Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Wow. I am working on getting a bunch of information into my account at Ancestry.com. I haven't worked on the family tree for a few weeks, mainly because once I get into it, it's so hard to drag myself away, and I don't have that many free hours to devote to hunting up the past. I told Hans that I'm back to the late 1700s/early 1800s on one side of my family and now back to the early 1700s on the other side. He wondered if I will do more digging to go further, but I'm plenty happy with what I've got. I have a big pile of information here documenting my relations on my grandmother's father's side of the family. They all appear to have been from the same area of Prussia. There's a lot of repeating of names. People back then apparently didn't name their kids Apple or Pilot Inspektor (both of which are real names, Gywneth Paltrow and Jason Lee's children, repectively). There are a lot of Annas, Catharinas, Charlottas. All good, respectable...

You know what I hate most about blogging? Trying to come up with a cutesy title for every entry. From now on the title shall have almost nothing to do with the blog but shall be the first two words I see when trying to come up with a title. Ready? I'm adding a new title. Now. Unique Howard. A word from the poster above the desk and from our clock. There. My only hope is that my old friend "Howard" J.C. (Jerry, not Jesus) won't see this post and think it's about him. Though there are lots of very interesting stories I could tell about ol' J.C. ... So, you say, what sorts of really fantastic, European things did you do this weekend? Well, we didn't go to Zurich. We did eat at a South American restaurant. Wow, that's so European! All kidding aside, we decided to trade date nights with Jen again. Hans and I went out last night and Jen and her husband will go out next weekend--it works perfectly and we don't have to pay a babysitter! I don't know ...

On eight months here in Stuttgart for us! I am in shock...thought it was more like four months. Nope, we arrived on December 5th, so August 5th will be eight months. We have a lot to get done, especially if this tour turns out to be only 24 months! We're thinking of going to Zurich tomorrow. We're going to Paris over Labor Day and we're thinking of Northern Italy sometime in October, when it's cooler and the bulk of the tourists have left. Jen and her family just got back from an amazing trip to Northern Italy...Pisa, Florence...the whole nine yards. Jen sent out a few of her hundreds of pictures and it looks like it was spectacular. So now we want to do the same trip. In other news: the first round of car shopping was yesterday. I think that we have decided against the Q7 (for those of you who don't know, the Q7 is Audi's new 7-passenger SUV). There were a couple of factors involved in veto-ing it: the fact that the one that Hans wants, with the bigge...

Sorry, it's another volume of the mish-mash that is on my mind. We went to Legoland again today. I have to say that it is very pleasant to have the park pass for the year. I don't feel like we have to hurry and squeeze every ride and exhibit into one super-long day. We can go back again and again and take our time. Today, we visited the miniatures again, played in the amazing parks, had a great lunch and Josiah rode the rollercoaster. Legoland was a little busier today than last time we went, but still very manageable...Hans only got his toes stepped on once. What else? I am so behind the times. I have just discovered Burt's Bees. I know, I know. It's been around forever. Due to the aforementioned oil problem, I was breaking out like a 13-year-old, so I bought some Burt's Bees Tea Tree Blemish Stick. It comes in a little roll-on bottle, it smells great, and most of all, it seems to work. It burns like hell, so I know it's doing its job. Anyway, if y...

So it's time to buy a minivan and get my hair cut, right? Here it is. I figured, what the heck? I can always grow it out again. It's been good so far, it's pretty nice to have my hair finished in five minutes flat! The last time it was this short, I hooked my dream man (yes, that was Hans). And Hans finally, grudgingly told me that I could get it cut short again. His vision of having a Rachel with long, flowing hair just will never come to pass. He unfortunately married a woman incapable of growing or maintaining long hair. Sorry, Kit. Incidentally, Josiah will be playing soccer this fall, so I will officially be joining the ranks of soccer moms! PS: Dear President Bush: No need to open offshore oil drilling. Please just give me a call. I have plenty to spare, especially during the humid summer months. Yours sincerely, MamaD4.

We are sponsors for a family who just arrived in Stuttgart on Sunday. I am so glad that we've been able to sponsor someone...after our disastrous "sponsor" (and I use that term so very, very loosely) in Yokosuka, I made it my life's mission to make sure that someday we would sponsor someone and that we would do a damn fine job of it. We picked them up at the airport on Sunday. Mom, Dad, three handsome young sons, two little dogs, 54 suitcases. Took them to their hotel in my car, their rental car and a taxi. Got them set up there. I had purchased a laundry basket and filled it with snack-y foods, water, paper plates, plastic silverware, even dog treats. Good dog treats, too, not Snausages. They were understandably a little shellshocked on Sunday, so we didn't talk too much, but they came by this evening and had a little desert with us. They are in the midst of dealing with the living hell that is housing. They're being told that there are no stairwell a...

The chair is a ship, I am the giant squid and Annika was "Captain Forty"...or so I thought, until I figured out he was saying "Captain FArty, not Forty. Sheesh. Taking time to smell the roses...children are so wise. The train Bring me some Evian, please and the latest Italian Vogue ... Waiting for the train to pass, just two kids from the wrong side of the tracks Singlehandedly propagating dandelions all over Germany Stuttgart's symbol...the horse. According to legend, Stuttgart was a big stud farm, hence the "Stutt" and "gart" for garden. Trivia of the day!

Whew! We are just back from an excursion to Killesberg Park in Stuttgart. Had a bit of a rough time getting there as Dora chose downtown Stuttgart to get constipated on me...meaning, she decided to freeze up. By the time I realized that she was not talking to me, we were God knows where and I had to wait until a stoplight to quick reset her. Wench. Then, she got back at me for cursing at her (under my breath) by deciding to take me on the weirdest, most twisty and turny route to the park. I love it when she does this, like when we were headed to the salt mines outside of Salzburg and found ourselves on a road barely wider than a cowpath. Oh, we made it all right, but we were getting a little worried. Her little "shortcuts" are sometimes alarming. Finally, we made it to the park (the drive home was ridiculously easy, so I know the route there was just Dora's revenge), found a place to put the car and loaded up the buggy. The park is quite lovely, full of flowers and...

Now that I think of it...he's not going to preschool...it is technically pre-kindergarten. That's what it is called the year before actually going to kindergarten. Gulp. He's going to kindergarten next year.

We went to preschool registration today. Yeah. There were people who were there at 4:00 a.m. 4:00 a.m.!!? To get into a DoDDS preschool? Sheesh, it's not an Ivy League school. It's not even a decent private or co-op preschool! Registration started at 8:00 and we were there at 7:58. We waited for almost two hours, which would have been hyper-painful except that there were (obviously) a bunch of kids there that Josiah and Annika played with the entire time and the good folks at CYS had goodies such as Oreos and gummi bears to placate the children. At last we were ushered through the portal and allowed to register. I'm excited because Josiah will be going to part-day preschool on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 11:30-2:30 here at Patch Barracks. I had been taking him over to Panzer Kaserne to the center there, which is not a huge deal, but the CDC here on Patch is only about six blocks away. I'll be able to walk him over, plus I won't have to rush first t...

One of the nice side-effects of downing so much Tylenol PM is that I have very vivid dreams almost every night. I'm talking dreams that I can recall in minute detail for hours after I wake up. Many thanks to the folks at Tylenol for giving me many nights of wonderful, deep slumber. Anyway, the other night I had a dream that I have been having for awhile, in one variation or another. This dream irritates me at the same time as making me deeply sad, because I feel like it indicates some buried emotions or regrets or something Freud-like. Paging Dr. Freud for analysis. The basic premise of the dream is this: I am at my grandparents' farm. It's a beautiful day, sunny, blue skies, corn in the fields, birds singing. Very idyllic except for one thing. My grandpa is gone, grandma is moving soon and we have 15 minutes to go through the house from top to bottom and take what we want. It was/is a rather decent-sized house and my grandpa in particular was a bit of a hoarder. ...

looks a lot like our oldest guy, in my humble opinion: Our oldest guy, 5/19/04 Baby Boy Kuehl, our newest arrival 7/10/08 I can't wait for the day that all of these boys can run around together, ride dirtbike, get muddy, break stuff, light fires, etc. The girls will probably be right there behind them! I have been feeling pretty blue today (and not because it's raining boys this year), because I'm missing yet another important moment in Minnesota. This is the second newborn that I won't meet until he's walking. Sigh. Anyway, don't feel sorry for me, rejoice that we have a healthy, beautiful baby! Now, if his parents would just give him a name!

Baby Boy Kuehl (name forthcoming), born early this morning to Eli & Lindsey. Sorry, all I have is his weight: 7 lbs 13 oz. I'll get back with more details later! Happy Birthday, Baby!

Here are the pictures, as usual, served up scrambled: Zell-Am-See See, he really does SMILE for pictures every once and awhile! At the salt mine (or rather, outside of it) Hitler's dining room, now used as public restaurant Hitler's fireplace (it's important to be warm and cozy while hatching evil plots) The Eagle's Nest And...back to Zell-Am-See I'm pretty sure I want a trampoline... Back to Eagle's Nest Squirm with pride, Jan--I packed peanut butter sandwiches for the whole trip! Now I just need to start putting a wet washcloth in a baggie instead of buying Wet Ones, right? At Eagle's Nest Our hotel, Josiah and Hans standing on second floor balcony I'm kind of a nerd for marching bands...the dirndls and lederhosen are just a bonus. This was on the street just outside of our hotel. They marched past and played on at least two occasions. At the band concert Early morning view from our hotel window

I've got a lot to discuss, but not a lot of time. First and most importantly: Josiah is OK. He had his appointment at the clinic in Boblingen yesterday. The doctor did an ultrasound on his neck and then ordered a chest X-ray to find out if the lymph nodes in Josiah's chest were affected. He showed me the X-ray afterwards and pointed out a couple of areas that were "suspicious". The doctor passed the X-ray on to a radiologist for further examination. That doctor called me back this morning and said that there is nothing to worry about, but that the lymph nodes in his neck and chest appear to be swollen. We are going back to the clinic on August 18th for another check. We don't know what will happen next. All that we know is that there doesn't appear to be any cancer. It was a rather long night. Here is Austria in a very quick recap: Our hotel was wonderful. It is a family-owned and operated hotel, fairly small. The family was there to welcome us and ...