Growing in new soil...

Living in a new place is always exciting to me because I like to explore things that I've never knew existed.  When that move takes you to a new country, that excitement (and uncertainty) increases exponentially.  Our little family just moved to Germany and every day I am amazed and grateful for all of these new experiences in our future.  There is so much to see and do that I can't decide what to do first.  Right now I've been focusing on learning the German language.  I have been really surprised at how much I'm enjoying learning it.  It's hard and the grammar rules don't make a lot of sense to me, plus this silly thing of masculine, feminine, and neutral nouns.  I'm slowly learning, though, and I hope that after we've spent our time here that I will be fluent.  Time will tell...

So far, I am really liking the lifestyle change.  I am so much more active during the day because we walk almost everywhere.  Everyday, Simon and Gavin walk to the U-Bahn station to go ride the train to school.  Logan and I walk to the grocery stores or the bakery two or three times a week to get what we need.  Then in the afternoon we take the train to get Gavin from school.  Everything is just so accessible that we've not needed to drive much at all.  Last weekend, I even went with a new friend on the train into downtown Stuttgart to do a little clothes shopping.  This was an interesting experience, since I had no idea of my European size.  I was expecting it to be an unpleasant experience, but I was pleasantly surprised with what I found...and yes, it included a pair of skinny jeans.

We bought a car mainly to go on excursions that the train can't take us to, like German castles or IKEA.  We went to Berg Hohen Neufen, a castle in ruins, several weeks ago to go hiking and we've made several trips to IKEA to purchase things to help organize and store things in our new German house that doesn't have closets (this is typical for German homes).  At this point, I think we are mostly settled in the new house and can focus more on sight seeing the many wonderful things that Europe has to offer, like bread and pastries.