Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Post-tour--looking soooooo innocent

I knew this day was going to rock when one of my first tasks this morning was to fish almost an entire roll of (unrolled, used) toilet paper out of the toilet. Hans describes the sound of Josiah running to the bathroom and banging up the toilet lid as "the most depressing sound ever", and I agree. I mean, we're happy that Josiah uses the bathroom. It's just that 9 times out of 10, there's a mess to clean up afterwards. Now Josiah knows that it's "too much" toilet paper if the pile is stacking up past the rim of the toilet. I hope.

Whew! We have seen a lot of castle in the last few days. I have to admit that I haven't been out of the apartment, except to get groceries, for the entire weekend due to overwhelming fatigue, possibly from castle tours. First, there was our date at Ludwigsburg Castle on Thursday. That was blissfully child-free, quiet and peaceful. Hans and I were able to slowly amble around, leisurely viewing the castle and its treasures. Friday, we went a little crazy and decided, quite suddenly, to go visit Schloss Sigmaringen. Here it is: Nice little shack, huh? If I thought Ludwigsburg was cool, Sigmaringen was about ten times more impressive. The only thing that kept me from fully enjoying Sigmaringen was Annika. That's right, for some reason, my almost-two-year-old did not appreciate the Schloss as much as the rest her family (her brother included) or the three other folks on the tour. She cried in the bedrooms, she cried in the parlors, she cried in the ballroom, she cried in the arm...

My baby don't take me to no McDonald's on our dates, he takes me to swanky places like this: Actually, we saw a couple of swanky places. See, here I am in front of the little palace across the street: Hans worked the dreaded night shift on Monday and Tuesday, so he now has a few days off. Josiah and Annika both happened to be going to the daycare center today from 8-2:00. Yesterday, I was suddenly seized with a fantastic idea: Hans was off, I was off (so to speak) for a few hours: we could have a DATE! We ended up going to Ludwigsburg Palace in...(drumroll)...Ludwigsburg, duh. That's probably pretty obvious. What can I tell you about this place? It was built in 1704 and is one of Europe's largest preserved Baroque palaces. It was home to the nobility of Wurttemberg (the German state that we live in). Obviously, they don't live there anymore. The heating bills would be tremendous! I'm pretty sure there was one other couple in the entire place while we w...

Two last items: 1. Is it wrong to lock up some of Josiah's toys that he likes but that drive ME crazy? Things like Legos and puzzles with a million pieces that I get sooooo sick and tired of picking up? I have put them in a cupboard in his room and put a childproof cabinet lock on them. I plan on getting one item at a time out of there with the understanding that it is a grand treat for him to use it and that he must clean it up after playing with it. Honestly, the picking up of Legos is making me insane...and have you ever stepped on a Lego? Dang! 2. I just finished reading Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost: The Search for Six of Six Million. It was absolutely incredible. As the title would imply, the subject matter is the Holocaust, specifically Mr. Mendelsohn's search for a great-uncle and his family who were killed in or around their small Polish village. The author begins the search for information about this family, his family, with amazing results. Travelling...

Why my upstairs neighbor does laundry for at least three hours every day? I'm seriously very interested to know. She starts the washer before 7:00 a.m. every day and runs it, with short breaks to reload, until at least 10:00. Sometimes it's lunchtime before she gives it a break. I'm positive that we all have the same washers and dryers here and I can tell you, even on the setting for longest/heaviest wash, it doesn't take longer than 30 minutes to wash a full load of clothes. And these are big washers. I have a family of four here, including two messy children, and I still only have to do two loads every other day to keep my basket empty. This lady has three boys, so yes, I'm sure she has more dirty clothes, but still...could she really be doing six plus loads of clothes every day? If I sound irritated, I'm not. Well, not that irritated...the washer is a little loud when she starts it up before 7:00 a.m. I doubt she has any idea and I'm not going to tell h...

I got a new vacuum! Yay! I'm excited about this, and I'll bet my mom is excited about this. And that would be about all of the people excited by my new vacuum! It has this awesome feature that allows me to tell it to have ultra-high suction or lower suction, like for throw rugs. And, I can turn the brush head off in an instant to do hard floors. And, it has edging like you wouldn't believe. This thing is sucking up stuff 3' away from the head. Which could be dangerous if Josiah doesn't pick up all his Legos. Anyway, I got a pull-along canister, so no more crawling around using the hose from the upright to vacuum the floor. I'm evolving! I totally took Hans into consideration when I made this purchase--I chose the vacuum that people on Amazon said looked like "R2D2". No one can say that I don't love my husband!

Thank you, all five people who read my blog, for commenting so much on the last posts. Now, if I could just get the lurkers to comment every once and awhile...* First, a comment. Mom - WAW (or What A Woman)...is this your Women's Studies class going to your head? I just know by the end of this you'll have hairy armpits, be wearing big woolly socks with Birkenstocks (I can get you a good deal) and be voting for Hillary Clinton. This WAW comment smacks of moon-maideny, whale-kissing, tree-huggingness. Peace, NOW! Second, an answer. Lindsey--yes, we have Annika in a big bed. A very, very big bed, a queen size bed to be exact. It is my old bed from when I was a single lady...many, many, many years ago. We figured that we would need another bed for folks who will be visiting (we'll just put Annie in with Joe during those times). I got some very cute bedding from PB and a few girly decorations, and we were set. She has been doing very well in the big bed, maybe because it is so ...

I was all set to quit blogging and then something completely shocking happened. Josiah and Annika were chasing each other around in circles, as they are wont to do around supper-time. Annika fell flat on her face, hit her nose on the floor and promptly started screaming. The fact that she fell down isn't shocking, it's the fact that Josiah helped pick her up, pat her back, kiss her hands. Then, he went and got her blanket. Also, all of her stuffed animals, then a bunch of books that he proceeded to sit down and "read" to her, then all the pillows from her bed. They are both ensconced on the couch in a pile of junk, reading like the best of friends. Shocking, I know. It's usually full-out war. Maybe...just maybe they're starting to realize that they are supposed to love one another... Excuse me while I go weep with happiness and joy.

Annika, so exhausted by our trip to IKEA today that she can hardly keep her little eyes open... The start of a monster track that is currently running through Annika's room, down the hallway and into the living room. Dining room/kitchen to the right Living room, and Josiah playing his own interesting version of Twister using his trains. "Office" aka the four feet of space between the couch and the wall Josiah's room (new bed from Newport) Hans and Josiah in the courtyard area of the old palace in Stuttgart, which is now a museum. Josiah wanted to go in and see the mummies, but Hans and I knew that it would only end in heartbreak for everyone. The new palace...I didn't even notice the bright green scooter in the foreground, but it makes it very European, no? All it needs is a couple carrying french bread, wearing berets, and smoking or kissing.

You're pretty sure you could strip a carseat to the frame blindfolded and with one arm tied behind your back. Wash it, and then reassemble it correctly. Lord, I hate stripping the carseat and reassembling it. Doesn't anyone make plastic carseat covers? Possibly someone in New Jersey, where anything upholstered seems to be encased in plastic? Mom, can you send me the sick bowl? Oh wait, you probably still make meatballs in that bowl, right?! I can't make meatballs without thinking of the sick bowl and how when retching, the faint scent of ground beef would waft from the bowl. We've got the sick towel, but we need a better system.

You find yourself picking chunks of cheese hot dog out of a model Volkswagen Beetle. Seriously, it was like a clown car, only with hot dogs. I kept shaking it and shaking it and hot dog kept falling out... Somehow I missed Annika shoving her entire lunch inside of a replica VW. Good times!

The Alps, with part of the Edelweiss Lodge in the foreground View from the top Church along the Romantische Strasse Neuschwanstein Castle Arm's Length (Josiah refused to play photographer) View from the Lodge balcony

On Friday, we packed up the car and headed here: http://www.edelweisslodgeandresort.com Thank heavens for the navigation system, although it tried to detour us into Austria and delivered us to the wrong Edelweiss hotel (strange that there would be more than one hotel named Edelweiss near the Alps, right?). We're thinking that through Austria was probably the quickest route, but we don't have our international licenses yet and so beat a hasty retreat from just over the border. And the Edelweiss Lodge that we actually wanted was just down the road from the small, German hotel that the navigation system initially took us to, so no real harm done. We enjoyed the scenic route--the Romantische Strasse, the "Romantic Road", which wound through lots of picturesque small towns. Caught a glimpse of Neuschwanstein Castle...we'll have to go back and tour it at some point. The Lodge was great. It's on a small American base in the town of Garmisch, at the foot of the ...

Our first gift from the Panzer CDC: a case of conjunctivitis. Yay! I remember a sign on the door of Josiah's classroom on Tuesday that said something about conjunctivitis and thinking "Oh well, that's nice, but not my kid". Yeah, not that day maybe, but yesterday afternoon I noticed a large blob of crud in the corner of his left eye. I calf-roped him and wiped it out, only to have it reappear a few minutes later while we were running errands. Wiped it again while I recalled with sudden clarity the sign on the door announcing the scourge of pink eye. Since then, his eye has pinked up, swollen up and become scratchy. I carefully explained to him last night at bedtime that he would most likely wake up and not be able to open his eye. I described how the mucus would seep from his eye all night and crust his (beautiful, long) eyelashes together. I left a wet washcloth by the bed and told him if he woke up to wipe his eye. But surprisingly, his eye was not crudded s...

I picked up the kids around 1:00 and everything went very well. The teacher in Annika's classroom said that she did fine and didn't cry at all. She was asleep when I went in to get her. Josiah helped me gently wake her up. She was glad to see us! Note to self: do not schedule pickup during naptime. Waking babies...should let sleeping dogs lie. Josiah did great too. He was on his cot resting when I went to pick him up. His teacher right away started going on about what a smart kid Josiah is. Eeek, I was thinking "a smart ass, probably"...but of course, he meant that he's amazed at the fact that Josiah knows his alphabet by sight (Annika knows most of the letters, too), can spell many words, knows his phonics (thanks Leapster!) and can even read a handful of words. I knew this would happen when I went to orientation and they said that the kids in his class were just learning the alphabet by sight. Well, hopefully he'll always stay ahead of the curve....

I am alone. All, all alone. All by mahhhhhseeeeelllfff! I wanna be....alll byy mahhhhseelllfff! And I am. Haha! My children are at school/daycare. And I am alone in our teeny-tiny home, eating my Cheerios in a leisurely manner. Of course, there are 123 things that I need to do today, so the leisure will have to stop at some point, I guess. Sigh. I could get used to this amazing silence. That's not true. Actually, it's such a strange combination of being happy to be left alone for awhile and feeling like I've forgotten them somewhere. I know that I will be excited when it comes time to go over and pick them up, silly me. In other news, Hans started work yesterday and of course, it's extremely top-secret. He'd have to kill me if he told me what he does all day. He worked from 5:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. yesterday and was tuckered out when he got home. Methinks he's gotten a bit spoiled after a year at school and the last eight weeks off. You all should have se...

Here I am, blogging on our regular computer. I had gotten so used to using the laptop that when I started typing just now, the letters looked so huge ! See, it's because I'm using the PC and we have a nice big monitor. It's much easier on my old eyes. Anyway, the move went OK yesterday. Our worst fears were not realized. Which means that everything that those dips in Newport packed was here. We're fairly sure they didn't steal anything from us. They were hard on a few things, of course. It seems to be standard mover protocol to bang stuff around. The worst thing was that they ripped Josiah's train table apart. We were able to put it back together again, but it won't ever be as sturdy. We had Italian movers. Jeez. I mean, here we were expecting to have to communicate in German and they came from Naples. Hans was speaking Spanish with them, so we communicated fairly well. They were very efficient. Not Japanese-mover efficient, but definitely bet...

PS: Hans has informed me that Ulm Munster has the tallest church spire in the world!

Took a little fieldtrip today, to Ulm. Strangely, they didn't have a Marktplatz Mall with only a Herberger's open. Alas, also no Hermann the German. Perhaps most disappointing was Ulm's lack of a Target where I could shop with Gen for hours. Oh wait, that's New Ulm. Ha. Ha. I'm so funny. Ulm is a little over an hour away, to the southeast. Did I mention that the other day we dropped an obscene amount of money to buy a navigation system? Apparently it is of the utmost importance to have a navigation system in Europe. If I sound bitter, I'm not because our new friend, the navigation system, has already proven herself useful. I say "she" because it's a female voice giving directions, and most importantly--telling us when to slow down because there are traffic cameras forthcoming. We haven't come up with a name for her yet, any suggestions? She sounds middle-aged and very soothing, yet confident. And she's American. You can chose ...