Highs and Lows

Chad's Trip to JCI

Today Chad went to the Client Site in Leverkusen, Germany. It's about 30 minutes from our flat. He had a good day and enjoyed meeting with the clients and two of them are from Mexico and currently living in Germany as well.  However, his trip back home was a bit difficult and it is hard to read the signs on the Autobahn and drive in traffic. Chad took a 25 minute detour before arriving home late that evening...this means we WILL be buying a Nav system soon. :)

Kelly's new Friend

Thanks to our friends Mary & Justin Sikora (who are living in Hamburg currently) Kelly made a new friend, Anna! She is German and her and her husband Martin just moved from Hamburg to Koln. Anna worked with Justin until recently. She came over and we went to lunch. She is actually having a baby girl 2 weeks before baby boy Neumann is due.  Anna's English is great because they lived in San Francisco for a bit. She also brought Salt and a homemade cake for us to enjoy!  It is a German custom to give salt which was great because we needed salt!

Now Kelly has someone to hang out with who also misses working.  We're hoping to get together next week we Anna and her husband Martin.  We have German Friends!  It's a small world at times so thank you to Mary and Justin for introducing us from afar!

Dinner...

Kelly also found the instructions for our small Microwave/Oven. You can see pictures of it in our Flat pics.  It is small so it was interesting. We have been able to figure it out and have been able to cook meat, grill brats, and make a frozen pizza!

Doctor's Appointment

On Thursday, Kelly went to meet a possible baby doctor. He was recommended by the American Women's Club of Cologne.  Let's just say it was a great visit and I was impressed. His English was very very good because he worked for 8 years in South Africa. I thought it was going to be a quick 15 minute appointment and if I liked him I'd come back for another, well he made it into a full appointment and did a 3D Ultrasound on a huge flat screen TV! Little Buck's hand was in way so I didn't get a 3D picture but we did get the 2D option.  This is just a head profile with his hand by his mouth. However, at every appointment from now on we'll get to do an ultrasound so there will be another chance. 

He explained the German system which is quite different than the US.  I will have appointments with Dr. Horbach until the baby is born, I'll have a midwife that will come to the house every other week to do a quick check-up and the hospital staff will deliver the baby and not Dr. Horbach.  Also, the midwife will come to the house up t0 16 times after we bring the baby home to check on me and baby. She'll do check-ups and help with stuff like bathing the little guy. I'm not sure what I think of the midwife thing yet, but I have to interview a few and select one. The midwife training is pretty intense here too.  Needless to say, we're in good hands and will have a lot of help!

Our car is SOLD! :(

Thursday was also a bummer of a day because we went back to the car dealership for our scheduled test drive, waited 90 minutes for the salesman to tell us the car was already sold!  He then had us test drive another car and guess what...that one was sold already too.  Car shopping has been a process and a pain.