MAY DAY!

Tomorrow it is May. Scary. And yet so exciting! Here is a picture of the roller coaster I went on a couple weeks ago. Oh how I LOVE roller coasters! Now just have to wait for the fastest one in the world to open up in Nurburg. Eee!

Megan and Stephanie are officially both going to be arriving in Athens, Greece on July 17th where we will play and then scadaddle off too one of the islands (Santorini) for 5 days. I'm so excited!!!!!! Then Steph will leave us and Megs and I will continue island hopping until the 1 of August when we will head home. We're going to GREECE!!!!!!

I'm really loving sixteen cities "come as you are" right now. Some talented guys there. :)

Feeling a bit sick tonight. It's probably because the weather changed and decided to get "cold." Yesterday it was 80 degrees!! Oh it was amazing. I met up with "the women" for a late dinner, well I actually just had Apfelwein. Hehe. Adriana is going home to Mexico for 6 weeks on Tuesday. I will miss her! Charlotte (france), the baby and I had lunch on Tuesday and it was sooo beautiful outside. I love the long meals here. We sometimes are "eating" for 3 hours. That just would not happen in the States. And plus other people do have that crazy thing to do called work. :)

Might go on a day trip to Sraßburg on Tuesday. The kids will be gone Monday through Thursday at their schools country house so I have all those days free! Well, I have class on Monday and Wednesday but besides that nothing. Straßburg is famous becuase it is where the European Parliament is and the city was sometimes part of Germany sometimes part of France aka it's right on the boarder. Now it is technically in France but it's very German. We'll see if I make it out there.

Last weekend I went hiking! On Sunday Katie and I went strolling around a Cloister - Kloster Eberbach and then went to nearby Wiesbaden and wandered the city. Then on Sunday it was also such great weather so I thought I would take advantage of it and go out hiking in the nearby Taunus hills. The forest is just not the same as at home though. Naja.

Just for you Kayleen :)

Four Shows I Watch:
1. Skins
2. Private Practice
3. Brothers and Sisters (but not since I got here - so behind!!)
4. Movies....

Four Things I'm Passionate About:
1. EATING! (fruits, veggies, nuts and desserts.)
2. Recycling (although no where as extreme as my daddy-o)
3. TRAVELING!!!
4. Good times with the family and friends :)

Four Phrases I Say A Lot:
1. And when I say (whatever I said)... I really mean (what I really meant).
2. That was definitely not what I meant.
3. That's what she said.
4. Tender (thanks Kayleen.. or Crystal!)

Four Things I've Learned from the Past:
1. The children are dying.
2. Look for the Good :)
3. Time FLYS! AHHH!
4. Family and Friends are most importante.

Four Places I Would Like to Go:
1. Paris
2. Barcelona
3. Scotland/Ireland (that counts as one...)
4. Kenya

Four Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Went to an interview at an international school. I didn't like them - although they offered me a job.
2. Went to Ning's house to have a delicioius 3hr lunch with "the women."
3. Worked on planning my GREECE trip with Megan and Stephanie!!!!!!
4. Babysat for the neighbor girls.

Four Things I'm Looking Forward to:
1. GREECE W/ MEGS AND GOOGS!
2. LAUREN COMING!
3. Italy!!!!
4. Visiting the Schödels again!

Four Things I Love about Winter:
1. Hot buttered Rum
2. Baking a lot of cookies
3. Family time AND Friend time.
4. New favorite - SKIING!!!!

Four Things on My Wish List:
1. Travel a lot more.
2. Find an amazing job - preferably doing something good for the earth.
3. Have many more fabulous times with friends and family.
4. Travel. Yep I love to travel.

I love you weener. Come play soon.

I love the sun!

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day! Got up about 8:30, read some harry potter with Oscar (almost to page 500 of the fourth book. woot!), ate my favorite meal of the day, organized, and then met Katie in the park near her house to do some boot camp. We've been pretty good the last week doing boot camps every couple of days. Quite entertaining on Thursday at her house working out on the heated floor trying to avoid the ants and doing some wacko work out from one of the trainers from that fat people show. Good times. After our boot camp we jumped on our bikes to go up to the Goethe Turm which is a nice uphill ride outside of the city. It is 147m above the city and, today being a wonderfully blue sky kind of day, offers amazing 360 views. It was beautiful. Too bad my camera was dead (idiot!) and the after four pictures Katie's died (redonculous). So we will be back. The weather was perfect - light wind and almost 70degrees. We rode down into the city and wound our way around the flee market on the river and then found a park where we just laid out and chilled for a bit. Then into the city to the Hauptwache where we got to witness the huge organized pillow fight!! So mad my camera wasn't working. If whit was here I would definitely have been involved in that pillow fight with her. :) There was probably 100 plus people all with pillows going crazy hitting each other. Good times! Then we were off to the grocery store. Picked up some goods and then headed to my place where we made the amazing flourless chocolate cakes, guacamole, a giant salad, and consumed a lot while sitting on the terrace with a nice glass of wine. I miss Oregon wine. Have I mentioned that? I'm on a search to find some at a wine store here. I should probably be drinking the wine from here though huh? Right. I'll work on that. It was a lovely day - the warm weather just makes everything so much better. I love spring!!!!

MEGAN BOUGHT HER TICKET!!!!!! AKA we are going to Greece!!! Stephanie is coming too but we aren't sure yet how long yet. SO EXCITED!!! We will be going to Athens then to three of the Greek Islands - Mykonos, Naxos, and Santorini. So stoked. ALSO I talked to my good friend Lauren last week and she is coming to Germany for a month or so this summer!!!!!!!! A;SLDKJA;SLDKFJ She will be visiting another friend of hers who is now teaching here and then when I'm back from Greece I will be playing with them as well. Oh good news. It is a good day. Now just need to get a job for next year!

Here are a couple pictures from Berlin:
Jewish Memorial - a lot of people playing hide and go seek in here! The stones get about 10ft tall. Potsdamer Platz in the background.

Berlin Cathedral

 Sanssouci Palace is Potsdam






That is all for now folks. More pictures to come soon. :)

Frohe Ostern!

Happy Easter!

I'm listening interchangeably to Led Zepplin and Andrea Bocceli in honor of my parents. Ha! I've been in Berlin since Wednesday with the kids and then Andrea arrived on Thursday and Phillip yesterday morning. We've been having a nice time. I met up with Julia who was at Westview for a year doing an exchange. She is from Potsdam and was in the city this weekend so we met up and walked all around Potsdam and caught up on what's been going on in life. We walked through the beautiful Schloss Sanssouci gardens, where she took me 5 years ago around New Years with Regina who is now her sister funny enough.

Today Anki and I and the kiddos - Oscar, Em, and cousin Lily went to a Easter party at a friend of Anki's about an hour outside of Berlin. It was a very pretty place - big house on a lake, big garden, but I think the youngest besides us was about 50. Yeah. The kids had fun playing with the two dogs - one who was completely like Hercules (except could still run around) and the other black like Tanker but definitely not as great as my wonderful Tank. We wanted to take Hercules's look alike home with us. It made me miss the dogs! They roasted a lamb - SICK. As the body twirled around the fire I could just picture it with a head on it and fur. Sad day. I ate a lot of chocolate instead. Naturally. I drove home and on the way got pulled over by the police. I was driving along when a car drove past us and flashed their lights at us so then I though I had my brights on. See, it wasn't dark enough yet to really tell if my lights were on or not, so I figured they were. Asked Anki if I had the brights on and she said yes. Turned the switch down one. Two minutes later a person steps into the road with a sign and pointed me onto a dirt road - I thought we had to take a detour. Nope, it was a Policeman. The Polizei!! Rolled down the window - Anki handed him the registration. I didn't have my license with me as I had traded bags to put all the kids things in. Uhhhh. . . A Policewoman comes over as well. We have a little chat. She says she'll believe me that I have my license, as it is Easter, and that the reason I was pulled over was because my lights were off. I then explained that not two minutes ago someone had flashed their lights at me so I thought I had my brights on and turned my lights down. She laughed and said they were warning me that there were Police up ahead. How friendly of them! Bah! Alles klar. They let us go, Frohe Ostern, etc and off we drove, ticket-less. Phew! First run in with the Polizei and I got off free and clear Gott sei Dank! hehe.

Hope everyone else is having a safe and merry Easter eating lots of chocolate like me.