Happy Valentine's Day!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Catching up... October

Heidi is 1 year old!

Snow!

Ok, I'm skipping a few things to do a more up-to-date post. But, I will try to go back and cover other things later.

Last week(?) it snowed quite a bit and it all came at once. It snowed for a couple of days straight without stopping, or so it seemed. I will share some beautiful photos of it.

The day we woke up to the snow was a Sunday so we had to get out in it to go to church.

We took a quick family picture outside church before we went into the warmth.

Velony and the other kids had a great time after church playing in the snow.

Later, Heidi and I watched the snow from the warmth inside.

Monday morning was not so much fun... it had continued to snow throughout the night and Karen had to go to school in the morning so that is what happened... Clint pushed her out of the driveway.

Here in Germany it is required that you shovel a path on your property, especially on the sidewalk where others walk by. If you do not shovel and someone were to fall you could get fined or maybe worse(?).

A few weeks ago one of the men from church sent out a schedule of the men who would be on duty to shovel snow at the church building. They have a rotation where one man is responsible for one week at a time. On the schedule, Clint and I found probably one of the longest German words we have ever seen before. In German you can get some very long words because you can put many words together to make one word. Here is the word that we saw:

Gemeindehausschneeundeisberäumungsverantwortungsplanungsliste

Pretty amazing, huh? It basically just means: Church building snow and ice cleaning responsibility plan list or something to that effect. Just thought I would share that one! :)

Oh, one more thing... Heidi has now a total of 4 teeth! She got 3 new teeth all at the same time, in the last couple of days! I couldn't believe it when I saw them all at the same time! She turns 1 on Tuesday! Where has the time gone???

Trip to Vienna

Back in October Clint and I made a trip to Vienna right after the Ladies' Retreat in Filzmoos. We got to stay with our friends Jake, Amanda, Abby, (and baby #2) Haskew--ha ha, that rhymed. :) We had a great time visiting with them and seeing what life was like in Vienna for them. We also got to meet up with some of their other team members... mainly the Rushers and Lockwoods. We only got to see Josh Hensal on Sunday morning because Kim was at home with a sick child. :( Here are some photos from our trip.


Heidi and Jake having fun


Jake and the girls


All of us in front of the Pestsäule (Plague colum)


Jake and Clint looking like they are up to something and Heidi playing with an empty Dr. Pepper bottle.

Abby and Amanda

Brian and Alisha Rusher and me

In front of a pretty fall tree

The girls hanging out

So much has happened...

Yes, I know... I haven't blogged in a very long time. I also haven't posted any pictures or videos in a long time. I'm sorry. That's all I can say. I got really behind and never got caught up. I'm not sure how to make up for it either. But I will try. Please don't be too mad. :)

I don't know why this video looks so blurry... hmmm...

I just love the look on her face when she eats the green beans. :) The video is from September.

Here are a few photos from the Ladies' Retreat at the end of September- beginning of October. Heidi went with me and it was lot of fun! Every year it is in a little village called Filzmoos, in the Austrian Alps. It is so beautiful!

Heidi and I with the "Bischofsmüze" ("Bishop's hat") in the background. Maybe you can see the shape of the mountain.... that is where it got it's name.

Group picture of all the ladies there

Bri and I enjoyed some Apfel Strudel at coffee time!

Just a little artistic attempt I made... ;)

Fun times... from awhile ago

(I started this post a long time ago and unfortunately never got the chance to finish it... so here it is. Hopefully I will do some more catching up soon.)

To try to catch up on all the things we have been up to, I will just quickly highlight some of the things that we have done the past couple of months.


At the end of August we went with some friends to the Chemnitz Stadtfest. (City Festival) Karen Neel, Sven, Kai and Sophia went to a concert by "Die Prinzen". The rest of us (Mark and Karen and me, Heidi and Clint) walked around and found all the good food and looked around at the different booths. It's (kind of) comparable to the State Fair back in OK. You usually go there to get the really good food. :)


At the beginning of September we had a Baseball game in the park and invited all of our LST contacts to it. We had a good turnout and had a lot of fun playing. It always amazes me to see people stopping as they are walking by and watching us like they have never seen this sport played in real life before (many haven't).


Our friends Alex and Barbara had their baby boy, Ruben. Here is a picture of the guys and Heidi.



Here are the girls and Ruben.

Trip to the States

Monday, November 3rd- Arrive in OKC

Wednesday, November 5th- Friday, November 7th- Travel to Snyder, TX to visit family

Sunday, November 9th- Attending Soldier Creek Church of Christ (Current supporting congregation)- morning worship

Attending South Yukon Church of Christ- evening worship

Wednesday, November 12th- Attending South Yukon Church of Christ for evening worship

Sunday, November 16th- Attending Soldier Creek Church of Christ- morning worship

Attending Memorial Rd. Church of Christ- evening worship

7:00 p.m.- Come and go get-together for all those that would like to visit with us. Contact us for the address.

Wednesday, November 19th- Attending Memorial Rd. Church of Christ- evening worship

Thursday, November 20th- Flying from OKC to Ohio

Sunday, November 23rd- Attending Louisville Church of Christ- morning worship

Saturday, November 29th- Flying from Ohio to Germany

Sunday, November 30th- Arriving in Germany

If you would like to contact us while we are in the States you can e-mail or send us a comment here.

The Bridge

I just watched this video and thought it was so good, I wanted to share it on my blog.

Click here:

The Bridge

Corn Labyrinth

There were some things I wanted to blog about but never got a chance... here is one of them.

Back in August Clint saw an ad in the paper about a cornfield labyrinth. He has seen the ad for the past few years and wanted to go every year. So, this time he asked me about going and we decided to go one Saturday. Our friend Sophia went with us and it was a lot of fun!


Here we are taking a fun group picture! We even found a baby corn for Heidi, but she was more interested in mine. :)


The straw man said to go this way...

Inside the labyrinth there were tasks that we could do. There were several stations that we were supposed to find. Some had questions that we could answer about ostriches and write the answer on the paper we were given at the entrance. (There was also an ostrich farm next to the corn field.) There were stations where we found stamps to use on our papers and when we found all of them, it made a picture of an ostrich. Also, there were stations with different kinds of eggs in them. We had to write down what kind of egg it was. There were eggs from ostriches, emus, chickens, etc. It was fun to try to find all the stations. I think it took us about 1 1/2- 2 hours to find everything and make our way out of the labyrinth! That also included taking a break to feed Heidi and change her diaper. :)


This picture was taken from a tower in the middle of the labyrinth. We climbed up to the top in hopes that we could find our way out, but we couldn't really see the paths at all. The corn was about 10 feet tall!


Also outside of the labyrinth was a flower garden. There were sunflowers, gladiolas, and dahlias. You can also cut some yourself there to take home and I wanted to, but I think by the time we were done with the labyrinth we were all ready to go home. So I just took some pictures and we left. I was pretty happy about this picture of a sunflower that I took. I thought it was really pretty.



HEIDI UPDATE:

Heidi is now showing us her new tricks every day! She waves all the time now. She even shows that she is responding to "Bye" or "Bye-bye" and even today we were at a cafe and a woman left and said "Auf Wiedersehen" in general to everyone sitting in the cafe and she waved at her! (Just for anyone who is interested that is a typical custom here to say hello and goodbye to everyone who is there, even if they are strangers.) Also, I think yesterday for the first time I noticed that she has been clapping her hands! Karen Neel has been singing a song to her that goes like this: "Clap, clap, clap your hands. Clap your hands together." It repeats a couple of times. I started singing that today and she started clapping! She is such a cutie! I hope to get a video of it soon. Tomorrow she will be 9 months old! How can that be?!

Oops!

I was just trying to update my links to the blogs I read to the left and I accidentally deleted it! So, if you read this blog on a regular basis and have a blog, or have our blog linked to your blog, please make a comment and I will get you put back on my links! So sorry! I don't think I had those links saved anywhere else so I need your help. :(

Heidi news

Yesterday we went to the doctor for Heidi's checkup. She now weighs 17 lbs. 2 oz. The doctor was happy with her development. :)

Also, yesterday for the first time she waved goodbye! I have seen her wave her arm about like that before, but it was never in context like that and I didn't know if she had done it intentionally to say goodbye. But yesterday Karen Neel was over here talking to us and then when she left she waved goodbye to Heidi and Heidi waved back! She did it several times in a row and later we tried to get her to do it again and she did! She is such a smart girl! :)

Back from our travels

Well, once again there has been a big lapse in my blogging. We just got back on Wednesday evening from Austria. The week before last Clint went to a men's retreat in Neckarzimmern, Germany. He had a really good time, but Heidi and I missed him so much! He left on Monday, September 22nd and got back on Friday, September 26th. Then, on Saturday the 27th, we all left on the train from Chemnitz at 6:13 a.m. to go to Dresden. From there, Clint sent me and Heidi off with Karen A. and the ladies from Dresden to go to Filzmoos, Austria for the ladies' retreat. Clint knew he would miss us a lot and of course we would miss him, but we decided it would be best for me to take Heidi with me so that Clint could get some things done at home. I am so glad she did come with me. I would have missed her too much! She was such a good girl and traveled really well! Everyone was amazed at what a happy little girl she is all the time and how well she did with all the traveling. It was a little difficult with Heidi, her stroller and my huge suitcase with all of our stuff in it, but with all the other ladies there, it was a big help! Thanks ladies (especially Karen A.) for helping me!! I felt so bad that Karen ended up dragging my suitcase (which was huge and sooo heavy) around most of the day. But we got there safely and got to enjoy the week there with all the other ladies. I am so glad that I went again. It is something I look forward to every year. The area is just so beautiful and the fellowship with the women is so great. I will have to post pictures later because I really have a lot of things to be doing now, but wanted to just do a quick update.

Last Thursday, Clint met me in Filzmoos. He drove the car down and then on Friday morning, after the retreat was over we drove to Vienna to visit Jake and Amanda Haskew. We had a great time getting caught up with them and seeing what their lives are like there. It was so fun to hang out with them and we did see a little bit of the city but our main goal was to spend time with them and we had a great time doing it! Plus, we were so spoiled by Amanda's great cooking! I will post more later with pictures about our time there.

Today, we are getting a group of 18 students from the OC Vienna Studies Program. We will be keeping 5 girls in our house. It will be a busy but good weekend. I will post about how it all goes later.

Have a great weekend!

I'm published! :)

Ok, so it's not really that big a deal at all, but a photo that I took in Salzburg last September was published on a website called Schmap. It basically gives information about different cities, maps, and points of interest. Being a musician, I wanted to see Mozart's birth house while I was there so I took some pictures. I got a message on my Flickr site that asked for permission to publish it on their site. Here is the link: Schmap!!

Canoe Trip

A few weekends ago we were invited by our friend Sophia to go on a canoe trip with her and several other friends. Karen Neel offered to watch Heidi while we went and then they came up later to Sophia's family's garden near where we did the canoe trip. We grilled and had a delicious dinner together. It was a lot of fun! I haven't done anything like that in such a long time, but it was fun to get out and do something with our friends.


Group picture at the halfway point where we took a break and then later headed back to the canoe rental place. From left to right: Linda, Stefan, Marion, Ralf, Katrin, Elke, Sophia, Clint, me!


Heidi played at the garden with Sophia's dad and grandpa.


Sophia's dad helped Clint get the grill started.


Enjoying time together waiting for the food!


Sophia's dad blew bubbles for Heidi!

Good vacation... and lots of other stuff

Well, now that it's been a month since we went on vacation I am finally updating. However, I don't have a lot of time so it will be short. We had a great time in Bremen. We stayed with Mark and Karen and got to spend a lot of time with them as well as see the city.


This is a statue of The Bremen Town Musicians (Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten). It is a fairy tale written by the Brothers Grimm.


This is Karen & Mark Abercrombie with Clint and Heidi in front of the Rathaus (Town Hall).


Beautiful flowers in Central Park Wallanlagen (I think that is the name) in front of a Windmill



Here's the Windmill which is a restaurant

Actually, before we went on vacation we celebrated our 3 year anniversary! We went to lunch together and then we had family photos taken. The new picture at the top is one of our new ones.





Heidi is doing great, she is always doing something new! I have a feeling she will be crawling soon! She is at least rolling everywhere for the time being. Well, she doesn't really get far, but she sure does move a lot these days! I can't believe she's 7 months old!

New Look

Heidi shows off her flexibility


I decided to go for a new look on the blog. I have been wanting to do something for a really long time, but never could figure out how to do it on my own. I came across a blog today where you can get free templates and it was very simple to do! I am just not in the know about all of that stuff to do it myself. :) Anyway, I hope you like it!

I got my haircut. I like it. It's quite a bit shorter and layered. It had been too long since I had it cut last. It was very relaxing to go in and have it done. I always forget how nice it is to have your hair washed and cut and fixed by someone else. Clint watched Heidi for me while I went. He's such a sweetie. ;)

We went downtown to do some shopping today. I got Heidi a bathing suit the other day and today I got one for me. Maybe we will go swimming on our vacation. I guess I forgot to write about that. We are going to Bremen on Friday. We have been wanting to take a break and go somewhere we had never been for a few days, but didn't know where to go. Then, the Abercrombies offered to let us stay with them. So we are taking them up on that. We plan on being there until Tuesday. I think it should be nice. I think we will stop at Braunschweig on the way there.

Heidi had Obstbrei for the first time today. She liked it and ate all of it. I'm not sure what the difference is between that and Fruchtbrei because as far as I know they both just are mixed fruit. I guess they have different types of fruit in them. Yesterday she was sitting up and playing and she basically got down to her tummy by herself... except I did have to help her get her leg out from under her. But it was pretty funny to see. She was trying so hard to reach a toy that was too far away and ended up on her tummy.


Heidi showing off her pretty dress from Aunt Amy! (I think that's who it's from?!)


The same weekend we saw Clyde and Gwen, Steve Allison from Abilene, TX came to Dresden. We weren't actually able to see him in Dresden, but he and Steve and Hannah Martin drove to Chemnitz and we got to have lunch with them.

Random Rambles

Heidi's sitting up!

In my efforts to keep this updated, as well as to write down all of Heidi's accomplishments, this post might be a lot of rambling... sorry. :)

Written on: August 1st-
This week Heidi has really been able to sit up well on her own. Today, with a pillow behind her, I didn't even have to hold her up while she played. She really loves doing razzes (I think that is what it's called) where she blows her lips together and usually sticks out her tongue at the same time and spit flies everywhere. :) She really squeals at such a high pitch when she is tired. Today she was very tired, possibly from the heat. It was almost 90 degrees today. The last couple of days she has been lifting her bottom off the floor when she's lying on her back. So far she still doesn't like Zucchini and corn but pretty much likes everything else she has eaten. Those are: Carrots, carrots and potatoes, pumpkin, apples and bananas, apples and pears, rice cereal, rice cereal with fruit, rice cereal with apple juice, mixed veggies and mixed fruit.

Written today: August 2nd-
Today I noticed her doing the dadadada syllables again. I know she has done it before but she hasn't done it consistently. Unfortunately, I didn't write it down and don't remember the first time she did it. :( That is why I'm going to try to write it down on here so that I can have it on record. Plus my goal is to get all this info in her baby book! She's been kind of cranky the past couple of days. I still wonder if it is because of the heat. She hasn't eaten all of her food at each eating session. But she did eat all her rice cereal and apple juice. We don't think she likes the Bebivita brand of baby food. She has eaten the mixed veggies in other brands and liked it a lot, but we tried it in the Bebivita and she didn't seem to like it as much... I don't know why. So I guess we will stay away from that.

Well, I hope all of this info isn't too incredibly boring to read. Sorry! This is our life! :)


Heidi's room is looking good!


Heidi playing in her new room


Fun in the new room