Mission(s) Accomplished

Well, I can't believe it,but it's been a week since we departed St. Louis. On one hand, time has gone by very quickly and it feels as though we have been here for such a short period of time, but on the other, there have been times where it now seems as though we have been here for weeks. In the last week, we have had to spend most of our time getting situated here. Fortunately, things have gone relatively smoothly. Priority number one was satisfied yesterday when we signed a lease on a house. As Jess has previously mentioned, the house is situated about a mile and a half from my work/the boys school on an incredibly idyllic country road. Across the street is an open pasture with cows. We have neighbors on both sides of us and the one set of neighbors we have gotten to know and she has been a guardian angel of sorts. She told us she and her family had a rough first few months here with little/no help in this foreign land, so when we began talking via facebook regarding the church, she said she wanted to try to make our landing as soft as possible. And she has. She has told us where to go for this, how to negotiate with our new landlord, who just happens to be her landlord as well, had us over for drinks and appetizers after we looked at the house for the first time, and watched the boys at her house while we went to sign the lease. Jess even has her first girls night out tonight with our her and her girlfriends at a trendy Italian restaurant we ate at a few nights ago. We get a US washer and dryer as well as five wardrobes and a refrigerator from the base on Thursday and on Friday we take delivery of our own furniture and bikes and clothes etc, so that will be our first official day. We'll post pics of the house and our neighborhood then.

The other main priority was getting the boys registered for school which we did a couple days ago. We are very pleased with the school and its philosophy of believing that learning is not just what takes place in the classroom, but out in the timecapsule that is Europe. The different classes in the school take frequent day trips to surrounding areas to learn about the history and culture of said area. When I was here in June scoping things out, the principal said the 5th graders were taking a bus to Paris the next day to go to an exhibit at the Louvre. So cool!

Other bureaucratic things we had to deal with were registering our car, applying for a Belgian ID card and setting up a Euro bank account, which we are doing that today.

All in all, it's been a busy yet productive week. We certainly miss home and everyone there, especially given the circumstances we departed under (for those of you who don't know, my younger cousin was tragically killed in a car accident two days before we left. It is the saddest thing ever to happen in my life). We are so thankful that you have all been praying for us and we hope that you continue to do so in the coming weeks as we begin to move into our house, begin school and work, and also just try to learn our way around our new homeland.   Au revoire!

This is a view from our lodge window of the base countryside.   It's been staying light out 'til about 10:15pm.  The skies, as you can tell, have been absolutely gorgeous.