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....