Watchout for David Bowie

Ugly girl and David Bowie at play. 

These are among my favorite signs.  They are found hanging in most of the villages letting you know that children may be present.  Germans aren't really known for their artistic abilities, at least according to me.

Another Week January ??-15

Right after I posted my whine about the rain, wouldn't you know it, the rain stopped.  The skies have cleared and everything has turned really cold.  We haven't done much other than the regular basketball, homework, scouts, homework, no traveling kind of stuff.  Darin has been very busy and not around much.  He was actually, shockingly, home for the long weekend, but we didn't really go anywhere because we hadn't planned ahead.  Besides it was super cold.  My favorite part was when we went on our afternoon date.  We wandered around the local grocery looking at all of the great stuff that I long to look at, but don't because I've got 5 kids fighting for gummy bears and making a German scene.  Then we went to our local Doner shop and enjoyed fabulous Turkish food.  Darin says that the Germified Turkish food is better than the real Turkish food because there are less goobers.  I just love the memories that I get everytime I eat it.  On a sad note, Darin was talking to someone stationed in Turkey right now and found out that our favorite local resturant, Red Onion, has closed and was turned into a loud obnoxious disco.  I cried real tears over that news.
The kids are doing really well and seem to be enjoying school, friends, and church.  They keep me busy.  Anya is talking more and more.  My favorite is when she says, "neigh" it isn't spelled this way, but you get the idea.  It is the German (shortened/slangish)word for "no."  She yells it all the time at her brothers. 

I am struggling with 2 issues, 1)Keeping up with the Traveling Jones'.  I cringe with sadness and envy everytime I hear of someones travels.  2) Real life still has to go on EVEN when I am living overseas.  I get grumpy with the homework and work that gets in the way of my desire for adventure.  Even in Europe laundry has to be done and food needs to be cooked.  It is rough.

That is it for now, off to cook some boring dinner and think of the Jones' on their trip...maybe I'll think of them on that Italian cruise ship that is sinking just to make myself feel better. 

He Must Be Almost 8

We have hit the ugly stage with our dear Jag.  Poor Guy.  Check out this smile.

I am just glad that he finally lost the other front tooth.  He has had 1 monster sized (so far beyond just big)  tooth for way too long (think Mother's Day), maybe with 2 monster sized teeth he'll look balanced.  I've given him nicknames such as Bucky, Snaggle tooth, and Nanny McPhee, but he hasn't liked any of them.  Imagine that.  Good thing he is so cute with his mouth shut!

Genius

There are some things that the Germans just do so very right.  This is one of them:

I've been walking around trying to find something to eat it on instead of my finger or a spoon.  So far everything it touches tastes like heaven!

On a side note:
Maybe I should have reconsidered putting my scale into storage for 3 years.  Why did it go to storage?  I have no idea why I let Darin talk me into something stupid like that.  Now I just determine weight by how my clothes fit, but then again everything has to go into the dryer because with all the moisture in the air nothing drys on a line.  That must be the real reason things are a bit snugger.  Couldn't possibly be the fistful of Milka Cream Cheese I had for lunch.

Boring Talk

Rain. Every day for weeks, it has been raining. I guess that the good thing about rain is that it isn’t snow. The weather, although cold, hasn’t been cold enough. Why would we want cold enough? We’ve had one day of snow. Darin and I were being lazy in bed when we hear a familiar sound, one that makes us reach back into our youth…the scraping of a snow shovel on a sidewalk. We both jumped out of bed and ran to the window, our little neighbor was out shoveling our walks. Darin quickly ran outside and stated shoveling the entire street. After 7 years he still remembers how. There is, however, a correct way to shovel snow in Germany. Shovel first (which is tricky with cobblestones), then sweep the sidewalks, then salt. But don’t go back and shovel again if you have salted, it is nicht gut fur die garten (as Darin was told while trying to reshovel the neighbors sidewalks).


This past week we had a crazy weather day in which the wind was blowing the rain so much that it was nearly impossible for Noah and I to make the trek up the hill to the kindergarten. Nearly. That day also brought terrible hail. Jag was fascinated and wanted to run outside as see if it hurt. So he and Noah ran in the hail until they were freezing and declared that hail does in fact hurt. My kids are genius’.

As you can tell with all this weather talk, I haven’t been travelling. And I have been reduced to talking in English about the only thing I can talk about in German, weather. Ugh. Darin has been working way too much. Davis has basketball 3 days a week and the beginning of the primary year has been terrible for me, the secretary. No travelling.

I have been travelling virtually. Planning trips that I hope to take to fabulous locations in Europe, hoping that the rain stops and Darin’s work slows down enough to take them. Spring/Summer can’t come soon enough. I wonder if I’ll be able to tell by the weather or if it will still just be cold and wet?

Judge Not. Lesson Learned.

Not long before we moved to Germany I was in a Sally's Beauty store to pick something up.  A woman in front of me put up her purchase up and the cashier said something to her.  The ladies face registered confussion and then the cashier said something else.  Still nothing.  Then the lady said something along the lines of "Do you happen to speak Spanish?"  I remember thinking "Really?  Not one word of English and you are trying to buy something?"  The nerve of some people, and I am behind them in line.

My humble pie is not very delicious.  The poor girl was probably on vacation in San Antonio and stopped at a beauty store to grab something to keep her hair back in the humid weather. 

I got the "Really?  Not one word of German and you are trying to buy something?" look this past weekend as I was trying to pick up something cute to wear for New Years Eve.  To the defense of the judgmental cashier, it was New Years Eve and it was closing time (I didn't know that either.)  However, closing time was 1:00, so it's not like a party was being missed.  

For the record, I will just answer "Ja" from now on, chances are that will answer most of the cashier's questions.  "Ja, I want a bag."  

Prost Neujahr

I feel so lucky to have experienced a German New Years.  I had NO idea that the straight laced, quiet hour between 1 and 3, no washing your cars on Sundays, Germans would know how to put on a show like they did.  The fireworks were awesome!  Everywhere in our little village people were shooting off fireworks and rockets as quickly as possible.  They had empty wine bottles lined up and were dropping lit rockets into bottles as fast as they could.  The church bells loudly chimed for 20 minutes at midnight.  Our entire village was lit and the houses rattled from the booms in the sky.  With the village being in a little valley, the sounds just bounced around.  The boys said they would need earplugs for future New Years celebrations.

Darin and the 2 oldest boys went down the street to get a better view of all the fireworks, and I stayed inside with the sleeping little ones and the windows on both sides of the house opened.  They watched several fireworks going astray and blowing up as they hit a neighboring house.  While I watched out the window at our neighbors.  I thought for sure that they (younger ones across the street not the older ones next door) were going to blow themselves up.  They were tossing firecrackers everywhere.  One of the bigger rockets got lit, then knocked over, and ended up hitting their car parked on the road. Not to mention that it came within a foot of their friend.  I laughed and laughed.  I couldn't believe how long the fireworks went on for.  The U.S. of A will need to bump up their July 4th celebrations in order to compete with a German New Years. 

After things started to slow down a bit and our neighbors ran out of fireworks, Darin and the boys went to light our own little sparkling fountains (almost embarrassing!).  Then the neighbors and their friends came across the street wine bottles and glasses in hand to offer handshakes and New Years Wishes.   It was so fun.  Prost NeuJahr!  They offered us wine, but provided us with the kinder wine instead. We then sat and "talked" to them for quite awhile.  It was a very memorable Neu Jahr.  I couldn't stop smiling when I thought about how the Germans celebrated and how soundly my 3 little ones slept.

As a side note:  Fireworks were sold everywhere.  They are the big ones that Utah just barely allowed this past year.  I could buy (but didn't because I didn't know if our village would be doing fireworks-silly me- thus the little fountains) a large box with about 20 big shots for about 19 euro. Next year we will be fully participating!