Connected

I told Ben last night I want our children to feel connected. 
Connected to us, to their grandparents, to aunts and uncles, to cousins, and to others. 

For numerous reasons, I haven't and don't feel connected to many people. And whether my children will appreciate it or want it or downright detest it, I want to ensure they're surrounded by adults/people who love them and care about them, and who are offering lots of solicited and unsolicited advice. 

I realize I can't force these relationships; but I can show them the way. I can be connected too. And that's not easy or natural for me. But I'm going to pretend until it is.

Ben's parents came to Luxembourg for the weekend.

They're currently serving a mission in the Sweden temple and with the temple's two-week closure, they are traveling all over Norway and France and also made a stop in Luxembourg.

Otto and Aksel were so excited. Otto had been asking me why everyone we know lives in Utah -- a valid question. Note to self: make some friends.

When George and Karen rang our bell, Otto shrieked with delight and didn't stopped chattering, running, laughing, and smiling the entire weekend.

Otto was overcome with so much excitement that his little head ran right into our radiator and split it open in two places. George helped me examine and wash it. And Karen helped Ben hold Otto and glue it shut. Note to self: we need more superglue. 

Aksel followed Grandma around all weekend and if he couldn't find her, he was asking, "where's Grandma?".

We ate Norwegian pancakes and chocolate bars, picked apples, played with new tractors, used our new Raclette, went to parks, went on walks, made cookies, celebrated Ben's birthday, talked, ate some more, and they were kind enough not to complain about the abundance of cold sandwiches on the menu.

Ben and I were able to escape for a few hours on his birthday to Schueberfouer! We celebrated his birthday and our freedom by eating our way through this funfair in the rain and walking around laughing and enjoying the vast amount of people watching juicing and cleaning demonstrations.

When Karen realized how close we were to so many countries, she spent a while studying a map and then Ben, George and Karen went to Memorial Du Mardasson (Battle of the Bulge Memorial) in Belgium one afternoon while the kids and I took naps.

Having one-on-one time with George and Karen is invaluable to me. I want my children to know (even if they can't remember) just how much these two people love them. And I also want them to know the following about their Grandma and Grandpa Oates:

Grandpa: 

superglued all of your broken toys back together (and a pair of Ottos' shoes)
puts brown sugar on his bowl of cereal every morning
puts an obscene amount of butter on bread
takes a lot of pictures of you (that are invaluable to me)
sits cross-legged on a couch
says wonderful prayers
pushed you on the swings for a lot longer than I would have
takes your hand and the time to explain things to you
likes to stay up late
is patient and kind
has long skinny legs
is a hugger
is a talker
misses driving

Grandma: 

loves berries
loves cauliflower
follows the Spirit
the dead talk to her
she doesn't complain
she has a hard time making decisions
always has a gift and a pair of Norwegian socks for you
always says "are you getting to be such a big boy/girl!"
always says "what are you doing?!"
holds your hands
takes you on walks
has things like your birthday and the BYU basketball games handwritten on her calendar
speaks many languages
doesn't like taking medicine

I think the visit meant a lot to all of us. We are already trying to find a city to meet in for the Christmas holidays (my vote is Amsterdam). 

The weekend made me feel guilty to see how much a familiar face and some attention has meant to the boys. I'll just swallow those feelings whole. And while I'm swallowing, I'll simultaneously be looking for more connections. 

Parcs

Ben: What did you do today?

Me: We went to a park.

Ben: It seems like you do that every day.

Me: Yep.

And It's true. The system of parks is incredible in Luxembourg. We haven't been bored yet with a park, and we've only stood atop the tip of the iceberg as far as parks are concerned. The boys don't fight and they play until they're exhausted. 

The only recommendation I would make to the socialist government here is to get rid of the sand. I'm the only mom to show up at the park sans sand toys (because I don't know where to buy them yet and I don't want my kids playing in sand/cat litter). Every park is covered in sand and that sand ends up in our house. Otto and Aksel need a bath whenever we get home from a park. We take lots of baths.

I've noticed numerous physical benefits in the boys as a result of our street youth life -- they're braver, they climb better, they run better they're more agile, and they're more independent (at a park). Clever Europeans. 

Our favorite parks so far: 

Parc de Merl

A gem in the city. Reminds me of Central Park. It has a huge variety of playground equipment, paths for bikes and a pond with fish, ducks, and turtles. Swings, sandpits, seesaws, wobbly things, climbing frames, slides, a zip line, and a tower that looks intimidating even to me. 

Right now (summer months) there are also trampolines for free (even for adults). They are supervised and you must wear socks. We are still trying to help Aksel understand the importance of only jumping on his trampoline and not hopping across the lot of them. 

Gasperich Playground

Fondly called by Otto and Aksel as the "farm park". A mere six blocks from our home, the boys nearly jump out of their skin as we approach this park and wriggle out of the stroller and cross the distance to the park as soon as it's in our view. 

Built this year by the Luxembourg government, its themed around a farm with a wonky-looking barn with huge barn door, bridges, ropes, slides, muddy pig sty, tractor, horse and cart, cows, sheep, and more. Also, complete with sandpit and swings. 

Each year, the Luxembourg government builds a new children's theme park, and I feel super lucky that 2014 made Gasperich the recipient of the people's tax euros. 

anticipating our arrival to the farm park

Parc de Bambesch

This wooden park is hugely popular with Otto and Aksel and I, too, have fallen in love with the playground. Sandpits, little wooden houses, pretend castles, roundabouts, huge slides, a zip line, things that balance and wobble, and all sorts of interesting equipment made out of wood to blend in with the surrounding forrest. 

I think Kevin Costner would have used this park in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Ben said that was dorky. I spend a lot of time alone... so I can't be held accountable for my dorkiness.

Across the street

We spend most of our time at the park across the street. Normally, I would be begging Ben to put something in our yard to entertain Otto and Aksel, but that seems silly with the closeness of this park and all of the others within walking distance. It's perfect to go here for 30 minutes after dinner, or to kill a few minutes before naps. I love it. And if anyone has a melt down, or refuses to wear their shoes, or poops their paints, it's logistically perfect.

Kockelsheuer

A magical place of lakes, paths, parks, farm animals, and mysterious wig wams built of sticks in the woods. Only a few miles from our home, we've spent several afternoons and hours exploring here. 

It's the perfect place to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Apparently, I'm the only woman in Europe without an au pair and without proper clothing for my children. Lots and lots of people comment on how I have three children without any help and that we're just tromping through the country, making noise, and embarrassing ourselves. 

People are very polite, but not overtly friendly. One woman did speak directly to me once (people usually just argue in French about whether Otto is a boy or girl) and said, "when two of your children are crying, it means it's time to go home". I wanted to tell her the odds are in my favor that two of my children are always most definitely crying. 

Additionally, people love to tell me my children are not properly dressed. When it's raining, shorts, rain jackets and Keen sandals are not appropriate. Every child has wellies and every child has a rain outfit (a light weight snowsuit). I laughed out loud the first time I saw a child playing in one. 

Now that my house, car and life is a sand pit, I understand. We will be investing in both wellies and rain outfits stat. 

Every day I am pleasantly surprised by the loveliness and coolness of a new park. We've lucked out. Luxembourg is perfect. 

The First Month

walking along the Rhine

Our family has survived one month of living in Luxembourg. I have felt every second, minute and hour of each day that has passed. It feels good to reach this small milestone of one month. I'm proud of our little family. 

Our first days in Luxembourg were filled with the necessities of moving into a new home, a new culture, and a new country -- one trip to IKEA, a few swear words, frequent trips to grocery stores, lots of tears, and a boatload of rules, paperwork and bureaucracy to navigate. 

Our first week, we were required to register our entire family -- in person -- at Luxembourg City Hall and the ministry of foreign affairs. 

Additionally, we were all required to have a physical exam by a government doctor, who asked some pretty funny questions and said our weights aloud quite loudly after stepping on the scale. We were also required to be tested for tuberculosis, which meant waiting for a very long time in another government doctor’s office, getting shots, and then getting x-rays. Then we were required to return three days later to prove we didn’t have TB. Don’t worry, they didn’t have the right equipment to x-ray Ingrid, so we had to take a separate trip for her tests to be completed at a children’s hospital. I’m grateful for gummy bears and iPads — the only way we survived all of the waiting around in public places. 

Every day, Ben was filling out a form, asking me to sign something, or figuring out what we needed to do next in order to get internet, phones, parking stickers, parking dials, opening a bank account, ordering cards without transaction fees, ordering vehicles, turning off phones, turning on phones, arranging insurance, etc. It's been a real headache for him and he keeps saying, "I'm about ready to kill some people." 

Ben is withering away! After being here one week, Ben lost 10lbs and continues to drop the L-B’s. Apparently I didn’t realize just how well-fed PwC kept Ben in SLC, especially while traveling. Combined with walking to and from work and the limited availability of snack food, we sort of felt/feel like we were starving to death until we figured out how to shop. Ben will soon begin taking more and more clients out for meals, and I’m sure will be right back up to his fighting weight. 

He is enjoying work here. They have made him the Director of Marketing in addition to his risk assurance responsibilities, which basically means they run all documents and marketing materials in English by him first. He likes the people he works with, can get by on his church french, and eats a brie and salami sandwich, coke, and a chocolate bar every day. 

He’s responsible for a lot of things in our day-to-day lives because he speaks French — calling doctor's offices, running random errands, translating signs, and yelling at motorcycle gangs to shut up when they stop and smoke outside of our house at 5 a.m.

Here are a few things I don't want to forget about the past month: 

Otto and Aksel contracting pink eye. (Luckily, I was able to fill two antibiotic prescriptions in Utah before we came, and I feel like a genius.)

The cooler weather.

Belgian chocolate chips.

The chocolate bars (one a day).

Brasserie Guillaume's raspberry tart.

Bread, bread, bread.

More time with Ben.

Exploring countless parks with my children.

Watching Otto ride the zipline on his own and loving it.

Falling down the stairs.

A visit from the Holdaways.

Successfully making chocolate chip cookies.

Listening to Aksel shout at Otto that he needed a time out.

Otto and Aksel shrieking with delight when Ben walks up our steps.

Walking in the city center with Ben and Ingrid under a canopy of brightly colored umbrellas, candles on tables twinkling, and the aroma of perfume, cigarettes and food.

None of the light switches are uniform. Some flip up to turn on a light, some down. No rhyme or reason. 

Stores close whenever they want -- even if the sign says they're open until 7, they still close and lock their doors at 6:28 if they feel like it. 

Everything is shut down for the month of August. Everyone is gone on holiday. Unless you're trying to get gas, then the entire european continent on their August holiday is at one gas station. 

Drivers are unable to turn right on a red light. 

Not only is prostitution legal; it is done in broad daylight across the street from the Ministry of Education. 

How the lights in nursery caught on fire our first Sunday.

Aksel's footsteps in the middle of the night as he found his way from his bed to ours (until we bought a crib).

A magical weekend in Germany with the Holdaways -- amazing food, soundly sleeping children, staying up late talking, belated birthday celebrations, brownies, vest shopping, and lots of laughing. 

The beauty of Rodemack.

The sound of bats at night.

The pastoral countryside of Luxembourg.

The way I felt when we finally got internet.

Yudri Rodriguez' cooking.

Ben thinking it's appropriate to drive 200 km/h on the autobahn.

Otto calling the Rodriguez girls "the ones with the black hair".

Trying to hide our VPN so we can access Hulu, Pandora, PBS Kids, or Netflix.

Ben trying to park our car in our driveway without bottoming-out.

Miss

purple skittles
double stuff oreos
clorox wipes
hand sanitizer that doesn't cost 16 euros (more than $20) for a bottle
carpet
target
my scensty warmer
my dyson
our bed
chick-fil-a

This past month has been filled with intense highs and lows. Moments of weakness and doubt and bursts of peace and beauty. We are grateful for this pause we have in Ben's career to spend more time as a family, to do something out of the ordinary, to eat loads of incredible bread and chocolate, and show our children the world. 

We love you, Luxembourg.

Shopping

Overall, logistics are more complicated here —there isn’t one-stop shopping like Walmart or Target. And on top of having to make multiple trips, use my iPhone to feverishly translate things so I can figure out what I'm buying, keep the babies happy, and then curse myself for not remembering to bring the reusable grocery bags, it can be a bit much. 

Most people drive the 20 minutes to Germany once a month where food is 50 percent cheaper. We've followed suit.

Ben goes alone (except for one miserable trip as a family on my birthday that we will never talk about again because it ended in tears for four out of five family members) to Aldi or Lidl in Perl, Germany on Saturday mornings to stock up on things so we can limit our trips to the grocery stores here in town to things like bread, fruits, and vegetables. 

Otto and Aksel have requested things like goldfish and fruit snacks only a handful of times and I've been able to pacify them with things like gummy bears (found at Aldi), crackers and cookies. 

In general, we've been able to find or get anything we want or need with the exception of hand sanitizer, liquid tide, clorox wipes, and some dairy. Fresh milk is expensive and hard to find, as is fresh whipping cream, cream cheese, and salted butter. 

I transitioned the boys exclusively to almond milk months ago, so the fresh milk really isn't an issue for them; just Ben. Interestingly, almond milk is our most expensive grocery item. Glade candles come in second. Ahem. 

There are less choices here, which makes things simpler. 

Oh, the yogurt. The yogurt! So good. We eat a kilo of yogurt every day as a family. It's so rich and creamy. I've never had such good yogurt. 

The breakfast cereals were and are an adjustment. We've found a similar frosted mini wheat and cluster-type cereal that the boys will eat. 

Once we google translated a few basic cooking items like baking soda and powder into both french and german and then located them at the store, we've been able to cook and bake as much as we did at home. We are only limited by our cooking supplies as our full shipment of belongings hasn't arrived yet. 

I miss the American model of everything and anything for pretty much a reasonable price (however, nuts are much cheaper here, for obvious logistical reasons). And I miss the familiarity of knowing where things will be located at the store. 

Figuring out what is sold at which grocery and what is sold at pharmacies and what stores are open at what time (unless they're closed for an unannounced reason), and what store takes amex versus cash, and which stores require a coin for a cart or a separate counter for checkout has nearly pushed me over the edge, but that's what good husband's are for. Ben is really good about texting me on his way home from work and will happily stop by a store for something I need (as well as a dr pepper and a chocolate bar for himself). 

The berries are sweeter, the meat is hormone free, and bread is fresh and plentiful. 

Gasperich

Gasperich

We couldn't have found a better location to live. The neighborhood is quiet and very family friendly -- lots kids and a lot of families. 

There are four parks, two bakeries, several grocery stores, a butchershop, Otto's preschool, and restaurants all within several blocks. The kids and I pretty much walk everywhere. 

People always comment to us when I walk by with Otto and Aksel in the BOB and Ingrid in the bjorn. They count the children in french or say "crèche!". 

I feel really fortunate, blessed, and happy with living in Gasperich. I think it's absolutely perfect for our crèche.

Not many families here have more than two children. And not many mothers have their children during the day and are walking around with them having very public melt downs. Most children start daycare and preschool when they're one year old -- its subsidized by the government to encourage people to go back to work. Luxembourg is a very expensive place to live so women can't afford to stay home.

PWC is also within walking distance (1 KM or .7 miles), and Ben walks to and from work most days. It takes him about 15 minutes, and it's been amazing to have him so close and so accessible. 

Church

We live within the boundaries of the Luxembourg Pariosse, which meets in an office building 15 minutes from our home in downtown Luxembourg at 9:30 a.m. It is a french ward, and all meetings and business are conducted in French. 

before the start of sacrament

Every square inch of the five rooms that make up the "church building" are used. The chapel  is a large room with chairs, a podium, a microphone next to the podium for a translator, a table for the sacrament, and a piano. 

There are four or five rooms adjoining the room where sacrament meeting is held, where a TV monitor broadcasts sacrament meeting for those who don't fit in the main room. I'm super uncomfortable nursing during church, but am quickly getting over it and feeling deeply ashamed I ever silently lamented the chairs in the mother's lounges in Utah. 

The Bishop's name is Aphy Mputu (a belgian), the first counselor is Sam Gilstrap (an american), and the second counselor is Richard Flammang (a luxembourger). Bisop Mputu speaks English well, and I haven't had any trouble speaking with him.

For those members of the ward who don't speak French, a headset is available during all three meetings, where another member of the ward is graciously translating everything. At any given moment, the ward is accommodating French, English, and Spanish. This is a huge undertaking. 

A considerable amount of time is spent in each meeting or class to ensure everyone can understand what's being said. 

Our first Sunday there, I was asked to play the piano in nursery, and I was blown away by the process the adults and children went through to learn the gospel and to sing a song. Two women have been called to every position in primary -- an English speaker and a french speaker. Two women stood in front of the primary children and taught every line, every theme, and read every scripture in two languages. 

Relief Society is the same way. The first 15 minutes are spent passing out headphones, identifying who can translate, and what the language needs are for the day. 

Otto doesn't seem to mind the language barrier in nursery. He has happily attended every week and was slightly excited about the smoke pluming from the lights in nursery our first Sunday as all the children were evacuated to the chapel. 

Aksel, however, has refused to go back to nursery since that first smoky day and becomes hysterical if we even mention nursery. I know given time and some familiarity, he'll adjust to the new building, routine, language, and people, but he's a mess in the meantime.

I was really looking forward to Church our first Sunday in Luxembourg because I was anxious for something familiar. Church has been the hardest thing for me since moving to Luxembourg, hands down. It's chaotic and it's more foreign than I anticipated. 

Just another adjustment to make.