St Martin's Day

November 11 is the mark of St Martin's Day. Apparently St Martin lived in 371 AD and met a beggar along the way. Even though Martin was freezing to his toes, he felt compelled to give the beggar half of his cloak. That night, he had a dream of Christ dressed in the cloak Martin gave and was convicted. After that he left the army and became bishop and founded many monasteries.



St Martins day is celebrated by the children bringing their handmade lanterns to the middle of town and marching through the town singing songs. Above is JR's self painted lanterns he did a Kita just for this event.

The entire town met in the center with lit lanterns and torches and marched through the streets. And below families carried torches, representing holiness and light in the darkness.

The apex of the fest comes when a man with a cloak on a horse rides through the crowd and lights the bonfire. Yeah!
Here is JR with some of his friends. Above is a neighbor Ute, who he just adores and his pal Leonard.

Anyway, I had to laugh because after this big lighting of the bonfire, I expected the first song to something German you know, polka, folksong? not sure what. But then they blared the speaker system with "Sweet Home Alabama" . No joke, I was like hmmmmm. Anyway, that was JR's first Lantern fest. I asked him if he liked it, and his eyes were shining and just simply said, "Yes, fire!"

Friends and Handball in Berlin

We have had friends in and out here. Just added a couple of pix from the week. We had friends that drove a couple of hours to see us. Went to a handball game in Berlin, the day after the 20th Anniversary of the German Unity party with Hillary Clinton, Bon Jovi and Gorbachov.

Here I am with Dani, she flew all the way to Colorado for my wedding in 2006.

Here we are in the VIP waiting for some good grub.

Lots of great friends are visiting us. Roy`s former Boss and here you see us ready to enjoy the handball game! Go Berlin!

Before the Handball Game in Berlin. (Füchse Berlin - THW Kiel) More photos later of the fam!

I Love Colorado in October

I love Colorado in the fall time. Sunny and warm.

Who doesn't like heading to Castle Rock for some shopping out the Outlet Center?

A Fairyland Mouse

It is a new school year for everyone! JR started his new Pre school the first week of September. The name of his Kita translates from German "Fairyland Mice". It is a cute country Preschool. They call Preschool "Kita" in German. I really like his teacher, she is very gentle, but on top of things. She is suppose to have 10 kids, but right now there are only 5 with JR. His classmates names are Frederick (pictured above), Anouk, Charlotta and Melina. But he LOVES going to Kita and just cannot wait to get there. Parents must supply their breakfasts (no white bread) and a piece of fruit or raw vegetable everyday. They chop up the fresh produce and have it available for the children to snack on. All other food provided by the Kita are bio products. The children drink peppermint tea with their meals. So as you see on the table on table in the silver canister is filled with peppermint tea.

Starting first grade in Germany is a huge deal. All German kids are presented with a Schültute, pictured below. It is a big cone the kids carry with them to school filled with candy, toys, school supplies etc. Pretty much every German kid has the infamous photo with the Schültute celebrating the first day of school. Also, these kids have a big party like our little friend Eric had.

Eric is pictured below as friends and family give him gifts to celebrate is rite to passage. There is a large table for cake, coffee and refreshment for guests. Here is JR, daddy and neighbor Lara at the kids table.

At this festival we even had entertainment....

Anyway, it is fun for the children to start school here.

But that is what how the September began for us. We also had a visitor in our home. Usually Rolf and I enjoy receiving visitors. But not this time. We had a late night visitor in our room one night. I heard this rustling in a plastic bag of old clothes. I knew from previous experience that was a mouse! I shrieked for hubs Rolf to come downstairs. When he came down the stairs he kicked the bag to find a mouse fly out of the bag and under the bed. At that I jumped on top of the bed. That was at about 12pm. For the next hour we hunted that mouse down. We had no choice but to get it out somehow. Here is was the final solution to the problem. I will spare you the gory details but the final destination is what you see.....

As you can observe, the bedroom is torn apart and I am holding a vacuum cleaner, yes, we sucked the mouse up the vacuum cleaner at around 1 am in the morning. As you can see by the photo, I am not amused. The next day it was funny to tell the story. Anyhow, we still only have 1 little Fairyland mouse in the house and that is the one sleeping in his bedroom upstairs! Anyway, hope all is well with you! Any funny mouse stories out there?

Another Vacation.....this time to Bavaria

Seems we have been on vacation non stop this year! I have the luxury of marrying into a really good and healthy family. I prayed for this a long time ago, to marry a man with a healthy family and no baggage. And God was faithful and gave me the bed in laws one could have. Every year, they take JR and I on vacation with them. This time they took us to north eastern Bavaria. It was a kinder hotel or kids hotel. Unfortunately, we have mostly video and my computer is too slow to upload to the Internet:( So the photos are not prime. But here are some pix we have:

This place had a slide, go cart, trampoline, slide into balls, climbing gym, pool with water slides, kiddie pool, kid disco every night! The kid disco was JR's favorite.

One day we went to a sheep farm and rode in a horse carriage.

Here is what Omas' (Grandmas) do to naughty grand children.

Here is a photo with the 7 dwarfs, up front are Dopey and Doc.

Trampolining...

Taking a ride with Opa. We had a great time! Thank you Oma and Opa!

After recovering from the vacation, time to put JR on a regular schedule. I have to start taking him to preschool. Or start him in little by little. It seems funny that I am doing that, but it is the ONLY place where I can take him and have contact with other kids. Most kids in Germany are in the preschool, there are virtually no kids at home. Plus I do go to school a couple days a week. So we are starting his program, this week going a couple of hours. I love his teacher and the program seems pretty solid. Today, it was over 90 degrees outside. However, in Germany there is no air conditioning. So preschools will strip the kids down and spray them with a hose or something. Today they stripped the kids and they splashed with glee in the water that runs through a canal on the grounds. Anyway, it is normal for Germans to strip their kids and let them run in birthday. suits....so here we go. JR's second training day at the German preschool.

I find it interesting that Europeans are not embarrassed by this nor think perverse. In US, I think people would think there was something wrong. The Europeans are very accepting of their bodies fat or thin. The age of this group was from 18 months to 6 years old. None of the kids noticed anything different.

This reminds me of a story I heard. A German friend of mine was camping in Georgia. They were swimming in the lake in their speedoes, which is a normal thing to do in most places in the world except in US. Some idiot called the police on them saying that they were perverting their kids by wearing speedoes. The police arrived on the scene escorted the Germans out of the park for indecent exposure. The question is, who was thinking in a perverted way in this situation, the German wearing normal swimwear or the family who called the cops? I shrugged my shoulders when he told me this. I said, "I think that is just because you were in the Bible Belt." But I wonder how many other places in the US would be so silly.

In Belgium

We have been gone a lot visiting and traveling this summer. One of the many highlights of the summer was attending the Choir weekend with the choir I sing in. I had the privilege of singing in the Potsdams choir called Chor International Potsdam. We had a practice weekend on Seediner Lake, which was gorgeous. This included 3 course meals and a lot of hard work and fun! We will be putting on a classical piece for Christmas and are working on our stuff now. Above is a photo for the newspaper taken of us singing for a concert put on in March the day of Brotherhood. Hubs watched JR and had a father and son weekend while I was absent for the weekend. Looks like they had fun without me. Thank you hubs for supporting me and making that possible. I had a blast and so did did the boys!

Also, we were able to take a trip to Belgium to visit some very dear friends of ours! I met Christa in the New Life Worship Choir a few years back, and we became friends. Since Colorado Springs, they have been called back to their native land of Belgium and began a new church there:

They have about 40 people and meet in their apartment. That is a lot of work for their family, but we were blessed to be there. We felt so at home there, just like family! Below we are celebrating Christa's birthday at Starbucks. Unfortunately, there is no Starbucks nearby so we drove 45 minutes through Belgium, the Netherlands to the border of Germany. Here we are in Aachen Germany getting a birthday Frapaccino with Chrisa!

And Chris the Belgium with his German buddies Mr. G and Rolf. Who would of ever thought that Germany and Belgium could make such an agreeable alliance? Anyway, Belgium waffles Rock! I joked with one of the daughter that they were ALMOST as good as Ego Waffles. That was when she threatened to "unfriend" me off of her Facebook. Oops! Nice beer, great chocolate nice people. Fun times! We love you guys! Will be back again.

Sacrower Lake, Restaurants

Tis the official end of the school year for the kids, university and our German class too. I usually have good classmates, but I have to say this last class was really the best so far. I took this photo towards the end of class so a lot of students were gone on holidays or had to leave early. But here is our mix, first photo Audrey (Cameroon) wants to be in biophysics? something smart like that, next to her Ang (Malaysia) biochemist. Next photo Sharif (Tajikistan) funny guy, wants to be an investor. He learned to speak German in 4 months. He said he posted German words on his ceiling, all over his room, and drove his mom crazy because all he would do was German. Very motivated guy, he will go far, only 19 years old. Next to him is Olga from Ukraine, very lovely lady with the sunniest disposition, always dressed to the max and is a mother of a 19 year son! Next is Jiri from Czech Republic. I was lost in Prague with him last month. But other students in the class came from the following countries: Turkey, Poland, Chad, Nigeria, France, Cameroon...
I had a great time learning, hope to continue with the same class in the fall.

After a very cool summer, the sun finally came out for a couple of days. The Germans are funny, always complaining it is too cold, then it is 83 degrees, now it is too hot. Too hot? They just don't know do they? Anyway we packed up to Sacrower Lake. My friend Sam says everytime she sees the sign for "Sacrower" she things "Scarecrow". So here we are at "Scarecrow Lake" ;) Josh met the Big Bad Swan. He kept yelling "Big Duck" but that mean old swan. The Mean Old Swan just walked over that beach and stared everyone down. He was probably ticked about being called a duck. Later our friends Martin and Julia met us with their two year old daughter Lara at the Lake. Julia is 9 months pregnant. She is I believe 6 feet tall, so she doesn't look that pregnant. She is the only person I know who still looks hot in a bikini pregnant.

Here are a couple of ladies from my German class, we met to support our former fellow student Giancarlo who just opened a new cafe Galerie Cafe 11-Line. It is an art gallery, with live music and events every week. Giancarlo comes from Italy, so their Italian food is the real deal. Very classy and delicious. You fellow Berliners and Potsdamers need to check this out! Pictured are Giancarlo with camera, Ang and Sheila, who is also an American married to a German. Anyway, another picture of a week in Germany.