Minnesota is Heaven, But Virginia is Home

Here's Angelina Jolie with Maddox and Pax (yes, I know their names and I'm not ashamed to say it) at an airport in Japan. Maddox is the slapper and Pax is the slappee. If her kids do it (and we all know how perfect she is, right?) then I should just stop worrying about whether or not Josiah and Annika are going to have a slapfest at the airport in 24 days. I cannot express how much I love seeing "that look" on Angelina's face. The "Knock itttt offfff !" look! I don't know why this brightens my day, it just does!

Sigh. We are back from a wonderful trip to Salzburg. Marguerite and I are very organized people, so it was agreed that we'd leave at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. They picked Annika and me up, wedged her carseat in the back of their van and off we went. The weather was horrible and the Autobahn was a nearly continuous stau...we'd no sooner get going and then hit another backup. We ended up taking a lot of two-lane roads, which was great (I do love getting off the beaten track), but it did end up adding some time to our trip. Also, factor in four kids between the ages of 2 and 7 needing potty breaks and dinner...it wound up taking us nearly six hours to get to Salzburg! A normal trip, barring any bad traffic, should take right around four. We actually missed our tour, which was scheduled for 2:00 on Saturday, but we called the tour company and they understood and kindly put us on the 9:30 tour on Sunday morning without penalty. We checked into the hotel, all in th...

No, this blog post isn't an ode to my (second) favorite store ever! It's about Josiah, who lost his first tooth this morning while eating his breakfast. Eating a banana, to be precise, so I think that this tooth was more than ready to come out! Behold, Josiah and his new gap... Now to remember to e-mail the Tooth Fairy to come tonight! The move went so smoothly that I almost can't believe the lack of stress. I expect that the stress is waiting for me, somewhere, ready to pounce. It will come when I least expect it. OR maybe, just maybe, this move will be completely stress free and simple. Maybe. Our movers were very nice, personable and sweet smelling Turkish guys who didn't sit on our furniture and smoke or try to cram delicate objects into the wrong-sized box. They packed our dressers with the clothes in them, our DVD towers with the DVDs in them. I don't think that American movers are allowed to do that, but to me, it makes a lot of sens...

Here's Will, fresh out of the bathtub and so clean, he squeaks! Happy 9 month birthday, Baby Bear!

We have found a house. In Chesapeake. Waaaaay out in Chesapeake, almost in North Carolina. I found that there was a similar problem in Norfolk as we had in San Diego: if you want a bigger house with a backyard and a two car garage, you have to live out in the suburbs. All of the housing close to the base is either terribly terrible with no space, no backyard and no garage, or it's one of two hoity-toity little enclaves of rich people still living in Norfolk proper. So. We have four bedrooms, an upstairs laundry room, a bathtub with jets, a "great room", a breakfast nook, a two-car garage and an enormous, fenced backyard complete with children's play structure. I already have a trampoline and trampoline safety enclosure tent-thingy (really, it looks like a circus big top) in our Amazon queue. My children shall become free-range backyard children and I shall see them for meals and bedtime only. In the warm months, of course. When it's cold, I'll let th...

This past Friday and Saturday marked our farewell tour in Garmisch. To try something a little different, we decided to stay in a "deluxe cabin" on the kaserne side, across the river from the resort. It was nice having our own little cabin with a front yard, porch, a bedroom for Hans and me and a loft overhead for the bigger two. We had our own little kitchenette to cook in--I always like to save a buck when it comes to food! On Saturday morning, we hiked Partnach Gorge, which is one of those things we've been meaning to do for...about 2-1/2 years. We had to park the truck about 1/2 mile away from the gate into the gorge. Josiah and Annika jumped out to investigate the river and approximately 12 seconds later, Josiah fell in and was completely wet from head to foot! Thank God Annika had the good sense to holler at Hans, who ran to fish him out. It wasn't particularly deep in that spot, but it's still pretty fast moving. Luckily, I had brought along a coat for Josia...