Pictures!!

Finally!! I found my USB cable to download these pictures from the camera. Do you know where it was?! Right under my nose, sitting on top of the dining room table... sigh.

Ok, first up are pictures of Sean opening some of his birthday presents (with Ryan's willing assistance). He got a few action figures and 2 Wii games.

He was pretty excited about the wrestling game.

And here he is putting his reading skills to good use, reading his birthday card.

Ryan, of course was just as excited as Sean over the pressies.

These next pictures are the very few that turned out from the fest we went to over the weekend. I got a few of them bouncing around on the bouncey castle. (they're hard to see in this size but you can click on them to make them larger)

Here's Copper posing infront of the camera in our new livingroom. Apparently he's under the impression that I layed this rug down for his own personal use.

No, we did not get a new dog!! This is DeeDee with Ryan. We were doggy sitting her for a friend that needed to leave the country for a few days. She was such a sweetie and loved to cuddle.

UGH! and here I am at 25weeks pregnant and very round. What do you think? I dress as a pumpkin for Halloween? LOL

Busy Weekend

Oh boy! what a weekend but we had fun. On Friday, as you know, that was Sean's birthday. While he was at school, I tried to get his birthday cake and dinner baked and ready. Unfortunately, baking and pregnancy dont mix LOL. I had one of those devil's food box cakes and accidently put a cup and a half of oil in. SIGH! And it's not exactly like I can just run down the street and get another one. It turned out alright though, I fixed it the best I could and just poured the batter in a bunt mold and baked it up. We had a backup plan anyway.

After opening pressies (I'll have to post pictures later) we all hopped in the car and headed to our church. Once a month they have "game night" where everyone gets together, they set out ping pong table and the pool table for the kids mostly and all the adults sit down and just, mostly, chat and ate. The pastor's wife made a cake for the birthday boys (there was another boy who had a birthday this month too). We all sang "Happy Birthday" and then the kids ran around like banshees on sugar rushes. The biggest hit for the kids was putting marshmellows in the microwave to watch how big they got and then eat the gooey mess. We all had a great time and before we knew it, it was 11 oclock at night and we had to get home.

Saturday was mostly a "sleep in" day. Sean got a WWE wrestling game for the Wii for one of his pressies so he and his brother mostly played that off and on through the day. They just bounce around and flail the controllers wildly hoping a wrestling move results and they get a "cool move" out of it. LOL

Sunday, after church, we hurried home and got changed into something more comfortable and then headed to the Altstadt (old town) in our little village. There was a big fest going on this weekend and I had been looking forward to it all week. It was a medieval/cuisine fest. Up near the big church was the medieval portion, which was so fitting. The buildings up there are the oldest in the town and just set the tone. They had a huge rotisserie with chicken and lamb smoking away adding the smells to take you back in time. There was a blacksmith and stone sculptor, wood worker, etc etc etc. They even had bread baking in old stone ovens. I tried to take pictures but unfortunately none of them turned out because of all the people. I pretty much got a bunch of pictures of peoples' heads LOL.

Then in the market square they had the cuisine fest. There was live music and around the perimeter were different booths selling food from all over the world. I was looking forward to this most because they said in the newspaper they were going to have Indian food. We stopped at the Crepe booth and got the boys both a banana and nutella (a chocolate hazelnut sauce, if you didnt know) crepe. We sat them down on one of the many long tables they have set up at every fest then I went on my search for Indian food while Dennis stayed with the boys. Unfortunately, I couldnt find Indian food anywhere (cry). But I did find an African food booth which looked interesting. I got the vegitarian dish (having another bout of nausea with eating meat again) and it was pretty good. It was served over rice and had a peanut sauce with cooked bananas. The bananas didnt taste like bananas at all though, they tasted more like potatoes that looked like dried banana lol.

On our way out we stopped at a candy shop for the boys and they got to go bounce around in a bouncey castle for a little while. That, of course, was the highlight of their day. :)

The fest has a website, unfortunately all in German, but you can look at the pictures and see what it all was like. http://www.kulinarischer-marktplatz-wds.de/ These were obviously pictures taken from previous years because everyone is bundled up and look cold. It was gorgeous out when we went.

On the front page, in the center of the page (between the rows of pictures) there's a link that says BILDERGALERIE, that means picture galery and there are a ton of pictures through that link. I'm going to try and post a few directly from that site onto here but I'm not sure how long they will stay around.

8 Years Ago Today...

About this time today, 8 years ago, my life was about to be changed for good. I would learn, in about 16hours or so, what true, unconditional love really means. Our first son was born into this world and I would find out what all the fuss was about - both good and bad - with having a child.

I was clueless and scared. I didn't even like babysitting as a teenager and here I was about to be almost entirely responsible for an entire human being, what was I thinking?! But God knew better, He gave me the perfect husband, who knew how to change a diaper and didn't completely lose his mind when the umbilical cord fell off (unlike mommy who went spastic). The son He gave us is perfect in every way, so easy going and patient and never failed to give a shining smile to cheer up your day.

I truly believe you can look and see the face of God in babies. They love you without condition. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to do any special activity or ceremony. You just have to hold them in your arms, look at their face, and the most radiant, toothless smile will reward you. Your heart swells so much, you feel like it might just burst. Until this day, 8 years ago, I never knew that it was possible to love someone that much. Without you Sean, I would have never known. For 8 years, that seem like just a blink of an eye, you have taught me so much more than I could have thought to have learned in a unimaginable lifetime without you. The name Sean means "Gift from God" and there is no better description of what you mean to me.

Market Day

Today, nothing exciting is going on. We are just going to take it easy around the house and get some stuff unpacked along with conquering "laundry mountain".

Yesterday was market day, as I mentioned at the end of my last post. OH! how I love market day!! I know I've mentioned the market before and the old town but I'm going to try and paint a picture so you can get a taste of why we love it so much.

You walk down the old cobblestone roads, barely big enough to fit a car going in one direction. The roads are lined with buildings that were constructed before the U.S. was a glimmer in anyone's eye. Some of them are people's houses with flower boxes in the windows and the old wooden shutters and some of them are little shops and cafes. As you come to the end of the road, the cobblestone opens up to a giant square, here they hold their festivals and of course the market. In the center is a large statue of Johannes Kepler himself - one the village's claims to fame and a beautiful fountain. The backdrop, you're surrounded with the old buildings of its time along each side of the square with the village church higher than all overseeing everything.

Booths are set up everywhere with all the local farmers' produce. I challenge you to find a cranky person in the bunch. You're always greeted with a smile and, in my case, lots and lots of patience with my broken German. You have the chicken farmer with his fresh eggs, chicken and noodles (egg noodles ;) ). There are the butchers with every kind of meat and sausages you can imagine - and even some you cant imagine. There's the cheeses and olives in all sorts of varieties. Then of course, you have the vegetables and fruits, everything that's in season: nuts, apples, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, I could go on and on. This stuff isn't brown or bruised or have to be covered in wax to make itself appealing. Everything is just bursting with color and smells and flavor. Yesterday one of the farmers had walnuts, I'm a sucker for walnuts. These, I promise, they were the biggest walnuts I've ever seen!! They are so big that when we got them home I couldn't even open them because my nutcracker couldn't get around. We also got a bunch of grapes (on top of everything else). These grapes are so dark and perfect looking, they look plastic, like the ones you buy in a craft store for a display. If you squeeze one, they stain your fingers purple and they are sooooo good!!! The farmer also kindly gave the boys a few extra white grapes he broke off from another bunch for free. They really enjoyed that! Of course, I think it was the first time they encountered seeds in grapes LOL. Going to the market really is a highlight of our weekend.

We're back online

I cant believe how internet dependant we are these days. It's like when you lose electricity then you realize how many things you can't do without it. Ok, well it's not quite that bad but it's close. HAHA!

Yes! we're back!! and I'll do my best to fill you in on everything without writing a novel thicker than War and Peace.

Ok, first things first, the boys: they are both doing great. They started school a couple weeks ago and so far so good. S. is doing MUCH better this year coping. I think the school system here seems to be much better ran. They get a snack time and a short morning recess on top of the regular lunch/recess which just seems to make everything ALL better in his mind. haha!

R. being in school all day long is going well too. He's made lots of new friends and seems to enjoy his class. They're also both being real troopers about having to get up at 6 in the morning to catch the bus by 6:50. We expected lots of crankiness and overtiredness from such a long day (they dont get back home until about 3:40pm) but they are coping really well.

Speaking of the bus, here's a funny story. One afternoon the bus was running a little late dropping the boys off. When they finally get home, they come running off the bus all excited and bursting to tell me what happened. Apparently, just up the road before they got home, there was a lady with her 2 dogs and a pig (yes, I said PIG) crossing the road. The bus tried to stop and was honking her horn to warn them to get out of the way. Thankfully the lady and her dogs made it safely across, unfortunately piggy didnt make it. The bus hit the pig, the police had to come out and get a report, etc etc. The boys just thought this was the neatest thing. They were talking about it all night. HAHA!! R.I.P. Piggy.

The baby is growing well. I know this because I can barely breathe anymore and get woken up in the middle of the night with kicking and squirming. Oh! I'm not complaining, I love it! I do! At least I have an excuse for being breathless when I walk up a flight of stairs and a reason why I cant reach my shoelaces to tie them. ;)

We are settling into the house pretty well. We still have a few boxes to make it through. Our biggest challenge is where to store things. You see, there are no, zero, nada closets in this house. We got a couple armoires from base but they barely fit our clothes. IKEA has become our new friend. Eventually we'll get everything in place, hopefully at least a few months before our 3 years are up here. Haha!

I'll go more into the house and village later in another post (with pictures). Unfortunately I've seemed to misplace my USB cable for my camera or I'd post some pictures now.

Well I think I'll leave it at that for now. Tomorrow morning is market day in the Stadtmitte (town center) and I dont want to miss all those fresh veggies and eggs plus the chance to work on my German. ;) --- Good night!