Our first Pinewood Derby

On Saturday we attended our first big Cub Scout event. The annual Pinewood Derby.

 

Toby designed his car. He helped cut out his car.  He sanded it.  He painted it. We used pennies as weights and super-glued them on.  And we named it the Penny Express.  Sadly, it came in last in every race.  I convinced Toby that this is a good thing, as he can only do better next year!  Right?  He was disappointed, but was a pretty good sport about it.

 

After the Pinewood Derby, the Pack held their Blue and Gold Banquet and Pack Meeting.  Toby helped perform the flag ceremony and earned loads of achievements!  Here he is with his Den leaders receiving his Bobcat, Cyber Chip, and 4 Belt Loops.  He only needs 3 more to complete his Wolf badge.  It took some of the sting out of his Pinewood Derby loss for sure.

 

It was a long morning! We were at the Church from about 8:30 am-1 pm.

 

Afterwards we decided to make a whole "kid fun day" of it, so we took the kids to the matinee showing of the Lego Batman movie and then out for pizza dinner at the bowling alley.  Amelie and Jake were both pretty exhausted by dinner time, as you can see, but they all had a fun day.

Haydts come to Germany!

At the end of January we enjoyed a fun visit with my sister Pam, her husband Mark, and son Connor.

 

Amelie especially loved having new people to show off for and entertain. And to read her bedtime stories.

 

 

These photos are a bit out of order, but we headed down to Garmisch for a few days of snow fun.  

 

These guys had an awesome day on the slopes.

 

Jakey Bear especially loved his first ski lesson.  He was hesitant to try it out, but decided he wanted to go for it, and he was so glad he did!  Look how cute his itty bitty skis are! Also, he was completely exhausted afterward, so that was great.

While the rest of our crew skied, Amelie and I explored the Partnach Gorge.

 

It was gorgeous, now we have to take everyone back there next year.

 

It is no picnic hiking with a 3 year old though.  I carried her, bribed her with chewing gum, played tag with her to keep her moving forward, but whatever, it was worth it.  Pam, Mark, and Connor got up super early the next morning and went on a sunrise trip to the top of the Zugspitze where they did some extreme sledding.  We'll have to try that next year maybe too- but without the super early part.

 

 

Other activities included: touring Strasbourg and Colmar, France with Francophile guide- Rob,  

 

Visiting Neuschwanstein Castle,

 

Dinners out with much Schnitzel,

 

A visit from Mark's sister Lisa who lives in England,

 

  

A visit to a local Metzgerei to talk with a fellow butcher, who told Mark he was much too slim to be a butcher,

 

 

A visit to Rothenburg ob der Tauber where Pam taught me how to take panoramic photos with my phone,

  

A walk around downtown Wiesbaden and some shopping,

 

and of course a birthday cake to celebrate Aunt Pam's 50th birthday!

It was a super busy week! We had a great time and can't wait to see you guys again!

Date 1 of 12

Our first date of 2017 was nothing earth shattering. We watched a movie that we hadn't seen yet at home after the kids went to bed.  I had high hopes for Jason Bourne.  I liked the trilogy, and I like Matt Damon.  But, spoiler alert, this movie was terrible.  If you haven't seen it yet- here is the trailer...

I think they included all 11 lines Matt Damon spoke in this movie in the trailer.  Lame.  Anyway, the point was for Rob and I to spend a kid-free evening together and we did that.  Plus we enjoyed laughing at the ridiculous scenarios, so that was fun.

2017- looking ahead

Oh, do I have plans for 2017!

First, we have family coming to visit us, which we are so excited about! We also have 3 MAJOR road trips planned for this year. I won't talk about them in detail ahead of time too much, but one will be across the United States with extended stays in Pennsylvania and Utah to see our families and some of our friends!!!  It will have been 3 years since we have been to the States by then. We are really looking forward to that trip!

Second, I plan to continue working at the Rebstock Community Library for as long as we are able to keep it open.  German politics have been making a shift and it makes me nervous about what the future holds for the refugees being threatened with deportation, but all I can do is keep showing up and letting them know that we care about them and want to help them.

Third, Rob and I are going to go on 12 dates this year. One a month.  At least.  That may sound totally little to some of you, but for us it will be a huge improvement.  Our family is together- all. the. time.  We are pretty much the poster family for togetherness. But Rob and I seemed to really struggle last year with carving out time to do fun things without our kiddos.  We are going to remedy that this year!

Fourth, and finally, I am going to improve my personal scripture study this year.  This is another thing I have struggled with dedicating time to for myself.  The course of study for Sunday School this year is the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History, which goes along perfectly with our US road trip, so I am committing to reading the scriptures for each week's Sunday school lesson this year, which can be found in the teacher's manual here.

2016- looking back

2016 has been a wonderful year for us. At the beginning of the year, I stated 3 goals.:

1. Update our 72 hour kit.  We did that. Our one huge backpack has grown to 2, and it is still the barest of bare necessities, but includes up-to-date copies of passports, vital records, and other important info that I could see us needing access to in a real life emergency. It is comforting knowing that it is there, though I hope to never need it.

2. Walk, run, or crawl a 5k, 10k, and half marathon this year. I didn't do a half marathon.  And as usual, I have been more sedentary than active, but I will continue to work on this.

3. In 2015 we visited 3 other countries.  In 2016 we hoped to visit 9 or 10 countries.  We made it to France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Russia, and Spain. That's 10!  woo-hoo!!  Slovenia was a new favorite- it is so beautiful there. We also were surprised by Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Tallinn. We may need to explore that Baltic region a bit more.

We had many opportunities in 2016 that we could not have foreseen at the beginning of the year... but the biggest has to be the Rebstock Refugee Library. As we watched the refugee crisis unfolding in Germany (and the world) in the first half of 2016, we participated in several relief projects- donating clothing and shoes, collecting and repairing bicycles, assembling hygiene kits for distribution.  But I had a feeling, that I couldn't shake, that I wanted to do something more. Something that would give a part of ME and use my talents. The idea came to me for a library at one of the camps and I got in touch with a few women that I know that work with refugee aid in July, and the whole thing just snowballed from there!

At this point the library has been open for four months!  It is a beautiful and welcoming space, with over 1,100 books (and counting,) puzzles, and toys, where people can gather to read, talk, work on school work, practice German, or just play. And all because of the overwhelming generosity of friends (and strangers) sharing their time, talents, and resources. I feel blessed just to be a part of this project and to have gotten to know some incredible, strong, beautiful people- even if it is just a little bit and with a language barrier to work around. Our entire family has been deeply involved in this, and we have gained so much from this opportunity to serve.

We look forward to much more excitement, travel, and challenges and goals to meet in 2017! I have some ideas, but will wait until next week to write down my goals for next year.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

December has been so busy that I feel like I haven't had a quiet moment to process everything yet!

 

We visited a middle ages style Christmas Market at Burg Ronneburg.  These musicians were so much fun. In this photo they are playing different old string instruments.  We also heard them play recorder type wind instruments, and drums and bagpipes. The boys loved that the one guy had bells tied to his ankle that he would stomp to ring.

 

The castle was neat, and one we haven't visited before, but it was pretty crowded.

 

We aren't really in the market for weapons, armor, or middle ages clothing of our own, so this market wasn't my favorite ever.  But it was interesting and different, and the kids liked it.

 

We decided the hill the castle is situated on is PERFECT for sledding.  Too bad it is kinda far from our house.

 

I also got to chaperone a field trip with Toby to the Paulaner restaurant in downtown Wiesbaden.  It was soooo cold out! His German immersion class took the public bus into town and after lunch we strolled through the Christmas market.

 

It wasn't as relaxing as it sounds! 

 

I have also been busy sewing some gifts this year.  Aside from this quilt I made for Amelie, I also made PJ pants for all of the kids and a couple of small items for a service auction at our church.

 

And of course, we attended the Winter concerts at the kids' school. Jake and Toby were in the concert for K-2 at 4:30 pm and then Charlotte was in the concert for 3-5 at 6:30 pm.  Which means we were at the school all night. The kiddos did great, but it was a loooong day.

 

Toby and I also went caroling with Charlotte's Activity Days group.  These are the girls aged 8-11 at our church.  (Toby came along so I could run him to Cub Scouts immediately after the caroling was done. ) We visited a nursing home and then some friends of the group's leader before ending at her parents' home where the girls were treated to cookies, Kinderpunsch, and spiced almonds at a beautifully set table.  It was a lovely evening.

 

We also attended Rob's work party this year which was at the bowling alley.  It was nice to get to meet some of his co-workers and their families.  Amelie turned out to be quite the little bowler and beat all of her siblings.

 

Then we went to get our Christmas tree. It seems Toby is the "Melissa" of our family when it comes to picking a Christmas tree. Long after the other kids had moved on to sit by the fire pit, Toby was still walking Rob and I around to look at every last tree. (My sister Melissa did that to us every year when I was a kid.)

 

We attended our church's "Christmas Around the World" party and had a chance to visit with Santa, play Christmas games, make crafts, and eat a lovely dinner. We also attended another small local Christmas Market, but I didn't take any photos there.  And we have been watching all of our favorite Christmas movies and playing board games like Risk and Clue.

 

Which brings us up to today, 3 days before Christmas and baking sugar cookies with my 4 little munchkins.  It has been a lot of fun the past few weeks, but now I am ready to hunker down and enjoy some peaceful evenings staring at the Christmas tree with a cup of hot cocoa. I hope our kids will remember some of these fun activities and the excitement of Christmas, but most of all I hope that they will remember that all of these things were done with LOVE.

The Temple, Dresden's Frauenkirche, and Christmas Markets 101

  

On Black Friday we awoke in Dresden and headed for the Freiberg LDS Temple.  We had the good fortune of being in town at the same time as our friends, the Nelsons, so we met up at the temple and swapped babysitting so that both us couples could enjoy a few hours of quiet contemplation together. It was fantastic!  Also, this temple is interesting historically, as it is the only temple that was built behind the Iron Curtain. If you want to read a brief history of the Church in Germany, (beginning with a branch in Darmstadt in 1843,) you can find it here. But to summarize, East German Mormons were not granted visas to travel to the temple in Bern, Switzerland. Due to the constant requests from members to do so, the government authorized the building of a temple in Freiberg. Church meetings and members were routinely monitored, and the head of the church in East Germany was constantly followed and hauled in for questioning regularly.  So the Church was confident the temple would be desecrated before too long, but built a very small temple anyway to allow as many people the opportunity to attend as possible. It never was desecrated and was just re-furbished this past year. It is tiny, but mighty.

 

After our morning at the temple we headed downtown to the Christmas market near the Frauenkirche. This is a Lutheran church that was built in the 1700s.  It has one of the largest domes in Europe, but would be somewhat unremarkable if not for the building's more recent history. On Feb. 13, 1945, Allied forces firebombed Dresden.  The attack and fires continued for 2 days, and on the 15th the church collapsed into a pile of rubble.  (Related book recommend: Slaughterhouse Five.) After WWII, the Communists left the pile of rubble where it sat. At the reunification of Germany in 1989, more than 50 years later, a group that had been planning for some time, cataloged the rubble and raised funds to resurrect the church.  The blackened stones are original, the others are new.  And so the Frauenkirche became a symbol of sorts, of the healing of Germany.

 

 

Inside the dome.

 

This cross was originally atop the church.  It was found in the rubble with surprisingly little damage and is now housed inside the sanctuary.  A new golden cross, of the same design, was made by a British blacksmith whose father was an RAF bomber pilot in WWII.  Officially it is a "gift from the British people and the House of Windsor."  It's so poetic to me.  I just adored this place.  Our German LDS apostle, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, gave a talk in which he spoke of the Frauenkirche as a metaphor for how no human is so far lost or broken that they cannot be healed by God.  It can be found here.

 

Dresden is really gorgeous.

 

Anyway, let's talk Christmas markets now.

When we were in Georgia we really missed German Christmas markets.  So this time around I have been trying to figure out what it is about them that is so magical.  First of all, you have the setting.  Whether it is a village or city, you are walking on cobblestones and surrounded by hundreds of years of tradition.

 

Then there are the street performers.

The guy in the green coat is forming huge bubbles for the kids to chase and pop.  At the same time we were listening to a pianist playing in the square. We also saw at this market, a stilt walking "chimney sweep," an Elvis impersonator, an angel statue (a guy posing as a mannequin dressed as an angel,) and a Santa Claus who switched languages effortlessly and gave out free little stuffed animals. Surprises around every corner!

 

They throw in a few rides, but never a ton.  Smaller markets might only have little kiddie merry-go-rounds, while large ones like Dresden have double-decker, ornate, crazy carousels.

 

Next you have the traditional German Christmas stuff. Pyramiden, Nutcrackers, incense smokers, carved ornaments... they are all a little different and I could browse them for hours. 

 

There aren't many places to sit.  The markets seem to be designed to keep you moving, but if you do luck out and find a seat it is sure to come with a little table, lap blankets or "furs", and maybe even a small firepit.

 

This is a good thing, as you then have a home base for taking turns running to different food stands and bringing back delicious things to eat. Here are just a few of the things we ate (dinner Friday, and lunch on Saturday): saurkraut with speck in a bread bowl, bratwurst, champignons (mushrooms in a sauce of some sort,) flammkuchen, and roasted chestnuts.

And there must be a hundred things to drink. Since we don't do alcohol, we stick to the Kinderpunsch (a hot fruity juice kinda like wassail) and Heisse Schokolade, but you can get mulled wines and beers of sooo many varieties. Each served in a souvenir mug, which many people collect.  These were all of the different mugs at Dresden's market this year. (I stole this picture from my friend's fb.)

 

I still am not sure if I am doing the Christmas Market experience justice, but these are a few of the things that make them special.  I think we should go to a few more just to make sure I'm not missing anything.

PS. For those who have asked me about safety: we did see police cars parked here and there, and the Polizei in them were cleaely busy monitoring cctv feeds, communicating with each other, etc.  We assume there were plain clothes cops around, though there wasn't an overt presence. We didn't feel unsafe at any time.

Bastei Bridge

We traveled to Dresden for Thanksgiving weekend. (We did an actual Thanksgiving dinner the weekend before: complete with a house full of friends, too much food, and even a board game. Which Rob and I lost, as per tradition. I cooked two turkeys! And didn't even take a single picture.)

 

As I was planning our trip, I came across this place called Bastei Bridge, about 40 minutes outside Dresden on the Czech border.  It looked fantastic, so I thought it would be worth the detour.

 

This is part of the area called Saxon Switzerland which is a German National Park.  The rock formations were created by water erosion.  In the 1800s this bridge was built connecting the segments as a way for tourists to see the area.

 

We had a fun time exploring on a foggy and grey day for a while.

 

The kids all thought it was cool, but we did have a meltdown from Jake when I insisted he hold hands on the bridge.  (This is the reality of traveling with four small children.) The bridge in the picture isn't the scariest part even.  There are more narrow walkways and bridges you cross as you explore a part that was once inhabited and there are rooms carved out of the rock, stones from a medieval catapult, and a replica catapult.  And long, long drops off of cliffs.

 

This is a lookout point over the Elbe.  It was quite foggy, and it is hard to explain with a picture how extremely high up we were.  There is actually a truck parked near the closest side of the river, in the lower left hand corner of this photo, if you can make it out.  It just looks like a white speck.

 

I came prepared for a bit of a hike for all of us, but it was actually an easy walk from the parking area. Not stroller friendly though, with lots of stairs and roots growing in the pathway. Thankfully, Amelie cooperated and was willing to walk after our long car ride.

 

I'm glad we went to see it.  It was completely worth the detour and was really awesome to experience.