An Arrival

The Wii Fit has landed....I repeat, the Wii Fit has landed. My faith in the United States Postal system is (somewhat) restored. Signing off.

Oh, and just to let you know, I'll be doing some pretty heavy duty blogging in the next couple of days. Keep your eyes peeled! (Whatever that means.)

All I Wanted Was To Get My Mail...

Today was a busy day. Wednesdays are always busy days. I have kids to get places, errands to run, and, oh yeah, it's the day I teach all my students. Today was no exception, and, to add to the chaos I had a rehearsal this morning while Naomi was at pre-school.

Hauling a cello around is never an easy thing. It is awkwardly shaped, it is large, and I never like to put it in my trunk (rear-endings being the most common kind of accident). Today, as usual, I put my cello in the passenger seat. (The most annoying part of this transportation solution is when the cello sets off the passenger seat belt alarm - the beeping goes on FOREVER!) Anyway, after my rehearsal I decided to stop and get my mail.

And now (or those of you unfamiliar with the APO mail system) a little explanation. Our mailbox is not at our house. We have a German address, and a German mailbox here, but we rarely get any mail here. Our APO address isn't even in our neighborhood. It's actually located at a central mailroom on another Kaserne (a Kaserne is a small post, several of which make up the area's military community). We lucked out - our mailbox is on the same Kaserne where Ben works, so usually he can just pick up mail after work. Many of our neighbors and friends have to drive to completely random locations to get their mail.

Anyway, Ben is out of town this week, so I've been driving over to get the mail. I've been especially diligent because we are expecting our Wii Fit (which, by the way, I'm beginning to think some unscrupulous mail person may have stolen - we ordered it a month ago!) and I want to pick it up THE DAY it arrives. Because my rehearsal was near the mailbox, I thought it would be an ideal time to stop by. (I wasn't thinking about my cello at the time.) I drove through some crazy construction (did you know that in Germany all the road construction workers wear blue?), made a wrong turn (there are some really, really, really narrow two way streets in Germany) and finally made it to the gate.....and got pulled over for inspection. AAARRRGGGHHH!

I had to wait while they inspected me, my car, AND had my pull out my cello and open it up. I wouldn't have been so annoyed but I swear the guard was just curious to see what was inside the case. I'm pretty sure he knew I wasn't a terrorist. I understand that it's all "for our safety," but man, it sure annoys the heck out of me when I get pulled over. It annoyed me today, it annoyed me when I was deathly ill and was trying to get home as quickly as possible, and I'm guessing it annoyed my friend when she was taking her son (who had a head injury that was bleeding copiously) to urgent care. Really, all I wanted was my mail. And all I got was a bank statement. What a day.

Portrait of a Princess

Naomi, like about 99.873% of 3 to 4 year old girls (and I'm sure there are statistics to back this up) loves all things princess.  She loves princess movies, princess music, princess clothing, princess dolls....if it has to do with princesses she's bound to enjoy it.  (She still loves lizards, bugs and dinosaurs, but for now they've taken the back seat to her princess fixation.  I will forever remember Naomi treating Ian's model T-Rex to a makeover one day with her Lipsmackers.)  So, when we celebrated her 4th birthday in January, OF COURSE we had to have a princess party.  I think the girls (and boy) that came had nearly as much fun at the party as I had putting it together.  We decorated crowns.  We played princess bingo.  We played pin the horn on the unicorn.  (Pin the tail on the donkey is such a versatile game!)  We had a treasure hunt.  And we did it all within the confines of our 1100 square foot apartment.  (I consider that the greatest achievement of the day!) 

Here are the princesses (and prince) that attended our grand festival...

(I have to insert here that Ian just wandered into the living room blinking and bleary-eyed and muttered "Guten Morgen."  It's 10:16 p.m.  While his timing is off, it's nice to know that he's learning something in his German immersion program.  How long is it going to be until he can be my personal translator?!)

Okay, back to Princess Naomi.  I really think she had a good time at her party.  It was so gratifying to me to see her enjoy herself so much.  Here she is opening presents:

                                    

Here is the princess castle cake I made her:

                                    

And here she is about to blow out the candles:

                                   

I must insert that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my cousin Holly for her help in figuring out how do do this cake.  I saw a picture of her infinitely better version and begged her for help which she most generously bestowed.  Thanks Holly!  I think next time I will try using bigger cake pans.  The center rounds were just not quite large enough to support the weight of the towers.  (You may have noticed that the center tower has a decided tilt.  I think it gives the cake a distinctly Italian flair.)  If Naomi is anything like me, I'm pretty sure there will be a next time.  My mom must have made me a heart shaped cake every year from the time I was 8 until the time I was 18 (thanks Mom!).  I'm actually looking forward to trying again.  It was a fun experiment.

Here are some recent pictures of our beautiful, smart, kind, compassionate, sweet, determined, feisty, adventurous, obstinate, loving, expressive, silly, precocious, dramatic little girl. 

Ballet class with Miss Arianna...

             

Balancing exercises during warm-ups...

                                      

Naomi's first snow angel...

                          

Ian was off sledding with the boys from the building and their dads (Ben was in Chicago taking the boards) so Naomi and I had our own little snow day.  We built a really, really cute snowman which I was unable to photograph because my battery died right after I took these two pictures.  Unfortunately, by the time my battery was charged, some really nice neighbor kids had knocked it down.  Gosh I love living on post. 

Anyway, Naomi - Happy Birthday!  We love you.  We are so glad you are a part of our family.  You are a very special little girl!

Merry Christmas!!!

Well, I suppose we're a little bit late here.  I know that it is more than slightly ridiculous to post something about Christmas more than 2 months after it has passed, but I can't help myself.  Christmas happened, after all, and it does need to be documented.  Actually, there are quite a few things I plan on blogging about in the next week or so.  And I really do mean to do it.  We've got a bunch of trips coming up and if I don't get caught up now, I never will.  So, Merry Christmas from Germany!

We had a very nice Christmas.  Ben's work schedule was pretty lame (he had to work both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve) so we kept it pretty low key.  We were invited to spend Christmas Eve with some friends from our ward, we had dinner with our next door neighbors on Christmas Day, and we visited my aunt and uncle in Schweinfurt the Saturday after Christmas.  We really appreciated having so many people reach out to us and make us feel welcome during the holiday season.  It is sometimes hard to be so far away.

We did, however, enjoy the chance to spend some quiet time with the kids.  We decorated gingerbread cookies (evidence to follow), we opened presents, we played together, we cooked our very first Christmas goose (traditional in Germany), and, right about New Year's Eve we got sick together.

                            

Note the finely decorated decorated cookies.  I know Ian did the gingerbread Santa, and I think that Naomi did the star, although I'm pretty sure she had some help.  Just a guess.  Those sprinkles look just a little too even...     

I think Santa enjoyed quite the treat, don't you?                    

                            

Excited kids on Christmas morning - we didn't actually open presents until about 8:00 in the morning.  Heaven. 

                              

And finally, our genuine, home cooked, day-after-Christmas German feast:

                                                  

                            

We had (as aforementioned) a lovely Christmas goose, complete with sauerkraut stuffing.  We had rotkohl (red pickled cabbage - kind of a sweeter version of sauerkraut), and potato dumplings.  (The peas were an afterthought - I just couldn't stand the thought of only having cabbage/sauerkraut as our only vegetable for the evening.)  For those of you who have never cooked a goose (hahaha) I'd recommend NOT buying one, or rather, not sending your husband to buy one at a European grocery store on Christmas Eve.  I think that by the time the goose was cooked (sorry, just can't get enough of that) and all the fat had melted off, and by the time we had our cooked goose (last time, I promise) carved, we had about 3 pounds of cooked meat.  I figure the cost was about $25/lb. of cooked meat.  I wish I could say that eating said goose was a gastronomical delight never to be duplicated (and worth every euro cent).  I can't.*  The experience we had researching and preparing our traditional meal, however, was.  We'll probably try another traditional German Christmas meal next year, but I think I'll substitute a turkey for the goose and focus our attention on some yummy Christmas desserts.  (This year it was store bought Lebkuchen.)  And there you have it.  Christmas in March.  I'm really not doing too well at keeping current, here, am I.  I resolve to to better!

*The goose was tender, and quite tasty.  I just didn't think it was fantastic enough to warrant the purchase price.  Maybe they're cheaper in the States.