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Time keeps on slippin', slippin' slippin' into the future.... and suddenly it has been more than a month since I sat down to blog. I'd like to say that my life has been so awesomely busy as to prevent me from sitting down at the computer, but while we have been doing some fun stuff (pictures below,) mostly I have just been a bit apathetic about it. The blog, that is. I do value the family history side of this endeavor though, so I am back at it and will try to get back into the groove of regular posting.  Here's what we have been up to the past month.

 

We made a weekend trip to Garmisch in search of snow fun.  Our families have enjoyed lots of snow this winter in the US, but here in Germany we have had like, one day of flurries, and that is it. We like staying at the American Lodge in Garmisch because it is easy.  I am sure I have said this in past posts, but the family room, pool, buffet meals... it just makes for a very laid back holiday.

 

 

We went sledding, swam, and Rob took the big kids to a skiing lesson. The last day we were there we were graced with some fresh snowfall and we ran out to build snowmen, make snow angels, and throw snowballs.  Fun family time.

 

I didn't go to the mountain for skiing day, but Rob took just a couple of photos for me with his kindle.  Toby and Charlotte really like skiing so far. Charlotte says she is "really good at it."

 

Miss Amelie got her first haircut!

I love her cute little bob so much... I might cut mine the same way.  I am very tempted.  This is pretty much the haircut I had most of my childhood and I HATED it.  And now I love it.

 

Toby had his first viola recital. If you are familiar with Suzuki method, this was his Twinkle recital, where he played six variations of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. We had it at home and invited his school music teacher from last year. (She lives near us.) At Toby's request we had ice cream and popcorn for refreshments. He did a great job.

 

Charlotte started going to ballet again!

I am sooo happy. We were looking at the offerings for Spring sports, and when I read about ballet she said that she really misses doing it.  I told her that ballet is year round, and she can't do ballet and cheerleading, so she should think about it.  And she chose ballet!  Hurrah!!!  There are just four little girls in her ballet II class and they have a male teacher, which Charlotte finds very novel.  Three weeks in, she is loving it so far.

 

And finally we are up to last night.  I gave Rob concert tickets for Christmas to see Andy McKee play in Frankfurt. Yeah, I know this is a terrible selfie but it was just a quick one while we were waiting for the doors to open at Batschkapp.

 

The venue was smallish, and the performance was very down to earth and I guess you would call it intimate- with minimal effects and such.  Just a guy and his guitars. He told a few personal stories while he tuned between songs, and I loved his description of where he grew up in Kansas for the Germans, "it's the kind of place where you can watch your dog run away for a week." Rob first came across Andy McKee on youtube nearly 10 years ago when his song Drifting went viral.  Rob and I have VERY different musical tastes, but we both enjoy this artist, so I was ecstatic when I came across these tickets back in December. 

  

We had a super fun, rare for us, grown-ups only date night out on the town.  You can see us in this shot from Andy's facebook page- we are about 6-7 rows back, center left.

Super fun girls' trip to Paris!

Let me first just say that I totally recognize how crazy my life is... it is certainly not how I imagined my life would go, and the nomadic thing has its ups and downs, but the travel is FOR SURE one of the best parts in my opinion. This past weekend Charlotte and I took the train to Paris. We rented an apartment with a few other women from our church, but then we mostly all did our own thing while we were there.

 

After dropping off our stuff, we headed directly to the Eiffel Tower.

 

It was a beautiful and super cold day.

 

The very top floor was closed for maintenance, but the second floor was plenty high up, and windy.

 

On the first floor there was an ice rink set up.  And most shockingly, it was free to rent skates and skate. It was a small rink, and crowded, but Charlotte and I both loved skating to the music as the sun set.

 

We rode down the elevator just in time to see the Eiffel Tower start to twinkle at us. (It lights up every hour for about five minutes.) Then we took the metro back to our apartment by way of Chipotle where Charlotte and I got a burrito bowl to share for dinner. It is an odd thrill to find American (or Mexican) food from some of our favorite places when we travel in Europe.

 

Saturday morning we made a beeline for The Orangerie art museum. We were there pretty early and actually got to sit alone with Monet's waterlilies. There are two oval shaped rooms filled with his huge paintings. 

 

We sat in the middle of the room and just looked.  Charlotte said, "It's like we are in a boat on a lake." I loved it.

 

After the Orangerie we went to the Musee d'Orsay. The building used to be a train station and has these fabulous clocks.

 

But the real treasure is the Impressionist collection. We spent hours there and I loved hearing Charlotte's awesome observations and getting to share with her why some of the works are considered so significant.  My little dancer with Degas' little dancer.

 

 Next stop was Shakespeare & Co. I love this funky English bookstore.  I know it is as much a tourist stop as anything these days, but I love the bohemian history of this place. 

 

I sat and read some poetry, Charlotte read in the children's corner, and we both listened to a guy play the piano upstairs for a little while. It was a great rest stop in our day.

 

Right across the bridge from Shakespeare & Co. lies the beautiful Notre Dame.

 

I always love sitting in these awesome cathedrals. Notre Dame was built over nearly 150 years, beginning in the 1100s. There was an exhibit of an artist's works focused on the beauty of the creation. It was lovely.

 

Our next stop was another cathedral.  I had never been inside Sainte Chapelle before because of the simple reason that you have to pay an admission and there is so much that you can see in Paris for free. The chapel is to the rear left in the picture.  Unlike Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle was built in about 10 years in the 1200s. It is quite a bit smaller, but still hugely impressive.

 

Above the doors is this beautiful Madonna with Child. I love that the baby Jesus is holding a bunch of daisies and looks about to pull Mary's hair. That is a little kid I recognize!

 

We walked in the chapel and were impressed by the beautiful ceiling and windows.  But honestly, it was like, "huh... what's all the fuss about?"

 

Then we saw a stairway and thought we'd check out the upstairs.  At the top of the stairs I said, "oh WOW!" and Charlotte said, "Now this is what I'm talking about!" The stained glass in the upper chapel is truly breathtaking. And the sun shining through it is spectacular. I took many, many pictures and walked in circles staring at the windows.  Charlotte quickly became bored with this and told me that there was nothing to do but look at the windows.  To which I responded, yeah, but LOOK AT THE WINDOWS!!! So glad we went there.

 

To finish off the night we went to Hard Rock Cafe for a big meal and a milkshake. Most of our meals were speedy crepes, pastries, or splitting takeout. We are not gourmands, and Paris is expensive y'all. 

 

The next morning was Sunday and we found the local congregation of our church and attended Sacrament meeting. They were clearly used to visitors and provided headsets with live translation of the service. I was delighted to run into a family that we knew from last time we lived in Germany as well! It is a small Mormon world.

 

After church we returned to sightseeing. We took the metro to Pigalle and saw the infamous Moulin Rouge before walking up to Sacre Coeur.

 

Sacre Coeur was built right around 1900, so it isn't nearly as old as many of the cathedrals in Paris, but the history of the location is really interesting. And obviously, the place is gorgeous.

 

We grabbed a bite and got on the metro to the Arc de Triomphe.

 

We had fun taking some photos and crossed under the ginormous traffic circle to get an up close look.

 

It is a beautiful monument.  The French sure do know how to do fancy! After the Arc de Triomphe we strolled down the Champs Elysee and popped in a few stores to window shop.  Of course there is Tiffany's, Cartier, Louis Vitton... but we spent the most time in H&M and the Disney Store.

 

Monday morning we had to check out but had most of the day to wander the Rues and Avenues.  We started in the Latin Quarter and headed toward St. Sulpice. We couldn't go in because we had a carry-on with us, but it just reminds me how much more I could still go see in Paris.

 

 

After that we walked to the Jardin du Luxembourg. This park was established in the 1600s as a royal garden but is now a public park run by the French Senate that meets in the Palace.  The playground there was awesome- but not free- we actually had to pay to play. Paris you guys. But, that is also probably why it was so nice. Charlotte played with two very gentlemanly French boys. I was impressed by how kindly and cooperatively they played. I also spoke with a family from Atlanta, GA... the mom was from New Jersey originally and we had a nice chat.  Have I mentioned the smallness of the world lately?

 

On our way back to the train station I thought we'd hunt down this cafe.  The Le Procope opened in 1686 and has run continuously since then. I wanted to go have a hot cocoa where Voltaire enjoyed his coffee and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin would dine (as well as a ton of other famous characters.) But sadly, they were only open for dinner, and we didn't have the time.

 

We arrived at the train station fairly early because it was so cold and we were pretty worn out.  On the upside we were finally able to get a couple of cups of hot cocoa and find a table to sit, read, draw, and talk and just be very Parisian about it. I loved traveling with Charlotte.  We had some good talks. We read our novels. We made a lot of memories, and I am thankful we had the opportunity.

2016 goals

I like setting goals.  I don't always achieve them all, but I feel like I accomplish more than I would have if I hadn't made any, so I keep at it.  In the coming year I have a few things on my mind...


1. Update our 72 hour kit. We have one, but it was last updated when we still had 2 kids.  Eek. It needs a major overhaul.  People have different names for these things; Bug out bags, 3 day pack, etc, but what it comes down to is if you have to leave your home in a hurry in an emergency, what could you grab to take with you? Especially living in a foreign country, and watching the unfolding refugee crisis around us, I feel that this is really something we should be ready to go with.

2. Walk, run, or crawl a 5k, 10k, and half marathon this year. I'm not putting marathon on this list, but we'll see. These may just be me and my fitbit spending a day on the trails and not an organized event also.

3. Travel our butts off. This is one of the main reasons we love living in Germany.  In 2015 we visited 3 countries (Ireland, Spain, and France) in addition to our travel within Germany... in 2016 that will be 9 countries, maybe 10. (You'll have to wait and see!)

Christmas festivities

In early December we visited the Darmstadt Christmas market.

 

The giant Pyramidin has a Nativity scene that goes around and around. If I am inappropriately capitalizing nouns, I apologize... that happens to me in Germany sometimes.

 

We ate yummy food, which is our go-to Christmas market plan, Flammkuchen and crepes.  We also bought some treats to take home- spiced pecans and walnuts.  And let the kids pick a ride to go on.

 

That's just ducky.

 

I think Charlotte has gotten a bit old for this scene, but she is not convinced.

After we left the Christmas market, Rob wanted to show us something new he saw at Mathildenhohe.  This is an artist colony in Darmstadt that I used to love to visit when we lived in Germany last time.  It's a new building installation, made of wood and recycled car parts.  It was pretty awesome. 

 

And one of the bumpers had this sticker on it.  "No kids with goofy names on board." Why not "am Bord" Germans?  I dunno, we see a lot of English/German mixes on signs lately, but I thought it was funny.

 

Charlotte and Toby had a Winter concert at their school and it was very cute.  Toby even sang two songs in German with the other German immersion kids. I forgot to take the camera and Charlotte was mad at me.  I offered to take their picture when we got home and this was the end result.  Clearly, I haven't been able to convince the kids of the value of just being in the moment sometimes and not always having a camera in hand.

 

In December, we said goodbye to Bingo.  He was re-homed by the rescue that we adopted him from because we simply could not handle him. He chewed constantly, but not on the items we bought him to chew.  In fact, he flat out snubbed the Kong stuffed with peanut butter in favor of the stairs and moldings.  He was a lot of dog to deal with, and required CONSTANT attention and caused constant stress, and the kids were not sad to say goodbye to him.  The same day he moved out, we went and bought a Christmas tree.  (We had been waiting until that day and as you can see there are no tears.)

 

Christmas itself was so calm and cozy.  Once again, I didn't pull out the camera, but cooked, baked cinnamon rolls, and cuddled my babies.  Rob played every board game the kids asked him to and we enjoyed staying in our jammies and spending the day together.

 

The day after Christmas we put together Pie Face.  Yes, Jake got this game for Christmas, and yes we all played it.  This occasion did require a camera.

 

The kids loved it. Especially because Daddy was the first to get it.

 

At first Jake didn't want to play, but then he insisted on continuing to turn the handle until he got smacked.  He now wants to invite all of his friends over and "smack them in the face with my game."

 

I did ask the kids what their favorite gifts were and Jake's was HANDS DOWN this homemade soccer trophy that Uncle Mark made for him, followed by his Star Wars tent. Toby's favorite is Battleship. Charlotte's favorite is a giant stuffed Polar Bear (bigger than her) and second place is Elsa and Anna Barbies. Amelie says her favorite is Legos, even though she didn't technically get any Legos.She does seem to really like her Little Red Riding Hood doll. (If you flip it over the other side has Grandma and the Wolf.)  

It just reminds me how very little it takes to make these kiddos happy at Christmas time and I am thankful for the simplicity of our celebration this year. Every time I set up this Nativity scene some little hands rearrange it so that all are gathered around the baby Jesus.  I realize my Nativity won't always look like this, and I want to remember it, because it is so sweet. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!