Wordless Wednesday- Signs of Spring

More Snow

Saturday morning we woke up to find the ground white and glittering with snow. We groaned a bit and whined about the cold weather. Finally we decided to make the best of it, stuffed ourselves into the snow suits, hats and mittens one more time, then headed outside. After all we may not know exactly what to expect when we move to Malawi but we are pretty sure there won't be any snow, so we better enjoy it before it all melts away.


We threw snowballs and ambushed the neighbor trying to sneak out to the trash bins his pj's. Sorry about that Randy! After a while the neighboring kids came out to join us and we had a grand snowball fight followed by snowman building. I have pictures of the snowmen but not of the fight as it is hard to defend yourself while taking pictures, also getting hit by a snowball is probably not very good for the lens. Sometimes you have to quit taking pictures and participate in life.

Way To Go Dakota!

This weekend was a big weekend for Cody. For months now he has been staying after school practicing with the JROTC Drill Teams preparing for competition. This is a big deal for these kids. They worked very hard getting ready. There are 5 drill teams: color guard, regulation, saber, unarmed, and armed. Cody is on every team so he had lots of routines to memorize and perfect. Two of these teams, color guard and regulation, have preset routines where every team from every school does the exact same thing. The remaining routines are choreographed and performed by the students. On Friday the students put on a performance for the families. Cody had not only his parents and brothers cheering for him, but also our friend Doug, and our neighbor Randy and his family. The students looked sharp in spite of the fact they were performing in jeans and t-shirts. This was understandable as everyone's uniform was fresh from the cleaners and ready for competition. We did not get to see the real deal which was held on Saturday in Kaiserslautern, Germany, but here are some pictures from Friday.

Competition Colorguard

Regulation Drill Team

Saber Team--Yikes! That's a sword flying though the air. Don't worry Cody caught it perfectly!

They look sharp, I mean the kids not the swords, although the sabers look sharp too.

Unarmed Drill Team

Its all about precision.

Armed Drill Team

Those rifles weigh in at just over 9 pounds, but you would never know it from the way they were spinning and throwing them around.

Caught in mid spin. Now that is synchronization.

When did my baby grow up??

Schools from across Europe participated in the competition Saturday. Wiesbaden took 1st in unarmed, 1st unarmed commander, 2nd in saber, 1st in armed duo, and 3rd overall. In addition Dakota took 4th in the individual drill competition. In this competition all participants, including alternates, follow drill sergeants' calls. Any mistake, however small, is an automatic elimination.

Dakota in his uniform showing off his medal from the IDR.

Why Do I Blog?

I blog to hang on to what's left of my sanity, assuming I was ever sane to begin with, questionable I know. I blog because it gives me a sense of continuity and community as we move to a new country and a new culture every few years. I blog because it helps my family and friends back home understand a little of what lives are really like, and the real life of a diplomatic family is nothing like the movies. I read other FS blogs because it helps to know others are going through this insanity as well. I read other FS because no one can understand the frustrations of shopping, or the agony of bidding unless they have been there/done that for themselves.

A few weeks ago my blog reading list got a real gift. A Daring Adventure began a new and daring adventure, she began posting a Weekly Roundup of FS Blogs. She collects the FS blog posts from the past week that spoke to her, touched her heart, or made her laugh, then adds clever commentary and posts the links so the rest of us can enjoy as well. She also accepts submission. What a wonderful idea and a great way to foster a sense of community in the FS even though we are are flung all over the globe.

A Daring Adventure isn't just good at finding interesting blog posts, she is a clever writer herself, with a wicked sense of humor. One of the selected posts last week involved Ashton Kutcher's visit to Moscow. She finished up her commentary with this:

Nothing said about Ashton Kutcher’s clothing choices for the meeting, which I guarantee did NOT include the following:

Well now that is a familiar looking picture (and why, oh why, didn't I vacuum the carpet that day???) A day or two later I received this comment:

I got your sweet comment on my blog, and I wanted you to know that I followed it up with:

------------------------------

I'm so glad you're not upset with me! I was worried that you might be upset with what I grabbed from your blog, but putting that picture on your blog was like dumping chum into the water right in front of a shark!

And when my husband came home and read that part of my post, he told me that there's a co-worker in his office who wears those shoes ALL the TIME and LOVES them! So see? Tell your husband he's not alone!

Well if she thought that picture was chum in front of a shark she must have just loved this week's Wordless Wednesday post. (Did you notice I vacuumed??) Yes that's my husband again, and yes he wears those socks, in public, WITH SANDALS! My mom gave him those, Thanks Mom. In fact I do know that A Daring Adventure was indeed impressed with my husband's flair for style, because I received this comment from her on the sock post:

Shut UP! Those are AWESOME!

And I will have you know that my very own husband has located a vendor for Dave's toe-shoes here in our area and wants to go try some on this weekend!!

You know I think I really like her. I hope that some day we get to meet in person, but until then you can be sure I will be reading her blog and looking forward to the Weekly State Department Roundup.

Wordless Wednesday- Toe Socks!

A Very Blustery Day

Yesterday was a rather blustery day. OK I am done quoting, or at the least paraphrasing, Pooh. I promise. The wind howled and whistled past the window all day long. Refusing to be trapped inside now that the temps have finally risen above freezing the boys played outside in the wind. They had a blast playing frisbee. The frisbee would catch the wind and and sail far and high. Much farther than the boys have ever managed to throw the frisbee before. But when the roof tiles started flying as well the fun was over. Inside they came to play Wii with Dad and our friend Doug, who is visiting from Zambia. I somehow managed to take no pictures of Doug with the family (sorry Kate!) so I will just post some pictures of the aftermath of yesterday's windstorm.

Surprisingly few large limbs fell down, mostly it was smallish branches an inch or two across. The bulk of the damage seemed to have been done to roofs and BBQ pits. The maintenance crews were out bright and early this morning surveying the damage and getting right to work. I was cleaning upstairs for a little while and when I came down and looked out the window the hole in the roof across the yard was already fixed. I didn't even get to see them working on it. Bummer! In all seriousness I am glad they are making short work of it since the skies are overcast and threatening rain, as usual. It would be bad if it started to rain while the roofs look like this:



BBQ pits did not fair any better than the roofs in the high winds. Our pit survived only because one neighbor went out and tied his pit all together and then secured it to the metal rail on the brick BBQ pad. Brilliant! I quickly tracked down some twine and sent Cody down to rescue our pit and tie it down. He managed to find all the pieces and put it back together. Teenagers are just so handy. Worked like a charm, so now our pit didn't look like these poor pits.



In addition to the roof work the big surprise was the maintenance guy walking around putting BBQ pits back together. A surprise because the pits are all personal property, not really the responsibility of the work crews, but I am sure this will be much appreciated. They are already lined up together awaiting the next cook out.

Wordless Wednesday- Let Me Out!

Boys Are Gross!

Monday night soup night continues to be a weekly traditions around our house. Yesterday I made one of my favorite soups, split pea soup. I love the rich hammy flavor on cold winter days. Paired with some fresh honey-wheat bread it made a wonderful dinner. The boys however had a different opinion. Even though they had eaten it, and liked it in the past, last night they decided it was gross. Grayson in fact flat refused to even taste it until his brothers declared the soup to be Shrek Snot Stew. While I was unimpressed with the new name it must have tickled his funny bone because he scarfed down his bowl while giggling that he was eating snot. Boys are gross!

A bit after the rest of us finished eating Dakota arrived home from a late JROTC armed team practice and sat down to his bowl of split pea soup. After a few bites he commented, "You make pretty good vomit." Interesting movie trivia, split pea soup was used for the vomit in the horror movie "The Exorcist". Oh yeah... boys... gross!

Moments later Grayson ran by and yelled, "Cody is eating Shrek Snot Stew!" Cody who had just popped a spoonful into his mouth, visibly paled, then gagged. For a moment I really thought he was going to vomit. Apparently the thought of ogre snot was just too much for him. Why cartoon snot should be worse than demonic vomit I am not sure, but it was funny to see Cody so grossed out over a bowl of soup.

Wordless Wednesday- Dave's New Shoes

Wordless Wednesday- The Snowman

Dead Chicken...Mmm ..Yummy!

Tonight I was putting dinner on the table: roast chicken, green beans and corn. Grayson ran by, looked at the table, and without breaking stride yelled, "There's a dead chicken on the table!"

Almost instantly the reply came from another room, "I one it!"

From upstairs came the answer, "I two it!"

"I three it!"

"I four it!"

"I five it!"

"I six it!"

"I seven it!"

By this time Alonzo and Colin had made their way to dining room to check out the dead chicken. They must have liked what they saw because in a rush they both yelled, "I jumped over it and I ate it! ...No! I ate it!....No I did!"

**This is a sick little game my husband's family plays on road trips, but it usually involves road kill not my roast chicken. You want to be the one that yells "I jumped over and (insert the name of someone else in the car) ate it." It has been known to reduce the person who has been told they ate the dead, smelly, smooshed road kill to tears.

Wordless Wednesday- Then and Now

Gaming on the bahn

Disclaimer: Until we moved to Germany I had never lived any place it snowed, so this driving in cold icy weather is a new and sometimes exciting adventure.

I have discovered driving in the snow is a lot like playing a video game. The goal of this game is not to get where you are going the fastest, nor is it to see how many people you can run off the road. The only goal of this game is to get where you are going, and get there alive.

Like any video game there are lots of challenges along the way. The roads can be so slippery that one wrong move will send you spinning off the road, never mind that stepping on the brakes to slow down doesn't exactly have the desired effect. Sometimes it works, sometimes it sends you sliding and not always in the right direction. So far I have avoided this particular pitfall, but judging from the number of banged up guard rails not everyone has been so lucky.

When there is a lot of snow on the ground it can be hard to tell where the lanes are or even sometimes exactly where the road is. In this case you follow the tracks of the car in front of you and hope for the best. If it is snowing hard while you are driving, well that makes finding the road even more challenging.

By far the most startling challenge is the road bombs. No, not IEDs like the troops have to face, these are less explosive and more icy. They come in two varieties: one white and fluffy, the other black and yucky. The white fluffy one happens when the guy in front of you on the aoutobahn couldn't be bothered to get all the snow off his car before driving. At some point all or part of that blanket of snow peels off, becomes airborne, and generally lands square in the middle of your windshield. It can just about make you about pee your pants. The trick is not to jerk the steering wheel or stomp on the brakes when this happens. Just keep going straight and use you wipers.

The other type of road bomb is black and gross. It forms from the salty nasty slush from the road splashing up on to the underside of the car and freezing. At some point gravity takes over and a huge hunk of hard black ice breaks loose and comes bouncing down the road at you. Most of the time this type breaks up and scatters smaller ice chunks all around. Once in a while one will bounce up and hit your bumper or door panel making a loud thump and if you are very unlucky it drops from a big truck and so bounces higher and lands on your hood. Yikes!

The last challenge is only for those playing the advanced version of driving in snow. This challenge come from within the car, it is the kids in the back seat screaming and fighting while you are trying to remember to downshift not brake, keep a good following distance in spite of the Porsche-driving genius who just squeezed his over priced sports car/coffin two feet in front of your bumper, and watch out for road bombs. All this while preventing he fight from escalating to actual blood shed in the back seat.

Good Luck with the winter road games where ever you are, they sure are exciting.

Wordless Wednesday- Doorman and Family

On The Way To The Store

This morning when I headed out to the store for milk I grabbed my camera to get some pictures of the snow. We won't be seeing any for the next three years so I thought I better take some pictures. Even with the cold it was a nice walk. I actually kinda like the snow, but I think in the future I would prefer to visit the snow for short periods of time rather than live with it all winter.