baby teeth

I took this picture, thinking it'd be the last one of Carly with her cute, little baby teeth. Her two front teeth are so loose that we thought for sure she'd lose them days ago! At this rate, maybe she will be singing "All I want for Christmas..." before her big chompers start coming in.

In the Spotlight

Some people have to worry about their kids being shy. That's one problem we've never had. Macy wouldn't let me forget that she wanted to celebrate her B-day at school (even though she has a later B-day) so she could wear the crown, be sung to, etc. She was really sweet about serving all the kids and teachers first before trying her own strawberry and Mtn. Huckleberry ice-cream. (Unfortunately, it ended up being really cold that day, but nobody seemed to mind).



She also basked in the attention she got from these Shirley Temple curls all day at church, thanks to a dad willing to play Beauty Parlor.

Worth Waiting For

We promised Carly (back in Dec.) that we'd take her to a movie for her B-day. We all loved seeing Tangled in 3D at the dollar movie, and even got to meet Rapunzel in front of her tower afterward!

A Weekend to Remember

My amazing cousin and her husband loaded up their newborn, toddler, and preschooler to make the trek to come see us. It was so fun to spend time and catch up together. The only fighting was about who could hold the cute baby next!

Some highlights:

Meeting Oliver
Getting to know Jack and Hazel better
Jack's kisses
Andrew's out-of-this-world Stromboli
Playing at the park
Going to "the animal museum"
Re-visiting Bridal Veil Falls together after more than a decade
Yoga Pretzels
Singing (Andrew's song was a big hit)
Late-night talks
Books, books, books
Playing games
Being with such patient, fun-loving parents
Just being together!

And you thought you had a bad hair day!

A woman in a fashion show from the Ukraine. (Reuters pictures)

Enjoying Every Second

Me: Macy, you only have a couple weeks left of preschool, so you better enjoy every minute of it. Macy: You mean every second?! Macy's often thankful for "preschool days" in her prayers. We are thankful beyond words (which is uncommon coming from "The Words of Watsons") for one of our very favorite people in the whole world who has taught all 3 of our girls. Because of Miss Dorie, we are happier, we love learning even more, we have more fun in our lives, and we're just better people all around.

Where else can you be a spider and wrap up your Daddy Blue Butterfly or your Mommy Green Grasshopper?

Call me old fashioned...

but I was just thinking about how sad I was when they came out with those Self-Check-Out stations at the grocery store, and especially at the library. Yeah, I went to the library to find new treasures, but often the best treasure I discovered was while talking with the librarians who checked out my books for me. They'd say things like, "Oh, that was a good one. Have you tried xyz yet?"

Besides missing out on this wisdom and enriching social interaction, I've since had to referee fights with the kids about who gets to check out how many books, while trying to keep track of which ones really have been checked out so we don't get surprised by the beeping security system on our way out.

After a similar experience at the grocery store (with the place where you scan things also being a scale so nobody can touch it), I avoid the Self-Check line like the plague, even when other lines are longer.

I realize these modern technologies are more efficient (at least for most people) which helps us save money, but I guess I miss the good ol' days, which my nine-year-old fondly remembers as "The time when people used to talk to us instead of their cellphones." (But, that's another story).

Modern Mannheim

I was happy to get to meet Myles' new boss and fellow researchers. They were very friendly and helpful. This building is where Myles will be doing most of his research. One of the researchers told us that it's declared "inhumane" for people to work in a place without windows, so Myles will get some pretty nice views of the outside world.

One of the views is of these modern buildings, which are part of the campus.

Fit for a King

The University of Mannheim is the biggest palace in Germany. I love the big courtyard, statues, and arches.

Kinder (child) + Spiel (play) + Platz (place) = Kinderspielplatz (playground)

The German language is so fun! They love compound words. Not just 2 word compound words, but 3, 4 plus. So, at first, when I saw "Kinderspielplatz" on a sign, I was like, "What the?" But, once I learned each word, it made sense.

One man told us that they expect parents in Germany to watch their children and be responsible for them, so they will have some fun playground equipment there that we won't allow in The States. He seemed to be describing some kind of a swinging teeter totter that was really fun.

When I saw this "natural" playground at one of the international schools, I had to take a picture for my friend who is trying to convince a local school of the benefits this kind of a playground gives to kids for walking on uneven levels, etc.

We thought these outdoor ping pong tables were pretty sweet.

We had to take this pic. for our girls and one of my aunts. They enjoyed a park with a similar pulley system by her house.

The Brewery

The social event for Myles' research conference was touring a brewery. The tour guide had a good sense of humor. He said he was covering for another tour guide who forgot to tell him it was an English tour. After a few drinks, he started speaking more German. Although we didn't participate in the sampling, we learned a lot, enjoyed the old building, and tried lots of good German food, family style. Our table included people from France, Germany, Russia, and the States. It made for interesting discussion. The guy from Russia spoke Russian, English, German, French, Spanish, and some Hebrew.

We were surprised that at most restaurants, water is as expensive as beer. We learned to ask for "still water," since we don't care for carbonated water. Water fountains are also very hard to come by, so we'll be packing our own water bottles, along with coins for the bathrooms, in the future.

Amerikanisch

I guess Build-a-Bear is a big hit, even in Germany. This monkey with lederhosen cracked us up!

I took this one for Macy. Don't worry, you'll still be able to see lovable 'ol Elmo when we're there!

I was really surprised to walk into a huge department store downtown and see a whole display of these!

German Grocery Stores

I was really surprised to see Aldi there. This was one of the cheaper, bigger grocery stores. One of them even had a real parking lot.

The aisles were pretty long and narrow. We ate out a couple times, but mostly went grocery shopping. We had fun trying lots of kinds of cheeses, breads, and yogurts. Prices seemed pretty reasonable. We learned that you need to bring your own bag or basket. We also learned that you need to bring a Euro for a deposit if you want to use a cart.

We bought what we thought was cheese which turned out to be mustard.

This gave a whole new meaning to tomato paste, since it came in tubes like our toothpaste does.

Schule (School)

This was one inner-city school we saw with a fun playground. Germans were actually the minority at this school, since there are so many immigrants from around the world. Turks seemed to have the biggest families (with 2-3 kids).

Before visiting, we thought we'd want our kids to attend German schools so they could learn the language better, etc. This was confirmed when we found out the price of international schools--$20,000 per child per year. Kindergarten is like our preschool here, not mandatory. So, we're waiting to hear back on the price of that (at a German school) since it'd be nice for Macy to get to go.

There's a "cage" around this soccer play place to keep the ball in.

It's hard to see, but there are some boys playing cards up there.

hallo

The first little town we stayed in claimed to be the hometown of the 1st telephone, so they had some fun old ones there. We thought our girls would get a kick out of the pink pay phones, and we called them once from the phone in the red booth.

Signs of Spring

The climate is similar to where we live now, only a bit milder. So, in Feb, we were already spotting some signs of spring.

This is a gumball machine outside of a gelateria. It was still a bit chilly for ice-cream, but I'm sure we'll try some when we get there this summer and most likely don't have AC.

Fun Signs

We thought these signs were pretty cute. Myles did a great job driving our rental car while I attempted to read the maps and navigate. It was pretty funny the first time he exited off the autoban, and I said, "Don't get off here. We're not going to Ausfahrt!" (Ausfahrt means exit).

We learned that you have to know your geography because the signs never tell you where you are, only where you're going toward. We also realized that you have to stop sooner than you're used to at intersections because the stoplights are directly above you, not above or across the intersection.

Sometimes, there were signs like Yield signs or stop signs connected to stoplights, which seemed confusing. Maybe they're used as back-ups if the power goes out? We never did figure out what the sign on the bottom meant.

Our most common question while driving was, "Is this a one-way?!" Many streets are so narrow that you think they should be a one way, but they are often not.

Cars in Germany

This is a place where Smart cars really are smart! Gas runs about $10 a gallon, and parking spaces are hard to come by. Too bad a fam. of 5 can't quite squeeze in. (We'll be walking, biking, or riding public transportation).

We thought it was pretty funny to see this bumper sticker.

The streets are so narrow, that it isn't uncommon for people to park like this, half-way on the curb.

On the right is a car elevator. Yeah, like the kind on those old Fisher Price Little People car garages. They enable 2 cars to park in the same place, one above the other. Since we're not so accustomed to this, they gave us the "lady's spot" on the left.

Back to Deutschland--the Castle

Thanks to Myles, our pics. are restored, and I can return to our Germany tour.

Enjoy!

We saw the outside, but decided to wait to tour the inside until we had the girls/other visitors with us. It's amazing to take in the view and imagine life during the time of the castles!

We enjoyed a pretty hike on the way down to the castle from our hotel all to ourselves. Non-tourist season definitely has some perks!

Our camera isn't very good at taking pics. far away, but the castle is on the left, and our hotel is on the very top at the right. We had an adventurous hike back up in the rain and the dark!

On the bridge

The bird is real. Myles liked how the statue looks like it's looking up at it, annoyed.

The castle's in the background. I'm standing on a very famous bridge in Heidelberg that has been re-built lots of times. (People liked to destroy it during times of war).

The other day, Myles told the girls the story about his dad throwing his bike off a bridge like this one at the end of his mission in Germany because he was so sick and tired of it! We'll have to look up his mission journal, and visit the actual bridge. His mom and dad are looking forward to visiting us after completing their present mission in Panama. We hope to meet some of the people his dad met as a young missionary in Germany.