Im Schwarzwald

We have now begun our two weeks of Easter vacation. Today, we took a daytrip into the beautiful Schwarzwald or Black Forest. Since we are trying to balance our time between fun and work with our sorting and packing, we decided to make this our first outing. We did go with a purpose in mind, and that was to, after nine years of living here, purchase a cuckoo clock. As we headed home, I told jeff that this was our last time to venture into this beutiful area.

There is still plenty of snow deep in the black forest to enjoy.

When we made it to the town of Triberg, everyone was hungry so we decided to eat first. After all, full kids are happy kids. There were no fast food kid friendly resturants, so we took our chances here. Joshua did okay until the food arrived, then we alternated entertaining him while the rest ate. To keep him happy we pointed out the many animal heads in the resturant for him to look at. Anna decided that she wanted to become a vegetarian after our meal.

Here is one of the many shops that we enjoyed looking at; it caters to tourists, but that made it even more fun.

The kids enjoy an ice cream treat after our shopping.

No, this isn't like the clock that we bought. You will just have to wait until we are stateside to see.

Watching and Learning Means Fun Times

Joshua has really started following his big brother around. He loves to copy Jacob whenever he can. Here are a couple of short video clips to illustrate.

Watching and learning

Copying his brother

Finally! Part 2

I took some video today of Joshua strutting his stuff. Thanks to my helper Jacob for being a great walking goal for Joshua.

Finally!

Joshua turned 15 months on Sturday. Today, he really started taking off on his walking. We are all very happy that he has hit this milestone. Here are a few pictures to show his progress! Thanks to my lovely assistant Anna for taking these pictures for me.

Life In A Cross Cultural World

By the time this weekend is over, our family will be spread out in three different countries an on two contents. Jeff is currently in the States attending a week long meeting with a potential school for employment. Jacob heads out to Switzerland today for a class field trip. Anna will be traveling up to a U.S. military base tomorrow for an all day AWANA Olympics. All of these places require the need of passports. I am the taxi driver and chief childcare provider while all of this crazy schedule of ours takes place. So goes life in a cross cultural world!
By the way, while all of this is going on, I am dealing with yet another day of heavy snow fall outside. Did I mention before that I am SOOOOOO ready for Spring!? Pray for our family as we are traveling to many places and dealing with very yucky weather while Jeff is away.

Candlelight Dinner

This past weekend, our school hosted the 14th annual Candlelight dinner. This is a major out reach weekend for our German community. There is a nice dinner and program where the gospel message is presented. This year's theme was called "Sing Freedom" . A take on slavery in the U.S. and the gospel roots with a real gospel choir, but also how we as humans are slaves to our sins and Christ provides us ultimate freedom. Jeff helped on Friday and greeted the German guest as they arrived.

On Saturday we were able to take two guest with us, Jeff's host brother and Father from his exchange year twenty years ago just happened to be in our area this weekend. We were so happy that they agreed to come with us. We showed them the area and gave them a tour of the school. They really seemed to enjoy the whole evening and got a better understanding of what we have been doing for the last nine years. We prayed that God opened their ears and hearts as they heard yet again the gospel message. It was a powerful night.

On a side note, this dinner comes at the end of the German Fasching season very simular to Carnival with parties everywhere. It is great to give the German community something positive to focus on instead.