Hotel Foltice is gearing up for what could be a busy spring. We have John and Rachel Scott with their 7 month old coming to visit us tomorrow for a couple of days. We can’t wait to see them and show them around Germany. After they leave, we have five days of vacancy until Dana’s sister Robyn and her husband Dan come to visit for 7 days.
Our guests have quickly learned that coming to see us means that they must pack an extra bag of luggage for our constant ‘requests’ for additional items to bring over. They must think we are MacGyver based on our request list:
"We are going to need a box of Mac and Cheese, a 3 pack of Right Guard Deodorant, a box of Tylenol Cold and Sinus, and a Denver Nuggets jersey."Having guests over meant that I was asked to put together an additional crib last night as Dana was running out the door for her German II class. Normally, any time Dana asks me do something remotely handy, she leaves me alone (see deck blog post for more on this.) This time, Dylan was around ‘helping’ me. Miraculously, the IKEA crib was not too bad to put together and I was happy that Dylan didn’t hear any new swear words to share with Mommy when she got home.
University News
I have great news on the University front. I am officially in the Finance PhD Program here at the University of Münster (as opposed to being on probation for the first six months.) This confirms our time here in Germany (about 4 years) and helps us make more permanent plans to stay. As of April 1, I will be working as a full time research associate, making the trip from Borken to Münster 5 days a week.
Basketball News
My ankle is feeling better these days, which means it feels like a minor sprained ankle now. I can deal with a sprained ankle…these kind of things can get loosened up and pain can go away. Up to this point, my ankle just plain hurt. Did that stop me? Kind of.
A few weeks ago, the Doctor told me that I had partially torn my inner band ligament. She said I needed to take six weeks off from basketball. I argued with her to give me less time, which I don’t think she really liked. This had to be quite an exchange as somehow, the entire dialogue at this point was in German.
Nevertheless, 5 days later, I dressed for our next game trying to play against the top team in our league. When asked before the game how I felt, I replied confidently, ‘It feels great.’ This was a bold-faced lie. To say I played poorly that game is an understatement. To say I hurt the team is also an understatement. To say I am an idiot: also an understatement.
Anyways, I am back to practicing and playing full minutes as of our last game, and it’s good to be almost healthy again.
Dylan News
As Dana mentioned before, Dylan is in a weird ‘helmet’ phase. He wears this thing all day. He wears the helmet inside and outside of the house, from the morning until he goes to bed at night. We thought this was really strange until he recently bumped his head and immediately asked us to put his helmet on. Once the helmet was securely fastened on his head, Dylan gave us this look like we were really irresponsible parents as if to say "My head would not be hurting right now if I had been wearing my helmet the whole time."
Dana also mentioned that she gets asked all of the time by various people why Dylan is wearing the helmet when she is out in the city. I have taken Dylan out wearing his helmet while riding in his stroller plenty of times and nobody asks me about it. It’s like they look at Dylan and before they ask about the helmet, they take one look at me, and it makes them stop. My theory is after looking at me, they draw the conclusion that wearing the helmet makes complete sense, even while sitting in a stroller at the grocery store. I think I’ve just figured this out. Hmmmm…
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| A rare moment without the helmet. |
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| Dylan is really pleased with himself for throwing sand. |
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| A park near our house has a really cool zipline. Notice Dylan hanging onto his helmet to make sure it doesn't fly off. |
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| Dylan is also in a very adorable hand-holding phase and he will hold hands with anyone. Here he is holding hands at the playground with his little buddy, Eric. |
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| Just a regular Saturday afternoon with the helmet on. |
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| For extra padding, Dylan sometimes prefers to wear his winter hat underneath the helmet. He's a "Safety First" kid. |
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| No outfit would be complete without a Tiger costume, winter hat and helmet. |
2 comments:
Hey there! Actually i decided not to write anything on your blog. Inter alia my English is so bad. But every time I read your stories I´m getting happy and often start to laugh (the kaufland-story, das “Kind-pinkeln”, the helmet-thing, …). I took notice of your family by reading the interview in the “Borkener Zeitung” and I admire the life you chose and how you cope with all the daily problems. I´m glad you meanwhile found other Christians, but I can also recommend you to bother with der church in Borken. St. Remigius is one of the biggest congregations in Germany, so there is much to experience. And once you got familiar with things like “tradition” and old-fashioned masses, you will notice that there are many, many young families with the same interests like you, I suppose.
Just the best to all of you!
Wow, thank you so much for reading our blog! We also appreciate the info about St. Remigius, which we know is such a big part of the community. If you see us around town, please say hello - we'd love to meet you in person.
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