Settling In

We are finally in our house and getting to the point where 'real life' can begin.  I will post pictures soon!  The moving in is going a little slowly this time.  Normally, we get our stuff and have a few days before Russ starts work and the kids and I get locked into activities.  This time, however, work and activities already started because of being in the hotel for almost 2 months... so we have had to unpack amid and around other things we had going on.

No complaints though!  Our neighborhood is a newer section of the village of Mackenback.  The kids walk to the bus stop down the street and there is a bakery right there... so when Mom is being generous, they get a little treat.  We have met some friends that are within walking distance so that is great!  

Emma and Leo both are taking gymnastics.  Emma is continuing with Piano and Girl Scouts and Leo begins T-Ball next week.  I have plugged into the Catholic Women of the Chapel here.  It is very different from the group I was involved in while in Kansas, but it is nice.  Once I get settled, I will look into doing some volunteering and POSSIBLY work a little bit.  I have contacted my old employer in England to see if she had any at-home-work I could do for her.  I have done that for her once before when we lived in Texas and it was great so I am hoping we can maybe make that happen again.

Our home phone number is 011-49-6374-802695.  If you have Skype my name is Driggers4ship so we can chat on-line...  

I will take and post pictures soon!  The first week of April is our spring break and we are heading on road trip to Prague!  Super excited!  Emma turns 8 on the day before Easter, so we will have a small family celebration in the car on the way home...  hopefully the weekend after Easter we will have a few of her friends over for a small party.

Talk soon!  Love us!

Lechtinberg Castle

Our First Castle...  Germany is filled with Castles, this one is only abut 25 minutes away from us and was built around 1200.  It doesn't have that sordid of a history, apparently is was used mostly as a Duke's office building!  But it was cool crawling around the ruins.  The kids really enjoyed it.

Burg is the German word for Castle.  So all the castles start with the term 'Berg'... just a little trivia for ya!

I was trying to get the picturesque town in the background but my lighting wasn't working I guess...


My little explorers!  Leo Michael wanted to climb on or through everything.  I am sure with most of the more popular castles, there are rules, but this one seemed to be "just do what you want", there were no real regulations.  In fact, several German children were riding their bikes all over the place and there were live in apartments built into the side of the castle.  I guess it is just another building!

FASCHING!

Fasching is the German version of Carnivale or Mardi Gras.  They have parades and everyone dresses up all crazy.  We went to one of the smaller parades in Ramstein village so it had much more of a 'small town' parade feel to it, but thousands of people showed up!  The kids had a lot of fun although there were a few tears from hard candy hitting the kids heads!  

Apparently, Smurfs are HUGE over here!  All the ice cream shoppes even have smurf-flavored ice cream... now I don't really understand that... but there you go!  
Each little village had a prince and princess plus a team like this (all with similar outfits) that marched through the streets.