Tschuss!

Tomorrow we will pick the kids up from school and drive to Brussels, Belgium. In Belgium we will eat waffles and chocolate ...maybe at the same time.

We will then drive to La Rochelle, France. It's on the southwest coast and I will get some sand for my sand collection. :)

On the way back we will stop in Paris, France. We need to climb the Eiffel Tower... because it would be silly to have visited Paris twice and not have done so.

:) Be back next week!

Care Package!

I still say that one can't understand the whole "expat living abroad" thing until you've done it. It's too hard to understand the EXCITEMENT and JOY that a box from America can bring!!!!

That's why Holly sends care packages on a regular basis! She's lived here, done that... and understands how important a bottle of vanilla and red vines can be! :)

This was so awesome to get two days before Valentines Day. The cookies were yummy and Scotty got to fill out Valentines. He was one of three kids who handed them out and it made him feel special. :) He used his rainbow heart pencil all day...

I don't want to jinx anything but if Holly moved back to Denmark I'd be thrilled! I'd even trade my holiday care packages for her to be on this side of the ocean. :) Thanks, Tak and DANKE!!!

Is there a package under those stamps?

It cracks me up everytime she does it.

My mUm (Paul's Mom) sends us packages in the mail and she makes her post office lady in Canada use stamps. :) I love it!!.

Stamps are way more fun than a boring printed barcode and it's a package for kids so it should be fun. :)

It's gotten crazy since we've moved to Europe and it now costs a ridiculous amount of money to send a package to us. This one had stamps on the side. :)

Plus, it's funny to hear her story about having to convince the post office lady to stick all the stamps on the box. It's also funny to see the post man deliver it to me... he's always a bit in awe. :)

The lady downstairs actually signed for this one for me. She asked if that is what they do in Canada. :) She thought it was great fun. She also has 12 grandkids and she said she'll do this next time for them since she saw how amusing it was for everyone involved.

PS. This is not a really late Christmas gift. I just found the picture and I don't think I ever wrote about it so..... :)

It was fun. I even save the stamps from these boxes. :)

Bigger is way Better!

Here is my Pink Giant Paper Bundled Bouquet. It was delivered to my door by a nice German man who I never really saw because the flowers hid him.

It went like this:

The doorbell rang.
I opened the door.
I saw a giant paper bundled bouquet.
The paper bundle bouquet asked, "Frau Happy".
I said, "Yes?"
The paper bundle bouquet came towards me.
I took it.
The man was gone when I finally maneuvered the paper bundle bouquet so that I could see out the door. :)
I brought them upstairs.
Andrea said, "Wow".

Yellow Tulips, because that's what we had at our wedding. Roses are blah and for boring sissys. :)
What a nice husband I have. I don't even care if one of his secretaries ordered them. I like my flowers. :) Thanks Happy... Andrea was really mean to me today and I needed to smile.

The two germ-y ones.

Here are the two sick kids. They were the only ones allowed to hang out with each other. :) ...and the cat.

They are feeling better though... this was from a few days ago. :)

Now Andrea is feeling yucky. :( She's a little ball of fiasco when she doesn't feel good. She had a fever all day and I finally took her to the doctor tonight just to make sure it wasn't strep. Nope, just a virus. :( So sad. I hope she wakes up happier tomorrow.

Won't you be my.... Mayor.

My German teacher showed this to me. It's from a popular German magazine, "Der Spiegel".

This house is three houses away from us. It's being remodeled and has been ever since we moved in... EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO TODAY. (Yep, we moved in on Valentine's Day!)

It is the MAYOR OF HAMBURG'S HOUSE!!

The mayor of Hamburg lives on my street!

The mayor is my neighbor!

I'm going trick or treating there next year. :) (If I can get past his 1,000,000 Euro security system.)

Free Drugs

Guess what? Michaela and Scotty have strep throat ...along with half of the silly international school.

I hated the Danish health care everything. I would wait until the doctors office closed so I could go to the hospital for a competent doctor to see me, but here, the German healtcare system has been pretty nice to me so far. :) (Of course I haven't given birth here so it might be unfair to compare...) :)

True, I haven't seen a doctor bill since we've been here! Same as DK though...

However...

I just got all my kids' antibiotics for free!! I walked into the pharmacy and they just gave me the antibiotics! No form to fill out, nothing to even sign... They just asked if it was for my children and I said yes... and they just gave it to me!

I did have to pay five cents for the bag though. :)

I went home.... but not really.

We had a Girls Weekend in Denmark! It was almost like going home for me ...but not so much. :)

(As in my friends and me, not my girls and me... but yes, my girls are my friends too... I meant my MOM friends and me...)

It was really fun to go back to a place I totally knew all about. It was so easy. I LOVE DENMARK! :) Hee Hee...

I guided us through downtown, I could find street addresses and stores off memory, I could even hop on a random bus to take a short cut! I knew just what to do and it was fun. We even had good luck and ran into nice people everywhere we went!

Aarhus seems so easy now that I'm here in a giant city like Hamburg. I now appreciate Aarhus and it's smallness. I miss it. HA! I never thought I'd say that! :) ...But I'd still pick Hamburg, only because of the school...

Michaela was actually supposed to come with me and stay with her friend for the weekend, but her friend called a half hour before we were supposed to leave, she was sick and couldn't have Michaela over. It was at this point that I realized I will be the worst person on earth to tell Michaela really bad news... I had a hard time telling her she couldn't go. I didn't know what to say. I felt absolutely terrible. It ruined the whole morning for me too. I had to go of course, but I had to leave Michaela behind and I felt really, really, really bad. Sorry Michaela. We will try again... At least I bought you Skittles and Root Beer!

While in Aarhus my friends and I went shopping at all my favorite cheap stores and also to all my favorite expensive kitchen stores. They all learned that Denmark has a million cute things, but they are all so ridiculously expensive that you could never in a million years justify buying it. :)

We went to a restaurant and out for some dancing at a night club where we were too old for the teeny-boppers in things they believed qualified as clothes... and we were too young for the sad music in the other section. We did our best and had fun and made our way back to the hotel by 3:00am. :) No problem though, because we all drifted off to sleep without the fear of any children waking us up.

We woke up, ate breakfast, did some more shopping, and headed home to Hamburg.

It was great. I knew my kids were fine so I didn't stress out about them. It was good to have a break, and it wasn't too long...

Little did I know how critical this weekend break was to my upcoming week... this week has been ICK! Scotty has strep throat and I have to take the others to the doctor tomorrow before school to test them too. If they pass they can go to school, if they don't pass, it's off to the apotek for more antibiotics and then back home.

So I've had Scotty home all week with a fever and being generally unhappy... and he's such a sad little sick boy. I apologize in advance to his future wife.

Noodle Straw

Paul thought these pasta's would be fun. They are like spaghetti, but are hollow like a bird's bones. :)

In the end, these noodles were fun, but only when DADDY discovered they could be used as straws. So we all sucked up our milk with our noodles.

The Musical Fruit

I've always heard this was a good idea for keep kids entertained, but it wasn't until my friend tried it that I decided I'd try too. All you need is a bowl, some spoons, lots of dried beans, and a high tolerance for chaos.

These beans worked wonders and it was pretty tame ...until Sierra got involved that is. Sierra started to play and I came back to a kitchen COVERED in beans. I couldn't believe it! You couldn't even tiptoe across the floor without stepping on a bean. I wasn't too happy about it and made her sweep it up, but Andrea had a great time!

The beans are still in a bowl in the kitchen and I bring them out when I'm trying to make dinner. They are losing their novelty though so they might go away and come back another day.

Poozie's Hair Stylist

Sierra is in charge of brushing Andrea's hair after bathtime. Sierra loves to do it and Andrea sits there pretty long and lets Bear do whatever she wants.

Here is our new attempt at taming Andrea's flyaway hair. A pony tail! :) They never stay in for more than ten minutes, but it's super cute. :)

The Yearly Bill

We get a heating bill once a year. Today a man came and read all of our meters in our house. The meters are on our radiator things and they count how much "warm" we take... or something like that.

But the "heater reader" guy only comes once a year. Hey I just realized that we "took" this house on February 1st. :) So he came a year to the date! Wow.

Happy estimates our heating will cost 6000 euros for the year. If it is more than that we will have to move. :)

The thought of moving makes me cringe, but the thought of paying more than 6000 euros... to still be cold makes me want to poke myself in the eye.

...that was gross.