Move in Day

Yesterday was move-in day. And what a day it was.

We left the apartment, our temporary residence for the last ~6 weeks, in time for me to get to work and for John to get the kids to school. In the morning, we were able to load up what was left there (and fill up both our cars) for John to be able to meet the 2 companies at the new house by 9:30 AM.

He can tell you about the drama that ensued. I was at work.

For the record, it's my first quarter-end close in a new job, there was really nothing I could do about the timing and no way I could be home on the 2nd work day of the quarter. Not that I feel guilty about missing it...

Anyway, the 2 companies that John was meeting were the moving company delivering our much awaited sea shipment and the furniture rental company delivering a house full of furniture to get us settled. I guess the sea shipment delivery went okay (except for a desk chair casualty), but when I finally got home from work about 5:45 in the afternoon, the rental furniture people were still there putting furniture together. Oh dear.

They *finally* left about 1:00 AM after fully completing the delivery that started about 10AM. I'm sure they were worn out, but we were too! Katherine gave up about 10:30 and asked to go to bed. They were still noisy, but it didn't bother her one bit. David was so excited to stay up so late!

Lucky for us, October 3 is a German holiday. I'm not sure what we're celebrating, but the office was closed today and the kids were home from school, so we had a second day to try to get a little more settled. We actually accomplished a lot today! I think we probably did 6 or 7 loads of laundry and got both kids' rooms organized, the playroom arranged and our room and bathroom almost comletely settled. The house here is still less than 40% the size of the house in Dallas, so we're glad that we didn't bring too much stuff with us.

For the record, John said no less than 100 times while we were packing in Dallas that I was bringing too much stuff and there was no way we'd ever be able to fit everything in a house, but so far, we're fitting just fine! I think I packed pretty well, although there is one important item missing.

The missing item(s) are our magnetic pots and pans! In our house in Coppell, we put in an induction stove. If you don't know what that is, it's essentially a stove that will only heat ferromagnetic pans. The heat control is even better than a gas stove, which is why we loved ours in Coppell. When we moved to Allen, our house had a very nice 6-burner gas Wolfe stove, but we actually prefer the induction. However, most pans won't work on an induction stove. You can try yours out - they probably don't. Try to stick a magnet to the bottom of your pot - if the magnet won't stick, it won't work with this stove. Of course, we have a whole set of pots and pans that work since we had one in Coppell, but I don't really care for that set because they are SO heavy. Well, I didn't pack them, so we have to go buy more. Seriously, in a million years, I never would have guessed that we would rent a house in Germany with an induction stove! So, my (John calls them crappy) nice ceramic new pots and pans won't work. So sad.

Another interesting thing - there are 4 keys to this house! One for the door to the house, one for the door to the backyard from the front yard, one for the garage, and one for the mailbox. The garage is a one-car detached, and John and I are still discussing who parks where. There is space in the driveway (barely) for one car, so we'll fit, but it will take some adjusting from our 3.5 car garage.

Things are certainly smaller here - when John unpacked the paper towels that we bought in the US, he was surprised how big the rolls are. When I put the toilet paper in the holder we keep in our bathroom, 4 rolls fit, but only 3 rolls fit in Texas. The "small" cutting board we brought is almost as deep as the counter in our (pretty big European) kitchen. It's all fine, but funny what we haven't even really noticed.

The street we live on has a speed limit of "walking speed". Our new (very nice) neighbor told us that we live on a "something" street" which means that you aren't supposed to drive faster than you can walk.

There are kids *everywhere*! It's a holiday, so they're all out of school, but there was a pretty steady stream of kids walking down the street in front of our house all day today. In fact, when we sat down to eat lunch, the doorbell rang (which doesn't sound at all like a doorbell by the way) and it was 5 neighborhood boys that just wanted to say "hi!" We sent David out with them after lunch and they just roam around the neighborhood like we did when we were young - how awesome is that??

For those of you that want old school ways to contact us, we have a home address, home phone number (the Dallas one still works too), cell phones, etc. so send one of us an email if you want the info!