step closer.

Tonight Ken went to the apartment to start to put together some of the furniture. The kids and I walked in town for a bit and picked up a sandwich for dinner. They had the most amazing looking crepes that I couldn't pass up, so we ate our dessert before our dinner tonight!

Nutella crepes in the city centre. It was so good, we didn't even give Beckett a taste!



Ava did great and I didn't cry!

Today was Ava's first day of school! When I woke her up this morning, she started jumping on the bed because she was so excited. Unfortunately, it was our bed which meant that we had another unsuccessful attempt at sleeping through the night. Right at 1 am both kids were wide awake. Maybe night #3 will be better...

Since Ken isn't working yet, he was able to take Ava to school with me and meet her teachers. Thankfully, she had met Ella who is in her class already so she was very excited to see her. In August, Ken had come to France for work and had met Keith Swayman who also works for Steelcase and had just relocated to Strasbourg. His wife Meghan, 3 year old daughter Ella, and 6 month old son Ryan would be moving in August. They have been a huge resource for us! They came home to Michigan for Thanksgiving and came over for dinner, so the girls were able to meet. This has been great for Ava because she has been talking about "her new friend Ella" and was very excited to see her at school this morning.

So excited for her first day!



I never thought her first day of school would be in France!

Ava did great at her first day and is very excited to go back on Monday. We ended up seeing people at school that we had met during our house hunting visit, so it took the pressure off and was a distraction so I didn't get so emotional. I think that school will be great for her, but I still don't know what I am going to do with her gone from me so much!

While Ava was at school, we stopped at the local grocery store "Simply". We were able to buy a few basic things like paper towel and cleaning wipes. I figured we couldn't go wrong with those. It will be more of a challenge when I have to actually do real grocery shopping and plan meals. We were then able to go to our new house where I was able to start cleaning. Sometime between us seeing the place in November and now, the apartment got filthy. I will post some pictures of the new place once it is cleaned up and we have some furniture in there.

Ken did pick up our car today. We ended up with a VW Passat Wagon which is very similiar to our car at home. The good news is that it is an automatic and has a navigation system. The bad news is that Kens driving isn't any better in France, but I figure I can't make too much fun of his driving because I haven't tried it yet. Thankfully, I wasn't in the car when he made his first trip, I just heard about it. I am trying to wait until it is an absolute necessity before I attempt driving!

The kids are now asleep (hopefully for the night) and Ken is snoring while we watch "The Voice in Germany". They actually sing most of their songs in English, but the commentary is in German.

This weekend we are hoping to do some walking around Strasbourg with the kids. Ken promised Ava that we could go into the Cathedral. We are also hoping to get to IKEA to buy some armoires and light fixtures for our new place - we don't have a single closet and have only a couple of light bulbs hanging from the ceiling! We also need a washer and dryer - the dirty clothes pile keeps growing. We'll see how this goes. I have never bought appliances in America and I am sure it is much more difficult in France! I am preparing myself for a disaster.

We made it!

We arrived in Strasbourg yesterday morning. The trip actually went better than we both expected, although it is so much more work to travel with kids! There was so much stuff to take! Thankfully we had 2 cars to get us to the airport. My Mom had come up the day before to clean our house before we left, so she was able to bring some stuff and Laurie got her parents minivan to take the rest. Airport good-byes are the worst, especially when it is your Mom and best friend. It was not pretty at all.

We first flew from Grand Rapids to Detroit. Since Ken had flown so much lately, he was actually moved up to first class for the first time. Unfortunately for him, he didn't get to experience it because I quickly went up to the counter and changed his seat so that he could take a kid next to him. Sorry Ken, maybe next time! In Detroit, we quickly got some dinner and got settled  to fly to Amsterdam. Both kids were kind of tired at this point so we gave them some Benadryl to "help" with the sleep and Ken and I thought we were going to have the perfect kids that slept the whole flight. Not so much! It was a 7 hour flight and Ava slept 3 of the hours and Beckett slept only 2. They weren't bad, there was just too much going on that they wouldn't settle down to fall asleep.  By time both kids (and Ken) were totally out, they turned the lights back on to serve breakfast which was still an hour and a half before we landed and that was it for sleeping for Beckett. We went through customs and more security in Amsterdam. I guess there is some benefit for having 2 young kids, a huge stroller, carseat, and more bags than we can carry - they let us go to the front of the lines and we flew through. Our last flight was from Amsterdam to Strasbourg. I pulled out a new toy for Ava so she was happy. Beckett was just done at this point - thankfully the flight was only an hour and wasn't even half full. Once we arrived in Strasbourg, we took taxis to the short-term housing/apartment we are staying in until our furniture arrives. It is a 1 bedroom with a small kitchenette. It is in the city, so it is really easy to walk around and get places. I think that it is better than I thought, but it is a challenge with 2 little kids. They are sleeping in the main room, so Ken and I have to stay in our bedroom and bathroom when the kids go to bed. Not ideal, but there are beds to sleep on. I also think I saw a mouse in here today. I am not totally sure, but I have had 1 other mouse incident and I am pretty sure I saw one. We tested the mouse and put a piece of bread on the floor when we went to dinner. It was still here when we got back. I will keep you updated!

 A HUGE thank you to the Swaymans for giving us some groceries right away.

 A nice family room, although the only TV that is in English is CNN.

Ava did start watching some French cartoons this afternoon.

Ava's "Murphy" bed. Too bad she only lasted about 2 hours in it last night. She was wide awake from 1-3:30 this morning, which also meant that I was up. She was very sweet about it though - just wanted to talk and cuddle for a while. We are hoping for a better night tonight.

The hotel had a high chair, changing table and crib in the room when we got here. That has been so helpful!

Today we rested up and took the tram to our new place. Ava keeps asking where our home is and is this one our house. She has also started asking if she can take some toys back to our house in Michigan. We try to tell her that we will be here for a while, but it is alot to understand for a 3 year old. I think things will be better once we get on a schedule and our stuff arrives and we can feel more at home.

Riding on the tram. 

Tomorrow is another big day. Ava starts school at the International school here in Strasbourg. It is going to be totally different than "School with Libby" like she is used to. She picked out her clothes and we packed her backpack with her morning snack. She is so excited. I am hoping that her enthusiasm will rub off on me between now and tomorrow morning because right now I would rather keep her home with me. But, I know this is what is best, so she will go, and I will cry...