Saying goodbye

This is our last official week in our apartment, and it's starting to feel a little sad to see it go. It's a nice place... not a good fit for a boisterous family of five, but it sure is pretty.




As you can see, we have a lot of wide open space in this apartment. The kitchen is small, but we have two toilets and laundry facilities inside the house, which is not common in apartments here. The large, sklylit loft makes a wonderful playroom for the kids. The only real drawback is that we have no yard, not even a balcony. And it's a walk-up, which is fine, but hauling groceries for a family of five up three flights of stairs is tiring. And the noise... the kids have to walk on eggshells when the downstairs neighbor is home.

We pick up the keys to our new house on Monday. That's right, I said house. We found a house with a yard... not exactly the easiest thing to do in Europe, so we feel extremely lucky. My first question to the landlord was, "Can I put in a large vegetable garden?" He replied, "Yes. If you need more room, just ask the farmer to move the fence." Move the fence?!! Talk about accommodating!

The rooms are smaller in this place, but we have a view of the countryside, a bit of mountain, and even a castle! The house backs up to farmland, bordered by forest. There are horses and highland cows... and did I mention? Another homeschooling family lives just down the street.

Life will never be what it was in the states, but I think ours will be returning back to a more normal, noisy state. The first thing I plan to do is make sidewalk chalk and entreat Moonshine to the same sorts of number games that Sunburst enjoyed on our big concrete patio. And there will be lots of mandatory running games INSIDE the house.

Here's just a peek of what awaits us.



ps. Yes, I do see that there appears to be a drain in the middle of the yard. I'm trying not to think about what that means.