Scavenging

The weather here is ridiculous.  Every single day is overcast with a chance of rain.  Today it warmed up to 60 at least.  I keep hearing the weather back home is fantastic and I'm starting to feel like Courtney and could really use some sun.

Yesterday we finally closed the deal on the Hoopty after 3 full days of running around trying to get the inspection complete (it failed because of a burnt fuse), the title transfered, the temporary plates obtained, the insurance purchased, the lights fixed (manual is in Italian so we had to bring it to the dealer), the inspection redone, the registration completed, new official plates affixed and the rental car returned.  It took me about 30 minutes to sell the Pilot back home.  I'm considering driving this car off a cliff when it comes time to leave so I don't have to go through that again.

 Our Hoopty (1999 Honda Accord)

Finally getting a vehicle is a huge weight off our shoulders.  I need everyone to pray for us that it never breaks down (Scovill, if you're reading this, any advice about Hoopty ownership would be very much appreciated.)  Next week we sign our lease and we couldn't be more ready to move into the house.  We are lucky to have a "Family" hotel room which consists of a bedroom and another room with a couple love seats, a desk and a TV, but it is still pretty tight and we are really sick of eating out for dinner.  That said I used to have a coworker who was going to move his family of 6 from his house to his trailer on his hobby farm so I guess I shouldn't complain.  Before I came I told myself I wouldn't eat the fast food at the PX and I've already eaten there a half dozen times.  Also the days and nights have been so busy and we've been so tired I'm sorry to report I've only had 3 beers since we arrived a week and a half ago.  Today I went to the grocery store and got the ingredients for Pita Bread Sandwiches and made it while Haaken slept.  I made sure that none of the food made contact with the bathroom sink.  It will be nice to have a "home cooked" meal.

 Sleeping Quarters (Haaken sleeps on roll-away between the beds)

Living Room

Today Lydia is on a field trip to the Nunburg Zoo.  She continues to have good and bad mornings and today was not a good one unfortunately.  She was upset about the field trip because they don't get home until 5pm instead of the usual 2:40.  The drop off was brutal, so I hope she cheered up after I left.  Elise seems to love school so far and actually got invited last night to go to the Munich aquarium with a girl from her class this Saturday.  We met this family because we bought their old bedframe.

Most of our nights are still spent running around trying to get things done.  We scour the internet classifieds every night trying to find good deals and then run around looking at the stuff we think we might like.  It's not the most fun but so far we seem to be finding some pretty good stuff and have had a bit of luck as well.  The family we bought the bed frame from offered us their old TV for free, and a couple days ago we bought Lydia a bike and ended up with a mid size fridge, a microwave, a TV, some german tv cables and and iron on the side.  On top of that the guy selling the bike said he'd check with his platoon and was sure he could get a lot more stuff by the end of next week.  We have leads on a mattress for the bed frame that was hardly used in a guest room and also a couple bikes for Elise and Haaken.  We found out today that a coworker of Carissa has offered her basement couch for free because she feels sorry for us.  Carissa was very grateful, but we're not sure we'll take it as it sounds like they may still use it.  The woman is just really nice and is wanting to help out.

Tomorrow night we are going out for dinner with Carissa's coworkers.  It will be nice to meet some people around here.  We're going to get the keys to our house so this weekend we can get in there and take some measurements and plan out what we need to get and where it's going to go.  I'll take some pictures and post them Saturday or Sunday.  We drove around the neighborhood the other night and found out it has it's own little park and it appears the neighbors keep up their houses and yards (nothing compared to the Peterson's mind you).  We also noticed some of the houses have swing sets so hopefully the kids can find some neighborhood friends.