Just an update...

Hello Out There.



Just wanted to do a little update on things here. We are all doing ok. Jr has been working a lot lately. He was recently elected President of the Firefighter's Association here. That's pretty cool. I've just been hanging out, trying to get the house in order (this takes us forever! we are not the most organized family).



Alex is ok. He's been a bit sick lately, so just trying to get him feeling better. He has been learning tons of baby signs like more, eat, water, help, daddy, mommy, ball, book, please, thank you, doggie ... and the list goes on. I can't remember 'em all. He is also starting to talk lots more. He says daddy, mommy, eat, cheese, shoes, please, thank you (or da du), teeth, uh-oh, wow, more, hi, go, stay ... and again, I don't remember them all off the top of my head. But those are the big ones. Gives you an idea of what's important in his life :D Stay and go are commands for the dogs, who he LOVES. Especially Susie. Cheese??? Guess that's important. Teeth cuz he loves to brush his teeth, which he has several of. At least 9 and more coming in.



He is also walking sooo fast now, practically running, and has discovered climbing. But he hasn't discovered getting down yet. So he climbs up, gets stuck, gets scared, and whinnes 'till we help him down. The other day he climbed up onto one of his little kiddie chairs and couldn't get back down. So he stood on top of it whinning and signing "help" for at least a minute or two until we found him (bad parenting moment I guess. We were giving my Mom a tour of the house on Skype) and helped him down. He thinks he's brave. Until he climbs up onto something. Then he needs Mommy or Daddy to get down.



So what can I tell you about Germany???

I have finally gotten used to the driving here. Mostly. German driving is much faster that what I'm used to. And the roads are much narrower than in the states. Plus, passing is allowed almost anywhere, as is parking. Certainly took some getting used to. (Has anyone seen the movie The Holiday with Cameron Diaz? There's a driving scene in that movie that totally reminded me of learning to drive here. Minus the opposite side of the road part.)



Hmmmm...Food?

We have only eaten at a German resturant once so far. The food was delicious. Otherwise, we've eaten at Thai, Chinese, Greek and Tex-Mex places. Kinda funny. An American in Germany eating at a Thai place. Guess it's pretty normal though. Every country has food from lots of other cultures right? Just strikes me as funny.



Weather???

Up to a few days ago the weather has been beautiful here. Warm, but not hot. Sunny and clear most days. But it's changing now. It's definately getting colder, and the past few days have been rainy and overcast and quite foggy sometimes. The leaves on the trees are changing for fall, and they are ssooooo pretty. That part I do love.



Sight Seeing???

We haven't done a whole lot of that yet. We went to Echternach a while ago for a balloon festival. It is the oldest city in Luxembourg. My pictures of that trip were on my phone, which, unfortunately had some melt down the other day and I lost everything on it. So no pics of that. Sorry. I'm sure we'll be back there though. It's only about 30min away. Anyway, we had gone to the Abbey, a big shopping square and a park where the festival was. Right next to the park there are Roman ruins. It was just crazy to see hot air balloons floating right over Roman ruins while we played in the park with the kids.



We also went to a city called Koblenz. We had a picinic in the Ikea parking lot (does Ikea count as sight seeing???) I know, odd. A picinic in the parking lot. It was just a timing thing. Did some sight seeing there too. Nooo, not at Ikea. In Koblenz, Silly. So...this time I forgot the camera. No pics again. Sorry :(

One night we went to a Renaissance festival at a Castle in Manderscheid. Very fun. There was a jousting match, yummy food, and shopping booths for cool Renaissance-y things. Oh, and an awesome fireworks show. It's a yearly thing, and next year we are definately going back and spending more time there. Oh, and dressing up too!

Oh, forgot about Pigfest. That was a fun festival. (There are tons of festivals here all summer long. At least one every weekend) Roasted pigs, people dressed up in crazy costumes, tons of cool shopping booths, and carnival games and rides.

Let's see ... Most recently we went to Trier, the oldest city in Germany. Very, very cool place. Can't wait to go back. There we toured the Porta Nigra -the Roman City Gate. We went to the cathederal where Christ's robe is kept. And we walked through Constantine's throne room. It was a very long and fun day. Can't wait to go back. There is sooo much to see there. Here's something funny that happened though: Alex got his first bee sting. He was stung by a dead bee. Yep. A dead one. He was crawling on some steps where he put his hand on a dead bee and the stinger got stuck in his hand. Poor guy. But he was fine. Just had a puffy little red hand the next day.

Well, that's all I have for now. I know you wanna see pics. And I promise I'll put some up. It's just such a chore to get them off of the camera!! It's true, I'm not all that great with computers. Or anything else electronic for that matter. But hey! 1 blog every 2 months. What more do you want?!?! Oh yea, pics. That's right. Next time.