It's officially official.... FINALLY!

Stuttgart

In the hills above Stuttgart

Well hence the background change, it is official that we will be moving to Stuttgart in the next several months. We haven't yet decided if Aurora and I will move before or after Gideon is born. I am excited for Ben about his new position. He will be working for the same company but will only be working eight hour days, five days a week. I'm in shock that has never happened to us before. The information today was great and they are very excited for Ben to start this new contract for them and so are taking care of everything for us which is a relief. So in the next couple months Ben will go from being in Iraq to being in Germany. He is coming home first for vacation in March for a couple weeks.



We have been looking at houses to rent and I am excited at the prospect of living so close to the Alps.Yes, I'm crazy but I LOVE snow and snowy weather. I hate hot weather! So this is perfect. We have also found so pretty cute houses. Which is VERY important since we wont move for several years till me outgrow our house or buy one ourselves(incredibly expensive with mandatory 40% down).We will probably be living about forty five minutes south of Stuttgart, which is in the South western corner of Germany. We will be a little more than an hour from Switzerland, 1 1/2 from Munich, 2 1/2 from Frankfurt and about an hour from France. Austria is so much farther about 4 1/2 hours. I've been in contact with several American women who currently live in or around Stuttgart and they love it. I'm excited for the opportunities well get to have to explore, the adventures, the culture, and the people! So plan your vacations now! Come and visit us we will live in the perfect location to visit. Oh, and only six hours to Italy. So for now I'm trying to stock up on the random baby items I need before we go and Aurora and I are working on our German.



Also we are excited for Aurora to( in a couple years) attend German schools. They have an amazing school system that we are excited to utilize. We will be working with her to have her become bilingual but will start her in Kindergarten (preschool) at either 3 or 4 so that she wont be behind because of a language barrier. Grade 1 is when Germans start school and you have to be 6 so Aurora will be 6 1/2 by the time she starts "real" school.



Oh, and yes our now two Kitties will become world travelers as well. So just to be clear Ben will no longer be in the military , he will be a Government contractor. So we will have access to everything that the military does in Germany. So they have a movie theatre, bowling alley, restaurants, their version of Walmart and a grocery store there will actually be four of each of those things within thirty minutes of us. Also about an hour a way at Ramenstein (huge base) they are building a mall and have a Chilis, Macaroni Grill( why when there are so many amazing Italian restaurants?) etc. So we will have the best of both worlds. NO we will not be spending all our time on base or with English speaking people. After my German gets better we plan on moving from the Military aka English speaking ward to a regular German ward. We will be shopping fro necessities on and off of base. We will not be the annoying Americans in Europe.



I can't think of anything else I'll get questioned on but if you do just let me know and I'll answer if I can.I am very excited though and am praying to know when I should move so please send prayers for wisdom and knowledge on when best to move my little family my way.Well any kind of wisdom and knowledge I'll take really.Oh, I'm not worried about the German hospitals-heard from every source that the food sucks but they are AMAZING! Also that it wouldn't be a problem to find a good OB who would take me at 6-7 months.