Update from Jennifer

We made it here -- finally -- with just one major medical emergency en route (not ours, fortunately), which forced our plane to fly several hours off course then divert to Scotland for fuel and medical assistance. That, plus a four-hour wait in Frankfurt for a new connecting flight, made for one heck of a long day, pushing our arrival time to evening instead of early afternoon. So we arrived in the dark and haven't gotten to see much yet. But I can't complain too much. We're here, we still love the house, and the kids were fantastic on the whole dreadfully long trip. They didn't sleep much on the way (though Will slept through the entire Scotland diversion and is infuriated at having missed a whole new country!) Kate slept about two hours on the plane, then fell asleep all over the place afterwards. The kids were extremely excited last night, declared the house "great" and went to bed with only a minimum of parental threats and no drugs. Yes, I brought the Benadryl just in case but haven't had to use it -- yet.

Our relocation assistant, Virginie, picked up us and all our luggage* at the airport last night. We followed her home in our new temporary rental car (till we decide what we want), and showed us around the house -- important things like how to operate the heat, turn on the lights, etc. Speaking of lights, it's fairly dim around here because in Luxembourg, people take the light fixtures when they leave. So we need to ask Virginie where we buy light fixtures and how we get them installed! The car was, of course, a stickshift, which terrifies me. Also must remember to ask Virginie for a safe place to practice till I get the hang of it again. Even Roger was a little rusty, so the ride home was filled with bumps and stalls, which the kids loved. Will kept asking, "Where are the bumps? I don't see them!" and Kate declared that this car wasn't very good at driving itself. I can only imagine what they're going to say when Mom drives.

Today, Virginie is helping us set up our internet connection and then will take us to the local "Commune" (neighborhood city hall, I guess) to register. That sounds vaguely menacing but we're assured it's no big deal as long as we have all the correct paperwork. Cross your fingers that we do.

Here are a few pictures:

On the way to the airport. Kate, as you can see, was overjoyed to be on our way.

January 19, 2010

With all our luggage!


*I'm feeling pretty smug about my packing skills. The reason? Believe it or not, NO excess baggage fees! We were allowed five bags (two for Roger because of his miles, plus one for the rest of each of us, plus a car seat bag which held Will's seat and as much else as we could stuff in it!), but each bag had to weigh 50 lbs. or less. There were three I was worried about, but they came in at 45 lbs., 49.5 and 53. I quickly removed a few things from the overweight one, got it down to 51 and the nice United check-in lady let it slide. Whew!!

Kate eating pretzels in Scotland:

Will sleeping through Scotland:

Kate sleeping all over the place toward the end of our trip:

I will post more pictures of the house later today after I dig out my real camera!