Alexander Family's Big Adventure: Upon reflection

I'm in a better mood already.

I knew my bad mood wouldn't last long.

I'm sitting in the house, for the last full day that I'll be in it. Across the yard, I see a cherry tree that I had never noticed before. How did I miss that last year?! They're not quite ripe enough for me to pick, which means I won't get to try any, but their little bursts of red amidst the bright green leaves are pleasant enough to look at.

I'm not at work today because I'm waiting for the second movers. It's a small shipment, and I'm a little bit worried that I am over my weight limit. I hope they'll be able to be a good judge of that for me. Tomorrow I return the loaner furniture. Thursday we drop off the van to be detailed and then shipped on Monday, and we also do the walkthrough to move out of the house. This is our last night in the house, which is kind of great because last night I hardly slept at all for how hot it was. The Wiesbaden Army Lodge is air conditioned. That will be lovely.

I have a list of top things since I've been here. I will share it with you.

Here we go, in no particular order, based on our events and the places that we visited:

1) City with the most character: Bratislava, Slovakia

2) Most beautiful city: Vienna, Austria

3) Best place to go for Roman ruins: Trier, Germany

4) City with the most diverse types of things to do and see: Mainz, Germany

5) City most worth visiting in your lifetime: Paris, France

6) Friendliest area, especially for families: Tuscany, Italy

7) City with the most impact on my life: Jerusalem, Israel

8) City with the highest concentration of rude people: Wiesbaden, Germany (I realize I might have that impression since I live here, but I don't think so. Even Berlin had a lot of rude people, but it was pretty nicely balanced with kind people who went out of their way to be kind. Also, I've heard from other Germans that Wiesbadeners have a reputation of being rude. I wonder why that is?)

9) City with the best cathedral: Cologne, Germany

10) City with the best museum: Frankfurt, Germany

11) David's favorite place we visited: Tuscany, Italy

12) Most stunning natural area: Bavarian Alps (specifically Garmisch-Partenkirchen--we will miss that place and the thought that I may never go there again in my life makes me a little bit sad. Thank God for the Rockies!)

And here are some numbers:

1) Number of strep infections from September 2018 to June 2019: 26

2) Number of miles driven from mid-August 2017 to end of June 2019: (I'll have to update this on Monday when the van gets shipped.) UPDATED: I have no idea! I thought some documentation would tell me how many miles we started at, but I never found any. So it's a mystery!

3) Number of countries visited by the entire family: 9 (Germany, Poland, Netherlands, France, Spain, Austria, Slovakia, Italy, Belgium)

4) Number of additional countries I visited without the family: 2 (Israel, Czech Republic) UPDATED: 3, including my 1-day trip via train / bus to Luxembourg.

5) Number of surgeries / hospital stays: 3

6) Number of Germany's border countries we missed entirely: 3 (Denmark, Switzerland, Luxembourg)

The thing about it, that the numbers show, is that while we were living a beautiful life here in Germany, the ugly parts of life showed up, too, mainly in the form of sickness for us. I don't know why that kind of took me by surprise. I guess usually when you're on vacation, you're healthy, and I was really focused on all the great travel we would do while we were here, and not the facts of everyday life. (Although I was very excited about the job, too! And rightfully so!)

It is Thursday, now, and we are in the air-conditioned Lodge on the Army post in Wiesbaden. Thank God! It is supposed to be 99 degrees on Sunday! That is pretty rough with no air conditioning. We know because we did it last year!

We had a very difficult two days! We didn't finish moving out of the house until about 0100 today. I could have taken more time, except that the van was scheduled for drop-off today, so we didn't have use of it this morning, which had been my intent in scheduling an afternoon walkthrough. David and the kids were AMAZING. Seriously. I'm so proud of and impressed by all five of them. I caught a glimpse of how this family will be when the kids are older and we all work together on something as a team. I secretly daydream about buying a project house in Waynesboro someday, and using it to learn and to teach the kids about things in life that you can do with your hands. Maybe someday!

In the meantime, I'm glad we're out of the German house! I'm really excited to be going home, especially since we just had the toddler grime painted over with a color of my choice (hopsack), and a new fan installed in our bedroom. It's going to be so nice to see our house again!

God is good and I am so grateful!