Sunday, April 5, 2009

Week 6

This week has been full of wonderful and terrible events. Starting with the wonderful... The weather has been beautiful! 70's every day and sunny!! Here are some pics of us enjoying the weather :)

This is the slide outside of McDonald's. It's 1.2 miles each way, but worth every step! :)



The back view of our boarding house





My Mom sent me a new baby leash since Whitney lost her first one. I had been looking everywhere here for a new one because it was soooo nice to have it. THANK YOU MOM!!!!!





Aiden was soooo impressed with these bugs because they were stuck together. He said "I know why they're stuck together... because one's the Dad and he wants to go to the bank and the other one's the Mom and she want to go to the grocery store". He carried them all the way home with us. Gross!



Connor dribbled his ball the whole way home!!



A nice guy from church brought this puzzle one day for the boys. Aiden was so proud when he put the whole puzzle together by himself.



I thought I would post some pics of some interesting things about the grocery stores here:



Shelf milk and shelf eggs: I still can't get use to the idea of them not being refrigerated. They even have colored eggs for Easter!





The dreaded laundry room....



I thought I would include a picture of the pop machine at our boarding house. If you notice you can get a (glass) bottle of soda for 1.50 Euro or a bottle of beer (bier) for 1.75 Euro. So funny!



The Easter Primary Activity





Now... the terrible:

As most of you know, we put Whitney back on the bottle for a couple of reasons. One, because of this big move. We thought it would make things easier (and it has!). Also, because right before we left we found out that she still has VUR and it's really important that she drinks a lot of water. She will drink anything out of a bottle! So... we let her have them again after completely weaning her from them. (Jeremy insists there is a third reason that has something to do with me not wanting my last baby to grow up.... he may be slightly right). I'm still glad that we have the bottles right now, but that's not the bad part.

Since we moved here I wanted a couple more bottles to have on hand. The store I went to on this day only had glass bottles but I thought that it was ok since this is the healthiest way to drink water, or any beverage, without the chemicals and toxins that plastic has. I bought 2 small glass bottles there. Well, on our walk Friday I had Whitney on the baby leash (which I LOVE!) so she could walk but I also brought the stroller for when she got tired. I grabbed the last clean bottle (one of the glass ones) on our way out and put it in the bottom of the stroller. During our walk Connor and Aiden started running down the hill in the wrong direction. I had to stop and turn to them to tell them to come back up the hill. While my back was turned Whitney found the glass bottle. As we started walking again she, of course, tripped and fell breaking the glass bottle and landing on it. As awful as it was, it could have been so, so, so much worse! The bottle did slice the palm of her hand though. She was bleeding a lot! I grabbed Aiden's coat and wrapped it around her hand. It wouldn't stop bleeding. I called Jeremy at work and realized I had the wrong number in my cell phone. I tried calling his boss and that number wasn't right either. I didn't have other numbers with me. So, with Whitney bleeding and screaming, both of the boys crying because they were worried about Whitney and pushing the stroller I eventually got all the kids back to the room so I could clean her wound. I was happy to see that she missed the major blood vessels in her wrist and she could still move her fingers. She cried so hard as I cleaned it that she wore herself out and fell asleep for 3 hours. By this time Jeremy finally came home with the car. When she woke up we dropped the boys off at the Primary activity and then went to the ER. The Doctor said that she did need stitches but that we waited too long and now she couldn't sew it up. Instead she had to put a splint on her to make sure the wound would stay closed and that bacteria would not get inside. Whitney was so brave even though her whole body was shaking. She would even say "Danke Shon" (Thank you) in between sobs to the Doctor and Nurse. I felt like the worst Mom in the world when the Doctor told me not to give her glass bottles! That was totally something that I would have normally predicted happening and should not have taken the glass bottle. I threw the other one away when we got home too. I'm sorry Whittie!! :(

My bandaging job



The splint



Saturday Jeremy stayed home with Whitney and I took the boys to Luisenpark in Mannheim. OMG! This park was crazy! It had everything there from a small petting zoo, aquarium, butterfly house to mini-cars, parks, boats, and the most beautiful flowers and lawns I've ever seen. It's know as one of the most beautiful parks in all of Europe. Instead of posting all my pics I thought I would try creating a slide show instead. Enjoy!


Sunday, March 29, 2009

Week 5

This was a really good week here. The weather got yucky again, it rained pretty much every day. However, we had places to go almost everyday so that was good. Tuesday we took the missionaries on base to let them shop at the commissary and get some Taco Bell. They were LOVING IT!!! Wednesday a woman from church came and picked us up (Aiden, Whitney, and me) and took us to her house. She doesn't have any little kids anymore but she still had some old toys and it was just nice for a change of scenery without having to walk in the rain to get it. Thursday a different woman from church came and picked us up and took us to Ladenburg. This is the oldest town in Germany (98 BC). It was such a charming town. The Romans were the first ones that lived there so there is a lot of Roman architecture still there. It was so interesting. It was also the home of Carl Benz (Mercedes Benz). We saw the home that they lived in as well as the museum. It was closed but we got to look through the windows. :) Saturday I took the boys to Sea Life in Speyer. (Thank Goodness for my GPS!!!) Jeremy stayed home with Whitney because she woke up really early and didn't sleep well the night before, she has a little cold, and because we thought she would make it miserable for everyone else there. That night we all went to an International Potluck at church. There were almost 20 different countries represented there. It was so interesting to see and taste all the different kinds of food. I took BBQ Ribs from a restaurant on base. Today was Ward Conference at church and they finally announced our membership at the ward. Unfortunately I had to stay home with Whitney. Her cold seems to be getting worse and she's not sleeping. I think she's teething on top of this cold. Poor thing. The other highlight from today is that we discovered that we can get the internet in our room!!! We've tried before and never could. For some reason it worked today. So, we've all been online all day. When the boys got home from church they played all their computer games for about 3 hours! They were giddy about it. It was so fun! I don't think I'll ever take the internet for granted ever again after this. Anyway, since we got internet in our room that also means that I can finally post pictures. I uploaded all the pictures from my camera and couldn't believe that I had 227!! After deleting all the bad ones even! So.... I won't post ALL the pictures but I will post a lot of them. I want the pics on the blog for my blurb book. I didn't spend a lot of time editing though.... it would have taken me all day.
Enjoy!

Pics #1

Aiden's going away party





Connor's going away party





Our hotel in KC before the big move



Saying good bye to the Mantels









Saying good bye to my girls (Emma and Audrey)







Saying good bye to the KC Cates

















The airport






Pics #2

We're in Germany!!

Here's a little park by our Boarding House.











This is Bronshu (I'm sure this is not the correct spelling but this is how it sounds). He's the little boy that lives next to us. They have lived in this Boarding House for over 2 years!!!



The saddest birthday ever! Jeremy turns 33.





The Backerei (Bakery)



We usually go to the Bakery every morning and then stop at the park on the way home. On this day, I caught Whitney sneaking a bite of the baguette before we could get it home. lol!!!





Typical Aiden... he's always got a stuffed animal in his arms. We found these really cool foam things. They're made from corn starch. You just get them a little bit wet and they stick together like glue.



Whitney got a little too excited about the bubbles... ooops!



Little weiners are yummy and fun to eat!! :)



Jeremy's boss is so nice to let us use his car until our van gets here. We barely fit but it's better than walking!!





Jeremy's office



The kids have each figured out ways to entertain themselves in our new, much smaller surroundings...