Once a year our sleepy little town wakes up and celebrates. This is a big deal for a country which has quiet hours (6am to 6pm on weekdays and Saturdays, all day on Sunday). Our village is pretty relaxed, but we have friends who have had issues for letting their kids play outside on Sundays, throwing away glass in the recycle bin on Saturdays (hours for recycling are 7am-5pm workdays) and warming up their car too early in the morning.

All those rules go out the window on New Year's Eve. Last year it caught us off guard, this year it didn't. Micah and Sadie woke up and watched for a few minutes. Fortunately, Taylor stayed asleep.

These fireworks are going off in our neighborhood. We had such a view on all sides of our home. Crazy how this stuff is legal. The house are made out of brick, unlike our houses of wood in the states. Less of a fire hazard, I guess. Maybe one year we will participate. For now, watching from the window is just as fun.

Christmas 2009

Two days before Christmas the weather was cold and snowy. It warmed up and the snow was washed away. No white Christmas for us this year.

Uncle Todd and Aunt Jen sent us these great Hawaiian duds. It was warm enough to wear them (in the house). And jumping around playing the Wii helped too.

Waiting for Dad to build a fire and turn on Christmas music. The kids look really tired. Why are you up so early?

Christmas was for me very relaxing. My favorite part was enjoying a clean house. Greg took the kids out on Christmas eve and I cleaned the house from top to bottom. I could really relax. Sounds silly doesn't it?

Some funny things

The other day, Micah was in trouble for fighting with Sadie. He and I discussed what punishment would be best for his naughty behavior. I suggested no TV for a day. He offered a counter suggestion, "how about I watch shows, but don't enjoy them?" Good try buddy.

Taylor has really enjoyed the Christmas lawn ornaments. There are plenty of lighted reindeer, who grace the yards, of our German neighbors. One dark morning as we walked to the bus, he pointed to deer who appeared to be drinking from a frozen pond. "Look mom, a giraffe, he's eating."

First day of Winter Break

This is one of the reasons why all the candy is gone from the advent calender four days before Christmas.

Making candy houses with the kids.

Taylor mostly ate. More candy went into his belly than on any house we built.

Sadie worked on a church.

A lovely Visit from Scott and Doris

At the Heidelberg castle.


Scott and Doris made a trip to England for a friends wedding. They popped over to Germany for a long weekend. We got to show them a bit of our turf, catch up with Scott and get to know Doris. We had a fabulous time! The kids loved meeting their Aunt and Uncle. Micah is ready to learn Chinese and Sadie has decided that we are going to move to Hong Kong. I think we can manage a visit in the future.

We visited Heidelberg, Trier, and Cochem. We enjoyed lots of yummy food. I tried my first Flammkuchen with Scott, (I know it is a bit late in coming), brats and even Italien Ice Cream. Unfortunately, the Christmas markets were not open yet, and many castles had closed the weekend before for the winter. We managed to see the Heidelberg castle and the relatively new castle that overlooks Cochem. Although the Christmas Market in Trier was not officially open, many venders had set up schop. We also popped over to Karl Marx birth house, which I hadn't seen yet on our two other visits to Trier.

My favorite part, of course, was the nice visit from family.

The glasses saga

We discovered Micah needed glasses when he was five. One eye was severely near sighted (so bad that you could call it far sighted), and the other eye saw perfectly. An inherited disorder, but correctable, Micah started patching his good eye, so that his bad eye would "learn" how to see better. We were told that he had until he was 8 years old to teach this eye to work better, at which point, the eye would permantly remain at that prescription.

In the summer we learned that he eye was done adjusting. The eye doctor informed us that Micah's eyes were no longer malleable. He would still need a very strong prescription in his left eye. This was sad news for Micah. He would forever have a one horrible eye (can't even be corrected to 20/20) and one good eye. At least he had a good one, I guess. Although, he would forever have problems with depth perception (there goes his professional sports career), and probably would never be able to enjoy a 3-D movie.....

Yesterday, we got more bad news. For the last few years we have been ordering our eye glasses off of the internet. Until now, I have be very pleased with the quality and service of the website. Last week, however, Micah failed an eye exam at school, WITH his glasses. He good eye registered at 20/200 and his bad eye 20/70. Yikes! I brought his glasses to the clinic and we discovered that Micah has been wearing the wrong prescription for the last month and a half! The prescpription was so incorrect, that it appears that the glasses were made for an entirely different kid.

Micah has been blind for the last six weeks, and another kid is walking into walls somewhere in the world.

I feel guilty, of course, how else does a mom respond. Today we are going to order a new pair from the eye glass store on post.

Life continues

When I was a new mom, all illnesses stressed me out. I kept kids home, with the slightest cough, and avoided all contact with others who looked sick too. I worried that my kids were dying with the slightest fever. You could call me a germ-o-phob. Over the years, however, I have learned that life goes on, after illnesses.

We have experienced the usually boughts of the stomach flu, which at first sent me over the edge. I have taken care of three kids with the anual flu, being sick with a fever myself. Bed bugs....done that. We all survived. This week I am happy to announce that we made it through an infestation of head lice....and yes.....we lived.

I am hoping those little guys didn't.

Apparently, 25% of the student body at Landstuhl elementary experienced a similar infestation.

On sunday, Micah was scratching his head during church. With his head on my lap, I casually sifted through his hair. That is when I saw something scurry across his scalp. I caught it with my bare hands, put it on a hymn book and scooted it over to Greg. Later, he told me that he looked my way, and saw me red-faced and wide-eyed. His eyes got wide too. "Let the fun begin," he said. "We are leaving," I responded. I packed up the kids and went home to start the laundry.

Three movies and four bottles of medicated shampoo later, the spa night at the Jensen's ended.

Although, it took three days to catch up on the laundry and a few days to get over the intial scare of the discovery. At first, I thought I might need therapy, but now....

Bring it on.......we can do a anything........

but do I we really have to?

odds and ends

Taylor has been really funny lately. When we arrived at our hotel in Strasbourg, he kicked off his shoes, crouched down, flexed his muscles and declared it " wrestle time."

Also, yesterday he notifed me that he needed a diaper change. At the top of the stairs he yelled down, "who is stinky?" With his hand raised he answered his own question, "me!"

Sadie also had a doctor appoitment yesterday. They tested her eyes. Taylor did the test with her, repeating every letter. She passed the test by the way. No glasses for her! We were worried that she had bad vision, because of our family history. She has the best vision in the family.

I need to catch up on blogging from the last week. We had a lovely visit from Doris and Scott (my brother and sister in law,) and a funy trip to Strasbourgh France (also known as the capital of Christmas.)

More things to come.