One of my favorite HGTV shows is "House Hunters International." It is always fun for me to see the different countries and places people are moving to and what the area is like. I told my family that we would make our own "House Hunters International" episode for all of them as we searched for our home here in Deutschland.

The day after we arrived in Germany we went to the housing office for our housing brief. We received guidelines on renting and advice on the process. Then we were emailed an excel sheet with a long list of housing rentals to sift through. This means we had to somewhat know what we were looking for.

Basically all of the 1 and 2 bedroom houses were out. We had a 3 bedroom in Alaska, but we were hoping for something a little larger, especially since Shannon (Brig's sister) is coming to join us next week. Then we wanted something that was fairly close to base so Brig could easily commute on his bike. A stand alone house would be nice, but we could do a duplex. Apartments were exneyed. A huge desire on my list was a yard! A fenced yard. I know two very active little boys who will be grateful for a yard to run around in, and a mother who would be grateful to know fenced in. There were other things on our list, but we were flexible as we made appointments.

We ended up seeing 9 houses on Monday the 8th. The first house we saw we dubbed the "Spider House." It has a lot of cobwebs and spider webs and needs a lot of love to get it to where we would want it to be. Then we saw a house that was under renovation. It was MASSIVE. And there was another entire house connected to it unfinished. There was a yard, but it was on the side right by the road.... and the bathrooms left much to be desired, although the toilet seat was pretty amazing.
The landlord was laying all new floor throughout the place, which was nice until I walked into one room and saw an old hardwood floor. The HGTV nerd inside of me was freaking out that he wanted to cover it up! I kept thinking to myself that he should just sand it and refinish it.
After seeing the Badem house we went to a little village called Dudeldorf. When I first looked at Google maps after learning we were to be stationed at Spangdahlem I decided I wanted to live in Dudeldorf because of the awesome name. Come to find out, the town of Dudeldorf is even more awesome than I thought. There is a village bakery, a butcher, a local kindergarten, a castle, and a Christmas Market. Also, there is a section of town that is between two arches. There are scratch marks on one of the arches from when General Patton drove his tank through town.

The house we saw was so cute and quaint and spoke German to me. I instantly fell in love with it, although there were a few improvements that would need to be made if we chose that one.

After Dudeldorf we went to the old Government Housing for base over in Binsfeld. The outside looked nothing like the Dudeldorf house and after walking in I instantly felt like I was in TLF (Temporary Loding Facility) on base. Needless to say, that one was crossed off our list almost instantly. It didn't help that you could hear all of the jets flying overhead.

After the Binsfeld house we went back to TLF and took a lunch break and nap time for Ezra. Brig and Andy did a bit of meditating, and then we were back at it around 1600.
The first house we saw in the afternoon was another amazing house. I had found it online and we were able to set up a quick appointment. It was in a little village called Niederkail. The house was actually quite large. I'm sure we could easily figure out how to fill the rooms, but we don't really need that much space. There were several cool aspects to this house. One room on the third floor had really cool flooring.
Another neat thing was the master bedroom/loft area upstairs.
The boys favorite part of this house however, was the back yard.  It's a shared backyard with the landlords and the tenant next door, but there was a swing set, a slide, a trampoline. A kids paradise. This one right to the top of our list with the Dudeldorf house.
After Niederkail we headed to Badem again. This house was FULL of character and so amazing, but it only had 3 bedrooms. It would have been a serious contender if there had been more rooms. The back yard was awesome, there were two garages, a really unique floor plan and fun character in the tile and design.



After this house we headed to a little village called Kyllburgweiler. The house was right next to a dairy (good and bad thing) had TONS of rooms, but only one bathroom.While we were looking at this house the boys actually locked themselves in a room and the landlord had to climb in through a window to help unlock the door. It was quite an interesting moment. :/

Then we headed to another house in Dudeldorf. The landlady didn't speak any English so she had her grandson there to help translate. The bathroom instantly made me think of my mom. In my parents' new home they have a bathroom we have named "The Rose Bathroom" because of the rose colored tile and a stained glass window. This bathroom instantly received that same nickname.
The last house we saw was actually two apartments on top of each other. There was no way to access the other floor except for going outside. It was weird, to say the least. One unique thing about this house was the bathrooms. There was a half bathroom and a full bathroom on each floor right next to each other. The top floor was pink, and the bottom floor was blue. A his and hers maybe?



Almost all of the houses we looked at had either a creepy cellar or an ancient attic. The attics were usually insanely huge. You could store an entire house in some of them.


 

We saw two more houses on Wednesday, but we had basically decided on two houses by then. The first Dudeldorf house or the Niederkail house. I was having a really hard time deciding. I kept going back and forth. I would make up my mind about one house and then I would second guess myself and go for the other one. It was terrible. After thinking about a few more things we decided to call the landlord of the Dudeldorf house and tell him we wanted to sign a promissory note. We scheduled for Friday afternoon.

Thursday I was still going back and forth, not sure if we should get the Dudeldorf or not. My anxiety really built up and I had a minor meltdown. (It's stressful moving to a new country...) Brig offered to give me a blessing and during such I was promised that at some point during the process I would feel peace and receive a confirmation that it was the right house.

I was nervous when we were driving up to the house, because we had heard stories of people making appointments to sign promissory notes and then someone else is there signing one when they got there. Thankfully, that didn't happen to us. We walked through the house again and looked at the little improvements the landlord was making that we had requested.

At one point I was alone holding Ezra, who was asleep on my shoulder. Brig and Andy had gone into the sunroom with the Landlord and the people from the housing office. I walked into the entry way and looked out the open front door at the sun coming in, and I felt warm and peaceful. It was the confirmation I was promised.

I felt very good about the house and I am very excited to move in. I'm also very excited to show it to all of my friends and family. (Hint, Hint.... come visit!)

Here is a picture of the front:
And here is the living and dining room area.
We move in this coming Thursday and Friday. Wish us luck!

One of our main concerns after arriving in Deutschland was transportation. Our sponsor has been wonderful in this department, but we knew we would have to find something pretty quick.

We went to the Lemon Lot, which is basically a parking lot on base with used cars for sale. We saw a white van and took down the info. It wasn't my dream van by any means, but it would get the job done and we wouldn't have to spend a fortune. So we decided to call the owner and set up a time to test drive. The price was listed for $500 over the blue book value, so we got the previous owner to drop his price. We saw the van and made an offer on the Friday after we arrived (the 5th) and we decided to finalize everything and do the paperwork the following Wednesday (the 10th).

In the meantime we learned of a car someone had for sale that was PCSing (Permanent Change of Station). He had dropped the price significantly since he was leaving and needed it sold asap. We test drove it on Tuesday the 9th and decided we would get it as well. Brig has plans to commute to work on his bike as often as he can, but having a little hooptie would make the days he needs to drive in a lot easier on  me and the kids.

Ever since we paid off our blue Subaru, we have continued to put away a "payment" each month to save for future car(s). Well, aside from the interest that we had earned in that account we had EXACTLY the amount we needed for both cars. It was a special little tender mercy.

I don't love these cars as much as my sube, but I hope that changes as time goes by. I have plans to spice my sweet white van up a bit so I like it more. I also decided to name our cars.

So, the van is Hans and the little blueish-purple hooptie is Torro.
I chose Torro because it says Torero on the car. I just shortened it to Torro. And Hans just felt right for the van. Hopefully this Hans won't turn out to be a lamed duck like Hans of the Southern Isles. Instead I'm hoping for a Hans Christian Anderson (who ironically wrote the book "The Snow Queen" from which the movie Frozen was based off of. *Mind Blown*).

Also, aside from having to find cars to purchase we had to get German licenses. Brig was able to take the test online before we arrived, but then needed to attend a safety brief before he could receive his license. I needed to attend the safety brief, and take the written test once we arrived. It was a bit nerve wracking, because everyone kept telling me how hard it was and that there is only a 50% pass rate for first timers. Oh goody. But I defied the odds and passed with flying colors!

I drove for the first time today over here in Germany and that was also a bit nerve wracking. I felt like a noobie all over again.  

It has been really interesting actually being over here and learning new signage and how the autobahn actually works. Americans glorify it beyond what it really is. Whenever I thought of the autobahn I always pictured 5 lane highways with super small lanes with cars driving mach 10. Not so much. At least in the part of Germany I am in. More like a two lane freeway with a suggested safe speed. I'm still scared to drive on it though. ;)

Well, we are officially in Germany. I had great plans to update the blog regularly while Brig was gone in Honduras so he could keep track of what we were doing, but we were able to FaceTime with him so often that he knew everything already. Also, being back close to family they knew what was going on with our life as well.... so I kind of dropped the ball.

But now that we are thousands of miles away, the updates will restart and commence.

We have been here about a week and so far it has been good. Granted we don't have a car, or phone service (except FREE wifi at our temporary lodging), or a house yet, but thankfully Spangdahlem Air Base isn't too huge so we can walk to the commissary and the Base Exchange (BX).

Andy and Ezra love having their daddy home again. They want to constantly wrestle and play. It is so fun to see how much they adore him.

The boys have been struggling a little bit with the whole time change thing. The first couple nights were rough getting up with them in the middle of the night for several hours, but each successive night gets better. It'll be nice to get a regular schedule again.

I've been sleeping weird lately as well. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and not be tired at all. The past two days I've awoken at 4am-ish and after laying there for an hour decide to just get up. I usually pay for it later in the day when I'm exhausted and then end up taking a 2 hour nap. Not too good for adjusting to the time change. Oh well.

Here are the boys enjoying their forts on the airplane that daddy built them.

Passed out on the floor of the Baltimore Airport.

We had German Pancakes for breakfast the other day. We thought it was necessary.

One day when we were putting our shoes by the door Andy insisted on putting his shoes inside of mine because "that what Papi does."

As mentioned by Brigham in the previous post, we have a Thanksgiving tradition that we have done for the past few years now.

It's the "Thankful Turkey," only this year ours here at home looked like a peacock because we had so many feathers. That tends to happen when you have 5 people participating.
Here are the things that we were each grateful for: