Well, you need to sun if you are going to be snow blind...

I went skiing for the first time on Saturday. I have a friend who skates. His son has traditional cross country skis. I borrowed a classic set from a colleague, tossed the boy in the back seat and headed into the mountains with them. It was about an hour drive. It was also raining. I had some sunglasses with me to help keep my eyes right. I left them in the car. Not a lot of snow blindness to be had in a steady drizzle.

We rented skis for the boy. A whopping €7. Trail fees were€5. Nice.

Vojta and his boy clipped in and took off. A and I had to fumble around with getting him clipped in (he had different bindings than I did). Then we scooted off. We did ok for the first 100 meters or so. Then we had to cross the bottom of a ski slope. I found my self sliding sideways down the slope. I got that fixed. Barely. Aiden lost it on the far side of the slope. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to get my skis around him and stay upright while lifting him onto his feet. We got across the slope next to that one, and we were golden. From there on, it was groomed cross country track. And downhill for a couple of kilometers. At the bottom we turned around. About 200 meters from the turn around, A decided he was done. That carried on for the next kilometers and involved me carrying his poles for a while and him walking and carrying his skis. That part only lasted about 15 feet. He put the skis back on at that point, and starting "jogging" like he should have been doing and did great. 800 meters from the end of the trial, he took his poles back (after being scolded for being surley and not listening to advice) and put it all together. He did great.

The verdict this morning was "...half boring, half ok. I want to try it again, but I want to ride those things instead." That would translate to, it was ok, but I want to try skiing downhill next time and then riding the lifts uphill.

Sarah hit a car today

Sarah is bad ass. When she sees cars coming, she hits that shit. Well, sometimes she locks up her brakes on an ice patch, and B in the trailer makes her fall, and then she slides under the back of the car. But then she gets up and manages to hold off freaking out until the driver leaves, and I answer the phone. After that, though, she gets B to Kindergarten and then paints a freaking wall at a friend's house before getting A from school at lunch time.

Punk as fuck.

She isn't even whining now that I am home.

Hey, Gramps...

I am an old man. Sneaky, but old. I went over to a Hungarian colleague's house for dinner with most of my team from work on Saturday. To make sure I wouldn't get destroyed, I made sure to drink a big bottle (750ml) of water on the way there. Sure enough, as soon as I show up, they offer me a couple of samples of some native schnapps. One was a peach and honey schnapps. It was pretty good. Really smooth thanks to the honey (I think). The other was a kräuter liquor (think Jägermeister). It was spicy. I then talked a little smack and made fun of some people and got myself into a little more trouble with a couple of more shots. What they hadn't seen, though, was me gunning another liter and a half of water in between to help thin everything out. We then sat down to eat some really good gulasch on boiled potatoes. It was awesome. I ate two huge helpings because a) it was damn tastey and b) because it was a good road block to me being drunk. I don't like that situation as much as I used to. Even more so now that I have two kids that like me to get up early. So I managed to do a pretty good job of looking like a jaded, experienced drinker while actually having not had nearly as much to drink over the last year as was previously the case.

I also fixed their kitchen faucet while dinner was cooking, and we were all standing in the kitchen drinking beers and BS-ing. Really. I get fidgety. It seemed to be a good way to use up some energy.

Then we went dancing. That is funny business. I really am not much of a dancer. I am way too emo. I tap my hand on my chest or my leg and nod my head when I go see a show. But by golly I danced Saturday. It's easy when you are in a club full of fools. As a rule, the average joe can't dance. At all.

I managed to get home without having done too much damage to myself. Outside of getting to bed really late, I was in good shape today. I also managed to survive that weird situation of hanging out and having fun with a bunch of people who work for me. I haven't tried that yet. And I am by no means that guy who makes sure people know who is the boss. I try to stay out of the way of their work until I have to get involved and approve a vacation or intervene with a personality problem or something. It worked, though. A good dose of humility and a willingness to try new things seemed to be the answer.

Who are you?

This is going to be short. Live with it.

After three months, I have decided to give this a go again. I don't know how it will turn out. I figure that the crappy weather outside and a desire to not be riding my bike on a trainer in the living room will help.

I have started playing my guitars again. I took a week off last week while the boy was on fall break. I picked a couple of songs that he likes to learn and went from there. He is really keen on For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti by Sufjan Stevens.



He also came across a game online with Rock You Like a Hurricane by the Scorpions as the theme song. So I had to learn that as well. I am afraid I didn't go with the solo. I felt it was enough to crush out that rhythm and watch the kids run around singing along with me. That right there is why you have kids.

Freetime

We've been swimming at the local lake lately. Not the one with naked people this year. We found a better one with more beach, fewer naked old ladies, and lots of kid-friendly shallow water. Here are some pics.






The caravan coming back to shore.






Here's a shot of Aiden at the park near one of our favorite restaurants. He's in his usual water feature attire. Notice the sweet new haircut.

Friseur

I gave Aiden his first hohawk [sic] today. I caught crazy Hell for it, but if you saw how happy it made him, you would have done it, too. I will post pictures soon. The batteries in the camera died today, and I had to recharge our backups. We've apparently misplaced the two other sets that I made sure to buy as well.

We went for a swim today. There's a lake a few miles from here that has a nice little beach and is shallow for about 75 or 100 feet out or so. The kids cleaned their room up today, and I thought that that would be a nice reward. So I hooked the trailer up to the bike and towed them there. Sarah got home from shopping just in time to go with us as well. Aiden learned to float and kick today. He is floundering a little less each time we go. And a week of sun has made a world of difference in the temperature of the water. Fo' real. After my ride next weekend, we should have a lot more time to lounge at the lake in the evenings. I am quite excited about the prospect.

Josh is dead. Long live Josh!

Well, I have pretty much laid the old Josh to rest. He simply isn't here anymore.

I rode my first century today. Yep. 100 miles. And I did it alone and unsupported. Somewhat unplanned actually. Not in the sense the I was lost and had to do it, but in the sense that I haven't been training for it, but realized that I could probably pull it off anyway. So I got up at 5:30 this morning, ate a bowl of oatmeal with a banana and 3 huge scoops of sugar in it, loaded up a bunch of energy bars and gels, filled up some bottles with sports drinks, grabbed a 100 oz. Camel Back and headed out around 6:45. I rode down tons of gravel roads. I don't really like that on my road bike, but you gotta do what you gotta do. It went well, though. Of course, 40 of the last 50 miles was all crazy headwind. I also had to tool around Neureut some because I was about 5 miles short of the goal as I rolled back into town. That was annoying. And insanely boring. I toughed it out, though. I am unbelievably proud of myself.



A shot down Grabener Allee. This dude runs for dozens of miles from the castle north to Graben. And it is mostly gravel after the first few miles. That equals friction.



There are about a bazillion storks around here. There's actually a family of them right around the corner from our house as well. The "storklings" are now old enough to fly, and we see them flying around in a group overhead at the park a lot.



There's my big boy and my, uhhh... Navy SEAL? It's hard to figure out what that little freak show is going to bring whenever she comes through that door.

OK. I feel unbelievably good for 7 hours in the saddle and a hundred miles under my wheels, but my ass is packing up to an early evening in bed.

Holy crap is it hard to sleep here

It is mid-June. We've been lucky, and it has been mild, so the lack of A/C hasn't been too much of a liability for sleep. The sun, however, is killing me. Briana got up this morning to go to the bathroom around 5:45. It was full daylight outside. Turns out, the sun had been up for about 20 minutes or so. That is pretty typical, though. It is only about 15 minutes earlier than in St. Louis this time of year. The end of the day, however, is much later. The sun is setting around 9:34 right now. St. Louis says the sun is sinking around 8:28. That's right. That comes to almost an hour and a half more daylight. It doesn't really sound like much, but it is a pain in the ass to get wound down and fall asleep when it is still light enough to read by sunlight at 10:00 PM. In a month or so it will be light late enough that Sarah and I will be able to each separately do our training after I get off of work. We'll have enough light that I can ride my bike until 10:15 or 10:30 without lights and not have to worry about getting hit or pulled over by the police. I can't imagine how people survive any further north.

Wow. One whole year.

Well, as of today, we've been in Germany for a year now. It sure doesn't feel like it. Not like the last time, at least. I think we owe a lot of that to the kids. They make time here a lot easier. We also have a lot more to do. We are always going to play somewhere or going to someone's house to visit. We have also picked up some personal goals for ourselves that make the time go by. We are working our way back towards financial freedom, so each huge payment comes way too quickly. Sarah has been busting ass learning a new language. She has spent a lot of time towards that goal. I have been training so I can keep up with a friend who is competing in the Iron Man this year. That makes weeks whiz by for sure.

So what else has this year seen? Aiden can pretty much speak German without any issues. I would say his German is about 70 to 80% as good as his English. He is managing complex sentences and expressions now, but his verb conjugation still suffers. Of course, it's the same with his English. He has gotten good enough that I have started picking up how to say things from him. He has also gotten to the point where he A) doesn't get upset when people come over that he might have to speak German to and B) he readily switches to German with bilingual kids who don't want to speak English. Briana has finally begun to speak German to a point. That was quite a hurdle. She is using German about 10 to 15% of the time at home, I would say, and almost all of the time in Kindergarten. Around us, she is still just inserting German words into her English for the most part, but she has begun to throw simple German sentences in as well. Her comprehension is just about 100%. She has finally quit getting angry with me when I speak German to her. And she will respond (albeit in English) or act accordingly to boot. There is a rumor floating around that Sarah can speak German, too. I actually witnessed it last week. I was quite impressed. I figure that she is just a couple of months of practice away from being fairly comfortable. Now all she has to do is find someone who will quit switching immediately to English when she speaks (I am just as guilty simply because I forget to keep speaking German when I am at home).

Both kids have been growing like weeds. I am expecting another growth spurt soon. They have begun eating as much as I eat during a day. That is pretty impressive for their little tummies. Aiden has gotten pretty soild on his bike. His stamina and enjoyment skyrocketed once he got stable enough for me to raise the seat up and get his form a little better. It makes me cringe to watch kids learning to ride with their knees all up their noses. We are going to start working on bike handling skills once I get a new seat post for my single speed. We have done some test rides with B on Aiden's bike (before I raised the seat), and she's close. She rode a block or two before finally veering into some bushes as she realized that I was actually lying to her and not really holding on any more. So we are looking to make that happen in the near future. I have also seen some really cool "hang your kid's bike on yours" solution here. I bought a cheap one as a test. The device sucks, but the concept is sound. Aiden and I can really move along and we can go a lot further. More importantly, when we need to maneuver through or around people on the bike paths, I just let him pedal so we don't move too fast. It's sneaky yet surprisingly effective.

Other than that, things are pretty routine. It is amazing how quickly you adapt to a foreign place. Outside of all of the walking and biking and the foreigners ;), it's a hell of a lot like living at home...

The kids are becoming more German

Well, it is starting to happen. The kids are becoming more German by the day. We went to a restaurant last night to have dinner and some beers with some friends (one of them had a birthday Wednesday). The plan was to sit outside in the Biergarten and let the kids play at the park across the bike path. Unfortunately, we have a weather front tormenting us, and it started storming like crazy right before we left. We got to the restaurant (after arguing with Briana about whether or not the last tram we were on, which was one of the really old ones, was actually a bus. She wouldn't buy in to it being a tram). We were trying to decide what to get the kids to eat. We were talking to Aiden about getting him some fish sticks. He said yes, and then looked at me quizzically and asked me what fish sticks were. So I said "Fischstäbchen". Which brought an obvious look of comprehension and an, "Oh, I love fish sticks." That is really weird.

It quit raining by the time we had finished dinner, but the restaurant didn't want to start service outside, so we paid up and took the rest of our beer out with us to chit chat where it was much cooler (gotta love a country without A/C) and we could keep an eye on the kids. My friend Michael had brought his son (who is about to be 10, but is pretty small for his age) with him. Now that Aiden is speaking German, they get along quite well. We were able to have a pretty relaxing end to the day. We are planning on meeting them there again on Sunday afternoon. It is supposed to be dry tomorrow, so it should make for a nice afternoon/evening.

I went and got a haircut today. My hair is finally long enough that Sarah couldn't really tell it had been cut. I can. The back grows pretty fast. Or at least, the back is the most noticeably in need of cutting first. I had gone to a cheap place the last couple of times, but they just weren't quite cutting it. Pun intended. I paid a little over twice as much today, but she seems to have done exactly what I wanted. Which is pretty impressive considering my pathetic command of hair cutting German. The most important part was keeping everything long while trying to make it look like the back half of my head was part of the rest of my head. I was getting powerful close to looking like I had a mullet while having long hair all over. That is quite a feat, I admit, but not really one I want to be known for. We'll see how it turns out over the next few days. Hopefully it is good enough. I only get my hair cut once every few months, so I am hoping I have found someone who has done a good enough job that I can go even longer.

To continue on the hair cut front, I bought some clippers today. Sarah has been using my beard trimmer to cut Aiden's hair. My beard trimmer sucks. So I got something that is better designed for it. Aiden was pretty insistent that we cut his hair like his friend Patrice's. We can't go quite that short (he apparently has none), but I did go over it enough to get him into the army at the least. He is pretty stoked.

OK, to finish this off, here are some pictures. Enjoy it, Mom.



Here's Aiden jumping on a trampoline at a festival.



This is another one from our visit to the castle park while Sarah's folks were in town. This is the water feature the kids can play with.



This is another one of the visit to the castle park. These ping pong tables are all over Karlsruhe. They are at enough of the parks that we go to that I broke down and bought some paddles and balls. We have actually had quite a lot of fun playing.



This is a shot of the kids with their friends Vojta (behind B) and Michelle, Vojta's little peanut of a sister.



Here's a shot of us sitting around the table after the races. That's Vojta, the guy who makes me ride so much, in the white Iron Man cap.

Didn't need the dead people today...

We went for our ride. We rode about 50 miles. I got a flat. I haven't flatted in 6 years. Fortunately, I had a new tube and a quickflate cartridge. That is a really good thing, because we were somewhere in France, and I don't speak me a lot of French anymore. I mean, I can conjugate when I need to, but I'm not real good at building sentences, and I recently discovered that whenever I get hung up in French, I tend to inadvertently substitute German. Sometimes that works in Alsace, but you can't count on it. The new tube lasted until I got home. So did the water bottles I took with me. I'll have to hunt for deadpeoplewater next time.

Aiden helps me compose songs. I was wandering around singing a song about going poop yesterday. I got hung up at one point, and he suggested using the words "plop plop." Yes indeed. I mean, you know he's got to be awesome. He's got half of my genetic material. He and B are shaping up nicely. I am very proud of myself and my übergenes.

And lastly, here some pics from my cell phone.

These are of the wild poppies that are in bloom.




Here's a shot of the kids watching some people play bocce by the castle. Notice that B has her elbows propped on her bars like a pro.



Here's a shot of Sarah and the kids walking along a river in Strasbourg, France.

Silly man, you get water from dead people.

Not too long ago, I was complaining about the one downside to riding in Germany on Sunday. Everything is closed. As in, everything. About 30% of the gas stations are open. Usually a convenience store at a train station. That is about it. That means that it is crazy hard to, say, find a gas station where you can find water while on a bike, since you aren't usually on a main highway. That is important when you only have 1.5 liters of water, and you are on a 6 hour bike ride. I was complaining about this to my landlord and his wife. They are part of a triathlon club (yes, I seem to have surrounded myself with triathletes who also happen to be training for Iron Man races). After lamenting the fact that on a recent ride I got really dehydrated and almost didn't make it home because I couldn't find an open gas station where I could buy more water, my neighbor's wife looks at me and says, "we always stop at graveyards." I just looked at her quizzically. My first thought was, "OK, that's creepy." After a delayed, uncomfortable pause (during which I was reviewing my translation of the sentence), she followed up with, "There are faucets in almost all cemeteries where you can get drinking water." Who would have thought. Turns out, she's right. I was out on a 75 mile ride on Friday (we had a holiday). We had ridden about 25 miles, and we were facing about 10 miles of ugly climbing, and I had two empty bottles. We stopped at a bus stop to eat some energy gel, and I happened to notice a very manicured, vine covered stone wall across the street. Sure enough, it was a cemetery. Now, I don't know if this is an American thing or if it is a me thing, but I feel pretty weird about this kind of situation. But, I feel even worse about passing out 40 miles from home in a foreign country. And, as they say, when in Rome... Now, she also warned me that I needed to make sure it was drinking water. As a rule, when you can't drink running water that you find in Germany it is posted as such. I, personally, am not a fan of the safety concept of mark it unsafe. I think that things that aren't marked should be assumed unsafe. That way, you aren't drinking unsafe water because the sign fell off. And to make it more confusing, sometimes drinking water is explicitly marked. Anyway, I go into the cemetery, and sure enough, off to the left of the gate was a faucet with a row of watering cans. Unmarked of course. I decided that a few weeks of beaver fever would be better than dying by a ski resort in Germany, so I filled 'er up, as it were. I am still not dead. I haven't spent the whole day on the toilet. So I guess she was right.

I felt it so inspiring that I am going to follow Friday's 75 mile ride with 50 or so tomorrow. Hopefully the rule holds true in France. We'll find out.

Picture Dump Mark II

Howdy Howdy. Not too much going on here. Sarah's folks left at the beginning of the week. We were pretty busy with them. We had a lot of fun. Briana started the visit off in rare form. She was up on the landing playing while Sarah's dad was in the bathroom. He called out if it was her that he heard out there. She answered, "No, Briana's not out here. She's dead."

That's my girl.



Thanks to crazy friends who do crap like train for the Iron Man, we are always aware of local running races. The kids enjoy the kids' races. This is a shot of Briana, Aiden, and their friend Vojta at the starting line.



B took this shot of Sarah downtown in Karlsruhe while waiting for the tram.



Aiden helped me re-cable Sarah's front derailleur.



B playing at the pump at the big park behind the Karlsruhe castle.



Aiden watching the train go by at the big park behind the castle.

Scouts Honor, The Grit, Hot Water Music @ Substage in Karlsruhe

So I just got home from seeing Hot Water Music. It isn't so often that good music comes here. I braved Sarah's wrath, and told her that come Hell or high water (or a visit from her parents, as it were), I was going to see this show.

It was worth it. I got there just as Scouts Honor was starting. Good midwest hard core. I went and talked to them after their set. They were pretty surprised to hear honest to goodness, American English. Turns out their drummer is from Arkansas as well. He was pretty keen on finding another one here in Germany. They put on a good show. I am working out how I can get Sarah to go with me to see their front man, Jared Grabb, with MADSTATEWORLD at Zwiebel tomorrow night. I think it might be pretty good. The Grit followed that. Imagine a rough mash up of Rancid and Brian Setzer and the Stray Cats. It was interesting. Their bassist played an upright, and he kept standing up on it with one leg waaaaay out behind him (around head high) as he played.

HWM came on to a full house. I was pretty sure that it was going to be a good set because I got kicked in the face and lost my beer about 45 seconds into the second song. I own a lot of HWM discs. I do not, however, own a lot of recent ones. Those would be the ones that comprised most of the set. So it was a lot of new music with some classics thrown in. I got to hear Radio Free Gainesville, and they ended with 220 Years. I was happy enough.

All in all, and very good night.

The Devil's in the...Wait, what did you just say?

Sarah's folks were just here. They arrived on Thursday and left again on Monday. They will be back in about a week to visit with us some more. We didn't do too much while they were here. I had to work at first, and we stuck around Karlsruhe to see some of the local sites.



Popop immediately got on the zipline at the park down the road.



Momma even got in on the fun.



Here we are at the local tennis club's Italian restaurant. They have awesome pizza and calzones. And really good hefeweizen.



We finally went to the top of the Durlach Turmberg. It's an old watch tower up on a big hill. We've lived here almost two years in total, and this is the first time we managed to do this. It is a couple of stops past a restaurant we like. It only costs a few bucks to ride up. There are steps. You can even ride you bike up there, if you are a masochist. Yep, we suck.



Here we are in front of the "most unimpressive castle ever" as Sarah puts it. The children are in there usual poses. We call it grubbing around.

One last little cultural update. The Germans don't say that the Devil is in the details. They say that the Devil is in the squirrels. Now I know why squirrels freak me out.

A few quick notes

I don't have much time, but I want to post these little bits before I forget.

I got some new boxer shorts for my birthday. One pair has sock monkeys on it. They look like they are celebrating New Year's or something. One of them has a top hat and cane and is holding a glass of champagne. B pointed to him and asked me why he was a politician. OK, she said "ol-itician", but it was close.

A couple of days later, Sarah was holding her in the kitchen, and I was acting like I was going to scold Sarah for not giving the kids a treat. Briana holds out her hand to me and says, "Daddy, let me handle this." Then she proceeded to scold Sarah, and how.

Aiden went on his first big bike ride without his training wheels. We rode to this really cool park that is viking themed. It has a big, carved viking guarding the entrance and the main piece of playground equipment is a viking ship. He did pretty good. He is a little sketchy, and he believes that anything on the side of the walk (say a lamp post) is dangerous. This on German sidewalks that are 6 to 8 feet wide. But he made it. I had predicted some potential drama, so I brought along his tag along bar. I hooked him up to my bike for the ride home. He loved it. I will upload some pictures soon. Yeah, we forgot to take the camera with us. Which is too bad, because I saw an Audi R8 by the park. It's like a TT that is a little bit longer and meaner looking with a V8 jammed into the back. Sweet.

On a final note. I went on a ride this weekend. I did my first metric century (100 km). Which is a good start for getting me to a normal century (161 km). We did a hell of a lot of climbing, though. I am pretty sure that I could knock out a good 20 or 30 km more if it was flat. I have a picture of the altitude profile from the ride. I had to quit 14 km before the we got back home. My left knee couldn't take the abuse of constantly going uphill. I had to stop at a train station in Ettlingen to catch a tram back. We started out from Neureut and headed across Karlsruhe to Durlach. Then we headed up into Waldbronn. From there I think we went through Karlsbad to Spielberg. We picked up a friend there and headed up to Dobel. That was a massive climb. We dropped down a massive hill into Bad Herrenalb and then climbed up towards Loffenau. But before we got to Loffenau, we took a little left. And climbed straight up for 5 km. It was unreal. After an age of just staring at my front tire and trying to turn my cranks and walking a little bit and then riding some more, I reached Teufelsmühle. It was insane. Then we turned around and headed back to Bad Herrenalb and along the Alb through Ettlingen to Karlsruhe (or in my case to Ettlingen). It was pretty fun.

Holy crap it's been a long time.

For some reason, the Easter Bunny has the Claws of Death.


For both kids.



Here we are set up for coloring.



Okeedokee.

It's going to be a mad dash through the great things that have happened this week.

The kids and Sarah have been out of school this week. She and the kids came to the office to meet me for lunch at the cafeteria on Wednesday. While Sarah was trying to get the kids ready she told B she wanted a kiss. B told her no. The conversation went a lot like this:

Sarah: Give me a kiss.
B: No. I already gave you one today.
Sarah: Really. Give me a kiss.
B: No. I gave you one when you were in bed this morning.
Sarah: If you don't give me a kiss, I will leave you here when we go eat lunch with Daddy.
B: If you leave me here alone, I'll break all of your glasses.
Sarah: For that, I might just leave you here for real.
B: You can't. It's against the law.

That's my girl.

Then, they went to an English playgroup on Thursday. Briana played by herself the whole time. When they got home, I asked her if she had fun. It went like this:

Daddy: Did you have fun playing today?
B: No. Nobody played with me.
Daddy: Really? Why not?
B: They don't like me.
Daddy: Did mommy try to get you to play with the other kids?
B: Yes.
Daddy: Did you play with them?
B: Nope.
Daddy: Why not?
B: I wanted to play by myself.

Sometimes it really is painful.

Here's a shot of the kids playing after going to the park today.




But here's the big news this week:

AIDEN CAN RIDE A BIKE!

We have been having him ride on B's coaster bike lately. He has been pretty good with it. He can coast forever. So I explained to him that the plan was to get him to do the same thing on his bike without his training wheels. Then, once he was comfortable we would work on pedaling. So today, we went out for a big ride to a new park. Sarah and I rode, and I pulled the kids in the trailer. It was about half an hour to the park. The kids played for a couple of hours. Another family showed up. There was a boy that was 6 or 8 months older than Aiden, a girl that was about 4 months older than B, and a little 18 month old boy. The parents could speak English, so we chatted with them for a while. Once we were done, we headed back home on a new route. I had decided to try to make a loop. It didn't work. So we added about half an hour to the trip home. Into a headwind. It was quite a workout. Once we got home, I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and wash the winter crud off of our bikes while the kids rolled around in the driveway. As I was wrapping things up, Aiden comes up (after riding up and down the driveway on B's bike) and asks me to take the training wheels off of his bike. I told him it was late, that we'd have to do it later. He responds with, "Dad, I'm begging you." There's no way I could refuse that. I pulled the wheels off. He hopped on the bike, and I pushed him up the driveway. After about ten feet, he was pedaling along and seated squarely. I let go, and off he went. He turned around without stopping at the back of the drive, rode up to me, and then stopped without any issues. He then turned the bike around and started off by himself. I didn't have to interact again. I am so proud of him. He fought tooth and nail before this. It just took him setting his mind to it.



Okay. It is late, and I want to go to bed.

Oh, so that's panic...

Monday morning I learned what panic looks like. Aiden is always cold. Always. He wears flannel footy-pajamas as much as possible. I mean always. He's wearing them in the pictures from B's birthday party. So Monday morning he came into our room and crawled into bed with us around 6AM. He laid there for about 15 minutes dozing, and then he leaped out of bed loosing this creepy, low pitched keen and ran into the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, he began to turn in tight little circles, stamping his feet so fast you could barely see them, while frantically tugging at his zipper. Every revolution made his pitch step up a notch as he yanked at the zipper that ran from his neck to his right ankle. He managed to get out of his jammies mere seconds before he assploded. Poor little man. It was brutal. Almost ruined the toilet.



B got a package from Gramma Jeanne today. She got some long john jammies...



a cute little shirt and some pants. The shirt is a 6T. We have finally found something that is long enough to cover her little alien belly (as she has named it). The pants have little buttons to make them into capri's. With them up, they are short enough for her to wear as pants. She should grow enough by the time it is warm for them to be capri's.



Aiden was so worn out from a week and a half of coughing and being sick that he finally gave up the ghost and fell asleep on the sofa today. He looks pretty rough, eh?



Here's the poor guy getting a breathing treatment to open up his lungs and clean out the bronchitis. If you look closely, you will notice that his ear is all wadded up under the strap. Now, I'm not sure how uncomfortable the face mask is, but he refused to let us move it. Whatever we try, he gets all bowed up and moves it back so that it slides down and wads up his ear.

He is doing better, though. The kids will be going back to school tomorrow. That means that I have to work a full day for the first time in a week. Yeah, that sucks. I have been staying home until lunch while Sarah goes to German lessons while the kids have been sick. It is awesome.

Okeedokee. It is late. I am tired.

Auf Wiedersehen!

picture dump!

Ok, I can't write much tonight. It is late, and I need to mix up a sponge so I can make some sunflower seed rolls while I am watching the kids during Sarah's class in the morning.

First we have this picture from the Fasching parade we went to on February 5th.



Next we have B hard at work cleaning her toy horse at the little sink, a.k.a. the back washer.



Aiden was being a good helper while we were getting ready for B's birthday party on Monday.



Here is her little setup. We were instructed to make her leave the room and make up a surprise, then bring her back in and yell "Surprise!". So we did. She loved it.



Here is her cake. Sarah and I always eat pineapple upside down cake on our birthdays (cooked in the iron skillets we paid dearly to ship over). B aksed for a "plain ol' upside down cake" like we always eat. We made her a banana upside down cake. Like every other cake, she didn't touch it. Which is why we made something we thought we would like. Our kids always beg for cake. They hate cake. Teacher's used to worry that something was wrong with Aiden. The Smurfs are pretty much involved with everything Sarah arranges. It's a good thing they are so easy to get here.



That's it.

am i dead?

It has been a really long time. Three weeks, as a matter of fact. What can I say? I've been busy.

Last weekend, I went to my old boss's house (the guy who brought me to Germany) for a little BBQ. He just bought a Weber grill. Which cost about three times what it should have. It is a nice one, though. It cooked well. He and I have been discussing grilling for a few weeks, and I pointed out some pros and cons of the ones he was looking at. Once he got it, he decided he wanted to see how it was really done. So we went out and spent about a billion dollars on groceries on Friday night, and made arrangements for him to come get us Saturday morning.



Dieter has an old lab that wasn't sure what to think of us. He spent about the first five minutes we were there with B's house shoe in his mouth. He was pretty sure it was his, and he had no intention of giving it up. After Dieter made a brilliant recovery, the dog decided to go outside and relax where there weren't so many new people. Of course, right after that, we headed out ourselves, kids in tow.



With the kids distracted by the dog, Dieter and I got down to business. Dieter bought everything at the store the night before. We had chicken quarters, a whole chicken, a handful of what actually would pass as a pork steak (we thought it would be more bacony), some brats, some hotdogs, taters, some Roma tomatoes, onions, and GIGANTIC strip steaks. I found a site that translates cuts of meat into German. I click on a part of a cow, select the cut from the listed pictures, and it tells me what to order. It was awesome. I went back and forth with the lady cutting the meat. They had cleaned all of the fat off of the good end, so the edge wouldn't have the good old char I wanted. So we were debating the thickness of the cut. I asked for around 2 cm (yeah, I was having to do the conversions in my head, for some reason I hadn't thought about how thick I wanted them). 2 cm is about 3/4 inch. The lady realized that Dieter was going for an original American cut. She added about 1/2 an inch to them. They were monstrous. They grilled up great, though.



This was the view for the afternoon. We spent most of our time talking about grilling tips. I felt a lot like I was at home. It was healing. I have heard that there is actually a law in Germany that limits how many times a month one can grill. I think it is once a month. You can do it more if no one complains, but as soon as the neighbors complain, you don't have a leg to stand on.



Here we have some chicken quarters and potato packets. It was so yummy.

So, while we were there, Briana apparently kept everyone entertained. She kept talking about going upstairs to wash one of her toys upstairs in the bathroom. Finally, Sarah asked her why she had to go upstairs. She said she wanted to use the little sink. At this point, Dieter's family blew up. They all started hooting and hollering and laughing. Sarah went up with B, and found that she had the soap and a little workstation for cleaning all set up. On their bidet (or the back washer, as she calls it).



Today I went on a ride. It was sunny, there was no wind, and the temperature hit about 62°. We rode 50 hilly ass miles. The plot up there shows the profile of the ride, courtesy of my riding partners heart rate monitor with altimeter. It was pretty brutal. I felt like hell. The kids have been sick, and I haven't slept in about a week. I was dead about a quarter of the way in. I decided that I couldn't give up though, and I stuck it out. I know I held him back a bit, but my training partner is a good man, and didn't complain. It was pretty rewarding. Painful, but rewarding.

My Bed is my Castle

It has been a busy weekend. We bought a bed for the kids last week. I went out with my neighbor yesterday to pick it up. We put it together today. It is pretty cool. It is a half-height loft with a slide.





Aiden gets to sleep up top, and Briana's bed fits underneath on the floor. Getting Aiden's mattress up off of the cold floor ought to help him sleep better.



We aren't so worried about B since she is always hot, and the curtains ought to hold a little heat as well.



I managed to get the bed picked up yesterday right before some friends came over. I invited a colleague and his family and another friend over to celebrate my birthday last night. My colleague has an 8 year old boy. He and Aiden are starting to do well together because Aiden can finally handle at least rudimentary communication in German.

They came over around dinner time. Our other friend that came over brought some potato soup. It was tasty. I cooked up a few dozen frozen "hot" wings. The Germans don't really appreciate spicy food, and these wings are definitely not hot. They are tasty, though, and they are easy to prepare. So we had that and some nice red and white wine. Then things got ugly. I hung a beer opener with a catch pan under it yesterday morning. Now the kids constantly beg to open bottles. So they began plying us with drinks. I was in a rough way when it was bed time. So I drank about a half gallon of water (seriously), ate 2 tablespoons full of honey, took two Advil and called it a morning. The kids woke me up about 6 hours later, and I felt pretty good. A little groggy and rough around the edges, but not too bad. I was pretty lucky. So I came stumbling downstairs to fix the kids breakfast and let Sarah sleep in. That's right, I am such an awesome husband that I will get up early with a hangover just so my lovely wife can sleep in.

As I was fixing breakfast under Aiden's supervision, he looked up at me and asked, "Hey, Dad, can I get you a beer?" Man, it doesn't matter how lucky you get, getting offered a beer at 7:45 while you are still trying to determine if the day is actually going to be functional is just about enough to stop it all. So to punish myself good and solid, I made a plate of German breakfast/leftovers:



That would be a sunflower seed roll with butter (that got Butterkäse and Schinkenwurst), a pumpkin seed roll with butter (that got salami and Butterkäse), some "bread and butter" pickles, half a dozen wings, and a chunk of Weichkäse (like a very mild Camembert) that had been in the fridge long enough to go from weich (mild) to foot (yes, foot). It was still pretty good, but it was far from mild. It had aged something fierce.

After eating breakfast, I went upstairs and helped Sarah with the bed. We got it pretty much knocked out (to the point in the first picture) and then took the kids into town to watch a movie. Aiden has been begging for months. I don't really think it is to see the movie so much as it is to get popcorn in a bag with a drink. There is a theater at one of the tram stops we use, and he is always begging to go when we are heading home. Sometimes they have English movies, and I was holding out for a kid's movie, but it wasn't happening. Aiden said he'd be cool with a German one if it was a cartoon. So we went to see Bee Movie. I really enjoyed it. My German is now good enough that I can go to the movies. I was pretty surprised. Of course, it isn't much of an intellectual film, but I am OK with that. And since I hadn't already seen it in English, it wasn't completely ruined for me. I think that might be the big thing. At least for animations. It still pains me to watch actors I know speaking a foreign language with the wrong voice.

The kids really seemed to have a good time. Aiden claims that he didn't understand a thing. We have no idea if that is true. He was sure doing a bang up job of scolding me in German on our way to the movie, so I think he might have gotten some of it. Briana sat through most of the movie without incident. She got up to sit in Sarah's lap for a while towards the end and then moved over to my lap for the last 20 minutes or so.

All in all, it was a pretty nice Sunday. I am taking tomorrow off (for my birthday) and then I am taking Tuesday off to take the kids to a Fasching (Mardi Gras) parade in the next town up the tram line. I carried 3 days over from last year that I have to use before the end of March. That puts me at 33 vacation days this year. Tomorrow I am going to go buy myself some Starbucks coffee (I am craving some really strong American style coffee) and have some Sushi with Sarah for lunch. I am really looking forward to it.