Where to go..... Where to go....

Caution: This is bound to sound snotty and hoitey-toitey... Sorry, I can't help it. :)

In January, everyone here starts to plan out their vacations for the entire year. It seems pretty soon considering we all just had a three week vacation for Christmas during which we went NOWHERE. :) (Fine by me though...)

What spurs these holiday decisions to begin so quickly is that there is a week long break in coming February and that leads to the following break, which is just a short time later in April.

Here is the odd part. We are discussing if we want to go the Canary Islands, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Paris, Mallorca, Croatia, Scotland, Turkey, London, Norway, Egypt... HA!

My vacations used to center around Disneyland, Santa Cruz or camping. :)

It's a little weird and never in a zillion years did I think I'd be trying to decide between Croatia, Greece, Turkey, or Mallorca. The fact that I am trying to choose makes me feel like a snob. Ummm... gee. Shouldn't I just be happy with ANY of them?

I AM happy and I appreciate it as much as my little mind can... but it's absolutely crazy that our family of six gets to go to these places, but I want to make sure my kids appreciate this opportunity. I don't want them to think this is normal.

I'm afraid that going to Italy and Paris and Germany and Denmark... :) I hope Europe doesn't seem blah, and, "yah-been-there-done-that" for my kids. Everywhere we go I try to explain to my kids that most of the people there have saved money for their entire lives to be there... The same places we have hopped in a car and simply drove to.

Maybe my kids will be fine though. Growing up I always wanted to go to Australia and just by chance my dad took us all there as a result of his job. We saw wild kangaroos, wombats, and kookaburras. Today I would still feel super lucky to get to go there again so maybe my kids will be fine... :)

Anyways...

Our tentative holiday plans:

February:
La Rochelle, France - see an old family friend of Paul's.
Paris - climb the Eiffel Tower and see it lit up at night, and see the Mona Lisa. I've always regretted we didn't do either last time.
Luxembourg - see my Salad Friend from Denmark.

April:
London - see our Swedish friends from Denmark, see Stonehenge and whatever else we should see in England. It's just nice to go to where people speak English.

Summer:
Good ole' Tracy, California and Ontario, Canada. We were going to skip this trip... or should I say reschedule. Maybe Croatia or Mallorca will win, but currently our plan is to probably go home...

October:
Unknown... but I'm thinking maybe Athens, Greece or the Canary Islands or somewhere warm... :)

December:
I want to go to Canada for Christmas. We may use some air miles throughout the year to make this one happen. Yes, I know it's -21 degrees C in Canada in December... but oddly it still sounds fun. :)

Other than possibly October, we have started to repeat vacation spots. :) It has been three years you know...

Hey Hockey Mom!

Obviously my resolution wasn't to write on my blog more.

Oh well.

I only have one moderately amusing story I feel like telling. :)

I am the new helper with Scotty's field hockey. I don't know if I'm prepared to call myself the assistant because I'm not sure how much longer I'll last ...those kids are nuts. :)

That's the reason I'm helping. Nobody even technically asked me. At the last field hockey practice the kids were out of control and going crazy. There are nearly 20 kids and one coach is not enough. Especially when the coach is a super nice German man who is extra quiet when speaking English. So at last practice I put Andrea on my shoulders and went to help a line of four kids who were running around...

I don't know anything about hockey, but I know that the stick has to stay on the ground and the objective is to hit the ball into the other teams goal. That's enough to start with.

After the practice I went to the nice quiet German coach and offered my help in the future. He said, "Yes!!! PLEEEAAASEEEE".

SO there you have it. I told the other moms I need a Hockey Mom shirt now. :)

I'm not sure how much longer I'll last though. In all honestly I think I'm having a hard time NOT being in charge. It took me one week to learn I don't do "assistant" well. :) I would have had kids doing push ups and running laps for not listening... :) I'll keep trying, it would be nice to do something with just Scotty.

I do miss coaching the kids' soccer teams and helping with the kids makes me happy. Even if I'm not in control. :)

My amusing story: There was this little girl at practice. She was new and probably 8 or 9. While I was helping her try and hold the stick right I figured out she didn't speak English, so I assumed she spoke German.

Now I'm feeling proud that I can say some words to her in German.
"Right" (richtig)
"It's your turn." (du bist strand)
"Slowly" (langzon)

Yah, I'm awesome like that now...

I am thinking she is understanding me and liking me because I'm cool and I speak fluent German. I just figured she was just shy...

Nope, turns out she speaks Hebrew. Poor thing was stuck listening to my substandard German words. I didn't even know you could speak Herbew. I guess I did, but I've heard heard a real person speak it, let alone a tiny little blonde haired 8 year old. It was cute. I guess I should learn some Hebrew words for her.

Guess my story wasn't very amusing... but it was amusing for me. :) ...and I needed something to write about.

Resolution Time!

I'm not a big New Years Resoluter, but I admit to trying... This year I will work on simple things.


#1. Try not to kill my houseplants.

I liked my houseplants when I first bought them. They were easy and made my house seem like we actually lived there instead of just passing through, but then they started to turn brown, and then they started to turn yellow. Before I knew it they were just ugly and bothered me.

SO I went online to research (without using Wikipedia). I discovered the problem!!! I'm either overwatering or underwatering... how un-helpful is that? Oh, and my plants are cold. HA! Well I'm cold too, sorry little plant, join the club.

We will see how this "not-killing-houseplant-plan" goes. I did move little plant to a spot closer to the heater. Then I cut off all the brown and yellow tips. ...and I won't water it until the dirt is dry... even though it's been like two weeks. :)





#2. Eat more fish. :) ...and not just Salmon.

I can cook Salmon just fine. Thanks to a certain Swedish person's recipe I can cook it quite well. :) However, any other type of fish and I'm completely confused. So unfortunately this means my family will have to endure eating non-Salmon fish while I try and figure out how to cook it.

That written, my first white fish attempt was a success... because I'm awesome. :) I bought some kind of white fish. I just picked the fattest fillets they had and covered them in bread crumbs, flour, salt, etc... the usual boring thing.. but the kids ate it and Andrea probably ate the most.

So there are my New Year's Resolutions. Nothing dumb like: Keep the house clean or don't yell at the kids. :) Let's be realistic.

Ingrid's Blog

Remember when my Danish friends who aren't really Danish came to see me? It's great here in Germany where I have American friends, but I miss my International ones... :)

So.
Here is Ingrid's blog. It's in Swedish... because she's Swedish, but google chrome translates all my websites automatically. :) Probably more of a necessity for me than most.

Ingrid, I'll try and find some food pictures... :) Maybe they are on a camera I don't usually use. If I can't find any I'll have to go back AND ORDER THE SAME THING! :) Miss you guys... Let's make this reunion thing a regular thing no matter where we are.... The world is pretty small after all.

WHEEE another year!

Happy New Year to everyone!

I think it's a Europe thing, but on New Years Eve you are supposed to dress up... like in a costume... a Halloween costume. Nothing scary though, just funny and silly.

No, I didn't get the kids costumes... but I looked to see if there was anything for next Halloween. :)

Our night was fairly uneventful... as usual. :) We decided that with six people in our family we had enough to constitute an actual party on our own. So all six of us stayed up all night long and had a party! :)

Our partying included playing wii, watching movies, and eating tons of food... and then the three big kids had a sleep over party in the kids living room. :)


The highlight of our evening was our fireworks. I think this is the first time we have ever bought and set off our own fireworks. :) Where we lived in California it was highly illegal. In Denmark they were $20 a pop.

...Plus if you don't set off fireworks you have zero chance of getting hurt, says my risk managing husband. :) We had the perfect firework arrangement though: Daddy goes outside into the freezing cold, lights our fireworks, and the rest of us watch from the comfort of our living room. :)

Poozie sat on the couch under a warm blankie and loved every minute. After every firework she would hold a little finger up to signal, "One more!".





At midnight we went outside and watched the neighbors big fireworks. I still can't believe they let regular people... mostly drunk people... set these things off. They are small little rockets. Anyways, we watched fireworks for a while, but it was pretty cold and to see these fireworks we had to be outside. We only lasted a little bit.

Denmark wins though. Germany's fireworks only went on for about a half hour and then I heard pauses in the "booms". In Denmark it went on for hours straight, no quiet moments. I would wake up to fireworks in Denmark. :) I decided that Germans just set off their fireworks and go back inside to their beer. :)

Our New Year's Eve ended at 1:30am when the kids finally went to bed. Andrea has been the only kid, at age two, to stay up all night... and she did so quite easily!

2011 Fourtunes!

How to tell your fourtune by melting metal. It might be a German thing because I saw these things for sale everywhere so I figured we'd better not miss out! It wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be, but in the end it amused us for a while on our New Year's Eve. :)

Step One: Translate directions.

Step Two: Pick your metal piece and use the spoon to melt it.

Step Three: Melt metal shape into a liquid ...a hot liquid.

Step Four: Plop hot liquid into cold water.

TA DA! Here are our shapes...

To get your fortune for the upcoming new year you first take your shape and decide what object it looks like. On the back of the package it lists a bunch of things and what fortune goes with them. Like if your blob looks like a cow it means you will gain weight that year. ...or something like that. :)

We got tired of translating and made up our own fortunes. Everyone will be extra nice to mommy and keep the house clean. yah.

Christmas!

We did pretty good this year. Despite the PILE of gifts we didn't end up with a silly amount of gifts. The kids obviously had a great time. I got a new camera and spent a lot of the time trying to figure out how to work it so I didn't get a lot of good pictures. :)

Girls got laptops and clothes and purses and UGG boots from their dad.
Scotty got legos and random toys.
Andrea got teaset things and buzz lightyear and woody toys.
I got a new camera and an iPad we've since sold. :)
Happy got a fondue maker and ties. :)

No, we didn't get a dog. We are doggie sitting for some friends.