Soccer, Basketball, Cell phones, a washer and school supplies....

We did it all today! Poor Josh! His brain is exhausted from all of the French that he had to force out of it today so we could get our errands completed! We started out at the bank where we were finally able to get a French check book! They put our Indiana address on our checks but at least we are heading in the right direction. We then headed over the electronics store to purchase our cell phones only to discover that they needed not only a landline phone bill (which we finally have!) as proof of residence but also our bank identity number to prove that we have a French bank account. This number seems to be used for everything - from the school cafeteria to utilities, etc! Guess they don't believe in securing things with a credit card over here.... Anyway, so, it was back to the bank we go to secure an official statement of this number. We did that, grabbed some quick sandwiches for lunch before heading back to the store for our cell phones. We managed this task with much patience and hand gestures on the part of the saleswoman to explain exactly what we were getting and what we needed to do. We feel so much more in touch already because we can now get a hold of each other and possibly leave the kids alone for a short time since they can finally call us! After acquiring our phones, we ran over to a sporting goods store since Quincy needs a ping pong racquet for gym class and Taba needs a new swimsuit and a badmiton racquet for her gym class! We then ran over to the "Target" to try to get some more school supplies before we ran out of time. That was an overwhelming task as we tried to read off of our 4 lists and find the items that look so different from ours! All of the notebooks have grid paper rather just lines, very interesting! We were only able to find a few items before we needed to run out to our house to meet the washer installation guys. They were patiently waiting for us and smoking a cigarette when we arrived 5 minutes before our scheduled time. I dropped Josh and the kids off at the house to oversee the installation while Calvin and I ran over to the local public school for a huge community activity sign up day that they were having. We knew that this was where we needed to be to get the kids signed up for their various sports. However, after only 5 minutes in the giant gymnasium filled with hundreds of people and many, many booths and activities, I knew that this was not a task that I could handle with my very limited French. So, Calvin and I ran back home. We let the kids play in the yard and shoot some baskets in our basketball hoop, while I tried to organize my school supply list and hopefully make the second go at that task go a little easier than the first. We then headed back to the activities sign up where we successfully signed Calvin and Quincy up for the community basketball league and Max up for the community soccer (football) league. Anyone who says that French people are rude should have seen these incredibly nice people all pooling their limited English together to help us to get the kids registered for the things they wanted to do. We were not able to get Taba signed up for the horseback riding team that she wanted despite everyone's best efforts. Just too many unknowns but we did get a phone number so we can have our translator call next week and help us to understand. While Josh and I were trying to do all of these business kind of things, the kids had a great time at the rock climbing wall in the gym where they were giving free turns. Max is such a monkey!! No fears and no hesitancies at all! He wanted to sign up for the climbing team but the minimum age was 10. Next on our list was to tackle that school supply list again... we hit a different store where the crowds were less and really did a much better job. Not quite everything was found but we're getting there! Our translator already volunteered to help on Monday if we still have things we can't find. Finally at 8 p.m., we headed home to eat dinner (see how French we are already) and after a big meal of tacos and baguettes (?? - quite a meal, eh?), the kids fell into bed! Whew!
The past couple of days, we have been able to talk to our parents back home in Indiana/Ohio via a live video call on the internet! It is fantastic! We use skype.com and it works great and is free! The world sure doesn't seem so big that way! We all love it! If anyone else has a skpye account, make sure to let me know your user name!
The pictures today are of the kids climbing the rock wall, Max discovering that our new kitchen has a faucet that works as a drinking fountain (good thing since we don't have any cups!) and my new washer!!! No dryer yet so laundry will still not be easy but one thing at a time....