The beginings of Christmas ...

The day after Thanksgiving, Shelby, Darren and I began the Christmas season by heading to a Christmas Market in Bern Kastel Kues. This little town is along the Mosel river, and is known for its advent house ...

I love looking at all the booths with the wooden stuff ... (below is the Advent building)

The next weekend, Shelby, Spencer, Darren and I went to cut down our Christmas tree. It was a rainy, muddy day, but we still had fun picking out our tree!

Our fallen tree... not too big ... or so we thought

When brought in the house, it has taken up half the living room! Pictures to follow Christmas ...

Should We Stay or Should We Go?

Okay all you 80's lovers ... remember the song? "Should I stay, or should I go now? If I stay there could be trouble, If I go there could be double ..." We have known since last June that Darren will be doing a fellowship at the University of Utah for one year, starting this coming July 2010.... Well, then we found out that Darren could apply to do the fellowship through the military - which would add 2 years for the 1 year fellowship. Darren applied to keep his options open. Today we found out that it is ours if we want it. So, we have to decide. Should we seperate from the military this summer, go to Utah and do the fellowship, and then job hunt ... OR, should we sign for another 4 years, get military pay while doing the fellowship next year, and then so somewhere for three year .... Should we Stay or should we Go? .... we'll keep you posted ....

Did I mention I LOVE my lanterns?

So, it started a year or two ago with a couple lanterns I thought would look cute on the front porch ....

It has grown, and I'm not even sure how many I have now. All different sizes and shapes -- the more different, the more I need to have it .... It's fun that there are so many different ones here in Germany! And, they are very nicely priced - even with the yucky euro to dollar exchange! (eat your heart out Pottery Barn!) Well, lanterns had to moved around to make room for Christmas decorations ... such a quandry ... what to do?

I love the nativity in the lantern! This is such a little nativity, but it looks great in this lantern ...

Lanterns mixed with nativities ...

I bought this lantern with the express purpose of putting a nativity in it ... This isn't the one I'm thinking of, but it will do for this year ....

I loved the simple pine cone and berries in this lantern!

You can always fill a lantern with ornaments ... truthfully, the larger lanterns look better with the ornaments in them -- but this one needed something ....

I have the shorter lanterns on top of my potter cabinet -- the cabinet is so tall, it's hard to find stuff to fit on top ....

Lanterns in the kitchen ...

more lanterns in the kitchen ...

And lanterns in the bathroom, bedroom, hallway ...

Did I mention I LOVE my lanterns?

Happy Halloween!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I think there were even more vampires, but they were too fast to catch ... Spencer wanted to be a zombie, but was talked into being a vampire. When he got to trunk-or-treat, there were at least 2 of his buddies also dressed as vampires. We rounded them up for a quick shot ....

Shelby made a very cute "nerd"...

Unfortunately, Devin is too old/cool to dress up for Halloween anymore ... But, I do have 2 other kiddos who indulge me ...

Dublin, Ireland~ Oct. 24th-27th

THIS was the marathon that Darren was training for ... We were fortunate to find a young couple in our ward willing to stay with our kids, and just Darren & I went to Dublin. We got there Saturday afternoon. So, we had half of Saturday and all of Sunday to tour the city ...

We started on the hop-on-hop-off bus and did the whole loop around Dublin. Then we found a bus to take us near our B&B. We dropped off our luggage, and continued walking. We mostly just window shopped, and looked around.

On Sunday, we got up, had breakfast, and headed to where the start/finish line of the Marathon would be. Darren wanted to make sure I would know where it was, and we picked a meeting place. I liked that the lamp posts all had some sort of shamrock on them ...

This is the big-wig in Ireland's house ... (can't remember the exact title)

Right across from the big-wig Ireland house is this house ... If I remember correctly, it is the U.S. ambassador to Ireland -- who, the tour guides like to point out, owns the Pittsburg Steelers.

Front/Side view of Trinity College (above)

Inside the campus of Trinity College (below)

We went to the college to see the "Book of Kells", which is the orginal translation of the 4 gospels by some monks. Very elaboratly decorated, and all had written on vellum (calf-skin paper) ... very impressive. What is even more impressive, was the "long room" -- the library ... AMAZING! Two stories high, with rows of books stacked floor to ceiling, and ladders at each section!! The don't let you take pictures ... Apparently, Trinity college has some copyright that requires that any book written in Ireland or Great Britian, they get a copy of! So, we saw the old part of the library ... but somewhere there is a new part that has all those books - they have to add about a half mile (I think that is what they said), of books every year to the library ...

Then, it was off to jail ... There is a jail that was first used in the mid 1800's until it closed in 1924. It was a very interesting tour. It gave lots of history for Ireland, because so many of the famous men and women from the Ireland uprisings were held in this jail. It also told about the reformation of jails. How they went from keeping all the prisoners together (even women and children with the men), to seperate cells, to sperate cells with a window - very interesting.

Entering the gate of the jail ... you are "lower than a snake's belly" ...

One of the doors to the old cells. These cells had no windows, just that peep hole... In the hallway, there were some windows - which apparently didn't have glass put on them until some time in the 1900's -- on purpose!

Inside the newer part of the jail. This was a model for new prisons. The workers could stand in the middle and see all the cells at one time. The guide told us that this part of the jail has been used in several movies -- can't think which ones right now ....

The Church of Christ? or St. Patrick's Cathedral? Can't remember which ... (above)

Our B&B wasn't far from the course... In fact, there was an "offical cheer station" at about the 3 mile mark -- that's where I started watching the race ...

After this good looking guy went by, I back tracked on the course, to get to the starting point ... It was interesting listening to the commentary of the announcer. He gave a lot of interesting facts - like, only 10% of people who run marathons will ever come in under 3 hours. This marathon was a lot different from the 1/2 mararthon in Lux, and the marathon in Koln. I could actually hear the announcer at the end! No loud music at the finish line!

The first group of "elite runners" ... the white guy is the Russian who won last year and holds the course record ...

This was the most ammount of runners they have had in the Dublin Marathon ... over 12,000 or 13,000... (or as they would say, "twelve or terteen tousand")

It's Ireland ... gotta have a Leprechan in the race ...

This is the FIRST place winner .... he ran 26.2 miles in 2 hrs. 9 min and 11 secs ! It was his first marathon, and he is only 19! If he had beat the course record (he missed it by 6 seconds!), he would have gotten another 5,000 euro!

Waiting at the finish line, I saw a lot of this!! I didn't realize how many people had to be helped across the finish line, collapse right before the finish line, collapse right at the end, and how many wheelchairs they go through!! I began to get worried when the pink pacer balloons went by! Darren's goal was to stay between the black and pink pacer balloons ...

YEAH! There he is! Running all by himself!!

RIGHT before the finish line ... literally about 30 yards ...

"The Tart with the Cart", Molly Malone... And my cute hubby! CONGRATS!!!

Conference Weekend -- Oct. 4th

Darren has been training for his Marathon in Dublin on Oct. 26th. As part of the training, you run increasingly "long runs" once a week. The longest run you do before the marathon is 20 miles... Well, there was a friend of ours in the ward that planned to run the Koln Marathon. He asked if Darren wanted to run it too, maybe only doing the 20 miles and walking the rest. So, Darren signed up and was ready to go -- but, being in the military, things always change, and the other guy was sent TDY to the Azores (tough assignment!) ... So, Darren was left to decide if he still wanted to run ....

Of course he did ... Did he only run the 20 miles? No! He ran the whole thing!! Nope, that's not him in a skirt, or as part of the diaper chain gang ...

THERE he is!!

How he can still smile at the end of 26.2 miles, I'll never know ....

CONGRATS on another great race!!!

Seminary ...

When our Bishop's family moved this past summer, we also lost our seminary teacher (the Bishop's wife). Unfortunately, lots of families moved this summer, so our ward lost: YW president, 2 High Councilmen, High Priest Group leader, Bishop, Seminary teacher, RS secretary, Cub Scout leader, Nursery leaders (3!), pianist, 2 organists, primary teachers, RS teachers, Activity Day leader, and some great families! So... when the new Bishop was called half way through the summer, there was a lot to be done!

Scout Camp, Girl's Camp, and Youth Conference marched on .... As did the youth ....

I know that I finally let you all know that I'm neck deep in Seminary, and that is why I'm behind on my blogging (and my laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping, emailing, etc.) ... But I'm not sure I ever mentioned the strange preminition of the youth in our ward ...

After Youth Conference, one of our youth had finally gotten her driver's license, so... let the mischief begin ...

Sunday morning after Youth Conference was over, I awoke to this outside my bathroom window ....

I immediately knew that I was loved. I know, from my own experience that you only T.P. people that you love .... I went to church and told them all how excited I was that they loved me! They laughed and told me all about their adventures (the mayor lived across the street, and TPing is not something that Germans do, so they were very curious to see what these hoodlums were doing).

The funny thing is -- 1) we still had No seminary teacher, 2) I had made the unfortunately mistake to tell the seminary kids (when I substituted last year) how we used to TP our seminary teacher's house every year the day before Seminary started ...

Being in the Primary Presidency, I wasn't worried about a seminary call .... (notice the forks in the lawn by the tree -- they TPed AND forked me:)

Lucky for me, Shelby & Spencer were good sports and cleaned up for me ..... Well, as you know, I DID get called to teach Seminary ... Since I was only a substitute to begin with, I thought I would begin with some mischief of my own .... The Seminary kids' parents were only TOO willing to help out! I made a nice invitation to seminary for them (see below), and their parents T.P.ed their rooms for me! On the back of the sign was a note saying see you at seminary tomorrow!

They have been a fabulous class so far! We only have 7, but they are great! We have seminary in my basement, so I decided to paint the room... It had been a lovely PEACH color on the bottom, with a swirley strange colored border, and then little peach flowers on top ...

I was able to borrow a chalk board from the church that had been taken down and wasn't being used ... We have our Scripture Mastery pictures and accompanying action cards hanging at the front of the room ...

On the small wall, we have started finding the more than 100 names given to Christ in the Book of Mormon ...

And along the back wall, we are starting our "one liners". I love the enthusiasm and energy that these youth have. It is a fabulous way to begin my morning, and I am continually awed by their scripture knowledge and insights ... I'm truly being blessed ...