Week 8 - We're Legal!

This was a big week in that we are totally legal in the country as residents.  We will receive our social security cards in 1-3 months, but we are covered by the state health insurance.  The final step was a quick doctor's visit where they made sure we were up on our immunizations.  The kids were really glad that they didn't need additional shots!

Our other software engineer came in this week so we should be waaaaay more productive from a product development perspective.  We made some other progress on our tax strategy, legal structures and a financial certification that we'll need to sell to customers.  I'm really looking forward to feeling more productive at work.  I hate the feeling like we're working hard and going no where, but it takes a while to get the basics in place.

Our French continues to get better, but I think it will be nothing short of a miracle if we can talk it very well.  I'm understanding more and more if I know the topic of conversation, but I don't get the opportunity to speak very much except at church.  Business is conducted purely in English. Jake remembers everything and is doing a great job.  The rest of us need to do better.  I think we're going to start an incentive program with the kids so they can earn some personal money to learn French.  We'll see if that helps!

In our efforts to save money we bought some electric clippers from amazon.de and I've started cutting the boy's hair.  I think Jake and Ashton look good, but Spencer won't let me touch his hair.  He'd rather spend his own money than let me try.

Now that we are residents we can buy a car, so we spent a little time this week finding a car.  We found a Citroen Grand Piccaso that had a year warranty, but I read on the Internet that tons and tons of people have problem with the rear suspension.  We didn't want to get on a road trip and have the thing break down so we went another route.  Our friend found a 4-year old Toyota Verso that was mis-categorized on the used car website.  It is more money than we wanted to spend, but it should be reliable and much, much easier to sell than the Citroen.

This isn't our exact car, but it is the same color and model as the one we'll pick up this week for the Portuguese guy!  It isn't any bigger than a Prius, but it has 7 seats.  Jake and Ashton will be squeezed in pretty tight in the two back seats.

During the week we are either working, doing homework, riding the bus or shopping, so we don't have much time to do anything else during the week.  So on the weekends we pack a lot in.  Saturday we got up early and played soccer for 3 hours.  There were a couple Portuguese players that were really, really good.  Unbelievable what they can do with a soccer ball.

After that we test drove the car, came home and drove to Vianden Castle.  It was the kids first castle experience.  Vianden is a big, big castle in Luxembourg.  It was very impressive.  It also is a very historic site in WWII.  It was the last place that the Americans fought the Germans in Luxembourg.  11 Americans died in Feb. 1945.  There were some pretty cool pictures of American military equipment around the castle in the small city.

http://www.castle-vianden.lu/english/

The castle was initially a Roman fort in about 300 AD.  It is pretty hard to believe there have been people in that location for that long.  It is a very pretty little city with a nice river and beautiful hills, just a mile from Germany.  Kim and the kids didn't know that Deutschland meant Germany!  ;)

On the way home from the castle, we spent the money that Grandma Cahoon sent for the kid's valentine treat at the Fischer Bakery in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg.  Fischer is an awesome bakery and they make all sorts of yummy breads and pastries.  Each of the kids got something courtesy of Grandma.  Jake and Spence got eclairs, Emmy got a strudel, Ashton got some mushy, yellow cake thing and Dad got a delicious roll.  Kim didn't get anything as she had a headache.  Valentines day was not celebrated much from a kid perspective.  Ashton didn't do anything at school, so he was sure that kids would come around that night.  It seems to be more of an adult holiday with wine, chocolates and flowers!

After the castle we came home, took a shower and headed off to Metz France for a stake dance.  It was a very interesting experience because people have to drive so far it is a family dance.  All of the parents sit around the outside and watch their teenagers dance.  The kids didn't think that was too cool.  We stopped by the Metz cathedral on the way home.  It is amazing how big, ornate and beautiful they built the cathedrals.

We received a ton of rain this week.  It is sort of amazing how much it rains here.  It doesn't really dump, but it is almost always misting.  We're really lucky because a normal winter here it snows a lot.  This has felt much more like a Seattle winter with just one day where we got an inch of slush.

We feel pretty disconnected from the world right now.  We see through the Internet that the Olympics are going on.  We've watched a couple events, but we really run out of time.

I continue to use my Portuguese almost every day.  It came in really handy when I bought the car this week.  The guy only spoke French and Portuguese, so we were totally able to talk and make the deal happen.

From a church perspective, it is still really fun to watch the missionaries interact with investigators.  They call them Amis. (friends)  We like being able to talk and help with the people investigating the church.  It is something that we did not really get to experience in Utah.  I think that has been really, really good for our kids.

Kim has a calling as an activity day's coordinator. She has to go every two weeks on Friday night to help coordinate those activities.  I've been enjoying some time off from an official calling.  It has allowed me to spend more time with the kids and with the missionaries.

The next couple of weeks I'm going to need to really focus on work.  I'll be working late nights with the team.  As a reward we're planning a trip to Andermatt with our good friend Bob MacFarlane.  He's going to be in Europe on a business trip, so we're going to meet at a hostel like hotel in Andermatt and get a couple days of boarding in.  We've definitely missed boarding up AF canyon at the Stash.

The turkeys are right in front of our house!

Click here for pictures from week 7