Jacob's recital

On Sunday, Jacob performed in his first piano recital. The recital was for all BFA students, elementary through high school to perform their pieces. Jacob was the first one to play his piece. It didn't hit him until he saw his name on the program and realized that he was going first. Then he got really nervous. He was a real trooper and marched right up on stage and performed. He didn't rush through it. At the end, he stood up and took a bow. You can find a sample of his song on the BFA website. Go to www.bfacademy.com. click on recent and find listen to student musical recital. Jacob is the first one. It was a very long recital almost two hours. I had a high schooler meet me in the lobby to take care of Sarah for me. I paid her 10 euros which converts to about 12.50 for almost two hours. I was desperate to find someone since Jeff was out of town and everyone seemed busy. After the recital, Sarah was asleep in Heidi's arms. Here is Jacob after the recital was over. I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of him during it, my batteries in my camera were dead. This was taken when we got home and I went to find fresh batteries. His teacher gave him a chocolate bar as he was going to sit down. I remember at my first recital that my piano teacher gave me a mini plastic bust of a composer. I thought that was weird.

Going out to eat

Jeff made it home from his conference. About an hour after he returned home, we all jumped into the car and headed to BFA to meet up with the orchestra members for a dinner out. Now, it is known in the BFA community that if someone finds a deal anywhere, they are obligated to share this find with the entire community. So when a resturant has a "special" night, it spreads like wildfire. In a neighboring town there is an Italian resturant that serves pasta and pizzas. Everyone knows that on Mondays Pizza's are 3.50 Euros. On Wednesday night, Pasta is 3.50 euros. If anyone comes to visit us you can be sure that we will take you to out to eat on one of these nights because we can afford it. As we went into the resturant, it was not surprising to see other people from BFA there. I think it is a given that on Monday and Wednesdays, the major language spoken at the resturant is English. It isn't that big of a place and you feel like you are eating underground in a cave which can be kind of cool. However, they are slow with you order. We got there about 5:30 and we didn't get our food until 6:45! It is hard to keep kids and a baby happy that long. Here are a few pictures of our dinner. We are waiting for the food, notice that they get you your drinks right away. You stare at it for 40 minutes and try to keep your kids from drinking it all before the food comes. There are no FREE REFILLS in Europe!


Everyone is happy now that we have our food. Sarah was getting really tired at this point. Jeff and I ate our callazones really fast so we could get her home to bed. The rest of the group stayed for ice cream. There is no telling how long they had to wait for that! Never a dull moment living oversees!

Cultural Tidbits

On Friday, I drove Jeff to meet other board members for their yearly board meeting with EurECA. This is a support group which helps Christian teachers working in public schools across Europe. Jeff is the treasurer for the organization. During the last few years as he has attended these meetings, he has made some funny observations. He is the only American in a totally operated European organization. He has come to appreciate what Christians must endure in public schools in many Euorpean countries. Sometimes, it still seems foreign to him. He has had some interesting conference centers that he has met at. Last year, they met in Budepest at the ACSI headquarters. They had to cook many meals on their own so I think they lived on soup for most of the weekend. This year, they are meeting outside of Zurich at a conference center that is also a convent. In the itinerary that was sent to Jeff it said that every breakfast will be eaten in silence. Yesterday morning before he left, he still had to balance the books. I ended up packing for him. As I drove Jeff to Basel for a pick up time with the rest of the board members to travel on to Zurich he was asking me if I had packed certain things for him. "Did you pack my gloves incase it get cold?" "Yes" "Did you pack my mouth wash?" "Ooops, I forgot, it doesn't matter you can't talk while you are eating breakfast and that is when you have smelly breathe anyways!" I am interested in hearing some interesting stories from this experience.

American Thanksgiving

Well, another Thanksgiving is over for us. This marks our seventh one while living in Germany. For our school, there are no days off like in America. Some international schools do observe American Thanksgiving. Because there are so many nationalities representated at BFA and because we have a longer Christmas break, school is on for everyone on Thursday and Friday. So here is my prep before the big turkey day. See I have all of the basic ingredients needed.

Our family likes white meat so the turkey breast is the way to go. I like to cook it in the crock pot all day. Whole turkeys are very expensive over here so for the last few years, I have only bought the turkey brests. Here is the final product with a hungry family waiting to devour the food and drink the famous "red eye" beverage for the holiday season.

After dinner, we played card games, ate homemade pumpkin pie and talked with family using SKYPE. It was a nice American Thanksgiving! Now, let the shopping begin!

Packages

It is that time of the year again. Time for the postman(or in our case post frau) to start ringing our doorbell. Christmas packages have started to arrive! We LOVE to get mail. So when we go weeks with out even junk mail- which in Germany there is very little junk mail- it is so special when we do get a package here and there. Sarah is my lovely model to show off our first package for the season.

This package came all the way from California. It only took about five days to reach us. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Benjamin!

Here is Sarah after the anticipation of wondering what was inside had worn off. She loves to pose for the camera.

Broadway comes to Germany!

This past weekend, the musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" played in the Kandern Auditorium. Altoghether, there were three performances. We went on Saturday to the Matanee. The orchestra and players performed to sold out audiences in all three performances. I think there were a few Germans in attendance as well. I am sure they were confused by some of the language used in the play and I wonder if they understood the shotgun wedding scene? Jeff enjoyed playing in the orchestra although he was tired by sunday. Here is a picture of the entire brass that made up the orchestra.



Anna was excited to be there listening to the songs and seeing the characters dance. She is holding a copy of the playbill.

As the play finished up, I took one more picture of the orchestra, they sounded good for their size.

After the play finished, Jacob went over to Jeff to get some pointers about playing trombone next year. I think Jacob was impressed by his dad!

Sarah decided to stay home and take a nap. So, we had a highschool student come over and be with her when she woke up. This is what she was doing when we got home- too cute! She now poses for the camera.

Lost in Translation

Life in a foreign Country can be stressful sometimes. It can also be humerous sometimes. It appears that Germans like to throw English phrases into their products and into their culture from time to time. In our town of 6,000 people where BFA is located there is even a business with a sign posted on their door that reads "We speak English!". When I see that, I start to laugh but then I remember every time we fly back to the States for a visit there seems to be more and more signs that read "We speak Spanish". Could the English language be slowly dying in America? Something to think about. The Germans I think enjoy finding uses for the English phrases. An example is a popular toilet paper in Germany. The brand is called simply "Happy End". I wonder if it is as funny to Germans as it is to us. Sometimes I look around my shoulder as I pull it off the counter to see if any fellow missionaries are by me laughing because they know that my "end" will soon be happy once I get home.
I will leave you with a photo of a typical driving situation that we face when ever we go into France. We don't go over there much and I think there is a reason for that! What would you do?

Sunday going to meetin'

On Sunday, the elementary school choir performed at Black Forest Christian Fellowship ( BFA's English speaking church). Jacob and Anna were looking forward to singing all weekend. So, I made sure that they were in their best for their performance.
Here is Anna warming up, she is a ham when it comes to being in front of people. I predict that she will be in many plays when she gets older.

Jacob is less showy when he is on stage. But you can tell by his smile that he is happy to be there. By the way, the background behind Jacob and Anna is for our school musical, "Seven brides for Seven Brothers" this weekend. Jeff will be playing in the orchestra. Look for a blog on that soon!

Here is group picture of the choir while they are waiting for church to begin. They sounded great and I wish that they could have preformed more than one number. I guess I will have to wait until Christmas to hear more.

What did Sarah think about all of the fuss for her two siblings? Well she demanded that before we left home that I take her picture too so that everyone could see how cute she looked in her Sunday best.

Saint Martin Tag

November 11th is Saint Martin Tag (day) here in Germany. Although it is not an offical holiday here, children still remember Saint Martin by marching around the streets at night carrying lanterns and singing songs about him. This is the one event where BFA joins with the German grade school and participates together. Every year I learn more about this Saint. For instance, just this week someone told me that the reason why stores display gooses and bakeries sell breads in the shape of geese is because as the story goes, Saint Martin did not want to be made into a saint so he hid with the geese.
Now, I do not know all the history of Saint Martin but it is a big event in our area of Germany to celebrate him. This was our seventh year to go through town carring lanterns. I was not really excited about it. But I wanted to capture the moment for the blog. Well, in getting three kids out the door, I forgot my camera! So, pictures of last year march will have to do. Here I am lighting Jacob and Anna's latern before the march through town.

Anna was already to March through town and lead the way with her class. Here she is holding her teacher's hand.

Happy birthday Papa!

Today, is my dad's birthday. He turns 66. I hope it is okay for me to say how old you are dad! I wanted to post about him since it is his special day. This is when it is hard to be away from family on special occasions like birthdays and holidays. Thankfully, technology is so great that we can have virtual parties and experience them together- almost.
If you know my dad, then you know how much fun his grandkids have with him. They love to be at Papa's house. The best place for them is in his workshop creating wonderful doo dads that only a grandpa could appreciate. Here is a picture of my dad with his grandkids from this summer creating in his workshop.



My dad is likes give his grandkids to special treats as well. It always brings him happiness to see their joy so here we are enjoying a round of ice cream on Papa while on an outing this summer.
So dad, on your 66th time around the sun, your family in Germany would like to help you celebrate by eating a birthday cake in your honor. We hope you and mom will enjoy many more years of bummin' around in your trailier and make many more memories with your five grandkids.

Thanksgiving Feast

Today, I helped out at the elementary school during their annual Thanksgiving Feast. I was looking forward to this mainly because this was the first real school activity that I could be a part of. After six years with the German school system, I was finally able to enjoy a more traditional American system with my kids. So begins the many hours of helping and being mom in my kids classroom!
I had decided that since Sarah is still little and unpredicable, the best option for me was to be outside and help with the game part of the day. Here is Anna playing a fun game. I like this action shot of her running around the courtyard.

After playing the three different relay games, the kids rotated to another activity. Jacob's group came out next and he also had fun with the relay games. He was really quick and hard to catch by the other students.

While the next group of students came out ready for fun games, I snuck into the baking room to see Anna help with an apple treats. She enjoyed watching the apples get peeled.

Jacob meanwhile was in the Art room getting ready to make a neat candle. I forgot to go back and and take a look at the finish project but here he is deep in thought as he contemplets his design.

After the children rotated to all four groups, then they went to the feast part of their day. A big Thanksgiving feast that many of the mom's had planned for them. The children ate turkey sandwhiches, fruit and chesse kabobs, veggies and dip and of course yummy cookies. Jacob worked up an appitiet after his busy morning.
Anna also enjoyed her lunch. She sat by her good friend Caylie. I had planned to stay and eat with them, but Sarah was getting really tired from her long morning. She had been up since 5 am and was ready for a nap. So after a parting picture of Anna, I said good bye to them and headed home.

Random question

Here is a fun question that I would like everyone's input. When do you start listening to Christmas music? Have some of you already secretly pulled out your favorite cd's and started to listen? I must admit, that I have tuned into a favorite web radio site and listen for an afternoon already. Maybe it is because it is getting really cold out and the sight of frost makes me want to listen to "It's begining to look a lot like Christmas". Or the fact that every morning now I must get Jacob and Anna dressed in their winter hat, gloves, and boots before they leave for school. I am interested in hearing what your thoughts are!

Activities of Sarah

I thought that I would devote a post of some random pictures that I have taken of Sarah over the last few weeks. These pictures show her daily activities on any given day. Here she is standing in her crib. She loves to stand and will be happy as anything as long as there is something to hold on to.


Of course one of her favorite activities include eating. She especially loves to eat crackers. She will grab them and devour them as if her life depended on it.

Another favorite activity is to ride up on dad's shoulders. She is content and higher up then Jacob and Anna. Which she has learned already that this is a good thing!

However, Sarah's most favorite activity in any given day is walking. She can't do it on her own yet, but she is trying so hard. I spend a large portion of my day with her bent over and walking with her. Here is Jeff giving her legs a stretch at a recent outing.

She is growing so fast and we can't believe that she is almost 10 months old. She is a very happy and content baby which is good for all of us. Keep praying for us as we continue to raise our children as the Lord would want us to!

Herbstmesse 2006

It is that time of year again--time for Herbstmesse! This is a fun event that the BFA school community looks forward to every fall. In Basel, Switzerland, for a month, the city holds a city wide fair. There are rides and food boths for everyone to enjoy spread all around the city. As a tradition, BFA converges on Basel every October 31st for an evening of fun culminating with everyone meeting at the bumper cars at 7 :30 p.m.
Here is what we saw from our parking garage seven floors from the ground.


Our first ride of the evening was the swings, you have seen these in the States before. It was very fun.


Walking through the first area of rides, we came across this fun house. I wonder if Jim Carey knows that his image was being used to promote this ride?


Of course, there were the food booths! I wish I could have a way for you to smell the wonderful scents of fair food a la Swiss style. So many choices, so little money!


While Jacob and Anna rode another ride, Sarah was content to stay on the side lines and wave at them as they went around her. She was a bit stunned by the noise and lights, but took it all in very well and eventually fell asleep in her stroller.

It was almost 7:30 so we walked across the Rhein river to the next ride venue where the coveted bumper cars awaited everyone. Once we arrived after a stop at Starbucks ( my splurge for the evening!) There was a long line of students waiting to ride the bumper cars. How much money does BFA give to this ride alone?

The fun of being able to ram into your dorm dad or a teacher brings everyone such joy. Of course it is done in Christian love!

With great memories of another exciting eveing of Herbstmesse over, we get rewarded with a day off from school today! It is All Saints Day here in Germany and in Western Europe! Awe, thanks you Saints for a day of rest!