Home in the 'Hood

Happy New Year's!!  This is going to be a short post because for the first time in 7 years Dave is cooking for a neighborhood party with all our friends in the 'hood.  We were fortunate to live in the most amazing neighborhood for 7 years.  What made it amazing wasn't the houses, it was the people, the community.  The kids playing in the park, in driveways, in front yards and back, and even in the street (much to the HOA's annoyance) while their parents talked, laughed, and got all caught up what was going on.

I am incredibly thankful that we have been able to spend the holiday season with these friends, who have over time become the sisters-of-my-heart. At the same time I am a bit sad to realize that it will probably not happen again for a long long while.  Drat I've gotten all teary-eyed writing that.

Tonight I am going to focus on the fun, not the sad.  I am going to eat my husbands brisket cooked on our old pit that now lives at his brother's house.  I am going to gorge on all the yummies cooked up by friends.  I am going to toast with champagne, beer, soda, or sweet tea which ever is in my hand when the time comes.  And most of all I am going to savor every single minute of it.

I hope where ever you are when you ring in the New Year I hope you find something special about the moment to treasure and someone to share that moment with.

 Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve 2010

It has been a quiet day at home. David went shopping while I made a couple of big pots of black-eyed peas for a party tomorrow. If you are from the southern US you must eat black-eyed peas on New Year's Day to ensure good luck for the rest of the year. I have no idea why, I just know that every year of my life January 1st found me eating a big bowl of them. As a child I hated them with a passion but Mom was firm, they were going down my throat one way or another. As an adult I have grown to like them a bit although I pretty much think once a year is enough for me.

The kids have run about like little heathens all day and are filthy and happy. The tortoise is still here in spite of my "No you can't keep him!" edict. It has been named Squirtle and identified as a male Bell's Hingeback Tortoise. He has been lost and found a few times, but seems destined to be a family pet for the time being. The kids started working on a pen for him today after I stepped (barefoot) in turtle poo in the khonde and ultimatums were made.

Now it is dark, in the distance I hear firecrackers going off and David and the boys are making noise about setting off some of our own. I better wish everyone out there a Happy New Years and get outside before I miss all the fun! See you all here in cyberspace on cyberones in 2011!

Last Day of School - Part 2

Friday the 19th was Dakota's last day of school.  He is now finished with 11th grade and on to his senior year.  Just one more year before he is done with school.  How did that happen?  

In time honored fashion he greeted the end of the school year with a party.  After school he and his compadres went to some place in Oberursel called the Brew Haus.  Yes I love Germany where my baby can buy beer legally.  Anyway in due course they showed up at our house as far as I could tell all were sober so that was a good start!  They hung around outside for awhile playing football (American football, not soccer) and being teenagers.  I am sure my neighbors were loving me.  Ha! They did come inside around 9 so they weren't out there making noise too late.  

Inside they ate tacos, cake, went through 4 boxes of soda and a whole lotta chips. They watched several movies and basically acted like teenagers. I spent much of this time banished to some out of the way corner so as not to embarrass Dakota. Actually I spent most of the time in my little office under the stairs instant messaging with David who is STILL in Saudi. That way I was out of the way but still able to keep an eye on things. Hey I was a teenager once!

Busted! Dakota spotted me hanging out the window taking pictures of the party. Don't worry that's not a real tattoo. After the Brew Haus the gang headed to the Zeil in downtown Frankfurt where a bunch them got airbrush tattoos.

Maybe he should have taken ballet instead of violin all these years. Look at that form he is a natural!

Teenagers in their natural environment just hanging out!

Just another picture of Dakota and his friends.

FOOD!

Watching a movies, the rest of the kids are eating (see above picture).

Everybody say CHEESE! 

Last Day of School - Part 1

Yesterday was Grayson's last day of his first year of school. He attend a part day preschool and I am really pleased with how much he learned! It is hard to believe that school is over already even though his friends back in the states have been out for weeks. Maybe it is the cool temperatures but it just doesn't feel like summer. He had great day. He got to ride bikes on the way to school with his friend Charlie.


They rode to school together most days this spring. Both boys have the little wooden bikes with no pedals that are so common here. Our house is a little closer to the school so Grayson would pause next to our house, watch for Charlie, then race back to join him. They would ride on together. That's Grayson in the picture above waring the blue helmet and back pack racing back to join his friend. After school we would ride to Charlie's house drop him off then ride back to ours. They really are too cute together!

Once at school it was right to work. There are 4 small tables in the class room. Each morning when the kids would enter there was always activities set out on the tables waiting for the kids. Grayson started the last day with some drawing. I took a few pictures then slipped away quietly.


After school let out at noon there was a BBQ and party to celebrate. Interestingly most of the kids ate very little choosing instead to run around and play. There was lots of fun to be had and it was a lovely way to end the school year.


This morning Grayson is celebrating his first full day of summer by having a special treat. Breakfast in front of the TV. Scrambled eggs, pancakes, and sausage all while watching Little Einstein's. SHHHH! Don't tell Dad!


Everyone deserves to be spoiled once in a while!

9 years old!

Alonzo turned 9 today.  It hardly seems possible.  Just yesterday he was a tiny baby.  This year we didn't do the party thing. David is out of town so he had to miss the fun today, but before he left had a special day with Alonzo to celebrate.  Alonzo was allowed to skip school, hang out with Dad, and go shopping for his present.  He chose a wooden chess set.  I think he chose well.

Today is his actual birthday.  To celebrate each of his brothers made him a gift.  
Grayson made him a set of juggling balls from balloons and lentils.  


Colin made him an archboard marble set.


Cody made him a button skeeball set.


I made him a cookbook with his very favorite recipe inside, waffles.  Now he can learn to make them for himself.


On top of his planned presents he received two more things.  New shoes,


and new glasses.


Both of were not so much presents as necessities since he manage to break both his glasses and his shoes this week and he still has two weeks of school left.

Oh, and one more thing.  What birthday would be complete without a cake?  He asked for a cake that was stacked like wedding cake,  carrot cake with chocolate chips and pecans.  This is what I came up with.


I flat refused to put chocolate chips in a carrot cake.  That's just gross! I put them on the frosting instead.  Speaking of frosting, what's with cream cheese frosting?  It never seems to work right for me.  Even though I ended up putting in a lot of extra sugar trying to make it stiffer, it still sort of oozed off the cake after a while.  It tasted OK though, and I guess that's what counts in the end.

Spring Time Mood Swings

I have always ben a bit of a moody person. I honestly don't know how my husband puts up with my moods, but he does and cheerfully too! What a prince, I am one lucky lady. Late February/early March is the worst time of the year. The beauty of fall is gone, the excitement and decorations of the holiday season is past, even the romance of Valentines is done. It is just dark, dull, and (here in Germany) COLD. I have been in a sort of funk for the last month. This seems to happen every year. I didn't really notice this trend until college when it seemed so much harder to make decent scores during the spring semester. Getting older is not making me any mellower.

For the last month I have done only what really needs doing. Everything seemed to take such an effort. The house cleaning and cooking have gone on as scheduled, but there haven't been any fancy meals or desserts lately, just the basics. Oh and please don't look under the sofa, the dust bunnies have really grown and are starting to get territorial. Blog posts have been few and far between. In January I managed 20 posts, in February only 5. E-mails and facebook have suffered similar fates. If you are someone who hasn't heard from me lately, my sincere apologies, and I will try to do better!

This week the fog seems to be lifting. I don't know if it the effect of the first few flowers starting to bloom, the gradually lengthening days, or the (slowly) warming temps; but I am feeling better, happy even. Today I can't seem to stop smiling. I got some strange looks on the way to the grocery this morning. Germans are generally reserved. If you go around smiling at strangers you will get some strange looks. Of course I have one more reason to smile we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary* by spending the weekend here:

Castle Schönburg

That's a pretty good reason to smile, don't you think?

*Our anniversary was March 13th (Friday the 13th this year) but Castle Schönburg didn't open for the season until this weekend. Hopefully it is worth the wait. 

Ten Years Ago Today

It's a New Year!

Last night we celebrated our first New Year's Eve in Germany. Dave and I stayed home with the kids, as usual. We celebrated the end of the year and the repair of the TV by watching Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The kids all enjoyed it and spent today reenacting the fight scenes with the cardboard shields we made for Halloween and swords made out of K'nex. David is really looking forward to listening to the rest of the Narnia stories. Santa brought him the entire series of books on CD. He will be loading them to his ipod soon.

When the movie ended it almost eleven. After some serious begging we decided to let the kids stay up until midnight. This is the first time we have let the little ones stay up to ring in the New Year. I am so glad we did. From our apartment we can see downtown where the professional fireworks were launched. The best view is from the upstairs bathroom window, so we all crowded in and watched the fun. The trees blocked much of the view of the professional show but there were so many people popping fireworks all over town we had a great show anyway. The kids ended up racing from window to window trying to see it all.


After the fireworks started to slow down we toasted the 2009 with some fake champagne, no alcohol because of the children.


Then we took our first family portrait of 2009 and sent everyone to bed. The kids decided they were having a sleep over in Cody's room.


As I drifted off to sleep I could hear the kids giggling in Cody's bedroom and firecrackers still popping from every direction. It was very good night!

Christmas Day

Christmas day has come and gone and I leave you these pictures to chronicle the day. I hope you enjoy.













Happy Holidays!!!

Events of Christmas Eve

Today was full of fun and excitement. As promised I am providing an update on how the tamales and houses building went. Well… actually it all went really well. We got the masa and the meat all done yesterday so all we had to do today was assemble, cook, and eat.




I didn’t get any pictures eating them because… well, we were all too busy eating them. These tamales would give “Rubens Homemade Tamales” on Rigsby Ave in San Antonio a run for their money.


Today we found the best way to get rid of the candy you still have from Halloween is to have the kids decorate gingerbread houses, or in our case graham cracker houses. We all had a blast with our decorating. I am not sure how we made such a big mess and to tell the truth I am not sure how much the candy actually made it on the houses. From the sounds I am hearing from the kids, the ones that are suppose to be asleep upstairs; I would say a good portion made it in the kids.




Have a wonderful Christmas!

A Castle and a Christmas Market

Saturday we went to the Heidelberg Christmas market. We could have gone to the one in Frankfurt but we wanted to go someplace new. We didn't actually know where the market is held but we knew it was set up near Heidelberg Castle and we were pretty sure we could find a castle.

I don't know if you are aware, but castles are big. Really really big. From a distance they look impressive in a pretty fairy tale sort of way but up close they are just huge. We didn't see the market so we decided to explore the castle first then go looking for the market later in the day.  After all we had the whole day with out the kids.  We could do what ever we wanted.  From one of the terraces in the castle we could see the Christmas market set up in the town below.

The market was fun, if a bit touristy and crowded.  We wandered around looking at the stuff for sale.  Lots of Christmas decorations, knitted hats and scarves, candles, and of course lots of food and drink. I drank some gluhwein (traditional mulled wine, warm and yummy) and shared a pastry with Dave.

I am glad we didn't take the kids with the crowds it would have been hard to handle. There were some things for the kids to do though. There was ice skating, don't you love the little penguins for the tiny ones to hold on to so they don't fall? A little train named  Rio Grande, we thought this was funny since we are from Texas where the Rio Grande is located. There was also a merry-go-round. And of course there was food and kinderpunsch for kids to enjoy. 

After we had our fill of crowds and Christmas cheer we set off to explore the shopping scene. There were lots of fun shops to explore. It made for a relaxing afternoon. We ended the day with a visit to a bookstore, an English language used book store, my very favorite kind. I found a new used book to read and we headed home. We will be back to explore the castle with the kids another day.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Friday was my 41st birthday. The boys surprised me with a handmade birthday card before they left for school. Dave took the afternoon off and we spent some time exploring and discovered a new pet shop with much more reasonable prices. Yay! The cats and snake will be happy, so will our budget!

Since we have so much left over food I didn't get the traditional cake instead David and I walked to a bakery and bought an apple pastry. David decided that 41 candles would probable set off the fire alarm and only put 5 candles on the pastry, 4 candles in a group for 40 and 1 off by itself. Colin loved the pastry, the rest of us not so much, but there was lots of left over lemon cake and pumpkin pie so there was no complaining here!

For a present I got a 1000 piece puzzle which will come in very handy since the TV choose this morning to up and die! David thinks he can fix it he just needs to order the part. In the meantime we keep saying we need to cut back on the TV time in this house so I guess that starts today!

I am getting my real present today. After I finish this post I am going off to my first German Christmas Market, alone, just David and I, with NO KIDS! We are taking the camera so check back tomorrow for pictures and maybe you can visit us next winter and go to the market with us!

Thanksgiving Cont...

When all the cooking was done and the kids came home from school. (Yes, the kids went to school on Thanksgiving, this is Germany and Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and do you know how much easier it is to cook that much food without kids underfoot?) As I was saying when all the cooking was done we had a feast fit for a king!


We managed to get a picture of everyone acting reasonable mature. This is a major accomplishment considering the ages of our kids.


All too soon the normal behavior resumed but, how boring life would be if they acted like little grown ups all the time!


And then came the best part of the day....dessert! Pumpkin pie, my favorite and Lemon Pound cake (with fresh whipped cream and raspberries, forgot to get those in the picture, ooops) for the strange little critters in my life that think pumpkin is poison. No problem! Shortly I will have left over pumpkin pie and coffee for breakfast. Yum!

Real Men Fry Turkeys...

...but a real woman can make the whole Thanksgiving meal even if the box with all her cookbooks vanished somewhere between Texas, Indonesia and Germany! What's on the menu today?

Roast turkey with gravy
Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows on top
Stove Top Stuffing
Canned Cranberry Sauce (ick!)
Fresh Johannesberry Sauce (yum!)
Green Bean Casserole
Homemade dinner rolls with real butter and creme honey
Pumpkin pie
Lemon Sour Cream Pound Cake with whipped cream and raspberries