It’s a still morning before the kids are up, and I’m quietly laughing at a list in my notebook. It’s my catch-all notebook that has all of our accounting, plus travel notes, anything I’ve jotted down quick from customer service interactions, and, lately — also the little things I’m noticing here everyday. Things that are different, or surprising, sometimes frustrating. Also delights, things I’m loving and that make me smile or laugh. A lot of the things on this running list are the oddities I want to remember in these first days of apartment living.

Remember what it was like to be a kid in the 80s? Outside all the time? I remember playing with my banana seat bike and meeting up with friends in the street. We knew it was time to go home when our mom’s yelled out into the wild that it was time for dinner. I’m all nostalgic about it because we found this paradise existence for my own kids and they are over-the-moon happy.

If you are a military family moving to Stuttgart, this post will be helpful. If you’re not, you might just be curious as to how this all works and how things have gone for us so far.

One of our first priorities when we arrived in Stuttgart was to figure out where we were going to live. I mean, the kids were loving the hotel life…for a minute. Living out of a suitcase and eating out for every meal gets old pretty quick.