Week 17 - Kim's Birthday and the Luxembourg curse!

It was nice to get back to work and school this week.  Vacations are great, but they definitely take you out of the daily rhythm.

 We finally figured out that these plants are Canola.  They make Canola Oil and are everywhere!  This part of Europe is basically the breadbasket.  Small cities connected by fields and fields and fields.

Ashton is now over 2000 on his number line!  His teacher was pretty impressed!

These are Ashton's buddies on a hike in Strassen.

The kids had a scavenger hunt for mutual and Spencer took a picture of this cool Porsche!

We've definitely entered crunch mode at work.  I'm working until 9 or 10 every night.  On Saturday I was in at 6:00 am, took a small break for soccer and then worked until 8:00 pm.  We're going to be under the gun to finish our product for our launch at the big trade show in Monaco in June.

Kim turned 43 this week on Thursday and unfortunately the Luxembourg curse reared its ugly head again.

Since arriving in Luxembourg we've had a pretty long streak of bad luck that for some reason always involves frustration and losing a lot of money!  This seems like a small list, but wow, it has taken a toll on us!  That being said, we're blessed that nothing serious has happened.

• Corrupt real estate agent mislead us and still billed the company - 600 euro
• The school disaster - no money, but tons of frustration
• False heart attack - 800 euro
• The government is supposed to pay for kids, but they don’t start paying for kids for 3 months - 2600 euro
• Treasure hunt to find the place to get our TB test
• We thought we were on the state insurance, but they didn't cover the false alarm heart attack
• Diesel in the gas tank - 600 euro
• Locked out of our house - 200 euro
• Scratching the car - unknown
• Losing the key down a storm drain - unknown
• Burned holes in our clothes at the cross burning
• Celiac disease - gluten free food costs more and tastes crappy!
• Parking ticket - 25 euro
• Speeding ticket from a camera on the freeway - 45 euro
• Car light goes out - FREE - a Luxembourg miracle that we have a warranty
• Car breaks squeaking - unknown
• Car engine needs to be replaced - free except for a rental car - 125 euro
• Internet extender doesn’t work - 200 euro
• Rental car has to be turned in because the registration runs out - 40 euro in airport tax
• The work laptops get stolen from IKEA - 2000 euro, luckily credit card covered this one
• Going back and forth to the Department of Immigration and the commune 10 times
• Physics teacher is horrible, had to drop physics
• Kids can’t graduate from seminary from Lux, have to arrange online back in the states

So on Kim's birthday I get a call that the curse struck again.  She was at a park with Ashton and put her car keys in her coat pocket.  She didn't zip it up so when she went to put her coat in the car, the keys fell out and right down a storm drain filled with water.  At home this would be no biggie.  I would have run an extra set of keys over and voila!  However, in Luxembourg this means taking a 45 minute bus ride home in rush hour traffic.  Grabbing a key, waiting for the next 45 minute bus ride back to the center of town to take another bus out to where the park is.  I didn't know exactly the bus stop to get off on so I went too far and had to walk another 15 minutes back to where they were.  Lovely.  We finally got to dinner for her birthday late and in a bad mood!

The restaurant here in Kehlen is really nice and really expensive.  Basically we had great steaks and fries.  Funny how they have really nice food along with fries!  It is hard to believe we are this old.  23 years of marriage and getting closer to 50 than 40 and having two 16 year olds really hits home that we're getting old!

The weather has continued really nice.  We had a great game of soccer with the ward on Saturday.  Church was interesting today as an Iraqi that was introduced to the church by Ahmed was baptized.  It was cool to hear him pray in Arabic today, make comments in French and introduce himself in English.  He said that radical Islam is on the decline and that the next generation of Muslims growing up now will be much more secular and moderate. The missionaries here are really good.  Trying hard to get the members involved and are working hard.

Ahmed is really struggling with the government.  They may not give him permanent residence and deport him to Somalia.  That would be a disaster as he has no one there, so please keep him in your prayers.

We had a good call with the Cahoons and Saunders on Google+ tonight and finished up with haircuts for the boys and Emilee.  Probably the funniest thing on the call was that Aunt Emilie in Cedar Hills was talking to a friend in the ward.  She was complaining how hard it was to keep up with all of the kid's friends on places to go for Spring Break.  The kids all share their experiences on Instagram.  She said the worst was this family that had twins, living in Luxembourg and how they went on a cruise in the Mediterranean.  It is a small world, especially back in Utah.  Little does she know the cost in money and emotional distress to actually get on that trip!  ;)

Jacob finished his Eagle application and is hoping to have a Skype-based Eagle Board of Review here soon.  I'll bet there haven't been too many Eagles awarded in Luxembourg!

This week we are hoping to arrange plans for anyone that wants to come over and visit Europe.  We'd love to host anyone that wants to visit.  Also, we'll be in Utah Aug 4-16, so we hope to see a lot of you during that time!

Not too many pics this week, but here you go!

Lux week 17 pics