The many faces of Maggie

The kids are napping right now and I just downloaded over 300 pictures from the past 2 months onto shutterfly and have been laughing at all the different (yet somehow similar) faces I have gotten of Maggie. She is so funny and says the cutest things. Thought I would share some of these pictures with you all.

Fun at the carnival

A few weeks ago there was a carnival down by the sea that we went to. Maggie is very into beauty in the beast right now so she was thrilled to find this tea cup with beauty and the beast on it.
She rode this ride over and over and loved it. We all (me, owen, joe, mom, and maggie) went on a ride on a ferris wheel which sounded like a good idea until we got to the top and realized that the wind blowing off the sea was even colder that high up.

Here are some pictures of mom's attempt to get Owen's hair to lay down better. She washed it and put this hat on...He would fit in perfectly in Jamica with his dreads and his peace pipe huh. Oh yeah, hair still stuck up!











Here are some cute pictures of Maggie and Owen playing. She has begun letting him play Dora with her some.

American hamburger in Germany.........Too good to be true?

The answer is yes! So today we headed to Hamburg to go to a English speaking church we found there. The guest speaker was actually a NFL player from the states. I don't know who it was, but Joe said he was really good. I didn't get to hear him since I was hanging out in the childrens church/nuresry with Maggie and Owen. The whole church service is in English, adn most people there speak english...yet the sunday school is totally in German. I guess it's because the little kids may not know English yet. WEll, Maggie would not sit still to listen to the story, not that I could blame her since she had no clue what the story was even about. But she jumped right up to join in for snacks and craft. After church we headed to a restaurant I had found online called the Louisiana Bar and Restaurant that was American cuisine. We sit down and Joe and I are so excited to see "Classic American Hamburger" on the menu, along with fries and cokes. We put in our order, along with a vanilla milk shake for Maggie. Several minutes later out comes our meals. The first odd thing we notice is Maggie's milk shake....she takes a drink and looks at us and says.."Maggie likes it Momma??" As if to convince herself that she does. I take a sip and say, no honey, I don't think you do. It is exactly what the menu said...a milk shake, or shook up milk. No ice cream, whip topping, or cherry. Just milk shook up. Luckily we had brought her some yogurt adn peanuts so she was okay with sitting aside her (3 dollar) "milk shake." Joe and I begin to eat and immedietly look at each other. I spit out my bite of hamburger and am like, "what in the world is this" Joe swallows his and being the Germany optomistic that he is, says...it's not too bad honey. We never did figure out what the burgers were made of, she told us it was cow beef, but it was not the cow meat we know. Anyhow, we left our entire burgers there (even joe didn't take another bite of his) and paid our bill and left. So anyhow, American cusine obviously doesn't exist in germany. We stopped at a Ben and Jerry's on the way out and got ice cream. It was the same...aside from the fact that you were only allowed to have 1 scoop if you got a cone. The cones were not big enough to hold more than 1 scoop.
The Germans love their beer...in fact we saw today that you can get beer to go with your nachos at the movies as a combo. Right next to the popcorn and coke combo.

We met up with the American couple yesterday that is moving here in June. They were here on their house hunting trip and found one only about 5 minutes from ours which will be great. Her name is Kim and she's really nice. She paid alot of attention to my kids, which always helps when your a mom too! Her kids are almost the exact age as mine so I am sure we will be spending quite a bit of time together.
Joe got the baby seats on our bikes today, so we are officially the Mark and Mary of Germany! He took Maggie out for a quick ride tonight and she loved it. Since everything is closed on Sunday, that is probably how we will spend most of our Sunday evenings.

Here are some more pictures of the house. Here are the stairs that I get to go up and down all day doing laundry.


Here is the kids playroom















Here is the upstairs room that we use as a family room area.

Month one in Germany

So, our first month in Germany has been quite an interesting one. I still do not have my internet up and running properly and am forced to go down to the basment on our old (slow) computer to check emails and update my blog. What have I learned thus far about Germany.......nothing gets done quickly. I have been waiting for the internet/telephone man to come and move my phone jack (yes, you only get one per home)to my main floor for 3 weeks now. He and the garbage man who is suppposed to bring me my trash bins for rubbish and for bio trash must be hiding in the same place because he also has yet to show himself.

I am posting some pictures of my home, these are all from the main floor. I haven't taken any of the upstairs or downstairs yet but will post those later.

























Maggie and Owen are doing great.

Owen is not crawling yet, but has no problem getting all the way across a room by a combination of rolling/army crawling. I don't figure it will be too long. He had his first taste of cottage cheese last week and loved it. I went to the market yesterday and stocked up on lots of fruits and veggies to make for him. His friend Carlyn's mommy told me about this great appliance called the magic maxx (magic bullet in the US) which makes up his baby food in literally 10 seconds. It has been great....Thanks Kirsten! Anyhow, Maggie has adapted great to Germany and enjoys walking around saying chees! and Danke! to everyone she sees. (these mean goodbye and thank you) some people seem to think it's cute, others just look at her with a strange look on their face.
The weather has been really nice this week, mid 60's to 70. We have been outside alot playing which the kids love. There are several older kids in our neighborhood who are really sweet to Maggie and let her join in kicking a soccer ball with them. She also has become pretty fond of chasing and trying to feed and pet all of the dogs, cats, and birds in the neighborhood. She has one particular bird named Harry (basically any black bird with a orange beak) that we are always trying to hunt down and throw peanuts at. I have her Mimi to thank for the naming of Harry and the feeding him. She told me today that she missed Megan, Emma and Mary and wanted to see them. I told her that they were too far away to see right now but we would visit and she looked at me and said, "I need some new friends then." I told her I was working on that.....I have 3 playgroups lined up, 2 are english speaking (one of the two is american) and the 3rd is german speaking. We also have another american family from Illinois moving here in June that have 2 kids the same age as my kids so that will be great.
German lessons are going good and I reallly like my instructor. She is super nice and has been really helpful with everyday things in Germany which has been reallly nice since Germany and helpful don't really go hand in hand for the most part. I had my first conversation in German today in a grocery store and it went rather well. I left the grocery store knowing to go back on tuesday and they will have ordered plain cheerios for me to pick up. (well....at least that is what I think I know...we will see on tuesday i suppose)
well, here are some new pics. I put all my other pictures from our first few weeks on our computer upstairs so I will have to post those after that computer gets up and running. We miss you all and hope you all come to visit us!!

Denmark

So mom and I decided to venture out to Denmark one day last week. We had a good day and thanks to our GBS system didn't make any wrong turns. (Of course, we probably didn't need it since I had mom and her map with me) We took off that morning with our German dictionary and euros in hand ready for the day. After getting there though, we realized that in Denmark they speak Danish, not German and use some other werid form of money and not euros. Luckily they also accepted euros too since they are so close to Germany but as for the launguage we were pretty much on our own. The people there I thought made Germans seem friendly....which is a long shot. We shopped around some and ate at a small diner that we found. There was a light house there that we went up in (after forking over 10 euros) and also saw the prince of Denmark's castle. The down point of the day was when we got ready to come home and found we had a ticket on our car. Seems that you were supposed to put some sort of timer on your car saying what time you left and you have to be back within 3 hours or you get a ticket. Well, since we didn't know that nor did we have a timer we ended up with a ticket. Instead of just heading home and letting Cat take care of it (since the car is leased in their name) we hunted down the police station and mom went in to pay for it. After 45 minutes and 70 euros we finally headed back to Germany. Can you believe a 70 dollar ticket for parking a little too long??? Anyhow, we had a good day and now can add Denmark to our list of places we have been.....but don't care if we return, right mom? :)

We are here

Hello to all of you who check my post daily waiting for some sign that we are in Germany alive and well. Well, here is that sign!! We think we finally have internet up and running as of tonight although the wireless isn't working so i have to come down in the basement on Joe's laptop to get online right now. We had a great trip over here, the flights were not bad at all and the kids could not have been better. When we landed in Amsterdam after our 8 hour flight a lady getting off that was sitting a few rows behind us said, "gosh, I didn't even know you had 2 babies up here." So that was a nice relief. It didn't take any of us long to adjust to the time change and the kids were so happy to be back into their own beds. As for my house over here, it is HUGE. I don't believe I have ever been in a bigger home and I know I will never live in a bigger one than this. Maggie and Owen have plenty of room to play and that is just what Maggie has been doing.

It is very different here, and none of them in a good way. It's not horrible here at all....it's just no America. First of all, they have some stupid obsession with saving the world by recycling every piece of trash possible. Right down to your snot rags and the twist ties for your bread. I have to have 5 different trash bins for all my different kinds of trash. And then, you are only allowed to fill your different trash bins up to a certain point in the can......which creates quite a problem when you have 2 babies in diapers AND they only pick trash up every 2 weeks! So anyhow, we got in trouble this week because we had too much trash in teh can and it was the wrong kind of trash. ( I only know this because my german teacher read me the note that was on my trash can)

Mom has had a good time here, I think she would actually enjoy living here for 2 years. She has made more friends here in 3 weeks than I will probably make the whole 2 years. Not a surprise if you know my mom though! We have a train in our town that you can walk to and it will basically take you anywhere you'd want to go. She and I have done that a few times and just gone to the big shopping mart some. We drove to Denmark on monday for the day which was fun. Not much to do there but shop and eat but we can now say we have been there. As far as the food.....it pretty much sucks, as far as I am concerned. They are supposed to be famous for their sweets but I have yet to taste one that even tastes sweet. The good news is I have already lost 5 pounds since we got here!

Maggie and Owen are doing great. Maggie loves riding the train everywhere and alwasy insists on holding the ticket. (she only lost it once) Mom and I have had a few crazy experiences on there, the worst one being the day it stopped at our stop on our way home from shopping but closed within 20 seconds and took off before we got off the train. So we had to ride all the way to rendsburg, which is about a half hour away and wait there an hour until the train came back to Felde, our town. (This may seem like no big deal, but keep in mind that we can't read the signs nor could we talk to anyone and find out how and when the train came back) Lucily, we had blocked the entrance to get off the train to another guy so we just followed what he did.

Well, I am going to get to bed. I have lots of pictures to post and more to write about later. Just wanted to let you all know what was going on with us. Miss you all!!!!

Germany here we come

Maggie spent the morning hanging out with her Grandad. They played outside and sat on the swing before coming in and eating some popcorn. She is gonna miss him so much, she thinks he is coming with us to Germany and probably won't be very happy when he doesn't get on the plane with us. I caught some cute pictures of them this morning on the swing talking. Dad is really going to be sad after we leave. As much as he is gonna miss mom and I, I doubt it compares to how much he is gonna miss coming home from work to Maggie and Owen. He will be a bacholer for over 3 weeks so if anyone has extras invite him over for dinner!


We went out and visited Mama Sue and Papa Whitey one last time today. It was sad to say bye to them since my Papa was diagnosed with lung cancer recently so I know this may be the last time we see him. He loves the kids and they really took to him also.

Everything is packed up I hope. I have 6 suitcases stuffed full plus maggie's carseat to check so we are getting there in plenty of time to check in just in case we have to do some luggage rearranging. I hope the flight goes smoothly and the kids do well. The plan is for them to sleep so hopefully that is what will happen. Well, I may not post again for awhile since I don't know if our internet is up and working yet, but keep checking in. I will be back on as soon as I can.

All our bags are packed we're ready to go...........

okay, so technically not everything is packed, but almost! We have had a fun, busy week. The kids and I went over to my friend Kari's house yesterday and the kids played great. We also got to see her new baby girl, Klaire, who is totally adorable! We were bound and determined to get a picture of the 4 kids together and finally did. Photographing 4 kids under the age of 2 isn't easy at all, espeically when 2 of them can't sit up yet.






Maggie and Christian had lunch togther while watching Higglytown Heros.


Today I ran a few last minute errands while Mom watched the kids. Aunt Pat came out and hung out with them kids this morning. She and mom took them on a walk, it was 75 degrees today, so a great day for it. Maggie loves the bunny ears Neila got her and even shared them with Owen today. He obviously knew he looked cute!(even in pink ears!)


Maggie has started enjoying holding Owen more lateley. I don't know how fond he is of it though!

We fly out tommorow evening at 4:30 so I will try to post one more time before we leave.

LEXINGTON!!

So today we spent in the promise land.........Lexington, Kentucky. Haha This is by far the best town ever and everytime I visit I remember how much I want to live here. I am staying hopeful that we are able to move back here after our time in Germany, it's a long shot but there is always a chance. This town has like every restaurant you would ever want to go to, at least 2 of every store I like to shop at and to top it off there is a picture studio (even a picture people) on every corner.
We had so much fun getting to see Neila-Susan, and she looks so cute pregnant!! Only two more months until her baby boy Carson arrives. I am trying to plan a trip home this summer so I get to see him.
Maggie loved getting to see Neila again and of course enjoyed the easter basket she brought her complete with bunny ears!!

Maggie also had fun feeding some birds a left over granola bar with her. We had a great lunch at Johnny Carrino's (spelling??) and then shopped a bit before meeting up with Matt at Wild Oats natural food store.


He couldn't visit long since he had to get back to class at 4 but Maggie was so happy to see her uncle matt.


He took her to Joseph Beth to look at books and then over to Cold Stone to get ice cream. He let her pick what she wanted for them to share and they ended up eating cake batter ice cream with gummie bears in it. He obviously loves her alot huh!! Owen only got to hang out with Matt for a few minutes since he slept most of the time but woke up in time to get a picture with him.


See where Owen gets his cute smile!!

We visited with Neila a little more before heading home and getting everyone to bed. More visiting is on the list for tommorow along with trying to start getting things together.