A Happy Home

In the midst of all of our craziness in preparing to return to the US to get things taken care of there and getting things settled in Germany we were asked to speak in our new ward. Needless to say things were a little nuts and when Saturday came along, there were still three talks to prepare. Hailee got to give her first talk in Sacrament meeting. She was so excited and did such a great job. She wasn't even the tiniest bit nervous and she loved preparing her talk. Todd was so great, while I was preparing my talk he sat down and helped her write her talk. They were all Hailee's ideas and thoughts, Todd just guided her through the process. As I was frantically downloading talks and articles for my talk I loved hearing those two upstairs planning away. This is what she came up with.

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What Makes a Happy Home

What makes a happy home? 

In our home, it depends on who you ask. If you ask James, he'll say it's Mango Juice and chocolate. If you ask Mom, it's shopping. If you ask Dad, it's wrestling. But if you ask me, it's toys;  dolls, stuffed animals and so on.

As  you can see, we all like different things.  Sometimes it hard to keep everyone happy.  We're not always shopping for Mango Juice, wrestling equipment, dolls, stuffed animals and so on.  We should, but we haven't figured that out yet.

Instead, we end up busy with all kinds of things.  We have to clean, Dad has to go to work, and I have to go to school.  That means we have to find other ways to be happy.

There is a family in the scriptures who spent a lot of time doing things they didn't want to do.  That was Nephi's family.  Nephi's family had a good house in a good city that they had to leave behind to go into the wilderness.  The wilderness was tough and they had a hard time.

After a while, they came to the ocean and Nephi was commanded to build a ship.  Nephi's brothers didn't believe the commandment and didn't believe Nephi could do it.  Instead, they complained and tried to stop him.  This did not make for a happy home.  Nephi tried to teach them to keep the commandments but it just made them angrier.  They wanted to throw Nephi into the sea.

But Nephi said, "don't touch me or you will die."   Nephi's brothers were afraid and did not touch him.  Then Nephi was commanded to touch his brothers.  His brothers did not die, but they were shocked.  Then they believed that the Lord was with him.  They decided to help build the ship.

Soon the ship was finished and it was super good.  Nephi's family learned that when you all keep the commandments and work together, you're a happy family and you can be successful.  This makes a happy home.  When not everyone keeps the commandments, you're not a happy home.

In our family, we try to keep the commandments and to spend time together.  That makes for a lot of memories.  I'll tell you one of them.

I brought some stuffed animals to Germany.  They weren't just any stuffed animals, they were special stuffed animals.  They were my favorites.

Unfortunately, we also brought my brother to Germany.  He likes to tease me and knows that my stuffed animals are special.  One night, I was getting ready for bed and reading.  My stuffed animals were gathered around me in my bed.

My brother decided it would be a great time to tease his sister.  He got up and took the most precious of my stuffed animals.  Then he jumped up onto his bed, and held it above his head and said "Aha!" to get my attention.  I was mad.

That started a wrestling match for the stuffed animals.  The wrestling match continued until I decided to do some magic.  I started waving a blanket over stuffed animals that he had to make them disappear.  They were really just rolling off the bed to me, but I called it magic.  James was amazed and worried. 

He was shocked that he had lost an animal.  Then, he got more worried when I waved the blanket over him.  He screamed "Sissy- no magic!"  Then he started frantically checking to see if he still had all of his arms and legs.

I like this memory because it was a fun and silly family time.  My brother was trying to tease me.  He teases me because loves me.  It's times like this that make our house a happy and sometimes silly home.

I know that if we keep trying to keep the commandments, we can keep making fun memories.  We can have a happy home. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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She had the congregation laughing and listening to every word. Hailee was a little disappointed that she didn't get a sticker for talking in sacrament meeting like she gets when she gives a talk in Primary. I still think the best part about talking in church is the feeling of being done with talking in church.

We have been looking forward to Todd's three day weekend in August. I'm not really sure what Germany is celebrating, but we're celebrating a little break and an extra day with Dad. Life has been busy, crazy, and little nuts so everyone was looking forward to the extra day this weekend. Friday was a beautiful day and when Todd got home from work we set to work planning what we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to stay close, just because things have been crazy, we weren't really up for a long car/train ride. Everything looked great. We picked out our new spot to try and went to bed feeling happy. Then Saturday morning came around and we woke up to rain and dark heavy clouds. I quickly checked the weather and found this.

Rain for Saturday and Monday. How is that fair? Our perfectly enjoyable weekend was quickly going out the window. We were so sad. To cheer everyone up I made crepes for breakfast. It did help a little but it was very sad to watch the clouds in the sky sticking around. Right around the end of breakfast Todd thought it might be clearing up. We quickly got ready in hopes that it really was clearing up, grabbed the GPS, packed a picnic, and headed out the door.

Once we got to Schliersee we found a row boat and headed out. Just as we launched the wind really picked up and there was about 20 minutes I really thought we were a little crazy. The clouds got really dark and the wind was a little chilly. Thankfully it never got too serious and the wind just blew all the storm clouds away. We spend the next 3 1/2 hours exploring the lake. It turned out to be a really nice day.

Schliersee had a beautiful little town around it. Since it came with a great little town, there weren't as many "wild" place to explore. Even still we enjoyed being someplace new and exploring a new little place in Germany. Being a three-day weekend a lot of other Germans had the same idea we did. The town was very busy, but the lake still had plenty of room.

 It was so fun to have a picnic on the lake.

 As Todd was taking pictures of Hailee by the water's edge James was running around like crazy. In the midst of his running he ran over and gave his sister a hug. It was so adorable and  I was so glad Todd was able to catch it.

It ended up being quite warm by the time it was time to come in. We ended up staying an extra half an hour on the lake. It was so beautiful...and we had gone further out than we originally thought.

We might be crazy...

....at least that is the look we got from the row boat man when we told him we wanted a row boat for four hours.

The weather forecast was rain, but since we got off to such a great start Saturday morning and the sky looked lovely we decided to give Eibsee a try. It's been on our list of lakes to visit for a couple of weeks and today looked like it would be a great time to try. At the very worst it would have been a pretty drive and a rainy day. We are so glad we did. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and it felt like we had the lake to ourselves...at least for the first few hours on our row boat.

This is our third self-boating excursion in Germany in the last few weeks. Even though the row boat man thought we were a little nuts to want a row boat for that long, it was just what we needed. We all have our very specific jobs in a boat. Hailee's job is to be the navigator. She is learning quickly the ins and outs of navigation when her daddy is behind the oars. 

 Todd's job is rowing. Although I offered to help row the boat he assured me that he liked it and he didn't want my job.

 James has a very important job, one that is often very difficult for him. His job is to stay in the boat while we're out in the water.

 And my job is to make sure that he does. Which, as you can see, proves to be a little challenging at times. Here he is trying to figure out what the fish are eating. I'm also responsible for taking pictures and looking out for skinny dippers. Little James' behind is not the only one we have to be worried about.

The day couldn't have been more perfect. Much to the surprise of the row boat man, we stayed out the entire four hours and probably would have stayed out longer had we not run out of food. There were so many fun things to explore.

 On one of our first stops the kids enjoyed finding rocks to throw in the lake.

 We also enjoyed relaxing on the boat. The water was so clear that we were able to see so far down. We found fish both big and small, made friends with a baby duck and her mom, and enjoyed the perfect weather the entire time.

 When we made it to the far end of the lake we found a ton of big fish. We all enjoyed watching them move around. Even James was good at being quiet so he would not "scare" the fish.

 There were even a few small "islands" that we explored for buried treasure. We didn't find any treasure but we found a couple of tiny cabins. After a day like today, I want a tiny cabin on a tiny island in a tiny lake. I wonder how much an island goes for these days.

In the end, we were all so sad to be going back to the dock. It was a very fun day and we're all hoping to go back again very soon. There really isn't anything nicer than a quiet relaxing afternoon on the lake. And maybe we are a little crazy, but I like our kind of crazy.

It's a good thing....

Todd married a "Returned Missionary." Let me explain....I knew as a missionary that I was learning valuable things that I would take with me for the rest of my life. But one important lesson that I learned, and I really had no idea at the time, would prove to serve me well being married to Todd.  As a missionary you never know "Where" you're going to be, "How long" you're going to be there and "Who" you are going to be with. There are constant changes of areas and companions.  It definitely wasn't my favorite part of being a missionary, but I learned to get comfortable with it.

Fast forward quite a few years later and this valuable learning experience from my mission is proving to serve me well...time and time again. When we moved to Germany in March, we had just a few weeks to get things ready. Then a week before we were supposed to go home the first time, they asked if we could extend. A little more than a month ago I asked Todd if they were going to extend us.  Just as he had previously done, he reassured me that there was no way we could possibly extend. Our papers went through November, but we both decided that getting Hailee into school and Todd's career back on track in Oregon would be more important than a few more months in Germany. We have enjoyed our time, but our little girl needs to be settled. I went on planning our trip home, which included finding Hailee the best dual immersion school in the area and successfully getting her enrolled. Todd was busy finding his next position at Intel and was having some great responses. Things couldn't have looked nicer.

Then a funny thing happened....Todd had two great offers in the US and the people in Germany offered him a job as well. (Up to this point Todd has just been doing training, so it was time to find his next job.) Here we were with three amazing choices. Every single one of them had great advantages to them. I had no idea how frustrating and long of a process it is to make that kind of decision. Of course it was a matter of great thought, prayer, and more thought and prayer.

In the end, the best decision for us was staying in Germany for the next year and a half or so. We are thrilled for the amazing opportunity for our family, but also a little sad not to be going back to Oregon. Like I said, it was one of the hardest decisions we've made so far. Choosing between bad and good is pretty easy, but choosing between three great options is not so fun.

So now we have a crazy amount of things to get accomplished in a very short amount of time. We've decided we're going to try and rent out our house while we're gone. I don't like the idea of leaving it empty while we're gone. We're looking into school options for Hailee and trying to decided if we want to stay in our current location. It's been busy.  At first I didn't get a lot of sleep with the million of things I had running around in my head. Then I started making list after list of things that needed to get done. Hailee at one point decided to make a list of her own of things that she needed to do. It was full of things like "play with dad" and  "go to REWE to get more Kinder Joy's." So far we've been able to keep our sanity by checking off both lists.

Very early in our marriage, Todd and I always talked about how we wanted to live abroad for the sake of our kids. As a child, I lived in Mexico and later spent summers with my grandparents in Mexico. Then both Todd and I served foreign missions.  We wanted to give our kids the opportunity of seeing the world and experiencing the beauty of learning a new language and culture. I realized this weekend in Prague, that it is still important for Todd and I as well. I am learning, growing, and experiencing new things that I didn't learn in Mexico or as a missionary in Portugal. This is going to be a great opportunity for our family. We're hopeful it's not the last one as this world is a big place with lots of great things to learn.   For the time being, we are going to soak up the lanugage, culture, and fun Germany has to offer.

So even though I never know "Where" I'm going to be or "How long" I'm going to be there at least I always know "Who" I'm going to be with. There is nobody else I would rather have this experience. Life is crazy, but life is good.

Prague

Prague lived up to it's reputation. Thankfully the good was better than I thought and the bad wasn't as bad as it could have been. We made it through the entire weekend without incident and thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the city.

View of St. Charles Bridge.

 This trip has completely established our children as being the best European travelers. It seems every trip we go on we require more and more of our children and every time they do a phenomenal job. In one day we started going at 9:00 in the morning and didn't finish until 4:00 when we made it back to our hotel...to catch a taxi to take us to the train  to get us home at 11:00 at night. It was wild and crazy and a little reminiscent of a Mortensen family vacation, except we did stop for 30 minutes to let the kids eat and go to bathroom. Otherwise we were walking and going. Our main focus of Prague this time was to see the city and the best way to do that is walking around. James did a great job of staying in his stroller and Hailee didn't complain one time. Once we got on the train she did say "boy my legs are tired." No kidding, I think we were all feeling it on the way home. But it was well worth it.

 That morning Todd got a map and planned our course for the day. I was absolutely amazed that with only a few stops to check the map we made it everywhere we wanted to go without one wrong turn. It rained on us off and on all day long and besides getting a little wet it didn't slow us down at all. The first thing we did was take a funicular up to the top of a park and walked through there to get to the castle. It was perfect start to the day and so beautiful.

 After a little souvenir shopping we were off to Prague Castle. The views of the city were so beautiful. There is so much to do at the Castle. We didn't have time to do everything, but I think we did  enough to get a good feel for it.

 There was a beautiful church that i think might be my new favorite church (and I've seen quite a few churches in my time). It was gorgeous and made me appreciate my camera even more. We were able to get some great shots of the inside.

 The stained glass windows were incredible. By far my favorite I've seen so far.

 One of the few pictures we have of James out of his stroller. The kid did amazing at staying in his stroller through everything.

Another part of the castle we really enjoyed was the little medieval village they had restored. In half of the shops they had traditional things to sell and in the other half were little mini museums where you could look in and see what life was like in the middle ages in Prague. It was awesome. It was amazing to see how small the doorways were (even I had to duck) and realize that we would have been giants.

 As you can see by this little knight, they were not very big. I got James out to take a picture with the knight as well, but he wanted nothing to do with him. Even Hailee was a little nervous and it took some coaxing to get her to stand that close to him.

 They also had a tour of the dungeon and torture chamber that we got to see. I am just glad that I didn't live back then and never got in trouble with the law. They had some horrific looking things to do to people they didn't like.

Closer to the end of the day, we finally made it to St. Charles bridge. Hailee was getting a little nervous that we weren't going to make it there. She really wanted to walk across the bridge. She has a little iPod game called "Stack the Countries" that teaches her about World Geography. Not only does she learn where they are and their capitals, but also main cities, main attractions, their flag, and who their neighbors are. She learned very early in her game that St. Charles bridge is in the Czech Republic. Once I told her where we were going, her only request was to see St. Charles bridge. So even in the rain we enjoyed our walk across the bridge.

It was a lovely day full of seeing and experiencing new things, then we had a lovely ride home on the train. We are all converted....Train travel is the only way to go. I can't wait to plan our next trip on the train. Hmmmm.....where should we go next?

Dresden Germany

 Once we got into the train station we quickly found our hotel. We were staying in a beautiful location right by a lot of historic things. We enjoyed a beautiful dinner outside our hotel and basically on the steps of this beautiful church. The dinner was lovely and then it was off to bed. At the end of dinner James said, "Time for bed." You know it's been a long day when James asks to go bed.

 In the morning Todd had to go off to work and the kids and I had a day to enjoy in Dresden. We originally planned to go check out Potzlow Germany where my mom's German side of the family is from. But once I looked into it a little more I realized that it wouldn't be possible. We planned on renting a car since there isn't a train that goes directly there, but at 2 1/2 hours there and 2 1/2 hours back, renting a car, and getting back in time for our 5:00 train didn't seem that doable. We decided to wait and go another time to Potzlow.

Instead we decided to go check out the Pillnitz Palace. I found out they had a paddle boat that would take us up the river and back again. It was the perfect thing for us to do.

 View of the Pillnitz Palace from the River.

 Hailee really gets into these Palace tours. Before I realized we couldn't take pictures (there weren't any signs) I snapped a few of Hailee. She loved reading all of the signs and learning about what life was like in the Palace. The kitchen was our favorite part.

The garden's were absolutely stunning. This Palace has a couple things to see on inside, but the main things are it's gardens. We did get to see a few things before the weather got too terrible.  I checked the weather the day we left and it assured me that the rain wasn't coming until Sunday. Unfortunately mother nature had very different ideas. So much for shorts and flipflops. Thankfully it wasn't horribly cold, and we survived with the jackets I fortunately did bring with us.

The kids absolutely loved watching the motor of our boat. I'm not mechanical at all but it was pretty amazing to watch all the gear and such moving around. Most of the way there and back the kids sat and watched the boat "go." It was well worth the trip.

Overall I was pretty impressed with Dresden. It was crazy to think that not too long ago they were part of the USSR. Since the reunification they have been rebuilding the historical buildings that were damaged during the war. It was a little different being there, not as many people spoke English. It was actually nice to be able to struggle through in German. In Munich the second I try to use German people automatically switch to English for me. I realize their English is much better than my German, but how am I ever going to learn how to speak if they keep speaking to me in English.

We got back just in time to grab something to eat and meet Todd so we could catch our train to our next adventure.

Traveling by Train

 Todd had to do some training in Dresden, which is about 5 hours north of us. The kids and I decided to tag along and make a long weekend of it. Since Dresden is really close to Prague, we decided to go home via Prague and spend the weekend there. Prague isn't really known as one of the safest cities in the world, so we decided rather than take our car and worry about parking we would just take the train. I am so glad we did.

The train was lovely and once you factor in stops, bathroom breaks, and dinner breaks it's really not that much longer than by car. It really is nice and relaxing. The kids get to bounce around as much as they like (within reason of course) and nobody is stuck driving (this being Todd since I don't know how to drive a manual transmission yet). Everyone can chat, read, get a little work done and generally enjoy each others company.

 Before we left the kids and I checked out the English bookstore. I let Hailee get two new books, but she had to wait until we got on the train to read them. We should have gone to the bookstore the day before we left. Three days was just torture for Hailee to wait. She wasn't disappointed at all....she ready the whole way there and back.

There were a few little hiccups along the way, there always is when you're doing something new. But we've learned a few things and I'll know how to be better prepared for our next long train trip. I think we'll be going again.