Adjusting

This past week has been an emotional roller coaster. We barely just got past our jet lag and caught up on our sleep.... maybe :) Coming here, we had a sponsor that was assigned to us and was helping us out. He got our APO box set up, our guesthouse booked and even came and met us at the airport. I was always a little skeptical because I had been doing some research and I had never heard of our "guesthouse" before and was hoping that it would be adequate. All the ones I had read about had multiple bedrooms, a living area, kitchen, phone, washer/dryer, internet, etc. After all, we are staying for an extended period of time. Our sponsor is a single guy, so I was worried he would not understand our "needs" as a family. Abe always told me that we would just switch guesthouses right away if it wasn't what we were hoping it to be. Well, when we showed up we found out that our guesthouse was more like a hotel and was just two rooms and a bathroom. Right off the bat they tried to make us sign a 30 day contract, which we were skeptical about, so we did not do it. They made us sign a 10 day contract but were expecting us to stay the full time (which was at least 30 days). I LOVE LOVE LOVE Sofia who if the wife of the guesthouse and she has been more than kind. She has made us breakfast every morning, which consists of cold cuts, cheese, bread and orange juice. I also love the neighborhood as it is quiet and quaint. We have made it work, but it has been rough. We don't have a phone, reliable internet, no type of kitchen (fridge, microwave, etc.), no laundry facilities, etc. I am sick of eating out and I feel like my kids have just been eating like crap because we don't have very much to offer them. We have been put in a hard situation because it was not our wanting to stay here in the first place, but we feel bad leaving this family that is "planning" on income from us. Tonight Abe ended up talking to the husband and letting him know that we will be leaving on Saturday. I think he is mad, or maybe just more frustrated. I just feel bad for Sofia because we love her so much and I know she will be dissappointed. The last thing I wanted to do was make them mad at us.

The first couple of days last week I walked and walked with the girls to try and find a park. After the 3rd day, we finally found one and the girls were in heaven. We have been to that park a couple of times now and it has been nice to let the girls do something fun. They have been stuck in their car seats a lot driving to and from base, driving out to eat and looking at houses. House hunting was very overwhelming at first because there just wasn't very much available with at least 4 bedrooms. It seemed like all the houses we wanted to look at would get rented out right before we had a chance to do so. I was really frustrated, tired, and overwhelmed that I even cried myself to sleep a couple of nights. On Monday when we were house hunting, the housing office let us know they had a new 5 bedroom listing. We did a walk through of it on Tuesday morning and LOVE IT! It is more out in the country than the rest of the houses we looked at and is pretty big. Only problem is we can't move in until November 28th and will be in a guesthouse/hotel until then. NOT looking forward to it. However, I do think it will be very worth it to wait an extra couple weeks to get something we love.





Abe had to go to an all day briefing on base Wednesday and a girl that I met through one of the GK spouses groups on Facebook came and picked the girls and I up to go to a Wild Animal Park in Gangelt, Germany. It was a lot of walking, looking at the animals, playing at a big park there and then a petting zoo area. It was nice to get out of the little guesthouse and do something for the girls.





This picture is so funny to me because I had the girls stand by this goat so I could get a picture. Right as I was taking the picture, Norah gave it a HUGE hug and completely scared the goat. It did a little buck and took off running (as I was taking the picture). It knocked her to the ground and she wasn't really phased by it. She is such a funny little nut.

Other than that, we have been trying to explore a little bit and get things checked off our to do list. Today we ventured into Sittard, NL where they have a Market that everyone has been raving about. It wasn't as big as I expected, but it had good/cheap produce that I hopefully can come and buy on a weekly basis to save some money. In the town where the market is, there are some pedestrian streets with shopping that were also fun to walk down. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I have been pretty lazy.