Jess, Melissa, Caden & Eli

 Look at me go! Two in one day!

Back in February we were in Munich for 5 days. One of our day trips included Fussen and the famous Neuschwanstein castle. It was actually a sunny day, which was a pleasant surprise and nice change from all the clouds and snow.

Our first glimpse of the castle, taken through a bus window.

 Jess and I, pre-hike up the mountain. Both boys were asleep in strollers.
 Hohenschwangau, the "other" castle. This was the actual functional, lived-in castle. Neuschwanstein was never finished because of King Ludwig's death and he only resided in it somewhere between 100-200 days.
 The lake at the base of the castles. Looked like an untouched field itching for a snowball fight to us.

 Random picture of me and the boys on the train. I think this was actually on the way home to Nuremberg from Munich.

So, we just passed our halfway mark. We've been in Germany 4 months now and have just 4 more to go. It has been interesting in so many ways. Most recently, I have been struggling with "transition fatigue" and am trying not to hate it here. Honestly, I don't hate it here. I quite like it, in fact. But I miss our car, I miss many of the things we are "used to", and I miss the sun. It has been the darkest winter on record for Nuremberg. Yay for us. Just today, as I was pushing my bundled up children through the snow, trying to teach Eli how to keep his head down so the icy snow/rain wouldn't fly in his face on the way to the grocery store to pick up milk (because it only comes in liters, our refrigerator is small, and I refuse to buy shelf milk), I had to remind myself that it's snowing in the U.S. also and that Spring will one day come. (Right? It will come eventually?!)

I am teaching aerobics twice a week in our church building, which has been really fun. It gives us something to do two mornings a week, and gives me a project to work on at home as I come up with new routines.

We have done a number of trips, but none out of Germany yet. We were tentatively planning on Vienna this coming weekend, but the weather is still supposed to be stinky and I am kind of done with sight-seeing in freezing temperatures. Although seeing Dachau, the former concentration camp, was pretty powerful when it's -5 degrees out (Celcius. I'm trying to convert). Most recently it was Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Heidelberg.

Caden still loves all trains, and we sometimes go on "U-bahn" (subway) adventures. He can name in order all the u-bahn stops along any route we have gone on more than once or twice, and for the most part his pronunciation is pretty good. Although I can't convince him that "Rathenauplatz" is not actually "Rattenowclatz". He loves to play with his friends Marco and David, who speak both German and Italian but no English. Doesn't stop those boys. Eli loves to chase after the big boys and mimic all they do as well. Eli has the typical separation anxiety of kids his age as well as being quite shy, but it seems to be especially magnified by the language differences. If someone comes up close to him and speaks in German, he gets really uncomfortable and won't look at them or acknowledge them. Although he will often do that even if they do speak English. If he's not being held, he will generally burst into tears and stand there sobbing until mom or dad come retrieve him. I tried dropping him off at a childcare room in the gym so I could go to a zumba class, and he would have none of that. After making all the other children cry with his screams and repeated attempts for me to return and try to help him, I gave up and never even made it inside the classroom. So we left, thus prompting a fit from Caden who was having a grand time and didn't care to leave. :) Sometimes, I just choose to laugh because if I don't laugh then I will surely cry.

Here are just a couple of pictures from recent weeks. We have far too many pictures and just thinking about trying to truly "catch up" on blogging exhausts me. So, here are just a sample:

 Jess and Eli in downtown Furth, a suburb of Nuremberg

 What a cutie!


 We had a couple of nice days and flowers bloomed like weeds behind our building. Caden loved getting out a riding his bike.
 Eli and I at the Rathaus (town hall) in Rothenburg ob der Tauber
 I love this kid's grin! Behind Heidelberg's castle
 Heidelberg
 Jess and Caden by Heidelberg castle. Look how thick that chunk of tower is that crumbled down!

Along the Philosopher's Way, a path on the opposite side of the river from Heidelberg that looks out over the city and castle.

 Another view of the castle
Heidelberg with the castle and old stone bridge.

Since I don't have access to Eli's baby book, I have to write down his stats here so I make sure I don't lose them.

Weight: 13.5 kilos (just shy of 30 lbs)
Length 86 cm. (about 34 inches)

Both are in the 90th percentile, which means Eli is dropping down and averaging out (good thing!). Still huge, but not quite so huge.

Maybe I'll actually post some pictures one of these days- I have to do it from Jess's work laptop, and who really has the motivation to do that in the evening after the kids are in bed? Not I. Even now, Caden is hanging over my shoulder demanding I play with him now that Eli is in bed. Off to play "red light, green light, splat" I go!

Melissa has been telling me that I needed to blog for days now so I guess this is my attempt...Ok well maybe not maybe that is just my subconscious telling me that we need to be better at getting pictures to family/friends.  I hope you enjoy the snapshot of our first month here in Germany.  It has been a good month so far and we are enjoying ourselves as I hope the pictures show. 

Jess and Eli in front of one of the many Cathedrals in Nuremberg (I am pretty sure this is St. Sebald)  This is Eli's favored mode of transportation around the city.

Caden in front of part of the Kaiserberg Castle in Nuremberg.  I am not sure how many funny smiles we will be able to capture, but this kid has a lot of them.  This picture was taken on Christmas day as we walked around a mostly empty city on a beautiful day.

Another Christmas day picture with Melissa and Eli below the castle in Nuremberg.  Eli is just starting to smile on command.

Dad and the boys in front of part of the castle in Nuremberg.

Melissa with St. Sebald in the background.  There is a lookout from the castle in Nuremberg where you can see the entire old city.

Melissa and the boys with the Nuremberg Christmas market in the background.  Even though the market was closed this day the boys loved being out and walking around.  This is another picture with Eli smiling on command.

The old city hall in Bamberg, Germany.  This was our first day trip of our time in Germany and the boys did surprisingly well.  This will be the first of hopefully many day trips around Bavaria.

Someone LOVES German pretzels!!!!!!!!!

Jess and Caden at the Nuremberg train museum.

The family at the children's section of the Nuremberg Christmas market.  Eli is obviously tired and cold, but the atmosphere was amazing.

This is not an attempt to do away with traditional, mailed Christmas cards. In fact, I love giving and (especially) receiving cards in the mail. However, I told myself months ago that it was not worth adding to my pre-move stress to try to get cards out before Thanksgiving, and we can't mail all our friends and family cards from Germany. We would love to, believe me. Maybe next time we spend Christmas in Germany :).

So lets recap our family's year. 2012 started with us living in Cincinnati, spending our first holiday season without extended family. Caden had recently turned 2 and loved trains and memorizing his books so he could "read" them. Eli was 3months and too busy growing to be bothered by much. In March, we moved to Atlanta for Jess's next job rotation. It was 85 degrees in the middle of March, and it pretty much stayed that way until October. We had a hot summer playing with our new friends and got to fly west twice. We went to WA to visit our Rosé family for July fourth, and we went to CA and UT in August for Uncle Robby' and Aunt Diane's wedding and to see our Watts family. We all turned a year older within a two month period, then packed all our belongings into a storage unit (minus 6 suitcases) and flew off to Germany the week of Thanksgiving. We spent 10 long days in a little hotel room, but thankfully we found an apartment quickly.

So, from Ohio to Georgia and now Nurnberg, Germany. It's been quite the year for us. We have enjoyed most of the opportunities and experiences that come with moving around and the areas we've lived. Obviously, there are some downsides to frequently relocating, but at least we are getting really good at it.

Eli- at 15 months now, he is a big, busy, curious boy. We are keeping our fingers crossed we won't have to frequent the ER here, but I somehow doubt it. He can shatter a sheet of glass with a single headbutt, burn his hands in the 2 seconds that he turns on the bathwater and over to "scalding" before I can turn it off, give himself a black eye from his multitude of falls, break dishes from only a 6 inch drop...he is a veritable Superman of mayhem. Yet he is super cuddly and loves to snuggle with his binkie and blankie. He is a total momma's boy and does not want Dad for anything if Mom is anywhere remotely close. He doesn't talk much- Momma and Choo Choo are his main words- but he does sign and loves to do so.

Caden- 3 years old, and 100% boy. He loves trains, cars, and construction equipment. He loves to climb, run, jump and tumble. He still throws some impressive tantrums, but I think we might be close to leaving that stage. He loves to ride the U-Bahn (subway) and buses here and loves to repeat all of the messages that come over the intercom. He is in the stage where he has to do EVERYTHING by himself, which sometimes leads to those impressive tantrums previously mentioned. Whenever we talk to him about needing to share, he declares, "I don't share. I take!". He still memorizes his books and reads them to us, but now sometimes he will negate every statement ("Thomas did NOT chuff down the track."). His imagination grows everyday and it's fun to watch how he uses it.

Melissa- When I look back on the year, I sometimes don't know how I survived it! That, or I don't believe that everything really happened this year. Germany is obviously quite an adjustment (no car, no understanding the people around me, no friends) but this is the third move in 16 months, so I'm a pro now, right? Really though, it has been great. We've already been able to do and see a lot. I enjoyed my time in Cincinnati and Atlanta, and all the great friends we met and made. I won't miss the Atlanta bugs though, I can say that for certain. I am kept quite busy with the two boys. I miss working at the hospital, but I know that if I were working I would miss being home with my boys. I'd rather miss working, I think. In Atlanta, I got an aerobics group going, which was awesome for exercise and chatting while the kids ran around and played. I still play the piano/organ any chance I get, and I have already done so here in Germany. And sung a duet. Now I just get to prepare for the Christmas devotional on the 24th when I'll be playing a piano solo that I just got the other day. It's fun and keeps me on my toes. And music is the same in all languages (except that duet was in German, so that took a little extra work).

Jess-I tried to get Jess to tell me what he wanted written about him. He just laughed and said "I like you coming up with it". That's Jess talk for "I don't do anything interesting so you have figure out what in my life is noteworthy." Jess is enjoying work here in Germany. He is doing product management, so not engineering at all. It's been an interesting change for him. He takes every opportunity to play sports. In Cincinnati it was Church basketball (where Jess broke his nose in the first 5 minutes of the championship game. They won, but Jess and I were already at an Instacare and Jess was more sad about missing the free pizza than anything). In Atlanta, Jess played soccer every Saturday morning, and got into CrossFit. Once a week, he also biked 20 miles each way to work, which he always looked forward to and even got a co-worker to join him most times. Here in Germany he hasn't had many chances so far, but did play badminton with a group of guys the other night (and got schooled by a seriously skilled badminton player) and looks forward to also doing football (not American), ping pong and squash. He loves wrestling with the boys and often encourages them in feats that mom might not normally agree with but sometimes just looks the other way :)

We hope that this season, you can remember why we celebrate.

Isaiah 9:6 "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called: Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

May we remember and follow the Prince of Peace.

We love you all and hope you are well!

Love, Jess, Melissa, Caden and Eli

In front of the carousel at the Kinder Weihnachtmarkt in Nurnberg (kid's Christmas market)

We made it to Germany, and survived our first week.  Our flights over went pretty smoothly, except for Eli throwing up and spiking a fever in the middle of our transatlantic red eye. Our hotel here in Nurnberg is close to the city center (Altstadt - Old City), so we've walked there pretty much every day.

We had some griefs trying to find an apartment, because we're at the end of the month and our options were limited. Then, once our consultant contacted the landlords and they found out we had two little boys, our options narrowed even further. After a fair bit of determination, persistence, and increasing our price range, we found one that we can move into on Thursday! That means less than one week where the boys and I are stuck in a hotel room while Jess is at work. It's not that bad- we are in Europe and there is plenty for us to see. However, it is cold and rainy and Eli takes a 3 hour nap in the middle of the day. So, it will be nice when we are not in a hotel anymore!


So far, the boys love the Bavarian pretzels that are on pretty much every street corner, shelf milk isn't so bad, we still don't like gas water (carbonated water), cobblestones make for a bumpy stroller ride, and instead of regressing with potty training, Caden has gotten even better!

To loosely quote President Uchtdorf, we are always in the middle. There will be beginnings and endings, but we are still always in the middle, and it's what we do with that time in the middle that counts.

Well, we are in the middle. We are almost done with our time in Atlanta. We are about to start our time in Germany (9 more days). We are starting packing (first load to the storage unit today- HOORAY!), and finishing all our preparations. But we are constantly in the middle of so much. We are in the middle of raising our boys. We are in the middle of strengthen our marriage and our family. We are in the middle of improving ourselves and trying to overcome all of our weaknesses. We are in the middle of "getting over ourselves" and focusing on what we can do for others, rather than what we can do for ourselves. I am in the middle of projects and to do lists and some things that I fear might never end.

I am looking forward to leaving most of our "stuff" behind and spending 8 months that I hope will be a little more centered around our boys and enjoying the opportunities around us. This is a big "beginning" of sorts for us, but I know that really it's just more "in the middle" and I hope to make the most of this time.