Are you missing some socks?

Has anyone seen the movie, "Mousetrap"? This weekend we've been living it. Friday the smell of death was so strong in our kitchen we knew we were going to have to take the kitchen apart until we found the Rat. It started out in a very careful, organized manner but quickly escalated to a frenzied hunt as we found rat poop behind cupboards and found stockpiles of our stuff. We found 11 of our socks, and 2 dish towels and a pair of boxer shorts from the previous tenants, behind the cupboard next to the sink, but still no rat. This morning we continued ripping out cupboards (which may never go back the same way again!) and finally found the dead rat and its main lair. A few more of our socks and alot more of the previous tenants' clothes were in there, along with a toy car, a marker, a colored pencil, a note I'd left for myself with a telephone number I'd been looking for, candy wrappers galore and more rat poop than the average farmer sees in a life time--oh, and a dead rat. I didn't include a picture of the beast so as not to scare any younger blog-viewers, but it was bigger than the Bradford's Rodney by a long shot. Two big garbage bags and one big bottle of bleach later, I'm still not seeing an end to the vermin's disgusting lifestyle. Atleast the smell is almost gone! Our own path of destruction and mayhem has clogged the kitchen with drawers and cupboards and every cleaning supply imaginable. I think we'll eat out tonight.

Real Germans and Real Germany

Garrett was gone in Garmisch, Germany all week last week for a dental conference. When he came home he surprised the boys with real German hiking sticks. Now they can be real hikers. When Germans do things, they go all the way--it's all or nothing. No one here would dream of owning a motorcycle without a complete matching leather outfit, boots and helmet. When they pick apples or pears in their own yards they put on a special overcoat just for picking fruit. The other day I did step-aerobics and then decided that while I was good and sweaty I'd go out and mow the lawn in my shorts and a fleece jacket I threw on as I walked out the door. After mowing for awhile I felt someone's eyes on me. I looked up and saw my neighbor just staring at me. I waved at him and he waved, but had a troubled look on his face and just stared--I knew I had made a social faux pas, but had no idea what it was. Later I talked to another neighbor and he went on and on about what I wore to mow the lawn! Even graffiti is an all or nothing kind of thing. Look at the house below--totally graffitied. It's amazing, but some of their graffiti is actually so involved it really looks like artwork. In the same town as the graffiti masterpiece you'll find quaint centuries-old houses.

We took these house pictures today in Tubingen. It seemed a little odd that Garrett got the day off for Columbus Day, but the boys had school. It was so nice to only have Joe with us for the afternoon as we walked through the old city. We ate lunch next to a statued fountain in the center of the square and watched people at their little tables sit and talk and people watch. We felt so German. I think I've found my second favorite food, next to chocolate. We ordered Doner Kebaps, a Turkish specialty, from a little stand. Kebaps are made from lamb turned on a spit. You put them in a pita with yogurt, onions, tomatoes, cabbage and the next thing you know you've eaten the whole thing. Heavenly! Are we enticing you to come visit? Good!

"Yours is Glorious Country, Honeychurch!"

There is no other word for this Fall in Germany except glorious. On Saturday we went for a walk in the woods behind our house and later that day hiked with Joe and Mason to the Urbach waterfalls only about 25 minutes away while Sam and Jacob went to a birthday party. When I got home from the waterfalls I realized I hadn't taken any pix of the actual waterfalls, only the trees surrounding the falls, but they speak for themselves. Once again, I must say that my brilliant husband needs his own photo studio--his pictures are much better than this! Sunday afternoon we went for a drive through the countryside to look at leaves and ended up in a grape vineyard. It was so picturesque that I decided to try the luscious-looking grapes. I now know where the term, "Sour Grapes" comes from. I think my face still hasn't stopped puckering.

The boys each wanted to take pictures too. This is a picture Sam took of us in the grape vineyard. Last week they all wanted to work for the LEGO company. As of this morning, they have each told me that they have decided to be photographers. This doesn't include Joe of course who is still holding out for a "Darth Vader's Apprentice" position.
I've corrupted my children. I picked an apple from a tree in one of the orchards we were photo-ing, and let them do the same. It'll probably come back to haunt me since they fertilize the trees with "natural" fertilizer and I'll probably get Giardhea---again.

German Rats Prefer Wonder Bread

We're finally settling down in our new house in Neuenhaus (-redundantly a town name which actually means "New House"). We've had plenty of excitement in the past few weeks that has kept us busy and since my boys have told everyone they meet, I may as well tell you. We've had an unwanted house guest or guests--a rat. I woke up one morning a day or so after we moved in and walked into the kitchen to see our new loaf of bread from the army grocery store ripped and scattered across my kitchen counter. While wondering which of my darling children was to blame I noticed nibbled holes in the bag. I have to give a disclaimer--I never buy Wonder Bread. I'm no health nut, but I grew up on wheat bread and Wonder Bread just turns into a sticky gluey substance on the roof of my mouth that I can't swallow down. I only bought Wonder Bread because they were out of the American wheat bread at the store and my children seem to lack the mature taste buds required to appreciate real bread--German bread! Anyway, there was my Wonderbread all over the counter and a perfectly delicious loaf of German bread, untouched sitting right next to it. I am forced to draw the conclusion that German rats are gluttons for refined flours and gluey substances on the top of their mouths. A few mornings later we woke up to Mason yelling from the hallway. He said he saw the rat run down the hall and go into a hole under our built in cupboards. In the picture he is demonstrating just how long the rat's tail is. We placed traps with chocolate, peanut butter and cheese, but other than the Wonder bread, which we did, unfortunately, buy and leave out again, the traps remained empty. We finally bought rat poison and I think that did the trick as we have had no further attacks. However, every time I look at our cupboards I think we must have a rat, rotting away under it. To my embarrassment, everytime the kids meet someone the first thing they say is,"We have a rat in our house." As I am unable to produce a corpse, I can't convince them that it is dead and if it's not dead, to shut-up about it anyway!

I talked to our landlord and she said because we live so near to the forest, we'll get alot of woodland creatures around. On the bright side, look at these pictures that are literally out our backdoor. The picture below that looks like a super-duper cool fort is actually what the hunters use to hang out in when they hunt (and you can see them around all the fields and through all the forests). When I asked what they hunt in this forest I was told wild boars and deer. The fort, the boars, it all sounds a little too much like themovie "The Village".

I know that you're all dying to hear how the boys are doing in school. Well, it's really hard--shocking, I know. We are now accepting prayers on their behalf as they try to learn German! I'm going in on Wednesdays and Fridays to help in their VKL class, it's basically an ESL class, but for learning German. They have kids from Turkey, Romania, Vietnam, England and a few other Eastern European countries in their class. They go to VKL for German and then they go to their regular classes for Math, Sport (P.E.), Swimming and Art. They put Sam and Jacob back in third grade because Germans are further in math than we are. For example, they learn their times tables in second grade! I love their math homework (no, they don't really love any homework at all), it's really good at preparing them for Algebra and really makes them think. The boys also use fountain pens in school. Try that out--it's not as easy as it looks in Harry Potter movies. On Monday and Thursday they have class until 5 p.m., on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday until noon. Sam and Jacob got invited to a German boy's birthday party last weekend and all my boys love to play with Andreas, a good friend from church who also goes to their school. You skeptics out there may wonder about their adjustment, but if you'll see in the picture below, they are making a fort in the forest behind our house in a gulley with an old gate they found out there and a bunch of dead logs they dragged from everywhere. Making a fort in the forest is definitely a sign of well adjusted, normal boys. I am so proud of my boys for working so hard in German school. We're trying this out and working through this as a family and this feels right for us, right now. All our family and friends who agree with us are free to comment on our blog--the rest need not apply! Tschus!