A present for Dad

Brilee spent the night with a friend this weekend and they made crafts. It's this stretchy thing braided made with all sorts of material. I guess you can use old socks to make it, I'm not sure if that's what they used. Mike didn't know quite what to do with it. She was really hoping he'd use it for a key chain. Ok, so I took a picture of what it would look like with his car key attached. I could just imagine him driving with this thing knocking his knee...not gonna happen! It's as long as my foot and bulky. We giggled when she was talking about it and then her last plea was for him to at least take it to his office. He said he didn't know what to do with it in his office. We were in the kitchen while this conversation was happening and I said to look around in my office, I have all sorts of things that they've made. He stood there for a minute, glanced at the art covered refrigerator and thought about "my office" being the house and knew I had a great point. :-)
So, he'll be taking this to work and you betcha she'll be on the lookout the next time she visits dad's office. Great work Brilee, we love your gifts!

Beware of Witches Wednesday

This Wednesday night is "Hexennacht" or Witches Night. Wierd things happen the night of April 30th. It's a custom mainly for children and teenagers to play tricks on neighbors. Some tricks include ringing doorbells and running, putting mustard or toothpaste on door handles, hide floor mats and trash cans, remove garden gates and wrap various items in toilet paper. There are also destructive things done like removing street signs, manhole covers and uprooting flowers.
I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when we wake up Thursday. We're well liked I think in the village so we're hoping we're not a huge target for mean things.
Friends we know had their patio furniture moved down the the center of the village at the fire station where on Thursday they have a huge celebration for May day. The furniture was all set up for the party! Everyone had to pick their stuff up after the celebrating had finished.
We're just heavily warned to move flower pots inside or to the back yard, garbages to the back and ANYTHING that can be picked up to be hidden. I don't want to search the village for my door mat nor do I want to end up looking for my garbage's. They have fun celebrations in Europe, this one I'm really looking forward to! I just have to think of something to do to my neighbors. Hee Hee!

Decor at it's Finest!

Before Mike's parents arrived, Dallin cleaned his bedroom up. He even decorated his dresser extra special for the arrival. Here you see 2 tights knotted together draped around his Star Wars plane with the military fighters placed strategically around it. It was cute enough to deserve a picture and blog entry. He's got an eye for fancy decor. :-)

Spring??? WHERE ARE YOU???

I hear commercials on the radio saying "summer is just around the corner". Spring hasn't sprung here and I'm getting a bit worried. Last year, the only warm weather we got was in May before we arrived. In July, it was cold and rainy and coming from AZ, we FROZE!! I guess I've never really had spring weather because in Arizona, we went from cool weather to summer overnight each year. But, 50 degree wet weather has worn out it's welcome and I'm ready for flowers, green leaves to grow back and capri's so I'd have to shave my man legs. :-) hee hee!
I did buy just over 2 dozen tulips Saturday for a little over 7$ to add some color to our table. They're beautiful and I can't wait to see them bloom in yards around us.
I know you folks in AZ are already swimming...we won't get there for about 3 more months and even then, I think it'll be too cold for me to enjoy. I'll stick to the indoor pools thank you!

Our Home and Village

school buslooking down into the village. Our house is a bit to the left, the pink onepower converters- I collected them throughout the house to show the varietyplug outletsfamily room with the dining room in the far cornerfamily roomdining roomfront of house. Our side is enclosed in the little brick planter in the yardback side of house with balconies that open from Dallin's room and guest roomlovely blue stair case that leads to the basement and upper levelstorage room directly off the laundry room

laundry room!








I guess it's time to show everyone who hasn't already seen our house and village. Our village is pretty small with about 400 people or so. There are maybe 30 American families here. There are a lot of farms around us, many villages have done away with the farming. We have a bakery (but I've found other bakeries around are better) that we get bread and treats from several times a month. The German kids keep to themselves and play among themselves. We have quiet hours during the middle of the afternoon and on Sunday. We are to not mow lawns and make lots of noise. Some people are very strict with the noise enforcing during the week, I've not run into that with my neighbors. The scenery around is beautiful and green with lots of evergreens and shrubs. We are nestled in between forests and back roads that lead to farms. The girls go to school on the army post near by. The school buses are nice and look nothing like the school buses we know in the states.
The electricity here is 220v unlike the 110 v in the states. The transformers are used on anything we brought from the states that isn't dual voltage ie : kitchen aid, vacuum, toothbrush, stereo, tv etc. The bigger transformers are quite heavy and a nuisance to carry around while doing house work. I use my American vac only when I'm doing my rugs, the other times I use the German one.
The houses here have doors on each room which help when you only want to heat the specific room. We American like open spaces so many people take them off the hinges and just store them in the basement. I like closing off rooms and enjoying the quiet especially when the girls are on the piano. I can sit in my kitchen and enjoy semi-quiet moments and carry on conversations with guests. Our house is a duplex, another thing that is common here. We have 3 floors 5 bedrooms, 2 storage rooms, a huge laundry room with plenty of room for my mounds of clean laundry...and the not so clean piles, 3 bathrooms, a mud room where we keep our shoes, jackets and other junk that we collect, a dining room and family room which is one weird shaped room.
Oh, you'll also notice on the outside of the windows are rolladens. They're shades that you lower from the inside of the door to keep the sun and heat out. You pull on a ribbon attached to the wall or some houses have electric ones. These completely blacken a room and make sleeping in wonderful!! I'll truly miss these beauties when we move back to the states! Hopefully that'll give you a glimpse into our living space and life! This has taken entirely too long and I need to get back to laundry.

Tis the Season

This post is dedicated to my mom who claims she's afraid to visit because she's heard of our spider stories. We found this beauty lounging on the wall near the laundry room yesterday. It was huge and scary! We find one like this almost weekly and the daddy long leg type several times a week. I hate spiders, hate walking into their webs and worst of all, hate cleaning up after the SMACK!
Here in Germany, you don't have exterminators, in fact the week we moved in I asked my German neighbor who speaks good English where to find one. He was perplexed as to why I'd want one, just use a broom or your vacuum. Why put chemicals into your house? WHAT??? Because I don't like to share my house with these 8 legged giants. So, I've learned to vacuum and stand back as far as I can from the spider just in case it runs. Oh, our vacuum is a canister vac that has a small lever on the handle where you can slide it open to let air flow out. I make sure my hand is over that lever so mr. spidey can't escape. I've got the willies just thinking about this! I always think of the spiders in my vac and hope they don't ever find their way out. We had a spider about 4 months ago that wouldn't fit under a plastic cup that we'd gotten from Red Robin. HE was that big! We tried to capture it with the cup and Lola the dog came by and tipped the cup over. We all screamed and hollered until it was again under the cup. The worst part is it came from under the kitchen table bench that I was sitting on. :-(
muah ha ha ha ha ha!

London in a Nutshell

Wicked
Buckingham Palace
London Clock Tower (Big Ben)Chillin in Hyde Park (it was gorgeous outside)I added this picture because it was the first one taken of us back in the Spring of '95 in MesaLondon tower bridge


I had the most goodest (as Dallin would say) 3 days in London all spent with my bestest friend on this earth! I don't know where to begin or how to pack our fun into a small paragraph but I'll begin. First off, we flew very cheaply on Ryan Air. This is a no frills airline where you don't have assigned seats. You just rush to the plane hoping to get seats together. We finally arrived to our hotel and had a few hours until we saw Wicked. Let me tell you, for those who haven't heard of the play Wicked, you must google it or even check it out on you tube. It's super fun and the music is AWESOME! Our favorite songs are Popular and defying gravity. Mike even had a small portion of Popular memorized and in his quirkiest voice would sing it to me. I wanted to go back the 2nd day to sit in the foyer just to listen to it again. But, we had WAY to much to do! We had yummy Thai food for lunch that day and walked around Hyde park and Harrods. The only thing we could afford there was a magnet for the refrigerator.
The 2nd day we did all of the 'tourist' spots. We began by watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace, then walked (no short walk I must say) to Westminster Abbey, the London clock tower (big ben) the London bridge, tower bridge, and then called it quits around 5 in the evening. We laid around the hotel for a couple of hours until we headed back out to the Thai restaurant for dinner and pastries at a cute little cafe.
But, the best dessert we had was in one of the underground (subway) terminals. Don't get jealous when I tell you that we had KRISPY KREME'S! It's been almost 2 years since I've had one since they went bankrupt in AZ. We each had 2 donuts and spent about 9 dollars for those 4 donuts. They were well worth the money!!
We had an absolutely great time seeing London and LOVED being able to communicate with people. This will be one of the few trips where English is spoken and it was splendid. I want to go back to take the girls to Wicked, I'm not sure when that will happen though. We are very fortunate to have had the chance to take this trip together. We feel blessed to have had Mike's parents here to watch the gang and found everyone happy and healthy upon arrival. The video posted is from the changing of the guard. Mike darn near saluted them as they began the song!
Cheers!

Lauryn's Baptism

Today Lauryn was baptized! We had a beautiful program and several ward families and friends came to show their love and support. Lauryn looked darling in her dress except we forgot to get pictures of her in it at the church. We're scatterbrained! I had her come home and put the dress back on so we could get a few shots of her. She'll wear it to church next Sunday.

We're baaaack!

What a FUN trip we had at Disney Paris. It was similar in some way's yet very different from Disney California. They had many of the same rides but the height restrictions were not the same. For instance, last year I took the kids to Disney CA and we all were able to ride Space Mountain. Dallin could hardly wait to get on the roller coaster like he did in CA. We ran to the line to find that even Brilee's heigth barely made it to get on the ride. We changed her shoes after she rode the first time to make sure she was tall enough for the next time around. :-)
Dallin was very sad that he couldn't get on the ride.
It was tough, but we even convinced Nana and Papa that the Tower of Terror was not too scary. No neck bumping or back jolting...a perfect ride for those in their prime (he he). I giggled like a little girl when the ride first dropped and watched Nana clench the hand-hold in front of her. I think Brilee ended up with a bruise on her knee from Nana's death grip. We tried to get her to go on it a 2nd time, she was quite content with her first and only ride through the 'Twilight Zone.'
The weather wasn't too bad, only a few rain drops the first afternoon. We did not see any churro's for those that were asking. Although, there were crepes for sale! Those French people!
The girls had a wonderful birthday celebration. Oh, I have to tell you about Lauryn's birthday dinner. We ate at Planet Hollywood inside Disney Studios. I had gotten up to do the famous family tradition of secretly telling the waiter that we have a birthday and then the infamous surprise song. I wasn't sure if they would sing but was happy when he said it would be "no problem." Our waiter had staged two chairs in the middle of the dining area then came to our table while the other servers stood around the chairs. He escorted, now red faced little Lauryn, to the chairs and had her stand on one. Then he whistled and got the attention of this HUGE dining area...the kind of whistle my mom used to do to call us home from friends house 4 blocks away! The restaurant went silent as he announced Lauryn's birthday and asked if everyone would sing to her. The forgetful parents that we were...didn't have the camera to capture this moment. We were laughing and singing as Lauryn stood there waiting for the song to be over. He had her blow out her candles and helped her back to our table. What a great way to celebrate a birthday. We had a great time, the kids are asking about our trip back next year...yeah right! Dallin was a stinker with taking pictures. He wouldn't smile for the camera but we did get a cute picture of him on the space ship ride.