Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

People, get this: Today, in the commissary, Annika dropped her sucker on the floor in the freezer aisle and it broke into a billion sticky little bits. She immediately let out an incredible howl. I'm pretty sure it was audible in Minnesota. Josiah calmly walked over to the cart, reached up and handed her his own sucker. Woah. I made sure to give him lots of praise and a big hug for his generosity. I also bought him a little bag of Cheetos, which is a huge treat for him (I know, I know...suckers and Cheetos...I promise it's not always that bad). When we got home, he sat down at the table to eat his Cheetos, because as we all know, Cheeto powder+preschooler=1 huge mess. Annika started circling the table like a buzzard, eyeballing the Cheetos. So Josiah shared his Cheetos with her, without any prompting or encouragement from me. Double woah. I know, I sound like Joey Lawrence. Anyway, a busy day. It snowed in Stuttgart last night, so we woke to falling snow and a light cove...

If you're curious (and extremely bored): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time Thanks William, for your lasting legacy and for the fact that my kids have been up for the last four mornings at 5:12 a.m. Oh well, it gives us a lot of time together as a family in the morning. We watched two episodes of Mork & Mindy this morning while the adults were still trying to wake up. Hey, don't look at me--Hans put them in our queue at Netflix. Actually, watching it is nice because it's fairly tame and wholesome, so we can watch it in front of the kids. They think Mork's suspenders are hilarious . I enjoy looking at the clothes (which look surprisingly fashionable, hmmmm) and the background stuff, like decorations in the house. I'm like, woah--we totally had one of those owl figures with the macrame and the hanging bamboo bits. And those cream-colored pillows with the long fringe. Totally had those on the couch too. Jan probably spent hours smoothing a...

This is what we're booked to do for Christmas: http://www.interra-reisen.de/PDF/X_mas_rome_08.pdf Everyone please keep your fingers crossed that the planets will properly align and we'll be able to go!

Still going through Lost shakes as we finished Season 3 a couple of weeks ago. Season 4 doesn't "officially" come out on DVD until December, but hey--the good people at Apple have it available for the iPod. Let me tell you, it's pretty dang tempting to download the season and watch it on my iPod. Except that it wouldn't look very good. It's much better and easier on the eyes to watch it on our TV. That being said, I have been completely naughty and watched bits and pieces of Season 4 that people have posted on YouTube. And I watched the Season 5 trailer, too. Of course, if I had any self-control, I would stop, but I keep peeking ahead and seeing little bits and pieces of things that make me more and more curious for Season 4. I still can't believe that we didn't fall into Lost when it started...everyone kept saying how incredible it is, but, somehow we doubted. In the meantime, I am speedily making my way through Season 1 of Entourage. The episodes a...

Birthday shouts out on the 21st to Grandpa D4, the 22nd to Grandma K. and today to my nephew, DJ Sammy J, who turns the ripe age of two. Ach mein Gott, what a day. First, I didn't get to sleep until 2:00 a.m. this morning. I think I am starting to get a cold. You know when you first get that snotty feeling in the back of your throat and you start having to hork and swallow a lot and you think--crap, I'm getting a cold? That feeling? Yeah, that's the feeling I had. Tonight I will sleep with my head propped up a little more, maybe that will help. Second, I am desperately trying to wean myself from nighttime sleep aids. Tylenol PM is not working for me at all, in fact is having the opposite effect and is making me feel more wired. I think I have built up too much of a tolerance to it after taking it for three or more years. I may have to switch back to Advil PM. I had a few nice, soothing drugs that my doctor prescribed for anxiety that I used for a few nights...man,...

When we arrived in Germany last December, I hand-carried a few very precious things with me. Items that probably wouldn't mean anything to anyone else, but mean the world to me. One, the silver dollar that my Grandpa gave me dated 1974 (the year of my birth), which I have had forever and never leave home without. I never fly without it, it's always in my pocket on the plane. I fly with the silver dollar and I always place my palm against the plane when I'm entering and pray. It's just my thing... The other, two cameos that also belonged to my Grandpa. Those of you who were at our wedding know that I wore one and gave one each to my sister and my mother. I also had one that's much smaller than my wedding cameo that I always intended to make into a ring. We were in the hotel in Stuttgart for about three weeks and the last I remembered of the cameos, I had put them on a high shelf where I was also putting my wedding rings at the end of the day, etc. Then we move...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_sshN-URJY There you are. Enjoy with care.

We bought another car today. I know...you're all a little confused because there was some discussion of coming to the US to pick up the Routan, etc. and it seemed like we were waffling. Some of us were waffling. Others of us were secretly rejoicing that they won't have to ruin their "cool" image by driving a minivan. We talked our salesperson down to a reasonable amount and we're now the proud owners of a 2009 Audi Q7. Visit http://www.audiusa.com/ * if you would like a look. I requested a red one. I shouldn't say we're NOW the owners, because believe it or not, we won't be able to get it until Christmas time, even though they are made in Hungary. Think we'll tie a big red ribbon around it and call it a day. It can be like those Lexus ads, only better, because it's an Audi. Haha. * Caution: Visiting the Audi website may induce chills, shakes, sweats and heart palpitations. If you are in weak health, you should avoid building your own R8 and ...

Annika had a first in the potty yesterday...and Josiah, who has taken on duties as cheerleading captain (pottytraining division), declared it to look like goldfish! I don't care if it looks like the Venus de Milo kid! This was a major score. Annika finally got her toenails painted with the special sparkly nail polish. As for other D4 news, we had our family portraits done. The problems started when, instead of wearing what I had carefully laid out for him, my husband decided he had to wear something completely different. And I do mean completely different. OK, it was in the same color family, but it was different. I had him and Josiah neatly coordinated in navy blue tops and khaki pants, and Hans, being the 4-year-old that he can be, refused to wear the sweater because the collar kept standing up. It's itttttccccchhhyyy !! He also refused to wear the specified khaki pants and instead demanded to wear a pair that he insists is also khaki, only darker, but I say are more of an ol...

Just a little overcast--notice the three hills in the distance The village below (and the sheep if you look carefully) Picnic-ing Burg Teck Rock climbing

Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel. I used to love listening to The King's Singers singing that song. I wonder whatever happened to that tape? I probably burned it up, listening to it over and over. And for everyone except my parents who are wondering who The King's Singers are...well, how do I describe? Maybe Dad can help me. Trust me though, it's something no 16-year-old would admit she enjoyed listening to. I was supposed to be listening to Color Me Badd and Mr. Big, not The King's Singers. I was a little weird that way. Now that (gasp) 18 years have passed, I can freely admit that I was deeply uncool as a teenager. But that's not the point of this post. Because the four of you who read my blog already know that I was deeply uncool. This title comes courtesy of the fact that we pass a group of big windmills, of the sort that are popping up everywhere, along Autobahn 8 heading towards Munich. We pass them on the way to Legola...

Someday when she's 16, Annika will find out that I blogged on the internet (they have that on computers now) about her pottytraining and she will be horrified. Oh well. I'm sure I'll blog about lots of other things that will ultimately horrify her. For the three of you wondering, we are making great strides with the pottytraining. She continues to improve on her technique every day. We have seen a great increase in hits vs. misses. Last night she woke me up at 1:00 a.m. for a drink, which I gave to her. She then woke me up at 3:00 a.m. to use the potty. Now that's pretty impressive. Especially as she was wearing a diaper to bed. There are still a couple of hurdles to cross, but we'll get there. Sorry to all the good people at Pampers and Huggies...

Oh, and did I mention that our friends at the car dealership called us yesterday to tell us (mind you, five weeks AFTER we've ordered) that Volkswagen refuses to ship the Routan to Europe because: There's no one here who is trained to work on it. As Genevieve says, that's irony for you. A German car, albeit built in Canada. As far as I know, it's VW's standard 6-cylinder engine. There's no funny stuff there. I called VW customer service in the US to ask about it. The nice lady that I spoke to said she didn't know anything about it, but gosh darn, it was a shame since (and she mentioned this twice) the Routan is such a beautiful vehicle. Well, geez. That makes me feel a lot better lady! Why don't you just rub it in a little more? I'm not sure what we'll do now. Obviously we don't really, really need a minivan right this immediate second. But. We (or maybe just me and the kids) were getting excited about welcoming our new vehicle. The sliding ...

Oh yeah, did I mention that I decided, completely out of the blue, to try pottytraining Annika again two days ago? I guess that a parent is supposed to watch for some sort of sign from the child saying "HEY, I'm ready to go here, no more diapers for me!!". But did I look for those signs? Nooooo. I just decided, randomly, that Tuesday was the day to do it. Maybe I was bored. I don't know. That being said, it is going very well. It started out on Tuesday with a few misses and one hit. Yesterday we got two hits and less misses. Today we've had two hits so far (at 3:00 p.m.) and I feel confident that we're going to get a third hit out of her. Of course, we've had a couple of misses too, but I think we're making good progress if she adds one more time every day. At this rate, she'll be good to go in another few days. We're sticking close to home, we have only ventured out to take Josiah to school yesterday and to get the mail (I cannot LIVE...

Today our church hosted an event at a farm outside of Stuttgart called Der Sonnenhof ( www.dersonnenhof.com ). We got a little lost as someone, all right--it was ME, didn't get the correct address entered in the navigation system. Eventually we turned up at the farm and found the event in full swing. The church had a nice tent set up with tables, heaps of great food and drinks, crafts for the kids, etc. There were pony rides. It was hard to control myself and not run over and jump on for my ride. The pony looked very sturdy, I think he could have handled a heavier load than a four-year-old. Somehow I maintained my dignity and stayed behind the lens of the camera. Annika rode first, two laps and then Josiah did his two laps. Side note: as I was reading the junior fiction shelves at the library this morning (volunteer time), I ran across an entire shelf of Marguerite Henry books. Remember "Misty of Chincoteague" and all of those horse books? I remember poring over...

This one's a framer Caitlin's ladybug themed birthday party Patch Super Horses 2008

See? I didn't even make it two weeks. I'm addicted to blogging and I just couldn't stay away any longer... First and of utmost importance, I want to let everyone know that my dad is finishing up his hospital stay in Rochester and may (crossed fingers) be allowed to come home tomorrow. I asked if that was for good behavior, but it sounds like it's for speedy recovery. For those of you who didn't know, Dad was diagnosed with a squamous cell carcinoma in his jaw a couple of weeks ago. He was referred to Mayo Clinic, where he underwent a bunch of tests last week. He got the results of those tests last Thursday--all clear. The cancer has not spread anywhere in his body. He had surgery the next day during which the doctors removed a portion of his tibia and used it to reconstruct the area of his jaw that was cancerous and had to be removed. The last obstacle to overcome was testing of the lymph nodes around that area that were extracted during surgery--those also ...