Another Christmas Market

So we ventured out once again in search of a Christmas market. This time we decided to head to Guteneck which holds their market inside a castle. It was unique in that it was all done up in a medieval theme. There were jugglers, knights, horses and all within the gates of a castle. It was lots of fun. Hyrum's favorite part was all the fires they had set up around the market to keep the guests warm. I really liked walking around an old castle courtyard in the evening with candles shining through the windows from inside the castle. The boys favorite part was the blacksmith shop. There was a man using all the old blacksmith tools. They loved the fire, the hammer and the sharpener he used. They could have stayed at that booth for an hour! We got to hear lots of Christmas music as each little building had a stage where there were performers playing period instruments. It was well worth keeping the boys up past their bedtime!

The little video Hyrum put together shows part of the live nativity they put on each hour. The men are shepherds (I don't know what they are saying) and the donkey and musician were filmed from inside the stable they used for the nativity.

Only 2 more days until Christmas. Even though there isn't any snow on the ground we are surrounded by the sights and sounds of Christmas here in Germany. We hope you all have a good one!!!

Sledding Fun

We headed out of town in search of a sledding hill this past Saturday. We hadn't gone far when we spotted this great little hill. There were even other people out braving the frosty air. The boys had lots of fun. Thankfully they are old enough to pull their sleds back up the hill once they have come down!

My Three Sons

Yes, it's official! The OB I am seeing here was finally able to "see" if I was having a boy or a girl and he told me it was a BOY. I told him, "No, it's a girl. All my friends and family think I'm having a girl. I have the most wonderful name for a girl already picked out. My friend Jennifer has made me a PINK blanket!" He told me not to get mad at him, it wasn't his fault...it was my husbands fault. Well, needless to say Hyrum sure got an earful when I got home from my appointment. I mean really, is it that much to ask of a husband to let you have your wish? I don't ask for much really, I just wanted a girl.

When I told my brother (the only boy in a family of 8 children) he told me that it was a curse that he had placed upon all his sisters to have only boys so we would know what it felt like to be the only one of our "kind" in the household. I really don't think this is very fair, it was really my Dads fault for all those girls!

Three boys. I told my physical therapist I was upset about the news and she told me, "Just wait and see. This might be the boy that changes the world. Maybe he will find a cure for cancer. Maybe he will be the one that holds your family together when bad times come. You wait and see, this is a blessing." I felt a little better after this. I mean, it's not like the doctor told me I'm having a porcupine! I guess I just really got my hopes up for a girl and the pregnancy hormones got me all worked up and upset.

I really am happy and grateful. I don't mean to sound like a whiner. I'm sure everything will be fine, I mean look at how great his two older brothers turned out (ha, ha,....boo hoo hoo...I'm doomed!)

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

This week was pretty uneventful until Saturday. We started the day by hitting yet another Christmas Market. This time we drove about 30 minutes to the city of Bayreuth. It was raining pretty hard when we set off from home but as we drove the weather cleared up. We ended up having a pretty dry day after all. The Christmas market was fun. We were able to buy a few gifts for the boys and a few others on our list:) We had some Nuernberger bratwurst and french fries from a little stand in the market for lunch. The boys rode on a pretty silly carnival type ride but they were happy because there were two motorcycles right next to each other they could ride. We once again enjoyed the sights and sounds of Christmas in Germany. We wanted to catch an organ concert that was happening at noon but all Hyrum could remember was that it was at a church in the altstadt (or old city.) This is pretty much like remembering it's at a Mormon church in Salt Lake! Needless to say we couldn't find the right Cathedral and the boys were in no mood to wander around the city. Next time we'll be sure to get more specific directions.

Since the day was sunny we also decided to get our Christmas tree on Saturday. We had exactly 45 euro to spend and guess how much the tree was we picked out? 45 euro, it was meant to be! The boys had fun decorating it with all their toy cars before we made them clean that up and help us put up more Christmasy decorations. We had a lot of fun listening to Christmas music, hanging ornaments and being together as a family.

I love this time of year!

At the Christmas market in Bayreuth. Hyrum didn't catch it on film but this dinosaur had a Santa Claus hat on!

Picking out the Christmas tree

Townsend having fun decorating with toy cars

Now Townsend getting very serious about hanging Christmas ornaments

The boys had lots of fun decorating the tree, even if in the photos they look really serious

The finished product

Fun with Auntie Paige

Just a couple of snippets of the boys dancing with Auntie Paige and playing at the local "Megaplay."

Hiking in the snow?

Oh yeah, we are Durtschis. This means that even if it is freezing cold, and you have frostbite on toes and fingers at the end of the day, you go hiking if the sun is shining. This last Saturday we went to a small town called Parkstein to hike up to some old Castle ruins. It was a beautiful hike. The castle was mostly destroyed but at the top of the hill the town had built a church to take the castle's place. So, we got to climb around old castle walls AND see a cute church all in the same hike.

Today (Sunday) was also a sunny day so we took a 20 minute drive out to the town of Neumarkt am Kulm for another hike. This time instead of replacing the missing castle with a church the town decided to build a tower at the top of the hill. The hike was really steep and icy so it was pretty slow going up the hill (it took about an hour). At the top we climbed all 110 stairs in the tower to see the view from the top. It wasn't as clear as we had hoped but considering it is November in Germany we could see quite a long way off.

The boys did pretty well on both hikes. They LOVE to climb around on rocks and play in the snow so I guess they got to do both of those these last few days. I told Hyrum as soon as my belly gets so big I can't zip up my winter coat anymore, he's got to go hiking with the boys on his own!

The boys and mommy taking a break from the hike up to the tower

Looking out from the top of the tower

The snow on the rocks was actually really pretty, even though it made things slippery!


The sign says "Berlin 330 km" I wonder if your supposed to be able to see this on a clear day?

At the church on the hill in Parkstein

The boys climbing on the castle walls with the Parkstein church on the hill in the background

Thanksgiving Fun

Well, Thanksgiving came and went. We had a lot of fun, mostly because my sister Paige was able to come and play for a few days. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be the same without at least some family around. We were able to call our siblings and say hello, which is fun when you use Skype!

The meal was great (thanks Hyrum) and we mostly relaxed and enjoyed being together as a family. We took a trip to Weiden for the Christmas Market. Even though the sun was out and shining it was FREEZING so we didn't last long with the boys at the market. It was still fun to see the little booths, the food and the nice nativities set up in the town square.

Paige and I saw Twilight. I think the directors could have done a better job, especially the background music, lame! I think they did a pretty good job casting but I was just not impressed overall by the production.

I hope you all had a fun Turkey day!

The boys trying to stay warm in Weiden by sharing a cup of hot cocoa

The Christmas Market in Weiden

Walking around the old city of Weiden with my sister Paige

The cool tower Paige and the boys built on Thanksgiving morning

Paige and Emerson

the first snow

The boys having some Hyrum-powered fun-- "More dad more!"

Happy Birthday Hyrum

Hyrum turned 33 this past Thursday. That sounds pretty old to me until I remember I'm going to be 32 in March! Where does the time go? The boys and I made Hyrum this cake and they gave daddy some cards, other than that it was a pretty low key birthday. Thanks to those of you that sent happy birthday e-mails and also those that braved the price tag and gave him a call:)

I love you Hano, you are the very best part of my life!

Our house, is a very very very fine house...

As promised, here are some photos of the interior of the house. Please note the light fixtures, floors and curtains in each room (remember this house was built in 1968).

The toy room

The office

The dining room (yeah, that's an indoor planter dug into the floor)

Me and my hobbit sized kitchen (if I read one of your Thanksgiving blogs and any of you complain about not having enough fridge space...we're going to have to have some words!)

The front entry, note the lovely pattern of the rock floor

The living room, you can see into the dining room behind

Another view of the living room, dig those curtains...groovy man!

boys playing "belly bump"

It is nice to be living in the middle of nowhere sometimes, especially when the boys get the "before bedtime crazies"

More adventures

Sorry I haven't posted much lately we have had a crazy two weeks. We moved into our new home, went on a week long trip to Landstuhl (4 hours away), I got my cast off, the boys started preschool and we unpacked most of our boxes.

It was lots of fun going to Landstuhl because I have a sister (Paige) who lives near there while she works for the Air Force. I love that even though I am so far away from most everyone I can still have a sister date night (we went to a yummy Indian food restaurant and shopping, of course). Hyrum had to be there for the week doing some sort of doctor training, so the boys got to know Auntie Paige pretty well and we found lots of fun parks to play at in Paige's small town.

The cast came off this last friday but I have about 3 weeks of physical therapy ahead of me. I can't really bend my elbow to reach up and touch my nose, I think some ligaments and muscles got messed up from being in the cast. If it's not one thing it's another, right?

Preschool was an adventure. The boys loved their first day last week. They go on Tues. and Thurs. from 8:30 to 11:30. I am hoping that some space will open up in the German preschool in our town but for now they are just on a waiting list there and going to school on post. The first day they had a gym class, story time, snack time and circle/song time. From the teachers report the boys fit right in and had no problems. I'm not crazy enough to believe it will be that easy every day but it was nice that at least the first day went well.

Our house is feeling more and more like our home. We have some artwork up (thank you Kate Mooth and Duane Andersen), we actually got a stove, fridge and dishwasher delivered last week so we can make more than just soup in the microwave for dinner...YEAH! Our guest bedroom is all set up so feel free to plan a trip over anytime, we have plenty of room.

I'm pretty happy here, just a little lonely. It's hard to make friends that you can call up anytime and have fun with...I'm hoping those days will be in my future soon but right now I'm pretty bored and lonely at home all day. (Once again, feel free to visit anytime!)

The boys on their first day of preschool

The boys came downstairs and informed me they had just gotten married. Emerson was the "mommy" and Townsend was the "daddy" and they said the way I can tell they were married is because they are wearing rings.

Should I be worried about this boy?

While visiting my sister we hiked up to some castle ruins in her town (Hohenecken, Germany)

The boys loved jumping out of the castle window to daddy.

Me and Paige

The boys in front of our new home

Halloween

So, we didn't really have any time to find great costumes. The boys found these clothes in the dress-up box. Luckily they are still at an age where they are happy to just go trick-or-treating, they don't really care what they wear. We had to go on post to trick-or-treat and the boys only lasted in the cold for about 15 minutes but we had a great time!!!

A very cute Emerson witch

A very crazy Townsend wizard

moving day

Here are a few crummy photos of our new house (remember I only have one arm.) I promise to post better ones later. Moving day was rainy, it even started out with snow early in the day. Our house is very old and drafty so the cold day wasn't helping my anxiety about this place. All the stuff got unloaded OK and so far we haven't noticed anything is missing or too broken. We are heading to Landstuhl for a week, Hyrum has some training there. I might not have internet for a while, so don't think I'm ignoring you if you e-mail:)

The living room. The boys were so excited to get their toys unpacked!

A very crooked picture of the front of the house

The moving truck with some of our apple trees in the foreground.

Anyone need a wig?

Jason, we thought of you when we saw this shop window full of wigs...I don't know why, we just thought you would find it funny.

Funny

Boys: "look Mommy, a sink that's just our size"
Me: "Hyrum, how do you explain a 'bidet' to four year olds?"

Stake Conference

We went to stake conference last weekend. We had to drive out to Nurnberg (about an hour away) so we decided to drive down on Saturday and stay the night. We went to the zoo and walked around the old town of Nurnberg. Walking around old German cities is something we have to add to the list of things the boys don't like to do!!! They really did OK considering we walked around quite a bit, but even I was getting tired by the end of the day.

Stake Conference was really interesting. The speakers spoke in German but then everything was translated into English. So the speaker would give us a sentence and then the translator would be at another microphone and translate that sentence, and it went back and forth like that for the whole two hours. It was kind of hard to listen to but I guess I got more out of it then if they had only spoken German the whole time.

We are loving our time here. We move into our new home on Thursday, I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I can.

The boys at the zoo. Yes, we broke down and rented a wagon so they wouldn't have to walk all around the zoo. We were all happier this way:)

The zoo in Nurnberg has a dolphin show. The boys really loved it!

We LOVE gelato

The old city square in Nurnberg. Only two more weeks until this cast comes off!

Play Time

Emerson balancing on a log during our first hike in a German forest


It didn't work out too well for mommy when she tried to balance on the log!

The boys enjoying the fall leaves

The boys spent about 1/2 hour throwing acorns into this stream

The parks here in Weiden are so much fun. There are three parks within walking distance from our hotel.

My first blog attempt

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this blog set up...life has been a little crazy lately!

The big news is that we made it safely to Germany a little over a week ago. I'll post more about our adventures later. Right now I'm just trying to figure out how this posting stuff works.

I hope to see you on my blog soon!!!!