Happy New Year - 2008!

Happy New Year! It's hard to believe it's already 2008...seems like it was just the other day when we were hearing all of the concerns about Y2K. Remembering how scared some people were about changing to the new millennium and everything we were being told could go wrong makes me want to trust a known God to an unknown future all the more. Things like that teach me not to worry or get too concerned about the future....God has it all in control.

Time sure does fly. I'm looking forward to great things this year. We're at a wonderful time in our lives. We'll be moving into our new home, we're looking forward to both of our parents coming for visits though out the year, we're happy, healthy and in love. I say that, not to boast in the least, but just because I know it has nothing to do with our goodness, but the blessings of God. There are times I struggle with feeling lonely and separated from everyone (and everything) I know and love, but I try to focus on what a wonderful time in our lives we're at. I really miss my family, but it's such a blessing to have a family to miss. It's because I have such a wonderful family and we love each other that I miss them so much. Sometimes I still can't believe we're living in Germany. What an awesome opportunity though! I will always love the States and that will forever be my home, but while we're here I want to experience everything that we can.

New Year's resolutions always come to mind this time of year. I don't think I've ever sat down at the beginning of a year and truly thought about things that I wanted to focus on changing. It's always in the back of my mind because that's part of the tradition...making New Year's resolutions just to abandon them a few weeks into the new year. Well, this year there are a few things that I want to focus on. Nothing I want to write about, just a few things in my life that could be better and with God's help they will be.

We didn't do much for New Year's Eve, which was kind of sad. Back home, I knew Mom and Dad were planning for their annual New Year's Eve party. I love standing around the bon fire behind the house as we watch the fireworks display. Well...maybe next year. But for this year we just watched a couple of movies and then at midnight stood on our bedroom balcony and watched fireworks going off all across Filderstadt. It was probably one of the nicest fireworks displays I've seen because we're up on a hill and can see the entire area. The Germans really go all out with the fireworks. It was loud and went on for quite awhile. So, when it was all said and done we felt like we had taken part in a celebration of the new year.

Here are the latest updates on our house -

Today at 3:00 we were going to have the final walk though at our new place, but just as I was heading out the door Sam called and said it's been postponed until tomorrow. There are a few things that the contractor was not satisfied with, so he wanted to make sure everything was in order before we met.

There's been a delay in ordering our kitchen, but I think we're back on track now. Since we're Americans living here covered by the Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA), we are not obligated to pay the 19% tax that the Germans do. This is a huge benefit, but has been the reason our kitchen hasn't been ordered yet. After the fact, we found out that the VAT office will only approve a kitchen up to $15,000 because more than that is not considered removable and if we decide to sell down the road and a German buys it they will not have paid tax on the kitchen. Thankfully, Someone was looking out for us and we were able to break it down to have two separate payments. One for the cabinetry and the other for the appliances. All of this had to be approved and with the holidays it's taken quite awhile. I just took the first VAT form to the kitchen store today, so I think it will now be ordered and we should have a kitchen in the house in 6-8 weeks. We'll do just fine with a microwave until that time.

Friday morning we have an American family coming to look at the house we're renting. Basically, we're required to pay rent through February. If, however, we get someone to rent it -say the beginning of February - then we would only have to pay through January. That would be wonderful since the rent for these next two months is coming out of pocket because we have the house payments now too. Of course if they want to rent this house we'll have to kick it up a notch and get moving into the other house as quickly as we can.

I am amazed at the bureaucratic red tape we've gone through with buying this house. We've been getting bills from the Notary almost every other day it seems. If I understand it correctly, each house here in Germany has its own book, called a "Grünbuch". This book will be in the house records - down at city hall....forever. Each person that owns it must pay to get their name written in as the new owner. So, for our new place the contractors name has been written as the owner. Part of the fees, taxes and registration we've paid was to get our name in that book. Not only have we paid to get our name in the book, but we first had to pay to reserve a place for our name. It seems like we pay for every single step in the process. The way they do things here seems so ancient and hard for me to understand, but they certainly do keep good records. We will be so glad when it's over and I'll breath a long sigh of relief when I realize it has all worked out and we're settled. Until then I'm a little uneasy.


In closing...this is just one of the many things I absolutely love about living here. We were driving home last night and along side the road was a shepherd with his flock of sheep. I love watching a shepherd with his sheep, it's such a beautiful, peaceful scene. I could sit and watch them for hours. The sheep dogs are amazing to watch. This one kept his eyes on us and kept himself between us and "his herd" the entire time. As we drove by he kept moving so he was between us and the sheep. I would have liked to get a better close up, but I didn't want to bother them.

That's about it from here, so I want to wish you all a wonderful, happy new year. Until next time...