We're here

I'm writing this from the kitchen table in our new house. Kort's asleep, mom's taking a nap, and Andy's at work. Oh, and the dogs are napping outside, too. It's a really lovely day--lots of sun, but chilly of course. Dark clouds are always on the horizon, but so far, we've had little bits of rain and lots of sun....until 11pm and again at 3 or 4 am. When I got up with Kort this morning around 4:30 it was full daylight. Very confusing for the internal clock.

So, where do I begin? Our flights were as good as could be expected. Kort slept really well at the beginning of the long flight, then just as food was served, he started to get very antsy for a few hours--we had to take turns walking him around the plane in the Baby Bjorn over and over. Finally, he slept off and on for the rest of the flight. The Paris airport was a maze, with lots of buses to gates and delays for our second flight. Kort had a major meltdown toward the end of the second flight when he had to get in his seat for landing. Small plane, lots people hearing him scream for about 10 minutes. Oh well...it could have been a lot worse!

Andy picked us up and we had A LOT of stuff--two carts worth, and it almost didn't fit in our station wagon. We drove through cute Inverurie, and arrived at our sweet and tiny house. We walked around a bit on High Street in Inverurie--and I think I'm going to love this place. We're in walking distance to 2 parks, a sports center that will become my exercise location (it has a babysitting facility--called a "creche" here), a couple of grocery stores and lovely walking paths. Other stores are about a 20 minute walk. It's quaint, but there's also pretty much everything you need. The 24 hour grocery/target-ish store is great. (We ended up wandering the aisles there our first night at 10 pm when Kort couldn't sleep). It's finally spring here, and flowers--tulips and daffodils and some type of white/pink trees--are blooming everywhere.

Our neigborhood is sort of suburban (almost desperate housewives without the drama), with TONS of kids on our street. I haven't seen them all, but there are at least 8 kiddos, probably 10 and under. They play football (soccer) on the street and use our fence as a goal post. I met one of the moms just after we arrived. I'm not quite sure if I understood her, but I think she said she had 2 girls and a boy and that we should have coffee one day--I think. I guess all but two households (ours and another) in the little development have lived here since it was built 7 years ago. We're definitely the new kids on the block and people are way interested in us. But, so far they've been so friendly. I think it's sort of a well-thought of area, as our immigration guy at the airport sort of said "la tee da" when he saw the address--in a nice way, though. And, when you look out of our window between the other houses, there's a beautiful view of the typical Scotland fields and countryside.

Again, the house is tiny, but totally functional and very efficient. I'm even already used to the mini fridge and I'm starting to figure out the bizarre combo washer/dryer. We mostly skip the dryer part and hang clothes outside. The only downside is that you can hear everything from every part of the house. Thus, Kort's gonna have a hard time increasing his sleep since it's a little noisy. We'll try to do some soundproofing, but I think we'll all learn to get used to it. I'm not sure how people on the street have three little boys in one of these houses. Also, black out curtains are a must. Kort's room doesn't have one yet, and it feels like the middle of the day when I'm trying to get him to sleep at 8.

There's not much to do in town on Sunday--everything is closed (and most things close at 4 or 5 Saturday), so we went for an afternoon drive. We found Balmoral castle (about an hour away), but got there too late to go in. Though, we'll need to visit before 31 July, as the queen moves in for August and September and tours aren't allowed. Go figure. The drive was beautiful--tiny roads and picturesque countryside after pictureesque countryside.