Dinkelsbühl

So bright out. I love that she is still smiling.

"Prisoners were left in this tower to rot." (In the guide book)

Not sure about this guy.
So, I guess the story is that during the 30 Years War the Swedish were coming to invade the city and so the towns people gathered together all their children and sent them outside the gates to plead with the army to spare their city. The captain of the Swedish army had just lost a son and felt compassion on the children and so Dinkelsbühl was not invaded. So unlike Rothenburg (which is still amazing) this city was not rebuilt, everything is in it's mostly original state. Every year in July the towns people re-enact this in traditional garb and celebrate. And of course all the children get bags of candy.

Andrew found this on the side of the old church, we thought it was pretty cool. Go Crusades!

One of the entrances to the city.



Ellie had a great time.

For Tim

Sometimes stars do things in other countries they would NEVER do in the states.

Does that say what I think it says???

I believe it does.

Munich

We went to Munich over Valentines Day weekend. The highlight of our trip was the Nymphenberg Palace, where King Ludwig was born (the one who built Neuschwanstein.) One of museums held old carriages that were used by the family. Most of these were designed to be way over the top made with gold and intricate paintings all over. It was very interesting.

The nice part about visiting this palace was that we could take pictures! It wasn't until I was about 3/4 of the way done, that I found out we were not supposed to be using our flash.... so some of the pics are really dark. It was also great that the tour was self guided, Ellie wanted to do some exploring and wasn't about to stay put for any amount of time. So, for these reasons this was one of my favorite palaces so far.

Inside the palace was glimmering with dozens of white chandeliers, more intricate paintings, mirrors, carvings, pictures, tapestries and an amazingly huge garden outback (which we'll have to go back and see because it was too cold to wander around outside.) In the front they had a fountain and a pond with swans. It was quite an amazing place.

Music Class, Princess Castle And Happy Valentines Day!

Thanks to Tracy Phillips our brilliant organist, primary pianist and amazing music teacher we have a really fun music group for the little ones. We sing songs, dance and play, Ellie has a lot of fun. Thanks for all your work Tracy!




Ellie got a new toy, for V day. She LOVES it. I think it must be a German thing, I don't recall castle tents being popular in the States.

Russian Night

We have a few Russian members in our ward and a German member that just got back from his mission to Russia, I'm the activities chair at church........... presto, Russian Night. Good times were had, especially by the lady in the white shirt, scarf and boots. One of my favorite families at church are the Grebes. Sister Grebe is the kindest person I've met, she went all out making tons of food for us to try. Although she speaks Russian/German I can still understand her or at least understand that what she intends to say is very sweet. That night she and her brother played the accordion for us. The first song she played was the Tetris song, a traditional Russian folk song, but all I could think about was my favorite Nintendo game- totally made me laugh. Members danced and Ellie had fun dancing to the music too.

Autobahn fun?

I'm still getting used to going 110mph on the freeways. (We were driving next to a Polizei (German Police man) for about 1/2 an hour at this rate.) They do have areas that you have to go 80kmph and instead of pulling you over to ticket, the state just takes your picture. The picture takes most of the shame out of getting a ticket ( I think.) Even though Andrew's been "flashed" once (on New Years) no bills yet....

Favorite Pics

Ellie is so much fun. She can say baby, she holds her nose and says stinky when she has a dirty diaper, and she says doggy about 50 times a day. She is so busy hording all of the craziest things into her favorite hiding spots in the house and into containers. She puts her crayons in moms kitchen cupboards and her books in the closets. At the end of the day I always find a little bucket with all her treasures from the house: ear plugs, pens, hair things, candles, paper flowers, and plastic lids from the kitchen. How does she snag all these things with out me seeing??
Doing Ojitos for mommy. It means "Little eyes" in Spanish- she learned it from Grammy Liz.
We had the missionaries over last last night. Ellie welcomed them by handing over all her toys and books.
These two are best buds, I love this pic.

Nutella For Breakfast

She learned this face from a friend:) It's also the, "I know you have more" face.

mmmmmmmmmm. We love Nutella.

Broken Promise

So, I promised myself I would try really hard not to say anything negative about the German people as a whole. Stereotyping in general bothers me and I know that there are things that I do as an American that most likely bothers others. But for some reason I need to get this off my chest, so here it goes (and this does not apply to all, just most in my 3 months here:) Germans are brutally honest, emphasis on the brutally! If something is wrong you are notified directly no matter where or who you are with and forget about points for effort. 

Most Germans are meticulous, deliberate and expect the same of everyone else. Everything is where it should be and everything has a place. Once again, if something isn't as it should be you are notified instantly.  The dishwasher repair man came over a few days ago to fix a leak. When the leak was fixed he told me that I needed to use salt in the dishwasher because the water is hard. Totally important tip, that I was doing, but at the time it needed more so we put more in. Then he said that I needed to use rinse aid, also something I was doing, thank you. And then he said I was putting my knives in wrong- the blade is supposed to be up. Ok. 10 min later. Are you done?? Thanks. Other offenses that you might get yelled at about:  putting the wrong trash in the wrong container, using too much electricity (we pay for it), running your child into the apartment quick without a hat or gloves,  translating something for church on the German translator on your computer (it doesn't translate right) and drinking something that is too cold. I guess my lazy attitude doesn't cut it over here.

New Years, Heidelberg and Shopping With Ellie

New Years was a battle zone, but it was awesome! Imagine everyone in the city having illegal (not illegal here) fireworks and blasting them off at any time come 12pm and on. When New Years was finally here the city was ablaze, all you could see were fireworks and smoke. I thought I was going to get hit multiple times. This picture does it no justice, but everywhere you see light its a firework. It was insane!


Madonna statue with castle Heidelberg in the background.

The walks to castles are always straight up. I wonder how hard it was to get there back in the day?

On the Castle tower overlooking the city

In side the castle walls
In the Castle gardens. It was so cold!! Ellie wasn't liken' it!

Heidelberg. The bridge takes you on the old philosophers walk.

More of the Castle Garden.

This is Knight Ritter's home that they have converted into a hotel.

Inside the church.

Ellie finally started really walking yesterday!! Yea! She is still pretty scared of walking without support, but yesterday she really started to get brave. We walked out to the car and just as I was about the pick her up and put her in her seat she decided she wanted to climb in the car by herself and ended up falling into the snow. She let out the biggest scream I've heard, not because she was hurt, but because she didn't know why she was so cold. As sad as it was she totally made me laugh. One of her favorite things is to play with her shopping cart. She puts all of her babies and bears in it and walks all over the house collecting all of mommies decorations on the way. It cracks me up so here's a pic.

Getting the pics up is half the battle. The internet is getting fixed today so with all luck, more commentary to come:)