Friday, August 6, 2010

Monday, August 2, 2010

Cruising

Asher's been doing this for about a month now, walking behind this toy. Laminate flooring causes it to get away from him a bit.







Thursday, July 29, 2010

New Kite

I bought a kite yesterday. If you bought a six-pack of 1.5 liter pepsi bottles, you got a kite free. So, of course! I had to! Free kite! With a Pepsi logo! And Eowyn loves Mary Poppins, and she loves "lets go fly a kite".

So, we're walking to the field, and she had 0 patience. We weren't going fast enough for her liking, so she kept trying to grab the kite. "Daddy, fly a kite?" was asked about 200,476 times.

When we got there, of course there wasn't enough wind, and since I'm about as fast as an 85-year-old with a walker, we couldn't get much lift, but she was still excited to see the kite "fly". I even insisted she run with the kite and followed behind her, because I'm still fast enough, holding the kite as if it were flying.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Asher video

New video, starring Asher, as he shows off his 3-pt offensive lineman stance, does the splits, and low-crawls. Amazing sequence and show of flexibility, all in the first 15 seconds.

With cameo by Baylor and voice by Maren.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Renewed interest in blogging.

I don't know why that's the title. It just is. After being in Germany for a year, I think its time we de-Facebookize for a bit. Give blogspot a renewed chance at life. So here we go.

Asher is a big dude. He's strong. He's cruising. He crawls with a limp. Seriously. He's never quite learned anything but the army low-crawl, and so he's always only pushing himself along with his right leg. It gives the impression of a limp. And he growls as he scoots. And not even 1 years old, and Eowyn being almost 3, he can out-wrestle her for a toy he really wants. A couple of weeks ago it was a balloon in the car. Amazing it didn't burst. He's also been able to pull himself up into a standing position and walk around the coffee table for a couple of weeks now. Dude's pretty cool.

Eowyn's getting close to her 3d birthday. She's still very tall for her age. And very much a daddy's girl. I was home for 3 weeks taking vacation time. That only made it worse. She's into wearing dresses now, for some reason. Her German is improving rapidly, and she still translates for me. Its amazing to see her catch herself speaking "the wrong language" to either myself with English, or to Maren's side of the family with German, and say the same words in the "correct" language. She's in "Kinderdargen" every day until noon, though they're about to take a 3-week break.

Maren's also well. We're trying to figure out how she's going back to school in the fall and make sure the kids are taken care of. We'll get it figured out, but Maren's going to study to teach biology and English at the high school level in Germany. It'll be another 3-5 years?????

Here's a video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8vLE3MPk_M

Monday, March 1, 2010

Sickness

Last week was a bit of a rough one for us. On Sunday (my 1 day that I took off from work in the month of February) the 21st, Asher started getting very fussy around the time we got home from church. By the evening he was running a fever. Turned out he had Strep throat & bronchitis. The next day Eowyn came down with a bug, and Maren started feeling it too. That night the dogs even took turns throwing up. I lasted until the weekend, when I was opening Noises Off at the theater. Kiddos are mostly better, but Maren still has a sinus infection.

She went to the doctor for that today. Without even looking at her (read: glanced up at her once from typing on his computer, and that was it...no examination or anything) gave her a prescription. She's going to an E-N-T on Weds.

Hopefully today, March 1, isn't the only day I take off this month...

Translations

Eowyn has really begun to fully understand both languages we're throwing at her. She's always picking up new things, repeating what we say. Sentences still aren't full, but then again, she's learning two at the same time.

The other day, as we were driving, an airplane flew over. Eowyn said excitedly: "Mama, ein Flu-flah (Flugzeug)." Then, in the same breath, but in a condescending tone: "Daddy, airplane."

Monday, January 25, 2010

New Car (to us)

We splurged. We bought a new car. We've been thinking of getting something a little roomier for the family, dogs included. We wanted something that'll handle the small German streets (our Taurus has the turn radius of a school bus...check that, one of those Semi trucks pulling 3 trailers you see out West...), fuel efficient-ish, and of course, we could all go to Oma & Opa's in. Of course, w/ dogs, we have to get a topper, but that shouldn't be an issue. Here are the ones we considered.









Its a 2008 Opel Astra Caravan. German-spec station wagon. Now seriously, why can't these sell in the US? Oh, right..."We don't like station wagons. We'll just get a bigger SUV."... *ahem*...you mean the station wagon of pickup trucks????