Lost wallet

Some of you know that I have a problem misplacing things. Since being here I have lost the three most important items that I usually carry in my wallet. I dropped my military ID when we first arrived. It was later turned in to the lost and found. My liscense has yet to show up after it went missing. My temple recommend was discovered my a fellow member of the church stuck in a magazine at the pharmacy. Yes, it is a problem and I am getting tired of it.

Two days ago my entire wallet went missing, containing the three things mentioned above in addition to three credit cards. I got a pit in my stomach when I realized that the last time I saw it was getting the kids into the car, which means it probably was placed on top of the car.....and....well.....you can imagine.

Last night as I was getting ready to cancel my credit cards, I got a phone call from a German gentleman who found my wallet lying on the side of the road in the bushes. The road is on the way to our village from the neighboring one, is one lane and flanked by trees. Yippee! Everything was there and nicely organized too, the bills folded, recipes lined up, and coins in the coin purse.

I feel very lucky for honest people with good eyes. I am going to drop off a thank you note and cookies this afternoon, after I buy a new purse that I can carry over my head and shoulder that I plan to never put down.

The Bus mishap

So, we live 20 minutes from school. I wasn't pleased with the long distance when we moved in, because Micah rides the bus with the junior high kids. After the first week, I could see that he was safe and even enjoyed the bus experience. Well, yesterday we dropped the ball and my worries have returned.

On mondays Micah stays after school for a writing club. He has been attending for a couple of months now and it has become part of our regular routine. I reminded him to stay after school as we said our goodbyes. I left to pick up Micah about the time the bus arrived in our neighborhood. As I loaded the kids into the car, the thought came to me, "Micah is on the bus." I ignored it. We passed the bus on as we drove out of town and again the thought returned, "Micah is on the bus." We kept driving. At school, I peeked into the classroom and saw a blond kid with sneakers like Micah. Sight of what I thought was him, put me at ease. I waited 20 minutes until the kids were released.

You could probably guess when the kids filed out, Micah was not with them and 45 minutes had already passed since the bus dropped him off. I started to panick and stopped thinking clearly and stopped functioning. The teacher panicking herself took control and started making phone calls. My neighbor saw Micah confused and scared and took him in. Micah was happy, playing Wii with his buddy, and watching cartoon network, when I arrived a full hour after the bus dropped him off.

I feel very greatful everything worked out. The bus stop is not near our home and located on the busy mainstreet of our town. It is just bothersome to me that I can't get to my kid quickly if things go wrong and of course I feel guilty for not listening to my gut, which warned me at least two times.

A day off

Taylor pushing around his baguette.

Greg didn't have to work today, so we decided to take a trip to Cora, a grocery store on the other side of the french boarder. We got the kids off to school and took Taylor with us on an friday morning date. It took only 20 minutes to get to Frohbach, which is the closest french city. Cora had an entire aisle dedicated to cheese and another to yogurt. The bakery was pretty good too. I might go back to buy little suits for the boys. I have never seen such a selection of dressy clothes and shoes for kids, at a grocery store even.

We set a goal to learn some French. We don't even know the numbers. We went to a bakery and used a combination of hand signals and German to communicate. On the way home we got stuck in traffic and spent two hours trying to get off the freeway. We were about an hour late picking up Sadie and Taylor topped it off by throwing up in the car.

A note about TV

Since I don't keep up with any shows, I never thought of myself as a TV person. We had a really lame TV in MD and basic cable. Since coming to Germany, I have realized......I guess I really am one. Here is the TV scenerio here.

The military provides Americans with english Channals through the AFN (American Forces Network) satellite and receiver. While in the hotel, we had a chance to view some of the channals . I wasn't impressed. Most of the shows were reruns, the movies are lame and the only kids channal was cartoon network (not my favorite). I made the decision to get German TV. We bought the receiver and tried it out........and got every channal in Eastern Europe and the middle east, in addition to a huge amount of porn. After blocking out about 400 weird channals, we narrowed it down to 2 german, 2 english and 2 spanish. Yipppy........Come to find out we share a satelite with our neighbor and it is turned toward the AFN sattalite not the German one. lame.....

Also, I had expected to be able to watch TV shows on the internet through the network websites, but did you know they you can't watch overseas? Copyright issues! Also, Netflix takes too long to turn around.

So what do we do here?
1. Rent movies from the convenient store in the hospital
2. Borrow movies from the library
3. Exchange movies and TV series with friends
4. Download movies and Shows from iTunes...(that is a new one for us)
5. Expand personal DVD library with purchases from Amazon.

We are also getting less picky when it comes to quality. My favorite German shows include

1. Bauer sucht Frau (Farmer seeks wife)
A reality show where farmers are looking for the loves of their lives.

2. Raus aus den Schulden (out of debt)
Another reality show where a financial planner helps germans who are on the brink of bankruptcy.

3. Mitten im Leben
A show about regular germans whose lives suck and we get to watch it all.

4. Teenagers Ausser Kontrolle
A show about wild teenagers and their parents who can't control them and they send them to a bootcamp to straighten them out. I have never actually seen this one, but the advertisements look pretty good.

5. Deutschland sucht den Superstar, yes American Idol German style
The talent isn't as good as in the states, but if you can ignore the German accents (they all sing in english), it isn't so bad.

It seems like most of the shows are patterned after TV in the states. You have make over shows, similar quiz shows, weightloss shows, babystory etc.

Of course, there are your american shows that made it over here that are dubbed, but they are ususally a year behind and the 2 channals we have are pretty limited. There are some American movies on the weekends now and then too.

Sounds entertaining doesn't it?