Köln

I had another Saturday with the kids, so we headed to Köln.  

Kölner Dom: huge!!!

Cool little fountain outside of the Dom.  We played around there while we snacked on some Bavarian pretzels.  

As we were walking around the city square, there was an old lady throwing around bread bits.  I'm sure she just likes to see all of the birds happy, but my kids just went crazy.  It was like a feeding frenzy for sharks.  Aaron was running into people, and he didn't really know where he was going, he was just focused on the birds.  I got some nice shots of the pure joy in his face as he tried to catch a pigeon.  It was one intense 40 minutes.  I ended up grounding Timmy, because I couldn't keep track of two kids running senselessly  in a huge crowd of people.     

Then we played in this little fountain.  Of course, they got soaked.  And of course, the clouds came out and it started to rain.  Some well-meaning old ladies stopped to tell me that I'm a bad father.

So I stripped them down and wrapped them in my sweaters and they went to sleep.  

On the way home, our train was late and we got yelled at by a drunk man.  The trip isn't really complete without an irritated drunk guy.  

It's just a phase... hopefully

I wanted to type a big long story about how Aaron has joined an emo band.  I really wanted to.  And it would have been funny too.  Real funny.  Milk-through-your-nose funny. But alas, it is Saturday evening and I'm just putting off getting ready for church tomorrow.  So, for the sake of time, pretend like I wrote a really funny post about Aaron wearing skinny-jeans and wanting to dye his hair black and and and.  In reality, he had his face painted at school, and it's pretty dang hard to get all of the black paint off from around the eyes of a 3 year old.  When I saw him at the breakfast table looking all rock-starry, I just knew it'd be a good post.  I blew it.  Sorry.

I may be revealing my ignorance to geography and world affairs here, but I'm going to admit something.  I learned of a new country today.  It's pretty big.  I don't remember ever hearing of it before!

Here's your quiz.....do you know where the country of Belarus is?    It looks like this with 6 Provinces:

When we moved to Michigan, I had to admit that my familiarity with where we were in relation to Tennesee, Kentucky, Ohio, etc. were all pretty weak without actually looking at a map.  After living there for 5 years and driving around there quite a bit, I feel like I know those states pretty well.

Well - it's the same sort of learning curve here I guess.  

Monday night I was invited out for drinks with a friend.  There was a man there from a country "somewhere East of here."  He made me guess where he was from!  

Oh boy.  I guessed Turkey, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Austria, and realized that my geography of what is "East of here" isn't that fantastic!  Then I started guessing..... Greece, Iran, Slovenia.....nothing.

He got a kick out of my frustration, and let me wallow in humiliation for a while.  Finally someone made him tell me "Romania."  Oh!  Of course!  

I gotta know these countries man!  What if some guy quizzes me again??!  

So I looked up a map eagerly when I got home.  

And there she is.  Belarus.  

Am I the only one who hasn't noticed this fairly large country between Europe and Russia???

So now I have a list I need to memorize in case I am asked again to look the fool.  Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Lithiuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova, Czech Republic, Croatia.  

(These I've heard of!  They are just not on the tip of my tongue.  Gotta work on that!)

Another Saturday

Nothing too exciting to report: we went to the woods south of town and hiked around, then we went to see "Merida" (aka Brave in the US) in 3D.  Not my favorite disney movie, but you've gotta love the wild red hair!

Aaron says...

"I'm a'posed to..."

"Ma'am" instead of Mom.  He screams "MAAM!" when we sees me picking him up from school and runs into my arms.
"Diss side doesn't has any tags" (pants, undies, shirt)
"I wanted you"  (I want to stay with you)

He always puts his dirty hands on my face and while telling me what happened at school, sticks his fingers into my teeth, and pushes my face together while saying "And mom!  And mom! And mom!" To get my attention

Every day after school he tells me about a time that he got in a fight, or fell down, or a teacher told him a rule.....and it always ends with "And I cried for you, but you wasn't there!"

We have a "family bed" going on right now. Boo-hiss.  50% of the time, we wake up with one or two boys in our bed with us...which means we wake up to a foot in the face, or an arm slapping across the face.

If we don't wake up with someone in the bed, Aaron usually wakes me up by coming and asking me to play or have breakfast.  Usually I can convince him to snuggle with me while I sleep for an extra 1/2 hour before it's time to get up.  He's turned into a cuddly kid.

Aaron has several friends now in Kindergarten.  Leon, Gabriel, Maximillian......but his favorite right now is Shilanzo.  He has a hard time saying the name "Shilanzo," so he just calls him "my brown friend."  When I picked Aaron up this week, Shilanzo was sharing his chocolate snack with Aaron.  No wonder he likes him best of all!

Aaron has started speaking German.  He mixes English and German together.  For example:

"You have schon"  (You already have some)

"I have noch eine!"  (I have another one)

Timmy says....

Timmy says lots of full sentences in German, and I notice that especially at school he can say quite a lot!  He repeats sentences over and over in German and laughs to himself.  He finds it pretty funny to speak German.  

However, sometimes it's tiring.  A few Sundays ago he said quite exasperated after church "I don't want to hear ANY MORE DEUTSCH!"

Yesterday I asked Timmy who he played with at Kindergarten, and without skipping a beat he exclaimed "Osmann, und Leon!"  Usually he says "I don't know", so I was excited that he knew his friends names.  When I asked him to describe his friends, Timmy said about Osmann, "He has a dark face."  When I asked about Leon, he and Aaron started making noises like a Fire Engine and said "That's what Leon says!"

Today I went hiking with the boys at Kindergarten.  They have a Waldtag once a week, and they go hiking for 5 hours!  They take a couple stops to play and eat, but they actually go quite far!  The kids like to slide down the muddy hills...which answered my question about why all the kids wear rainpants, even when it's not raining!

Timmy was really interested in the other kids, and enjoyed making huts out of big sticks with the kids and teachers by going stick hunting and placing the sticks up against the trees.  Even though it started raining for a while, both of the boys didn't mind at all.  Both thought the hike was rather long.  Aaron wanted me to carry him, and Timmy wanted to go home, but in the end they both made it, and had a lot of fun!

Reason # 41

Why you should visit us:

Reason #41:

 I must take a moment here to apologize to Allie and any other vegans who may have been emotionally harmed by this picture and would interpret this as reason # 41 for why not to visit us.  Sorry.

On an unrelated note, this is what happens when you are late and your son discovers the office desk drawer.  At least it wasn't makeup.  It's bad enough that I had to live with the shame of the whole girl toothpaste incident.

The latest and greatest is soccer in the driveway.  The driveway has a locked gate, so we can just let the kids run around out there.  Not a great playing surface for soccer, but what do they care, the ball is totally flat anyway.  It has a kind of old-school-playing-in-a-city-alley feel to it.

Finally, we had a visitor this weekend: Elizabeth is going to med school here and was out looking for an apartment.  We are very excited to have her here!

LIfe is Flying By...

This week has been busy! We've had things every night.  I won't bore you with the whole week, but Tuesday night went like this...

5:15 pm - The boys and I eat dinner. 

5:40 pm -Scott comes home from work, eats, throws on his suit.

6:05 bus - Scott leaves for  his meetings on the bus

I get the kids in their pajamas, brush teeth and put on a show for them in their beds.

6:15 the RS Presidency arrives. 

7:30 the Presidency leaves, I pray with the boys and try to get them to sleep.  I realize that Aaron peed in his bed in the morning, and I forgot!

7:45 the babysitter arrives.  I frantically change the sheets and try without luck to get the boys to lay down.  I put on a "hörspiel"  (story) for them to listen to, give the Babysitter instructions.

7:55 drive to the boys school.  Attend the meeting until 9:30

9:45 pay the babysitter, start cleaning up the dishes from dinner

11:30 Scott gets home on the bus.

For those of you with 5 kids who are laughing at how easy my life is....I know, I know!  But for us, this was a busy week, and I'm looking foward to Saturday when we'll have a few hours with all 4 of us together.

 I was called into the Stake Primary Presidency, and so the Primary (Primarvereinigung...or PV for short) Presidency visited our ward to be set apart.  This is our new PV President with the boys. She is super-cute and fun to work with.

 These are some photos Timmy's teacher took of the boys at school this week.  They LOVE school.  I'm so glad that they are enjoying it and having fun learning German.   I swore I would never join PTA, but nevertheless, am the "representative" for Timmy's class.  It sounds like just a few meetings, but we'll see. :)

I've been teaching as a group exercise substitute for the past few months.  

Next month, I will start teaching my own classes, Yoga and Bodystyling, each week.

 I went to three days of training in using props in Pilates, making adjustments in Yoga and will be attending another one this weekend about improving group exercise in general.  It's put me way out of my comfort zone teaching in German, and even though I struggle to express myself still in certain spots, I am glad I have something outside of the house to do for exercise, socialization and work.

Good game for a city walk...

I had the boys today, and we went into the city.  As we were there, I had the idea (inspired by many variations of car games on family vacation) to have the kids find the letters of our name in the signs and stuff around us.  It was very fun and actually worked out... until we got to "O".  That was enough for them.  Note to self: get shorter name.  I could always do the classic American Immigrant thing, and simplify my name while speaking to authorities at Ellis Island the next time we go to the States.  A new start, not bad.  Then we'll have to change our blog to "the Stapleto's".  Awesome.  Go America!

Becoming a geeeel

Aaron told me the other day that he wanted to go to the doctor.  "What for?" I asked.
"So he can make me a girl."  Aaron replied, "and then I will be born! And I'll be a girl!"

We were telling Timmy and Aaron their birth stories the other day, which included how we went to the hospital and they were born, but this part about being a girl, I did not understand!

I tried to convince him that he was a boy and always has been and always will be, but he repeated this same scenario three times, about wanting to go to the doctor and the doctor changing him into a girl.

I finally asked "Why do you want to be a girl?"
"Because I want the geeeel toothpaste!" he said.
"Because you want the girl toothpaste, with the princess on it?"
"Yeah!"
"Don't worry, buddy.  We can get you the girl toothpaste.  And you don't even have to go to the doctor for that."

Summer Sleeping

In winter I get up at night,
And dress by yellow candle light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
   -   Robert Louis Stevenson

My friend Sara quoted this poem to me when I mentioned that my kids have had a hard time sleeping this summer, since we didn't get them black-out curtains.  Isn't it cute?

Family Home Evening

Nideggen

We had the whole Saturday free, so we decided to follow a lead that I got this week at work and go see the castle at Nideggon.  It was about 45 minutes away from us, and since we were on the outer-skirts of our branch-boundaries, we visited a few people on the way.  

The town was very medieval, with old walls and gates and the like.  It was a good place to run and climb around for the kids, and a nice forresty-hilly Eifel setting.

There was a cool little museum in the tower, and the boys were pretty excited to see some knights and armor.  We felt pretty cool visiting a "local treasure" that probably doesn't get a ton of international attention.

What made it even cooler was that we actually got to see a wedding in the courtyard, and they had speakers so we could hear the whole thing.  It kind of felt like we were intruding, but they had to expect that, getting married in such a public space.  Timmy was pretty worried that they were going to kiss, so we high-tailed it before such a revolting event could occur.  Awesome setting for a wedding though.

Finally, we ended the day with a hike around the castle.  Any chance that I have to hike around cliffs is really good for my Rocky-Mountain-soul.  They even had bolted rock climbing routes, but the bolts looked like they had been there since the medieval times too.

Just because I like signs lately: here are a few we saw on the way:

This one is for a "Pretzel-Fest".  Any excuse to drink beer, I guess.

This is a good example of the ever-intimidating German compound word.  This actually means "Nature Protection Area", but in the proper German rules, this phrase exists as a single unit.  I'm used to it by now, but I remember that when I first started learning German, words like that would make my head explode!

Since I'm on the topic, I recently got a newsletter from the church in Germany about internet resources.  There was a section in which the members were advised to not make unnecessarily long words in the church, and try to separate them a bit for the sake of the children or those with child-like reading skills (they didn't actually say this, but I can read between the lines, and yes I am sure they were referring to me).

 This last one shows a sign that says "Please don't feed" in which some sort of animal is implied.  However, it was simply a fence around some logs.  Apparently, some very hungry logs.