+4

Hmmm. Nothing yet. Tomorrow, Jodi will be the same overdueness as she was with Reese. We're having burgers for supper on Christmas Eve. I even bought the "American style mega-burger" buns. Definitely traditional. I think duck is the traditional Christmasy meal here.

Jodi and Jeff

Back to the Present

Well, I think we will do some present time stuff as well as recapping some of our previous adventures in-line, just to make things more confusing. We are currently at the baby's due date +3, so we are a little antsy at the moment. We were hoping that the baby would be born already, and we could enjoy some time at Christmas and get sort of used to having another one before we move (that's right) on the 29th. So, it is almost Christmas Eve, and no baby. Five and a half days until the move.

Jodi and Jeff

Recap: January 27, 2009 - Erika's 4th birthday

It was good. Jodi remembers that it was nothing special and Erika seemed less than happy. Sounds kind of sad. To put it in perspective, she was really struggling with school at the time. We were thinking of pulling her out for good - she was being very quiet and didn't seem to be playing very much with the other kids. Also, her ears were really bugging her. We took her to a bunch of specialists and almost got the adenoids out. Only one of her ears kind of worked and you really had to talk loud or pretty much yell into it. So all in all, maybe she didn't even know it was her birthday. The highlight was her laufrad (running bike) and going for a spin.

Jodi and Jeff

Recap: January 2009, Bern CH

In January, we went on a great trip to Switzerland with my Mom.  We stayed a couple of nights in Bern, and took a drive to Interlaken.  Here goes:

This one I think is kind of funny (in a bad sort of way).  It looks like she is about to slip through the fence and roll off the cliff.  Now there is quality parenting.  Actually, it wasn't that sheer...  These first three are on the walk into the downtown part of Bern:

 

  Downtown Bern:

In Interlaken, amid the Alps:

 

Back in Bern, us at the start of 2009:

 

We spent most of our money on drinks to keep warm and Swiss chocolate.  Mmmm...  One thing that stands out is the Swiss restaurants, that still allow smoking inside throughout.  Nothing like ravioli a la 2nd hand.  Unbearable.  All in all, Bern remains one of our favourite spots.  Bye for now,

Jeff and Jodi 

Recap: Christmas Day (Dec. 25, 2008)

Here we are opening all the presents, that's about it for the description:

,

Not sure what the next post will be about,

Jeff and Jodi 

Recap: Christmas Eve (Dec. 24, 2008)

Oh dear. So, we are trying to recap until the present, although we are definitely not keeping up. Nothing like a six month break when we were already six months behind. Apparently this is Christmas Eve, 2008. Reese running for some reason...
Bunch of Christmas pictures, all special with their own stories:

Here's Reesey holding up the catch of the day (a nice walleye):

Christmas Day 2008 up next!

Jeff and Jodi

Recap: Christmas Activities (Dec. 7-23, 2008)

The two weeks before Christmas we went to the Freiburg Weinachtsmarkt, made lots of cookies, and tried our hands at plenty of Christmas crafts (thanks Mom S. and Lesley). So, we thought we would detail some of the highlights. First up, completely unrelated to Christmas - fingerpainting. Well, actually fingerpainting cleanup. The soupy pictures the kids made took a few days to dry on the wintergarten. Reese liked his sink bath:

Now on to the cookies. Check out the intense concentration from Reese. He is very proficient at dusting a Russian teacake with icing sugar:

Jodi saw a picture of Jolayne E.'s little girl Emma with a cute little craft that we had to copy. It was a hit and Erika enjoyed her fluffy big snowman:

At the Freiburg Christmas market, Heitzmann (the local bakery we spend half of my pay cheque at) had a booth set up and in the back you could pay three euros to decorate and bake gingerbread cookies. They did a really good job and Erika had so much fun. We really got our money's worth (no joke) with this one:

Reese enjoyed Erika's finished products (and he got a hat too):Erika really loved the foam gingerbread house that Lesley sent over. It was a really neat craft, although required a huge amount of patience and persistence on Jodi's part to get the thing to stand up, but the decorating was fun. It even had a musical pushbutton that played non-stop Jingle Bells thanks to Erika:

My Mom sent over a gingerbread house with all the candies and icing to decorate it. Jodi decided this year to just let the kids do what they wanted to do with the decorating:

Voila, the end product of a 3-year-old's imagination and the hands of a mother holding back the tides of two sugar-infused kids while trying to ice the house. The back side was Reese's, and it was equally as cute.

Jodi had an idea (or flashback) of a craft - the foam ball snowman. So, we brought out the pipecleaners and threw together some pretty handsome snowmen. Erika needed to have a backpack and purse on hers:

Reese didn't have any major requests for accessories, but, boy was he proud of his snow man:

You can see in the background in the above picture too that we hung some lights out on the wintergarten. I wanted to ducktape them everywhere but was constrained to the wintergarten windows only. Baby steps, next year the invasion begins...

Jodi and Jeff

Recap: St. Nicolaus (Dec. 12, 2008)

There is a tradition in Germany about St. Nick. He doesn't come at Christmas, but he comes on the 12th (at least he did this year). Kids clean their shoes and put them outside and St. Nick fills them with walnuts and chocolate. He also visited the kindergartens where they had stockings and received walnuts and chocolate. It's a really cute tradition that I think we will try to keep up on even after we come back. Erika really enjoyed it, Reesey didn't quite get it, but enjoyed the chocolate in the morning. Here's old Mr. Double Dipper and sister sitting by their shoes just outside our door (the lovely blue door):

This movie correctly displays Reese's state of mind over the whole procedure (especially the last ten seconds):

The only thing we will change for next year is we will get a nutcracker rather than have Jodi smash the walnuts with a hammer. Worked fine, but perhaps a touch dangerous for the kids holding the walnuts.

Jodi and Jeff

Recap: Christmas With Mom (Dec. 1, 2008)

Minus the stark-white walls, we could sure tell Christmas was in the air. Here is the extent of our decorating for the year:Re-buying all of the Christmas decorations was fun and painful at the same time. We didn't have tons of money to get all/what we wanted, but we tried to do our best. Not quite the same as the Michener setup, but I think I already talked about that. As the month passed by, we added to our decorations with lots and lots of crafts (to follow). Mom had some gifts for the kids and considering this was as big as the Christmas gathering was going to get, we had a little party: Martha Stewart honey-mustard cornish game hen (actually turkey) and my absolute favorite, pecan crusted cornbread stuffing (no joke). Yum. Well, at least the turkey. Jodi and Mom loved the stuffing. The only thing the meal was missing was sweet potatoes (Jodi's favourite) but we couldn't seem to find them anywhere. Here's the spread:

Actually, it looks pretty gross. But really, it tasted a lot better than it looks. Looks like a pile of giblets. Jodi's getting a little offended right now. Silly pictures of food. After the feast, which ended with homemade Christmas pudding with massively overestimated amounts of vinegar in the first batch of sauce (vinegar in Germany is 5 times more concentrated, oops, sorry burnt lungs), the kids enjoyed Grandma and Grandpa's presents:

Erika's Christmas dress from the 'Early Elves' - that would be us:

Sorry about the dark video (again) but Erika was pretty cute opening up the dress, so we had to put it in:

It was a perfect way to start of December with Jodi and Mom having fun cooking a big dinner and watching the kids enjoy early gifts with music and candles. Ahhh...

Jodi and Jeff

Recap: Titisee Weinachtsmarkt (Nov. 30, 2008)

The next day we went the opposite direction of Colmar to the Black Forest and the Titisee Weinachtsmarkt. We wanted to get in as many Christmas markets as we could and also Mom G. wanted to see lots before she left in a couple of days. We packed Erika's snowpants and she played lots in the snow:Reese didn't have snowpants yet so he got to walk. Here we are strutting it up down mainstreet Titisee:

Ahhh, a nice family picture. Reesey is staring at a man-size excrement in the pile of snow beside us, a common find in Germany:

A couple more of Mom and us standing by the lake:

What was this day supposed to be about again? We didn't get any pictures of the Christmas market or Kris Kringle (their version of Santa Claus which is very different from ours - the Coca-Cola variant). Germany's Kris Kringle looks more like a bishop with a big grey beard and a red and white cloak. Maybe next year...

Jeff and Jodi

Recap: Colmar Weinachtsmarkt (Nov. 29, 2008)

Well, word around the office was that Colmar has a pretty good Christmas market, so we figured we should check it out. It's a three leg journey to get there (25 min. tram, 25 min. train, 50 min. bus) so we started out relatively early and semi-bundled up for a cool day outside. We hadn't bought snow pants for Reese yet, but, seeing as we are habituating ourselves in Germany, we did as they do and bought a pair of boys' tights. Wait for the picture of what Reese thought of this practice. Anyway, here's Erika on the S-bahn (kind of like a train):Our wonderful family on a cute little street in front of a faux-neige (we are in France now, oui oui) tree. I thought it was a good time to play with my omnipresent five o'clock shadow:

Here we are waiting in line for a toasted sandwich, French style. We can't quite remember what it was called, but it was kind of a cross between a Royal burger from Red Robin and an Egg McMuffin. Actually, no, it was good old buns, meat and cheese thrown in a press. Are we in Germany? In France, they like to squirt on extraneous sauce - it's quite tasty:

Erika was coming down from her second massive sugar rush from a Christmas market specialty for kids: a huge crepe smothered in a full cup of Nutella. Seriously, there was lots on there. At the end, we could squirt half of it out and pass it back to her and it was still leaking out. Ahh, the wonderful Christmas markets; here's Jodi and Mom and the kids posing in front of a couple of the booths that were set up. Apart from the various food merchants selling brezels, crepes, huge, viva puff-like marshmallow chocolate mounds, taffy, Christmas cakes, and a type of sweet wine (gluhwein), there were many proprieters selling Christmas ornaments and some wood toys. Mom G. bought a handmade wood chess board that folds up for Bradley. Jodi remembers lots of food and Christmas ornaments as the two themes of the Colmar market, and much more decorated booths than their Freiburg counterparts:

We froze. But we thoroughly enjoyed the decorations in Colmar. Mom and Jodi had success in finding cornmeal to make Christmas stuffing with, so that alone made the trip worthwhile (I can't stand stuffing). Colmar had lots of little trees on their window ledges too, which Mom loved. By the end of the trip though, Reesey had had enough of his forced lederhosen, and was trying at all costs to rip them off:

Needless to say, they were a one-use item. And so ends the Colmar Weinachtsmarkt of 2008. We will probably make the trip again in 2009. Anybody want to come?

Jeff and Jodi