First Day of School--September 8th

The first week of school is finally over! I think we're all breathing a sigh of relief. We worried and worried that first day, but when I went to school to pick the boys up on Monday, they were in the recreation room above the lunchroom, playing legos, on the computer and fussball. Sam saw me and said "No!!!" He didn't want to go home yet. What a good sign. Jacob said that the first day they each went around his class and everyone said what their favorite sport was. Jacob said he had said soccer but everyone else had said football (football or fussball is the German word for soccer!). This picture shows the "playground" for the kids, complete with soccer goals and cement ping-pong tables in the back for recess and after school. We were so grateful for the good day they had, even when they didn't finish until 5 p.m. that when I picked Mason up from his class on Tuesday at 12:00 and he burst into tears, I was disappointed. I guess that hoping they truly had been blessed with the gift of tongues and would immediately fit in was probably a little too much to ask for in 2 days. The boys come home from school completely exhausted and don't want to wake up. On Thursday they have swimming each week at a pool right there at the school. We wondered if we needed to buy them speedos for the pool but they said about half the boys wore swim trunks. The boys bring a snack which has to be healthy for their first recess and then they have school lunch on the days they have class after noon. I asked the people in the office if they could bring a sack lunch and they all just stared at me like I was from Mars. Germans are people of routine--if that's the way it's done then you don't change. No one else brings sack lunch so they just couldn't even understand why we would do it. For atleast the first few months we'll play their game until the boys get adjusted. These pictures are also part of their playground--a pond, a pile of logs and snake and alligator balancing beams. Shopping for school supplies was exhausting. Every grade uses differently spaced lined paper, plus there are about 5 different sizes of notebooks for each grade with plastic covers you buy separately to put on each one. From first grade on they use fountain pens, which is definitely a skill, I've discovered. It's not so easy to write with those. It was so overwhelming to be at the store with a school supply list, all in German, trying to figure out what to buy. We've continued to have tears through the week, but I'm hoping that they will start to pick things up soon. One of the Laurels in our ward started German school in 4th grade and she said that by Christmas you know what's going on around you. Meanwhile, on Wednesday we got a key to the garage of the place we'll be moving into and so I've been trying to bring the junk that we've rapidly accumulated over here plus our 45 day shipment into the garage. We bought a trampoline and I used my scrawny muscles to move the heavy box from the apartment basement, into the van and then into our new garage. Tomorrow we get the keys to the house and Monday we're going to get all of our stuff. I'm so excited! It feels like we've been camping out for the past few months and I just crave some permanence and stability. We won't have a phone or internet for a week, but I'll be sure to post some more pix once we get internet again. The highlight of our week was definitely our new Star Wars t-shirts (thanks Grandma!) there aren't too many world-wide catastrophes that a Star Wars t-shirt can't solve when you're one of our boys. May the Force be with You!

Camping and the Matterhorn

This Labor Day weekend we went camping in Switzerland. The campsites in Europe are really funny because they are super close together. We rented a tent and sleeping bags because we don't have our stuff yet. We couldn't make a fire at our campsite so we had raw s'mores, which were almost as good. Garrett boycotted the s'mores because I'd bought hershey's chocolate bars for them and he said it wasn't as good as the Swiss chocolate--he's turned into a chocolate snob. Regrettably I didn't get a picture of some of the European campsites. They bring their satellite dishes, tables, chairs and even garden gnomes to make their areas feel homier. We packed up on Saturday morning and drove to the Matterhorn where we hiked around the base. The kids were nervous we were going to make them climb up the entire Matterhorn! It was so gorgeous. I think heaven must be just like Switzerland but with all your friends and family from America!

Viva Italia!

Here are some shots of my adorable boys taking turns holding up the Tower of Pisa. They get those bulging muscles from their dad. We spent August 21st through the 24th in Italy. Enjoying the Italian life--driving fast, drifting over all the lines on the road, sandles and t-shirts and swimsuits and sweat. The kids weren't overly impressed with the incredible architecture. They just wanted to get to the cabin we would stay in at the Italian army base, Camp Darby. Garrett laughed at these "Leaning Tower of Pisa" pictures I took because, as you'll notice, I took the picture so that they are the only things that are straight and everything else is crooked.

The boys got to swim in the Mediterranean Sea. They made a human blockade to protect an Arc Trooper Hut with Yoda in it--their version of a sand castle. Garrett and I were amazed that here we were in Italy and our kids were seeing things we had never seen before--Pisa, swimming in the Mediterranean, vineyards and so much more and our boys kept asking if we could just go back to the pool on the base and swim. Someday they'll think this was pretty cool, but for now, they just want to chill at home with their legos! Sorry kids, we're going to make you enjoy this European experience. On Friday we went to Cinque Terre, a group of 5 Italian towns on the coast that you can only get to by train or by boat. Each of the towns are connected by hiking trails so we hiked between two and then rode the trains to the others. I forgot the boys' swimsuits, so they wore their undies to swim in, except for Joe who had an earlier catastrophe and lost his undies all together. Incidentally, if you're traveling near the Mediterranean and find a pair of boy size 5 spiderman briefs, Joe wants them back. Joe went au natural and fit in with the European kids better than the rest of us, since most kids his age don't wear swimsuits. We really did stand out, being about 15 shades lighter than anyone else. Even the really old people are super duper tanned and lay out on the beach like they're evenly basting a turkey--10 minutes one position, 10 minutes another position etc. etc. The Italian men are super hot with a roll of money sticking out one side of their speedos and a pack of cigarettes sticking out the other side--clearly too many things sticking out!

The Four Food Groups

I'm a little worried that my readers may be fearing my family is malnourished due to the constant mention of chocolate in my blogs, so I just wanted to reassure you that we are hitting the four food groups: Dairy--chocolate ice cream and hot chocolate; breads and cereals--nougat bits (see pix) a cereal which is crunchy chocolate on the outside with a fudgy chocolate middle or nutella type spread on bread; protein--let's not all be stupid it is called a cocoa bean, right, which, by the way, should also count for vegetables. With all this healthy eating, we occassionally sneak in a dessert, such as a chocolate bar or other such chocolate treats, which really can't be that bad for you if they are milk chocolate (emphasis on milk) and brimming with antioxidants. I think I'll go eat healthy some more.

A Semi-Authentic German Breakfast

This morning we were celebrating because we have finally got clearance to move off-base, so we had a semi-authentic German breakfast, which includes processed meat like salami or ham with cheese (Emmentaler this morning) on a hard roll (we didn't have any, so we used bread), german yogurt (the kind we ate today actually had little choco-bits in it) with muesli (granola, also a kind with chocolate bits) in it and apfelsaft which is carbonated apple juice. In the picture I'm demonstrating using my very own meat slicer, which, for all you Seinfeld fans, also does a great job evening out my high heel shoes. The real work starts here because it's no easy task finding an apartment to rent in Germany, especially one that will fit 6 people and not cost a kidney to obtain.

3403 Poplarstrasse A3

"Good night Ward, dear." "Good night June, dear." This is what Garrett and I say to eachother before we go to bed, since the picture of the 2 single beds above is actually Garr's and my room. The first hotel we stayed at in Germany only had single beds and most of the hotels are like this. I figure that's why Germany has a negative population growth right now. All the furniture in our apartment is military temporary furniture, until our stuff comes. They would only allow us to have a double bed for Garrett and me and we decided to continue to explore this negative population growth and keep the kids single beds and give Jacob and Joseph the double bed. It's like "Leave it to Beaver" at our house every night, with more color. Our sponsors, the McLeans let us use some sheets, but because we have such a big family we were dividing the sets up so everyone can have a bottom sheet and then a blanket over the top. Currently Garrett sleeps on Tinkerbell sheets and a leopard print pillowcase! If that's not emasculating, I don't know what is. (Not a homo like one of our dear friends--we won't mention any names.)

We are living at the left, closer end of the building on the third floor (38 stairs up, which is no easy thing, if you're trying to bring in groceries). If you look hard in the apartment building pix you can see the boys at our building entrance.

I included a picture of the towel warmers in the bathroom so you could all get the impression that we're living the high life. They are actually the towel warmers and radiators for the bathroom. The whole house if warmed with radiators. Air conditioning, what's air conditioning? Germans don't use air conditioning period. We're still working on living off-base, in a German apartment, but we'll see what happens.

Just Monkeying Around

So this is us today, just monkeying around. Mason is wearing his monkey b-day mask (mom, from the card you sent!) and drinking Coke Light (it's diet Coke, but they call it Coke Light here). I'm not sure if you can tell, but the package on the left that Sam is holding is brown sugar and this is the BIGGEST box of it you can get at the Commissary (Military grocery store). I'd shop for it off-base, but they don't even have brown sugar in Germany!



Joe is sporting his new t-shirt. We let each of the boys pick their own new t-shirt because they've been stuck doing so many grown up errands lately. Mason is demonstrating how to flush a European toilet: push the big button behind the toilet. Some toilets have one smaller circular button inside the larger circle button so you don't waste alot of water if you're only going #1. The last picture is the only smart thing we put in our 45 day shipment--all the boys legos. It was like Christmas when they came and since this place we live in is so big (5 rooms) and we don't have any other stuff yet, we have an entire room for the boys to spread out all of their legos. I figured Jacob must have Jewish roots when he had the savvy to tell me, "Don't show our Grandmas that picture or they won't send us as many legos!" The Fletchers and Isaac Bradford are drooling just looking at all the lego possibilities, I'm sure! Sorry Shayla, no pink legos here!