Who brings the snow?

BECKY and KEVIN!!!
They flew in and yes, they brought the snow with them, again. Just like last year. This year they were only an hour late flying in. We only made three loops around the airport.
We then drove up to Grandma S. and stayed the night. It was very warm and cozy... Well, Grandma S. seemed to enjoy having us there. We talked and talked and talked. Then we drove over to Grandma Y.'s house and met with the cousins, Mitzie and Dennis. We ate ribs and played games. It was fun!
After dropping of Grandma S. at her house again, we drove back to SLC. Kevin then noticed that he didn't have his phone. Luckily, Mitzie found it at Grandma Y.'s house and Michael and Anna-Lynne will meet us tomorrow so that Kevin will have his phone soon.
Tomorrow, we'll go to Martha and Shaun's house for a yule party. Natalie is wrapping up some wonderful presents to take because there will be a gift exchange. After that we'll make our way down to Happy Valley to hang out with Kevin, Becky, Dennis, and Janet over Christmas. So, happy holidays to all of you! :)

Schneefloeckchen, Weissroeckchen...

... ist bei uns angekommen! Am Samstag hat es angefangen zu schneien und alles ist weiss! Ich habe schon zweimal Schnee geschippt, denn Natalie ist erkaeltet und jedes Mal, wenn sie raus geht, faengt sie an zu husten. Naja, ist aber schoen draussen... deshalb mache ich das gerne. :) Hier sind ein paar Bilder...

Meine alte Schule...

Ich weiss nicht so recht, was ich schreiben soll, deshalb hier ein Bild vom letzten Sommer. Mit meiner alten Schule sind wir zu einem Freizeitpark in der Naehe gefahren. Dort haben die Lehrerinnen und Lehrer ein Bild machen lassen. Die Maenner sind auf einem anderen Bild. Koennt ihr mich finden? :)

Opa aus Buende

Letzte Woche Dienstag hat Gabi uns eine Email geschrieben, dass Opa aus Buende gestorben ist. Leider haben Oma und Opa sich nicht mehr sehen koennen, dann erst einen Tag spaeter wurde Oma ins gleiche Altersheim verlegt. Nach Gabis Aussagen, war es aber wohl eine Erloesung fuer Opa. Wir hoffen, dass es Oma den Umstaenden entsprechend gut geht und sie sich in der neuen Umgebung wohl fuehlt. Naechste Woche wird die Trauerfeier fuer Opa stattfinden. Es wird eine Urnenbestattung laut Gabi. Leider koennen wir nicht da sein, aber wir werden an euch alle denken. Falls jemand das liest, der Oma besuchen geht, gruesst sie schoen von uns!

Unser Haus

Heute ist ein Bauingenieur zu uns gekommen und hat sich unser Haus angeguckt, denn wir haben die Rigipsplatten in den zwei Raeumen, in denen wir Schimmelpilze hatten, herausgenommen. Wir haben recht viele Risse gefunden, daher waren wir etwas besorgt und Natalies Eltern haben uns geholfen, einen Bauingenieur und eine Architektin zu finden. Jetzt wissen wir wenigstens, dass wir noch immer in unserem Haus sicher sind und es nicht ploetzlich zusammenfallen wird. Puh! Jetzt werden wir die Risse im Fundament also langsam aber sicher reparieren. Hoffentlich koennen wir den Keller bald wieder benutzen, denn all der Kram ueberall... der nervt mich echt total!!! Natalie sagt immer nur, dass es wie frueher ist, als sie noch zu Hause gewohnt hat, denn angeblich hatte sie alles Moegliche in Haeufchen ueberall in ihrem Zimmer rumliegen. Sie hatte nur einen Weg zum Bett und zum Schrank. Naja, mir gefaellt dieses Chaos momentan jedenfalls nicht... wir haben so viel Zeug!! Aber alles ist sehr wichtig und notwendig!! :)

Oma und Opa

Vor Kurzem habe ich von Nicki eine Email bekommen, dass Oma aus Buende einen Schlaganfall hatte und ins Krankenhaus musste. Nun ist sie schon in der Reha. Aber leider hat Opa die Veraenderung nicht so gut ueberstanden, denn er hatte letzten Sonntag einen Herzinfakt. Laut Gaby wird er am Wochenende verlegt, denn sein Zustand ist relativ stabil - mit 30% Herzleistung... Wir hoffen, dass alles gut klappt und Oma und Opa sich wieder sehen koennen!!! Danke Nicki und Gaby, dass ihr uns auf dem Laufenden haltet. Drueckt also alle ganz fest die Daumen, dass es gut geht! Danke!!!

Norddeutschland- Kannst du die Nordseeluft riechen?

Auf besonderen Wunsch meiner werten Frau Mama, hier nun ein Eintrag zum Thema Norddeutschland. Mama hat sich mehr Bilder vom Norden Deutschlands gewuenscht... damit man die Nordseeluft herausschnuppern kann! Gluecklicherweise hat Karin uns ein cooles Panoramabild von ihrem (alten) Telefon geschickt. Da kann man doch salzige Meerluft riechen, oder Mama?!

Natalie sagt zwar, dass dieses Bild nichts mit Nordseeluft zu tun hat, aber ich denke, es sollte schon einen Platz in unserem Blog finden, denn schliesslich haben die Kartoffelgesichter die Heider Luft genossen... bevor sie verzehrt wurden... die armen Kartoffeln!
Und Karin hat sich sooooo viel Muehe gegeben, die zwei Kartoffelgesichter zu erschaffen. Sie haben sogar ein "face lift" von Karin persoenlich bekommen. Aber ich kann Mama schon verstehen. Der Kartoffelsalat war einfach koestlich! Lecker, lecker! Ich habe versucht, den Kartoffelsalat hier zu machen, als wir gegrillt haben, aber irgendwie schmeckte der nicht so wie bei Mama... seufz!

Ansonsten haben wir noch ein paar Bilder vom Heider Marktfrieden. Karin und ich haben uns die tollsten Attraktionen angesehen und Natalie wollte natuerlich auch eine Attraktion sein. Sieht sie nicht witzig aus?! Natalie hat ausserdem noch ein Wonder Woman Armband auf dem Heider Marktfrieden gekauft. Vielleicht sollte sie sich als Wonder Woman fuer Halloween verkleiden, hihi!
Ok, das war's fuer heute Abend... ich muss jetzt duschen und dann ins Bett gehen. Demnaechst gibt es mehr vom Norden. Versprochen, Mama!

Baby guppies

We have baby guppies!!! The female guppy we bought last week had babies!! I counted 7 new babies in our tank. Isn't that exciting?! Can you see them? Some were hiding in the plants. Aren't they cute?!
I also wanted to put a nice picture of the mom on here, but she was too fast... sorry!

Halloween is Here...It's Scary!

Ulli carved her first pumpkin this year. Can you guess which one belongs to her? And which one belongs to me? Wendy came and carved too. Wendy's is the most creative... What does that say about Ulli and me?

It's been a long time since I carved a pumpkin. It must have been more than five years, since Ulli hasn't ever had the chance to carve one. I believe Ulli enjoyed the experience. We have some more pumpkins that we got from Grandma. As soon as we get some time, we'll carve some more.
In terms of scary things happening for Halloween, we had our foundation "fixed" last Friday. The foundation people were supposed to come out Thursday, but didn't. Grr. Anyway, it's turned out that the little cracks are now huge ones. The "repairs" that were done by the people who sold the house to us, have been exposed. We also have a whole bunch of cracks throughout the office and downstairs in the basement as well. We're working with the company to get some repairs done.
When we were checking out the cracks in the sheet rock in the basement, we found mold. Yes, mold. We checked the rest of the basement and found more in the rat room. Now we know that it was our house that was making Chrys sick. We weren't just making things up in our heads when we thought that Chrys was doing better at my parents' house.
So, we have to have the mold people come in and help clean that up and we'll have to expose the foundation in the basement to seal up the cracks. So much fun stuff to look forward to. And we thought we were getting a grip on all of the repairs. We still have to have the plumbing fixed! Just the sewer line got fixed.
I guess we won't be getting a garage any time soon. No fence either. That means no dog. Ugh. I guess Squeak will just have to be an almost only child for a bit longer. She doesn't really get to play with the fish. So, she probably feels like an only child. She does get jealous of the fish though. She'll do a high five when I'm feeding the fish. I'm not sure why she does that. It's not like I give her any fish food. Strange cat.

Procrastination: Part II

So, I'm back. It's UEA! That means NO SCHOOL!!! I'm waiting for the foundation people to get here to fix our foundation. Whee. Ulli's off at the dentist. She'll run a few errands after that. What a great way to spend our day off.
Woohoo!
I thought I'd try to add a few details about our trip to Germany. The day after our ceremony, we had a bbq. There was lots of yummy food and great company! We had a good time. It was good to see some of our German friends and it was even better to have our families together.
Ulli and Karin personalized some genuine German rocks for the occasion. Everyone got a purple rock with his/her name on it. Perfect souvenirs for all of our guests!
This is the same day that we tried to explain American football. It was a bit confusing, but a lot of fun! We even got my mom out to play with us! I don't think she's ever played football with us before. She's played volleyball, but no football. Come to think of it, my dad never played football with us either. So it was pretty exciting and we all had a lot of good laughs.

We did some more sight-seeing together in the next few days before heading off to Munich. I think that's where I left off the last time I actually updated the blog.
(Becky, you were right--it's a lot more work than I thought it'd be!)
The day we arrived in Munich, we went to Dachau. I know I mentioned that before, but I think it deserves a little bit more than just a mention. It was Ulli's first visit to a concentration camp. It was a very sobering experience. Becky and I went back in 1996 during our first trip to Germany. Even though I've been to another concentration camp since, it doesn't make the experience any less powerful. The next day we visited the famous German castles. We went to Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Ulli and my parents have never been. Becky and I have been three times now. We went with the exchange group in 1996, and in 2003 (I think) we went with Ingrid, Kevin, and Maggie. It is interesting to hear the different stories from the different tour guides. Each guided tour is different. Even so, I don't think we need to go again. It's expensive!
One of my favorite things around the castles is this road sign! Isn't it great?!
Ulli got to experience Germany as a tourist. I think she found that rather strange, but interesting at the same time. I'm not sure if she'll want to play tourist again though. It's much more expensive than the way we are used to traveling through Germany. It's also a lot more work. Staying with family and friends is much cheaper and they don't charge us a fee for their company.
The last day in Munich, we got to meet up with Heidi and Ingrid. Both are good friends of mine from Koengen. Originally, they were my German friends' mothers, but I would definitely have to say they're not just my friends' mothers. They're my friends. I haven't been able to catch up with my friends from southern Germany in a while. It's been over three years since I last saw them. Where does the time go?!

Heidi and Ingrid took an early train to Munich and spent the morning and part of the afternoon with us. It was the first time my parents got to meet them. We took a bus tour of Munich together and then had lunch before Becky, Kevin, and my parents had to catch their train to Switzerland.
After Becky, Kevin, and my parents caught their train, we went for coffee with Heidi and Ingrid. We met up with Michael, Heidi's husband. We only got a few hours together, but it was good to see them all again. Don't get me wrong. I love my German family in the North, but I miss my family in the South too.
Ulli and I caught our train and headed to Reinheim, where we visited Oma number one. Oma in Reinheim was happy to see us and we were happy to see her too. She tried to feed us two or three times what we could eat. We did our best, but it was just too much food!
We ran a few errands for her while we were there, but mostly, we just got to hang out and chat. We shared our pictures with her. I ran the images through the TV and she got a real kick out of that. I did that three years ago too, but she still thought it was cool. When I took the picture, they were too busy looking at the TV screen to look into the camera! I look like a hunchback! That's a fan back there! I swear!
After a couple of days with Oma in Reinheim, we hopped on another train to visit Oma number two: Oma auf'm Hagen. She is in a new apartment. It's really nice and has a little balcony and everything. It's also VERY clean. She should come and visit us! She could help us get our place to sparkle like her house!
We got to eat more great food and we also visited Rolf (Ulli's step-dad) and his family. We had a bbq with them. Rolf is an awesome grill-master! Lots of yummy food!!! Martina's (Rolf's wife) house is also very clean. Spotless! Martina is a lovely hostess, but she doesn't let you help clean up. Not even a little bit. We did manage to get a few of the dishes into the kitchen without her knowing! It was all we could manage.
At the bbq, Ulli got a lovely sunburn. She likes the sun...a little too much sometimes. We watched the final game of the European Cup. Germany vs. Spain. Stupid Spanish bastards won. Grr. It was disappointing, but Germany was really great about making it to the finals.

Again, we ate tons of great food during our visit. We left the following day. We took another train to Buende and Oma number three, actually, Oma and Opa. The last time we visited Oma and Opa, Opa drank us under the table! He really loves his wine. He knows his wine.

This year we got some more great wine as a gift, along with some homemade jam.
Oma and Tante Marlies still run up and down the stairs at their house like they're kids! It's crazy!
We had coffee and cake, then lunch, then more coffee and cake, then dinner, then dessert. We only stayed one night, but, man, I was so full! The next morning we had breakfast and then lunch. We thought we were going to get out of eating the rest of the cake from the day before, but we ended up having coffee with cake again! I just couldn't eat any more.
It was good to see everybody again, but the Oma-Tour always leaves us stuffed full of lots of great food.
In the end, we took another train to Hamburg. There we met up with Karin, Sigrid, and Jens. And I think I'll write more later....

Procrastination

So, it's only been three months since we went to Germany. I meant to share a bit more of the trip, but things have been crazy. As always. But tonight, I don't want to grade my students' quizzes. Our first few days in Germany were extremely relaxing. We got to sleep in until about noon each day. Then things started to get busy. We had to get up early to take care of all of the legal stuff involved with the marriage prep. We had multiple early appointments. So much for sleeping in during our vacation....
We did make a few chill trips. We went to the coast to go on a "mud-flat-walk" when the tide was low. It was really windy, as it most always is up in the North. I made some new "friends" in the mud. I got tired and needed to take a seat on the only thing that was out there...a beautiful buoy.

Ulli and I got to stay in the vacation house in Thalingburen for the first few nights, but as soon as all of the appointments started, we stayed with Ulli's mom and husband in Heide. That way we could get a little bit more sleep each morning. My parents flew in about a week after we arrived and then the day after they arrived, Becky and Kevin came in to Heide by train. Picking these guys up was quite the ordeal.
My parents were to fly over Paris and then to Hamburg. We had to get up at 6 in the morning and then drove to Hamburg. Well, they didn't ever get off the plane. We waited for an hour and tried to check to see if they were actually on the flight. The Air France people couldn't tell us, but they told us that there was another flight in another few hours. The wonderful thing was that my parents had a cell phone with them. Well, I called it before we left for Hamburg, to make sure my parents made it to Paris. They didn't answer. I left a message. While we waited for them to get off the airplane, I called about a dozen times more. Each call cost us $0.99. Needless to say, I was not happy when we had to wait for the next flight. To save some money (parking at the airport is expensive) we went to the harbor and walked around there for a bit before heading back to the airport. My parents arrived on that flight. Yay!
Just as a side note about the cell phone that my parents brought... The number they gave me was the wrong number. Later when we were in Munich, Becky tried to call the voice mail on the phone and some poor guy in Utah answered in the middle of the night. So, he probably wondered what the hell was going on with his phone. I had left a few irate messages. At least we finally got the real phone number. We didn't really need the phone by the time we got it, but oh well.
Anyway, the day after my parents' arrival, Becky and Kevin were supposed to come in at the train station, but they weren't there. We weren't too concerned. Transferring from one train to another can be a pain and trains can be late. The second trip to the train station an hour later was Becky-and-Kevin-less. The third time, we didn't even go with Ulli. But they made it!
We had our first complete family dinner. With lots of steam! Ulli's family met my family for the first time. Actually, Nicki and Martin were out the year before at our Utah ceremony, but the rest of the family met for the first time. All eleven of us!We managed to get some sightseeing in and got to hang out together. I will end here for now. To be continued....

Summer Vacation Must End

The last week of my summer vacation was spent watching all of Ulli's hard yard work be destroyed by in order to replace the sewer line. We had a lovely 8-10 foot deep trench that ran from the side of the house out to the sidewalk. At least about half of Ulli's landscaping survived... Right? Our next project is the foundation. It is cracked in a few places around the northeast corner. This has caused some other plumbing issues that will also have to be dealt with, but not until we get the foundation fixed. The joys of home-ownership. *sigh* At least we don't have to worry about sewage backing up in the basement any more!!! Ulli's work in the back of the yard is still looking nice. We have Emma the seagull to watch over the plants back there. I hope she helps to scare away the cats that use the flowerbeds as their litter box! Very disgusting. These city cats have no manners! Not that the country cats that live out by my parents seem to be any better, but still...
We're already starting the fourth week of school. I guess I should be happy that we're almost a month into the school year, but I'm not so sure. I've had plenty of drama in my P.E. class already. Had a fight the second week of school. The year is off to a great start! Ugh!

Super Kitty!!!

Don't mess with this kitty! She's a bit feisty! If you pretend she's not upside-down but soaring through the sky...doesn't she look like a super kitty? She has super-powered eyes too! They glow with energy! BEWARE!
This is the Super Kitty's alter ego...Squeak. Water on the window and screen is just a little bit scary. She wouldn't sit on the top level of her grand ole scratching post until the screen dried.

Ulli's HAIR!!!!

Check out Ulli's hair!!! It's been growing! Some mornings it likes to stand out more than others. It really was standing up like that all by itself. We don't even own a hair dryer.

In Loving Memory of Chrysanthemum aka Chrys

Our little Chrysanthemum passed away earlier this spring. We miss our Chrys and just wanted to put up a little reminder of how cute she was!
Chrys was one of a kind! We are very happy that my parents got to know her so well before she passed away. My mom was actually hand-feeding her and holding her!!! I don't know if Chrys fully understood just how much that meant, but I think she may have had a bit of an idea. She aways did better at my parents' house. Chrys was much loved and is missed!

House Evolution

The photo on the top was taken on May 26, 2007 and the photo on the bottom was taken on July 27, 2008. Ulli has been hard at work in the yard. I have to admit that I spend a fraction of the time out working in the yard that Ulli spends. Literally, I spend maybe a tenth of the time working outside that Ulli does! It's just too damn hot!
In addition to the rain gutters and the new roof the house now has insulation in the roof. We got rid of the nasty spider bushes (that's what I call them--'cause there were a bunch of spiders living in them)! My parents came up and spent a few days cutting down bushes and trees, chipping wood, weeding, and tilling some of the backyard. I actually helped those days. Grandma Yamashita came and helped in the yard too. Recently we've been lucky to have good neighbors who have helped out with some tree branches. They also helped look after the house while we were in Germany. The house did not burn down!
Just thought I'd add some entries that might be of interest to people we don't see very often.... More about our trip in Germany will come in the next few weeks--before school starts again!

Squeak's New Haircut

This is Squeak's BEFORE picture... This photo was taken before we left for Germany this summer.

And this is Squeak's AFTER picture... This photo was taken after we returned from our four and half week trip to Germany this summer. She looks like she lost about "fifty pounds" (according to some)!