Day 4 - Germany

The Family is having a very hard time getting up and getting going!  Our breakfast is usually lunch at the Schaufler's!  It is yummy though with fresh bread, meats,ham and cheese croissant and Berliners, raspberry jelly donuts topped with powdered sugar!  This afternoon we wanted to take Jemma to the big town, Buhl, near our little village.  This is were we went all the time to walk around the pedestrian zone.  We always had gelato at a little cafe and this is what we wanted to Jemma to see.  Let me remind you that it is freezing, but we felt Jemma needed to experience the ice cream! So off we went to the Johannisplatz in Buhl for a nice stroll through some of the stores.  Jemma loved the ice cream, but had more fun throwing snowballs at Daddy while Marina and I sipped Gluhwein which is a hot spiced red wine!  

This is Johannisplatz.  In the summer there is a little stream that runs through the middle that you see here.  The kids play in it and it is just delightful.  We spent many a pleasant day just people watching and eating real gelato!

I just love how you can see the reflection in the window.

That evening we ate at a wonderful restaurant which happens to be where our apartment was.  It is called the Breitmattstub.  The food is excellent!!  I had my usual there.  Rumpsteak with friend onion straws on top with a garlic sauce.  I had spatzle with brown sauce with them.  Scrumdelish!!  

Jemma again entertained us as usual.  We were in the restaurant part upstairs, and there are tables downstairs in a cute cellar bar area.  In the cellar part there was a band of four guys playing traditional German music!  Jemma loved it and was in true performance mode!

This is the giant Pretzel sandwich that Marina got to feed all the people that would show up at her door at midnight for her birthday!  I was going to try to make it back to celebrate but jet lag took over and I was asleep on the sofa by 10:30!

Breaking News!!

Your eyes are not deceiving you!  Yes, that is snow!!!!  We got three inches of snow right here in Charleston, South Carolina!!!  It was amazing!!!!  The BHW got stuck in the mountains of North Carolina while going to get our four legged baby from his mom's.  Bless his heart.  His 5 hour drive turned into 10!  He made it safely and we had a ball in the snow!  I made a huge pot of soup and invited the L family over. The girls were so funny watching it snow out the back door and screaming, "It's snowing!!!"

This was exciting because so many people here had never seen snow and for many it had been 20 years!  We played outside for a long time and it was magical to hear the sounds of kids and adults laughing and playing all up and down the streets.  It is all melting away now, but it was definitely a Take My Breath Away moment!  Enjoy the pictures!

I must confess.  When we moved away from Michigan, I was sad for many reasons, but one was that I knew I would miss the snow.  I don't necessarily need to play in it or be out in it, but there is something so peaceful about watching it snow at night when all the world is quiet.  It is just a Take My Breath Away thing that I knew I would miss.  Jemma kept telling me, "It's o.k. mommy.  Daddy will take us to see snow!"  Who knew I would get snow here in the Deep South!  It was so wonderful to be snuggled on the couch with a glass of wine, swing music in the background and watching the beautiful snow drift down.

                               

All Jemma wanted to do was eat the snow!

The Little Red House all covered in snow!

Our poor little snowman!  When we got up this morning, it had snowed over his carrot nose, and he lost his raisin eyes and mouth and was missing one arm!

Enjoy the weather wherever you and have a great weekend!

Day 3 - German sledding in the Black Forest

Since we all fell asleep around 5:00 a.m., we decided it would be o.k. to sleep late!  We got up and got to Marina's around 12:00.  So much for breakfast so we had our breakfast for lunch.  My dear friend made sure that I had ham and cheese croissants!!!  Scrumptious!  Siggi had promised Jemma would could go sledding the night before and she made sure to remind him the next morning!  So off we went for a drive up to the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse (the Black Forest highway).  It was a cold day, but the sky was a brilliant blue and we had a child on a mission to do some sledding as we pulled into the parking area for the ski park.  Does this face look determined or what????

We headed up the hill and at first she was all set to go with Daddy, but at the last minute, she decided Mommy could go.  I love to sled with the best of them so off we went!

Now as I said, I love to sled.  There is just one part I don't like about sledding and that is the going back up part!  How did I forget about that????  It was a long way back up!  Aren't the trees beautiful though??

Kiara, the Schaufler's dog and one of Murphy's best friends, was having a ball!  She is even smiling!

Jemma had a ball in the snow and said to me, "See I TOLD you that Daddy would take you to see snow!"  Yes, he did!

  

That night we had reservations at a flammkuchen restaurant in La Watzenau, France called La Cour de Chasseurs.  If you don't know what flammkuchen is, well, you are missing a little bit of heaven right on a plate!  It is like pizza dough with no leavening in it so it is a very flat crust.  They layer on quark.  What is quark you are asking me?  It is like a creme fraiche.  I guess you could say it is like a sour cream type spread.  O.k.  I am not exactly sure what it is, but it is soooooo good!  Anyhoo, they spread the quark on the dough, sprinkle bacon, onion, and cheese on it and throw it on a scorching hot oven for a few minutes and then serve it to you piping hot.  My, oh my.  I am drooling just thinking about it!  Here is a picture of my half eaten piece!  This restaurant is really quaint and the plates have these beautiful pictures of young ladies and men dressed in the traditional costume of the Alsace region of France.  I wish I        had looked at the manufacturer!  I will have to do that on my next trip!

Jemma entertained while we enjoyed our time with the Schaufler's   The toilet had a pull chain from the ceiling to flush it  Jemma thought this was wildly funny and proceeded to go back to the table and draw a picture of it for us!  Then it turned into a robot!  

Tom and I ( a portrait done by Jemma)

              









Marina and Vanessa

Another wonderful evening with our German family and then it was off to bed at a somewhat decent hour!  

Day 2 cont.- Germany

As we played in the snow we realized that we were really hungry, so we walked to the front of the castle where the restaurant and ticket booth are.  Well, guess what... the restaurant is closed.  Go figure.  As it came to pass, MANY attractions in Germany are closed in the winter.  How had I forgotten this??  More to come on that!  We again asked if Jemma would like to go in, but she said she just wanted to play in the snow.  We encouraged her to at least walk to the other side of the castle to see where a big chunk of wall has collapsed.  This excited her so off we went with her in the snow on the side of the walkway the whole time.  

We got behind a small group of Japanese tourist and they never cease to tickle me.  They take pictures of everything and I mean everything!!!  They were enchanted by Jemma and she had several photos made of her.  Cracks me up!  She thought the fallen wall was really cool and after 700 questions of why did that happen?  what did they do?  and so on, she proceeded to knock all the snow off every bush and write her name in the snow!  At that moment, she turns and informs us that she has gone pee pee in her pants.  What?!?  She hardly ever does that!!!  Keep in mind she has on 14 layers of clothes!!!  Well, we march back to the car and I start stripping her down informing her all the way that she needs to tell us, I know the snow is fun, blah, blah, blah...  As I am stripping her down, I keep thinking that she doesn't feel very wet.  As the last layer is peeled off, we realize she still had her pull up on (cautionary measures) from the flight!!!  We take it off and it wasn't even wet!  We think she was wet from the snow and thought she had gone.  Hallelujah, disaster averted!   Mind you, I have a naked child in the car in 20 degree weather.  Mother of the Year, right here!  We get her dressed and we decide to head to the Schaufler's to see our friends with the promise of my favorite German dish!  Chicken and mushrooms in a brown cream sauce with spaetzle!!!  Yummmy!

We begin the drive and crash and burn time has hit.  Jemma goes into zombie mode in the back of the car and I feel the head bob coming on.  Lucky for the Family that I packed those little bottles of 5 hour energy!  We let Jemma sleep in the back and we downed these little bottles.  I don't know if they worked or it was the power of mind set that they worked, but we stayed up!  I had to go the bathroom bad and I do mean BAD, so Tom pulled over at a German "rest stop".  It was a square building with a men's and women's toilet.  Both had a "Defekt" sign on the doors.  This is not good.  I decided to walk around the back praying there might be two more toilets in the back (knowing there would not be).  What was I thinking?!?  I really did know better, but I had to go so bad.  Let me just say that in the back there was no toilet and people who really needed to go just did.  Number one and number 2.  In the back.  On the ground.  Enough said.  We zoomed off and hit an Autobahntankstelle (highway gas station/bathroom/restaurant) and I was able to go! I didn't even care that I only had a two Euro coin and gave them that to go! 

We arrived at our neighbor's house and it was such a great feeling to be back in our old town.  The beautiful church takes my breath away every time I see it with it's twin steeples raising into the sky like they are praying to God.  I just felt like I was home!  Our tiny village had changed quite a bit within 6 years, but still looked the same and of course was decorated for Fasching which is like Mardi Gras.  We lived in a building that had four homes in it.  It was connected to another with three homes.  There is a parking area and as we pulled in, we could see our German family in their window!  Let me just say, that I had a LOT of anxiety coming back to German.  I was so afraid that I would not be able to speak German or follow along with their conversations, but as I hugged my dear friend Marina, I knew it was o.k.  I jumped back in and it all somehow (for the most part) came back to me.  It was like we had never left.  You know friends are dear when you can be apart for 6 years and feel like it was yesterday!

We had our wonderful dinner and just talked!  It was interesting watching Jemma warm up to these people that she has only seen in pictures her whole life.  She was such a good girl.  She colored, watched movies, hung out with us, and read books while we all caught up.  Then the "girls" came home.  Marina and Siggi have two daughters that we always referred to as our "step daughters".  We met them 10 years ago when the girls were 9 and 10.  I saw them last when they were 13 and 14.  They walked in as two young women at 19 and 20!  Oh my!  They were the same beautiful girls they have always been and Jemma was immediately in love!  I think the feeling was mutual!  We left around 8:00 to go to Buhlertal to our Ferienwohnung (vacation apartment) to settle in and get some sleep.  Our apartment was awesome with three bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bath, and eating area!  

We all headed to bed and crashed.  Jemma woke up around three and wanted to hang out and play.  We could hear her reading books and playing with Fuzzy and Pinky (our faithful companions) for about an hour and a half and then all was quiet.  I was laying there awake the whole time too.  I always have a hard time with jet lag going over.  I even stayed awake all day and had trouble!  Oh well, I knew it would all work out and we drifted off to sleep around 5:00 with the snow falling.

Day 2 (or should it be Day 1 again??) - Charleston/ Germany

After an evening of assuring Jemma that we would really be going to Germany, we all woke up early and our very kind neighbor drove us to the airport at 7:45!  We walked in (in the same clothes that I had picked for us to wear the day before!) and were actually able to get on a plane!!  I just want to go back and say that Jemma is an AWESOME traveler!  She sat in an airport for over 4 hours the day before and was so good.  Anyhoo, we got on the plane and were on our way to Atlanta!  We got to Atlanta and thankfully there were beautiful blue skies.  I don't know if any of you with children know of this wonderful thing called a portable DVD player, but I HIGHLY recommend it!  A thumb also helps!


Next thing you know, they are calling us to get on our plane to Germany!!!  Prayers of thanks went up to our Lord above!  We all settled in and thankfully the Best Husband in the World (BHW) booked the middle row of four seats so we had an extra seat in the middle so Jemma could stretch out.  Perfect!  And to kick it up one more notch of wonderfulness, he knew that some planes had plugs under the seat so we were able to plug in the DVD player!!!!  Who is the best?????  He is!!!!!!!

Right after a yummy meal of pasta on the plane, Jemma promptly fell asleep and sleep for about 2 hours. When she woke up she was happy to color, watch movies and read books.  I love this kid!  We knew she needed to sleep a bit more so we changed her into some comfy jammies and made her a bed.  She didn't fall asleep quite as easily, but finally did for about another 2 hours.  Tom slept like a champ (of course he claims he didn't!) and I did my usual.  Sat there and tried to pretend that I was asleep.  It was hard to sleep when the drunk German in front of you is talking so loud I am sure the pilots could hear him through the closed metal door!  Two people asked him to be quiet and he finally got the hint.   I still didn't sleep, but that is the norm for me on overseas flights.  I think I know that I need to sleep therefore, I can't!

Breakfast came and Tom and I started packing up the goods while Jemma continued to sleep.  She woke up right before we landed.  I even let her walk through the airport in her fleece jammies.  Looked like an outfit if you ask me!  We got our luggage and everything was there except for the car seat!  Now, I actually packed a bag to get us through a night as we seem to always end up losing a bag, but a car seat! I started to have a minute of panic and then just tried to tell myself that surely a car rental would rent a car seat.  About that time as I am in line to report it, a man in blue overalls comes walking through he airport with the car seat!  The Lord was watching over us on this day!  We picked up our car and we were on our way!!!

Our first stop was Heidelberg.  This is where I always took people on the first day to try to keep them awake.  It was snowing as we drove there and there was about 3 or 4 inches on the ground.  We arrived at the castle and Jemma was surprised to see how big it was, but she was more interested in the snow!  We walked up to an open park area to the left of the castle and let her play in the snow.  We didn't really have much choice as that was what she had in mind!  She made a snow angel and ran through the snow with her loud girly scream!  We said it was time to go in and she said she just wanted to play in the snow.  I tried my powers of persuasion with the whole, "It is an old old castle that kings and queens used to live in!" and "There are lots of old beautiful things that kings and queens once had!", but it didn't work.  She informed us that she really just wanted to play in the snow!  So... we all played in the snow and had an awesome snowball fight!  I was thinking that this might be a really cheap way to tour Europe!

Our first shot of the castle!  We had Jemma bundled in tights, long johns (how I found these in January in South Carolina, I will never know!), fleece pants, undershirt, turtleneck, shirt, scarf, coat, mittens, and hat!  It was like being back in Michigan!

More to come!

Day 1 - Charleston

Well, the BIG day had arrived and we were ready.  I was even packed and ready well before 2 a.m., but as usual couldn't sleep!  We got up around 9:00 and got everybody dressed and ready for the big flight.  Our neighbor was kind enough to drive us to the airport for our 2:00 flight.  I don't know why we felt we needed to get there so early.  Charleston airport is about the size of a small Walmart so not a lot of navigating to do, but alas, the Family was there and ready to go!

It was gray, overcast and a bit rainy in Charleston and we were hearing that bad with a capital B weather was heading to Atlanta which was our layover city.  Tom and I have traveled enough to know that this was not a good sign.  Our flight was delayed.  O.k.   We can hang.  Then it got delayed again.  They started working with us to try to make a flight to Germany.  Our choices became 1) fly to La Guardia, get all our stuff, take a taxi across New York City to JFK, and get on a plan there to take us to Frankfurt or 2) fly later to Atlanta and change planes again in Paris.  Well, neither of these was great with dragging all our luggage (4 bags, stroller, pink princess suitcase, and backpack) across New York being the least desirable so we went for the later flight. 

 Well, as tornadoes ripped through Atlanta we kept getting delayed and it ended up that we would miss that flight also.  Tom called it quits and had our neighbor come back and get us.  We went home with a very disappointed four year old.  Hey, at least the few little things that I had forgotten while sitting at the airport, I got to get that night!  We prayed for better weather and geared up for an early start the next day!

The Beginning

Hello everyone!  This is my first post and I have no idea what I am doing!  I just want to create a place to share stories from our life for our friends and family to see and enjoy.  I hope you do!