Switzerland conference part 2

Here are some more pictures of the various activities that our group enjoyed during our time in Switzerland.

Some of the group getting ready for a morning of sledding with the beautiful Alps in the background.

Jacob loved to play pool which was right outside of our room.

In the evenings, we would have a worship and game time. On the last night, one of our teammates, Tim Shuman, told the story of Jonah and the Whale to the children and illustrated his story. The kids loved it.

Hey Baby!

Over the weekend, we traveled down to Switzerland to attend a conference with our sending mission. The last time we had a conference was six years ago, so it was nice time to connect with our teammates. The hotel we stayed in was very family friendly. Every floor had an activity for kids to play with. There was even an indoor pool. I spent most of the time at the hotel with Joshua and Sarah so I got to hang out with the toys. In one corner of the room that we had, there a ton of dolls with strollers. I posed Joshua with them and he actually thought they were real as you can see and tried to talk to them.

While I was hanging out with the little ones, Jeff took Jacob and Anna skiing and got to enjoy these kind of views.

Ich bin Amerikaner!

Joshua is celebrating in his diaper and drool tonight, because he is offically an American citizen. After applying for his passport and birth certificate on January 25th, it arrived this week. We are happy and thankful that he has all of his legal documents in order to stay here in Germany and travel back to America in two months. Here he is celebrating his new patriotism.

Anything can happen day

Our family likes to do fun family days from time to time. We dub these special days as "anything can happen days". When Jeff and I announce it to the kids, they know that they are in for a suprise filled day. Today we had an "anything can happen day." Mainly because the weather during our easter break has been ABSOLUTLEY AWFUL! So we took the kids somewhere fun and indoors - which in Germany is hard to find- for kids. We took the kids to a place called the science house. If you are familiar with OMSI up in Oregon, well, this turned out to be a poor immitation of it. But we still tried to make the most of it. Here are the kids posing with some lab coats infront of a body temperature screen.

Joshua enjoyed watching Jacob play with all of the experiments.

I'm not sure what this was suppose to be about, but the girls were sitting on a couch in the shape of giant lips.

We then went to the only american style pizza resturant around us. It used to be called Pizza Hut, but now it is just called "Pizza". The "Hut" was dropped to save on franchise fees. The menu is still the same and we enjoyed every bite of it! With the dollar being at an all time low, our meal of one large pizza, salad, and a pitcher of sprite came to $40! Needless to say, we don't go out to eat very often.

The last phase of anything can happen day was chocolate fondue at home. We melted our chocolate bunnies from easter and dipped fruit in it very tasty.

Happy Easter!

He is alive! May you all have a blessed Easter as you reflect on what Christ did for you on the cross! Even though the sky is dark and the snow continues to fall outside, we have been enjoying our Easter as we have read through the Easter story as a family. Jacob and Anna are now old enough to start doing some critical thinking and really make this a more personal account for themselves. As parents, it is a joy to see them grow spiritually in their walk. Anna has recently asked to be baptized so we are all looking forward to that happening in a couple of months. Here are a few pictures of the "non reglious" aspect of Easter Sunday.

The kids enjoy waking up to a gift for everyone, a toy castle.

After Church, Jeff took the kids outside to hunt for Easter eggs while I made dinner. Sarah was very excited as this is her first time of getting into the whole egg hunt experience. Joshua will still have to wait a year.

TnT Games

Last Saturday, Jacob and Anna traveled up to Kaiserlautern Army base to compete with their team in the AWANA TnT Games. They had a blast riding on the bus with their friends and participating. Grandma and Grandpa Bontrager went along with them too. Jeff and I stayed home with Sarah and Joshua because of the long bus ride, we knew Sarah wouldn't last. We are also still waiting to receive Joshua's passport we applied for in January! We were not able to take him on the Army base without one, so we stayed home. Here are a few pictures of their time there.

Here is team Black Forest Academy celebrating their first place win! Anna showing off her medal and then heading out for her reward- Root Beer and Taco Bell ! A real treat on the Army Base.

Yield to Frogs

You know it is spring time in the southwest corner of Germany when you start seeing these signs go up everywhere.

This sign says to the mortorist that between the hours of 8p.m and 6 a.m. you are to travel 50kilometers per hour along the road so you don't accidentally run over any of kermit's relatives. To make it worse, if you travel further south close to the Swiss boarder, you will also see these lovely barriers along to road to keep the frogs from jumping over into the line of traffic. For the past eight years we have seen these signs and barriers go up to our amusement. I hope the frog population is flurishing around here!

Serving your fellow man

How much is your time worth? If you are a full time teacher and sub in a class, you are compensated for that time away from your class. The average amount a person can earn is about 80$ for subbing. Well, the need for subs is great at our school, just as it is anywhere. Unfortanetly, we are not able to pay our staff for their time subbing in a fellow staffers classroom. It is all on a volunteer basis. So when there is a need as we experienced in January when we had up to ten staff out on a given day due to a bad flu going through our community, everyone pitched in to help. Jeff, as Principal, found a creative way today to reimburse his staff for their time subbing for a friend. He called it "sub for a sub". He went to the only local subway sandwhich resturant and picked up five platters of subs to thank his staff for their service. With the exchange rate of the dollar to euro, each sub comes out to about 80$ apiece now!! So they were well paid for their time!

Jeff getting the luch set up.

Jeff makes sure his staff feel appreciated during the year.

Three Months Old

Here is an update on our "little man", Joshua. He is now three months old. He is changing almost daily. He now has more active playtime during the day and takes two- long naps while also sleeping through the night. Yipeee!!!! We are happy that he has kept his mild personality and goes with the flow of things around here- much appreciated. Joshua also loves to smile for everyone. Jacob and Sarah can usually always get him to smile- so sweet.

More Snow

We woke up to it snowing again this morning. By the time Jacob and Anna left for school, it had pretty muched stopped snowing but there were almost three inches on the ground. I was able to send Anna to school with a complete snow outfit (snowpants, hat, gloves). It didn't all match but she was set for a snowball filled recess at school. Jacob on the other hand had to go without the snowpants and hopefully won't come home with wet pants. Like I said before, it has been a mild winter and I didn't have all my winter gear ready to go. However, the sun came out and the clouds went away so we had this beautiful crystal blue sky and snowy back ground to enjoy. Sarah couldn't wait to go outside and make a snowman. She kept asking last night as she went to bed when it started to snow. To her delight, she was able to venture out and enjoy the snow for the first time.

Sarah's snowman that she proudly displays. It almost resembles her. She loved it so much that she wanted to give it a kiss!

Thrown a curve ball

We have found ourselves in a very busy time of the year with our ministry here at BFA. The month of Feburary can be very stressful with daily work and very full with ministry responsibilities. To cap off the month, the entire high school leaves for their annual high school retreat the last weekend of the month. This year 300 students and staff were bussed up to Nurenberg, Germany. On Friday of last week, the administration felt that it would be good for the school community to have a snow day on Monday. A day for everyone to rest and get caught up from the busy month. We have had a very mild winter here and with it being March, there was no forcast for snow anywhere close to us. So, on Sunday morning with the Director of the school on his way to a week long meeting in Russia, Jeff was in charge to decide when to let word get out. He decided to give the announcement at the end of the church service. At the same time, the announcement was being made up in Nurenberg at the High school retreat. Everyone was happy to have a rest day inbetween the retreat and work week.


This morning, we woke up at our usual time and Jeff stumbled into the shower while I quickly got sarah up so she wouldn't wake Joshua. As I walked down the hallway, my eyes caught hold of something strange outside.

So much for our no snow "snow day" yesterday! Fortunately for us, the snow quickly melted and it is no more but a funny memory for us. It just goes to show you that you can get thrown a curve ball when you least expect it. It was also a good reminder for me to pray daily for Jeff as he deals with so many decisions now that affect a large group of people.