School Week 2 cont'd

Another week of school without any major issues! YEA! To pick up where I left off before...

Wednesday was Spencer's day in Oslo for work and I will freely admit that I was a lazy bum! I got the kids off to school on the bus and came back home and took a nap - yes, a nap, on my couch, while the TV was on in the background! Ahhhh!!!

I did eventually get dressed and even run a couple errands later in the day...then it was time to meet the bus and on to the afternoon drama of homework. The kids and I then joined Shelia and Ella for pizza at Dolly Dimple's - their treat (see why below.)

Thursday and Friday were a little more eventful. I volunteered to work at the school kiosk once a week for a couple hours and Thursday was my first day. I got there early and was waiting around for the other person since I had no clue what to do...she was running late and there was a line forming and kids looking a bit panicked in need of supplies, so I asked the front office for a key and dove in...It wasn't pretty...I did not have the money box, so I didn't have change and I didn't know where anything was or how to keep track of what was selling. A teacher ended up joining me and helping me out until the other parent arrived. Once things settled down, Stephanie (my kiosk partner) showed me the procedures and next time will be so much easier!!! Trial by fire, I suppose. The good thing...the other mom I was working with ended up being Abigail's mom, of one of Kyla's new friends. We chatted and had a nice visit.

I picked the kids up from school on Thursday and we immediately headed over to the British School to pick up Ella for Shelia. Dan is in the states this week and wouldn't you know, her boss called a meeting from 5-7 pm on Thursday and then the Houston office had previously scheduled a meeting from 4-6 on Friday, so that left her in a bind getting Ella two days this week. So, I picked up Ella and we babysat and played until Shelia could get home. I remembered my "secret password" and only had minor traffic, so all went well.

This morning (Friday) I attended the Welcome Back Coffee at the school. It was another opportunity to possibly gather tidbits of information and maybe meet more people...I saw several ladies from the CoP spouses' group and ended up visiting with Khaled's (a co-worker of Spencer's from Houston) wife, Nada for a good while. Their son is also in 2nd grade with Kyla. From there, I went on the hunt for birthday presents for all these parties the kids have been invited to...okay, that cost a chunk of change! Four birthday presents are now purchased, plus I ended up picking up a couple other things on sale for use at a later time! That is definitely one of those "if I had only known" items that I would have gathered some of and brought with me! I am definitely not counting every kroner we spend here because I think I would just die when I converted it to US dollars! Yikes!

Following the shopping excursion, I went to the office to have lunch with Spencer. Now that is a reasonable amount to spend for a good lunch! Oh, and we can't go a week without a trip to the bank. And no, we still don't have our internet code for the online bank...don't even get us started on that... We had to go in though because we had a giro (like a bill, but paid directly from your account to their account) that was due and since we can't get online, we have to do it in person. What a pain in the a$$! While Spencer was in the bank, I told him to ask for a printout of all our transactions so I could at least make an effort to reconcile our account and see our current balance, etc. It is very hard to try to figure out what you are spending and try and budget without being able to access your stuff!

By the time we finished that, it was about time to head over to get Ella. Spencer met the Brendan, Kyla, and Brendan's buddy, John getting off the bus while I did Ella's pickup. Brendan and John had a playdate this afternoon here at our place. Today was also the first day of soccer for Brendan. Even though we don't have his equipment in yet from our sea shipment, he went to practice and will be able to borrow shin guards and shoes for the scrimmage tomorrow morning. John tagged along for that and then we all enjoyed tacos for dinner. Shelia even made it back from the meeting in time for tacos too! Later this evening, we walked John home after a successful playdate! Whew!

On the horizon...the kids have a couple school holidays coming up and we are trying to decide which weekend excursion we want to take first! We are strongly considering Denmark and Legoland on our first 4-day weekend and then we have a week off in October, so we are going to try to get over to "mainland" Europe - Ireland, perhaps?

I guess that is all for now. I also guess these are getting kinda boring...we have settled in, school has started, and now it is just routine. :)