Weeks 11-13: Finally!!

We finally moved into our new house (pictures coming soon) and the house where we will most likely be living for the next 3 years, which is exactly 3 times longer than we have ever lived anywhere!!!

It has been a little chaotic, to say the least, during this move. But.... we are starting to get a little normalcy back, which is good. The best part is that we have internet and phone with unlimited calls to the US. YAY!! Now if it weren't for the huge time difference I could actually call people.

A lot has happened since my last post. I promise, I will try to be brief.....

Right before we moved out of the hotel we took the missionaries out to eat on base at Wingers. They loved it! Whitney had us all cracking up.

I attended a 3-day class to learn all about Mannheim and what the Army bases had to offer. It was really informative. I only wished I had taken the class earlier! One day we took the train downtown. Here are a few of the other girls on the tour with me.



Inside the Mannheim castle there is a beautiful chapel with this sculpture of Alfred Delp. I thought it was interesting because this is the name of the street we live on.

While we were on the tour the Army paid for 3 days of daycare for Aiden and Whitney. One of the other girls on the tour had her son in the same class as Aiden. We all got together after class one day to play.


We have gone out exploring a couple of times in our new town. Just a couple blocks down from our house you are in a big field and forest. It's great to just run around in the field but I'm still too creeped out by the forest to go in too far. It's really dark and there are HUGE snails everywhere! You can't really tell by this picture but they are really big. The town is beautiful though.



May 18 was Whitney's birthday. I can't believe she is 2!!! We BBQ'd some burgers (her fave) and hotdogs, had some cake, presents, and soccer (her other fave). It was fun.

My sweet little 2-year old!

May 21 was a holiday for the Germans, every year our ward spends the day at Luisenpark on this day. Jeremy and Connor couldn't go since this is not an American holiday so Aiden, Whitney and I went. We had a blast! Whitney loved walking up to complete strangers and playing with them even though they didn't speak any English. She just made herself part of the group. Aiden loved playing sports with the Missionaries. They played football (American), baseball, soccer, and frisbee. Aiden was in heaven!







Over the Memorial holiday weekend we went to Strassbourg, France. It is only a couple hours away so we did it all in one day. I had to take this picture where you can see Germany on one side of the river and France on the other.


I put the rest of our pictures in a slide show. I haven't figured out yet how to do captions on the pictures... anyone know? In the pictures you'll see we explored the city on foot in addition to a tour on the Ill River by boat. The most impressive part of the city was the Notre-Dame Cathedral built in 1277. It was amazing! The stained glass windows were breath taking and dated back to the 13th century. Unfortunately the beauty was very difficult to capture in a picture... especially on a cheap camera. We ate little bits here and there at the local shops and markets then we had a picnic at a beautiful park before going home. It was a great day!

Week 10

Babysitting

A couple of kids showed up a couple of weeks ago at our boarding house. They started coming over everyday. Somehow our little group expanded to this:

The weird thing is that I haven't met any of their parents! These kids just show up at our door everyday after school and we have to bluntly kick them out when it's time to get ready for bed. Is it just me or is this weird!?! They all speak all different languages but their common link is English. I seriously feel like a babysitter.

Mexico

This week we got a package from my parents. They just returned from a cruise to Mexico. Luckily, they got back before the Swine Flu outbreak. It could have been rocks in the package for all the kids cared. Look how happy they are to get these cute shirts!

Thanks Mom and Dad.

Music Class

Connor's music class invited parents to come and watch. They don't do "music programs" so this is the closest thing to it. It was very interesting. Here's a video of one of their songs.

Connor is standing in line behind his little crush.
He's got this goofy look on his face because of it. lol!!!

Cute kids!

Volksfest

Manheim Volksfest is going on right now. When Jeremy was in Utah I kept telling the boys we would go when Daddy got back. We took the train to the city and checked it out.



So much FUN!!!

I had to catch a video of Aiden bustin a move while Connor and Daddy were on a "scary" ride. He's got some moves!

Finally

We are finally moving into our new house!!! I am so excited. Not only are we moving into a new, much larger, house - but we also get all of our things that were shipped here from the US. Wednesday is our last night at the boarding house. Thursday will be crazy. Everyone will be at our house inspecting, dropping things off, hooking things up, putting things together, etc.. I will most likely just hang out somewhere with the kids all day and let Jeremy take care of everything. But then that night we will sleep in our own beds again. YAY!!! Have I mentioned that I'm really excited!?!

Here are a few random pics that we took this week at the boarding house:

Week 9

This week started off with a fun hike through the Odenwald (Old Forest) on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The boys went up the huge bolders while I stayed back with Whitney (that's why all the pics are of her). Good thing too because Aiden almost fell backwards and Jeremy caught him just in time gashing his leg in the process.




We had a picnic afterwards


Just our luck the Ice Cream truck showed up after lunch... Score!


The rest of the week wasn't too exciting. Jeremy left mid-week to go to Utah for his brother, Brian's wedding. It was a surprise to everyone there (except his Dad and a few friends). I was sooooo jealous that we couldn't all go but it was good that he could go. We missed him LOTS!!! He took the camera with him with orders to take lots of pics while he was there, however, the last report I got was that he hadn't taken ANY pictures! Having too much fun I guess.

It's been fun talking to everyone on Skype this weekend. The kids love to be able to see Grandma and Grandpa, cousins, Aunts/Uncles, friends, and of course Daddy. I love it that it's free!

9 days until we move and it couldn't come sooner for me. I am so sick of eating out for almost every meal, keeping this small room clean, LAUNDRY, the smell of smoke in the hallways, the sleeping situation. I am, however, going to miss a few things too... getting all of our food paid for is great, plus the location of our boarding house is wonderful! There are so many places within walking distance. We go somewhere different every day. Overall, it's been good. It will be nice to be in our own place and finally get all of our belongings... but, in the meantime we are enjoying the journey.

Week 8

After returning late from Switzerland we woke up the next morning to Easter. The fun never ends! It was interesting having an Easter egg hunt in such a small room, but the kids loved it just the same. :)

Before ripping into the candy...



The Easter egg hunt



Whitney was more interested in cuddling with Daddy than finding eggs


The boys discovered the Easter gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Cates!

Thanks guys!!!



Whitney finally noticed the chocolate bunny


Counting up the loot


Easter breakfast (sad, I know!)




We got the missionaries to take a family pic of us. However, we have noticed that Whitney acts REALLY weird around them. She gets really shy and won't look at them. That made it difficult for taking pictures because she wouldn't look at the camera since they were there. We've never seen her act like that around anyone before.

After the pictures she went and picked a dandelion and gave it one of the missionaries. I think she has a little crush! LOL!



Whitney is the only kid in nursery right now so they don't have a teacher for her. I usually stay in there with her instead of trying to take her to classes. She absolutely loves this baby in there. She played with it for the first 2 weeks and then the 3rd week she hugged it just right and made it laugh. Whitney freaked out. She thinks it is crying. She's so happy to see her baby every week.




I just had to take a video of her playing with the little baby. It's so cute.



Daddy's Girl!



This week we happened upon a beautiful park and lake that was 8 minutes walking distance from our hotel. I couldn't believe that we never saw it before. We had a little picnic there and fed the ducks.




I thought it was cute that Whitney was singing to the ducks.... However, it soon turned out to be a little scary. See the video to see what I mean.




We came home to get Connor from the bus. Connor and Aiden ate an ice cream while looking out the window. Aiden loves it when Connor gets home.

Connor didn't have school on Friday for Parent/Teacher Conference. It was cold and rainy out so I decided to take the kids to the Heidelberg Castle. This castle was built in the 13th century as a Gothic castle. It took on more of a Renaissance look when it was remodeled in the 16th century. It was badly damaged by the Thirty Years' War and the 1689 war with France. Now most of it is in ruins. We didn't get to see over half of it because it was too hard with 3 kids and a stroller by myself. I wanted to stop and read everything but that was impossible. It was still quite impressive.

Taking the cable car up the mountain.