Tuesday the family drove down to have dinner with me at my office. Jake made pulled pork dinner for a history assignment. He had to pick a food from the Caribbean. It was really good to see them and it was the first time they'd seen the office. We are in an old bank, where we imagine the Saudi Princes would bring their gold, money and diamonds to do their private banking in Luxembourg! We're on the 5th floor and there is a huge safe near one of the restrooms. Our building is going to get torn down next year, so it will be interesting to see where we end up. I'll be glad in December to be in my home office in Highland. My plan is to work early mornings so I can get a half day in working at the same time as the guys here in Luxembourg. Hopefully that works out well.
The family is pretty much settled into a routine. We still miss free, cold water, ice and garbage disposals. Here we scrape our food into a garbage bin under the sink and have to catch everything before it goes down the drain. The worst job is taking the strainer and opening the garbage can to throw it in when you clean the sink. The garbage can under the sink is really, really stinky because it is basically rotting food. It closes tight, but when you open it, phew! Garbage disposals are a much better system!
The Luxembourgers love their holidays. This week was May day or Labor Day. It is on a Thursday, so most people take Friday off and make it a really long weekend. We just kept working because we've got a lot to do and our kids vacation schedule is the same as the states.
On Saturday we went to a boot sale. In the UK, their boots are their trunks. It turns out that they don't do garage sales here, so once a year they bring all of their stuff in their cars and trailers to a huge parking lot called the Glacis. We had a cold front come through, so it was pretty brisk, but we were up for an adventure and walked the rows of cars and junk. It is amazing what people buy and have in their homes. Lots of DVDs, clothes, toys, etc. Most of the people were actually British expats, so it was fun hearing their accents. Our favorite item was a small golf putting green for when you on the toilet.
We ended up buying a strainer for the kitchen, some popsicle molds, a men's sized bike and Jake got a Rubik's cube shaped like the world. The bike will be really nice to have so that all of the kids can ride bikes in the forest and farmer's fields during their break-times from school.
We played soccer again with the ward and then headed home. On our way home before getting on the bus we got some sandwiches, a lemon meringue pastry and gawked over a Ferrari!
The rest of the day I worked writing documentation for our new service, washed the car and fixed a blown fuse in the car. Toyota made it pretty dang difficult to change it out. The kids played with the neighbors and then we watched a really cute movie called, Saving Mr. Banks. It is the true story about the author of Mary Poppins. Definitely worth watching...
We don't watch any TV here because it is so raunchy. We have SkyTV from the UK, but it is pretty bad. I told the landlords, they could cancel it. We bought an Apple TV and just buy the few shows that we have time for.
I got a new calling today at church. 4 months is definitely the longest time in my adult life that I haven't had a calling. I must admit it has been pretty nice after 19+ years in scouts. However, today I was called as the 2nd Counselor in the young men's, which means every Friday night and some Saturdays will now be taken up planning and attending activities with the youth. We've got a good group of boys and it should definitely help my French!
French is coming along slowly. I study everyday on the bus. Rosetta Stone is a great program, but it also helps for me to study the rules. If I could speak it more, I'd progress much faster. My ear is starting to hear it better now, but it is still difficult to understand all of the words. I'm sure I'll just be getting better when we have to leave. But it will be a nice skill to have another language. Portuguese comes in handy every week here. Jacob is also doing really well in French. It is amazing how he remembers everything!
The kids are looking forward to summer and the prospect of seeing some of their friends. We're hoping that some will visit here and then we'll visit Utah the first two weeks of August. Online school has been positive and negative for the kids. I think they've learned to study a lot more on their own, but they all miss their friends and interactions with kids their age.
We haven't seen Ahmed for 3 weeks and we're getting a little worried. I tried texting him, but didn't get a response. He's having troubles with the government and getting his citizenship. We're really hoping that he doesn't get deported.
Jacob submitted his Eagle papers this week, so we're hoping within a month or so, we'll be able to have an Eagle ceremony via Skype!
By the way, Google lowered their price for Google+ picture storage. I've been uploading our photos and videos from over the years up to Google+. It is only going to cost $10 a month for a Terabyte of storage. Makes it really convenient to share with friends and family.
Not much to show this week in terms of pictures, but here you go!
Week 18 Pictures
No comments:
Post a Comment