Oops

I was sitting down this morning to download a bunch of videos sadly I accidentally deleted all of them. I was so sick about it I cried. So here is a brief description of what you are not going to see...

Easter Egg Hunt - We had a great Easter afternoon with our friends Melanie, Richard and Elena. They invited us over to their garden for an egg hunt and cake. The kids had a great time looking for eggs and chocolates until there was a sharing issue. We had a total melt down period but all was well after some chocolate ice cream!The kids played in the garden while the parents ate cake and drank champagne. It was a super break from our daily activities.

Water Playground - Stephan took Max to a local park that had just opened the water play ground. Picture Max running around in diaper climbing on rocks with fountains shooting water.

Play Date - We met some friends at the same park with the water play ground but stayed on the main play ground and then rode a little train that cruses around the the park.

Amusement Park - We took Max to a local amusement park last weekend. It is built on an old farm so there are lots of animals, 2 fake cows that you can milk, pony rides, an electronic donkey ride where you sit on a donkey and ride around a track. Stephan rode with Max and it was really a humorous sight. We tried out mini golf, Max got to drive us in a real tractor that runs along on rails and best of all they had a huge slide. It is about 5 stories high with 6 lanes. You carry up mats to slide down on. max started by riding with Stephan but in the end we all had our own lane and slide down holding hands. Max would have ridden a thousand times if we had the energy.

My mom, sister-in-law and 3 nephews are coming next week for a week long visit. We plan to take them back to the amusement park as well drive up the Rhein to visit some castles and to see a medieval festival. The two older boys are going to do a workshop at the Gutenberg museum where they actually get to print on old presses. In order to get all 8 of us around we are going to rent an 8 seat van. Should be interesting to see where we can park it and how well it fits in some of the smaller streets around here.

On another oops note - we were having such trouble with our dishwasher. The dishes were never really clean so I was basically washing them by hand first and just letting the dish washer heat them up to sanitize. Then one day Stephan finally looked at the powder we both had been putting in for weeks and realized it was not dish washing detergent rather powder to add to the dish washer to decalcify (apparently a big problem here since I see many kinds of decalcifier products in our pantry for some tea pots, coffee pots, pots and pans, etc,.) So now our dish washer is totally decalcified and our dishes are getting clean again with real detergent!

Here is the Easter Basket

Here is Max getting his Easter basket.

New New Wheels

So I enjoyed my new old bike for a day then I took it to a bike shop to have them add a basket. The man at the bike store told me he wouldn't add the basket because he didn't feel the frame was strong enough for a child seat so adding a basket to carry more weight was not a good idea. I got worried about having some major accident with Max on the back so I decided to just buy a new bike. So now we have 5 bikes in the house. Stephan's, Max's two bikes, my old bike and my awesome new bike. We are going to try to sell the old bike back to the guy we bought it from to get rid of at least one of them. The new bike is fantastic and is much more stable than the old one. I have loaded the saddle bags down with stuff, had Max on the back and stuff in the basket with no problem.

Max and I went to another circus this week with our play group friends (Yuki, Ky and Anyuu) and our German/English friends (Melanie and Ellie). It was a Russian circus with no animals just acrobatics and clowns. Best of all for Max they had motorcycles that rode around in a big metal ball. He was so excited! The kids played on a near by playground afterward so it was a great day for them. Max is really loving having Ky to play with. I think he was in need of a guy friend. They hold hands and run down the street. Max even wanted to go home with them after the circus. Sadly the will be moving to Munich in the summer.

Everything shuts down here in Germany for Easter weekend. Friday and Monday are a national holiday so Stephan was home on Friday. We packed a picnic and rode down the Rhein, stopping to picnic by the river. All in all we rode about 12 miles! The weather has been fantastic. Sunny and warm. Friday it was about 77 degrees. Our friends Frank and Tina drove up to Mainz on Friday afternoon for a few hours. We walked around town and then stopped for ice cream at an outdoor cafe. It seemed as if most of Mainz was doing the same with the great weather.

Saturday the stores were open so we ran out to do grocery shopping and picked up another fridge that sits under our counter so we now have much more space! - maybe about half of our fridge in Atlanta. It is Sunday morning and I am waiting for Max and Stephan to wake up. We made an Easter basket for Max but when I told him the Easter bunny would leave it for hi during the night he said he didn't the the bunny coming into our apartment and that the basket should be left downstairs by the front door. I got up a little early to take it down and am keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't disappear before he wakes up and goes down to get it. We are going over the Melanie's house this afternoon for cake and an Easter egg hunt for Max and Ellie. Max really wanted to do the hunt at his Mama's house in Alabama but I think over the last few weeks he has decided that this option should be ok. We dyed eggs yesterday morning in preparation for the hunt. Well Max is up so I need to go. More about our Easter later....

New Wheels

We finally have transportation! No the car is still being modified for German standards but we did pick up an old bike for me and a bike seat for Max on Saturday. I have already added saddle bags on the back and am looking for a basket for the front. Now Max and I can zip around town and not have to carry so much stuff. I took it for a test run to the grocery store on Sat and loaded up a back pack. It worked really well, only took 30 mins and was a lot less stressful on the back! Yesterday Max and Stephan took it out to venture over the river to a park and then in the afternoon Max and I took it across town to buy tickets for a circus this week and to check out a playground that is farther out. Since we don't have much luck with the bus we are excited to be able to bike to our weekly swimming pool visit. Never knew I would be so excited about a bike. We also finally took Stephan's bike out of the box and put it together. So now we all have bikes and hope to venture out on the weekends and do some ridding in the little towns along the Rhein.

Sleep Motivation

So ever since we were packing up in Atlanta and only had one bed Max has wanted to sleep with one of us each night. After various failed attempts to get him to sleep on his own again, I devised a Biene Maia sleep incentive game. Biene Maia is a German cartoon bee. Max saw a Biene Maia game (kind of like the game Sorry) in a store when we first arrived and really wanted it. So I created a chart with places for 5 bees. Max would get a bee for each night he slept on his own. Once he got all 5 bees we would go get the game. Luckily Max is really into bribery and this worked like a charm. After 5 nights of sleeping on his own we went tot get the game. Max was super excited. SO he has been doing great for 2 weeks now. Although the last 2 nights he has gotten up at 4 and come in to sleep with us. Not sure how to deal with that one since neither of us are functioning that well at that hour!

Play Date

We have found some friends at school and arranged to meet on Wednesday afternoons for some playtime with the kids. Last week was our first official play date and we checked out a great play ground just off the river. Our new friends; Dorris, her son Benny (3), Yuki, her son Kaima (3.5) and duaghter Anyuu (2)joined us. The kids and mommas had a really nice time. Dorris has 4 years, originally from Nigeria. Yuki just arrived from Ohio in January like us. They are originally from Japan/Hong Kong but spent a couple of years in the States. We had a really international crew. I am sure the German were wondering what brought this international mix to Mainz!

First Sunny Day

Here is a video of one of our first sunny (and relatively warm) days. Max and I went out looking for a used bike store - we are trying to get more mobile. We didn't find one but we did find some ice cream and enjoyed some time along the river. We saw a guy in a wet suit jet skiing on the Rhein. it was only about 55 so it must have been cold. It was the first really nice day so tons of people were out in the middle of the day enjoying the weather. We even saw some really brave people in bathing suits out sunning!