2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 ... 2012!

It's been a whirlwind year in 2011 for us with 3 months in D.C, 3 months in China, 3 months in Oklahoma and 3 months in England! As we reflect on our significant quarterly relocations over this past year, we recognize how truly blessed we are to have friends and family all over the world... thank you for making this life so enriching and fun!

While some may think of our family as "odd," we have data to support that we're actually an "even" family... Tim & I were married in 2002 (coming up on our 10-year anniversary!), Adayla was born in 2004, Tally in 2006, Ryann in 2008... and now we're excited to announce that ~ July 1st, 2012 we will be welcoming our fourth child into our family. "Its" name is Baby Quattro, following Baby Deux for Tally and Baby San (three in Chinese) for Ryann. We welcome the opportunities and challenges of the new year, and especially welcoming "Quattro" into our family!

Happy New Year!

Father Christmas came to our house!

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Looks like Father Christmas and Santa Claus are indeed the sameMerry Christmas!

Ice skating in Amsterdam

After our week-long trip to Germany, we had another week-long trip to Amsterdam. Suffice it to say, the Dutch also enjoy their Christmas markets!
This market had an ice skating rink with cute little penguins and seals that the kids could push for balancing...
Ryann was all about her independence... ("hey Mom, go away")
As did Tally...
Adayla caught on quickly and was up on her own much of the evening...The girls went round and round the rink... Tim had to get off the ice for an hour or so because his feet were cold... the girls kept going for almost three hours...
Mmmm... nothing like warm waffles after a round of skating.
Waffles might even be better than skating!And just like that it was time to call it an evening...
Passing over one of the 1,000+ bridges in Amsterdam... perhaps if we come back when it's warmer we'll take a canal tour.
Just don't get run over by a street car...
View of the market from our hotel room...
Didn't see windmills or damsels wearing wooden shoes on this trip, but apparently they exist because there are tours to see them. Maybe next time!

Cologne (Koln) Christmas Market

We departed Ramstein enroute to Amsterdam. We had two options, drive primarily through Belgium... or drive the German Autobahns at 100+ mph and use the time savings to visit the Christmas Market at the historical cathedral in Cologne... we went through Cologne! (Note to all Honda Odyssey drivers, it does very well at 100+ on the highway).

We parked conveniently in a parking garage right beneath the cathedral. When we popped out from underground, we were welcomed by the sights and smells of the Christmas Market!

When the cathedral was built, it was the tallest building in the world...
All of the surrounding shops/streets were decorated with lights...

Not sure who this was, but perhaps it was Saint Nikolas. The girls went up to get a piece of chocolate from him. He spoke German to them, the girls just looked at Tim and giggled.

There was an evening service that was being prepared for, but fortunately were were at least able to sneak a peak inside...
There were reminders of the bombing during World War II as well. This is an amazing picture following the war. Despite at least 70 direct hits from bombs, the cathedral still stood.

And a picture from the early '80s...
That was the day, we needed to get back on the road to Holland. One question we had about our parking garage... what does it mean to have parking spaces reserved for women?

So we told you that we were we were in an underground parking garage, right? Well, as soon as we drove out of the garage, we had to make some decisions on driving directions but the GPS was quite up yet... what to do? The exit was a different location from the entrance, so we didn't quite know where we were.

Then the GPS acquired its bearings and told us where to go. A couple of minutes later, we found ourselves in the middle of a street that had been converted into a pedestrian zone for another Christmas market. So there we are, big minivan in cramped streets with tons of pedestrians crowding past our car. I was laughing, Tim didn't think it was so funny :-) After a 20-point turn-about, we were able to turn around and slowly get out of there. Only regret is that I didn't take a picture of the car as I was outside spotting Tim in his maneuvering! It could have been a scene right out of the movie European Vacation!

But once we were on our way, we were treated with one final view of the Cathedral... a view from across the river. Stunning!

Another day... Another Christmas Market!

We ventured out a bit further for a larger Christmas Market... we drove out to Mannheim (yes, the namesake for the band Mannheim Steamroller).

The scents, the sights, the Spirit of Christmas!Freshly baked cheesy bread from a wood-fired oven...
... is worth the wait!
The girls loved this candle shop where they could create their own candle...
Which colors, how bright, what order... decisions, decisions.
Ahh... perfect!
The return trip from Mannheim to Ramstein Air Base is 55 miles, or about 35 minutes. Let's just say that even a minivan on the German Autobahn can get over 100 mph...

German Christmas Markets

We were at Ramstein Air Base in Germany for a week-long training conference that Tim attended. After Tim's work day, it was a race to get out of the hotel as quickly as we could to go to Christmas Markets!!

Tim has spent six years of his life living in Germany, and every Christmas season he tells me that nobody knows how to truly celebrate Christmas like the Germans. After spending a week in Germany, I must confess... he's right! There is such a special Spirit of Christmas in the air in Germany that I've never experienced before. Here's a small portion of the German Christmas experience... the Christmas Markets! Our first Christmas Market we went to was in the neighboring city of Kaiserslautern...
The wonderful smells from all the wonderful food... here we are sharing the tastiest Bratwurst that I've ever had...
... then some cheesy bread freshly baked in a wood-fired oven...
...we enjoyed some Crepes made with Nutella (Nutella and Marzipan for Tim) as we cozily stood around one of the several fires around the market. This fire was amazing... it was basically a tree trunk about three feet tall that was split six ways and then some sterno looking material was placed on the top and lit... shortly thereafter the log looked like this...
The lights, the shops, the music, the scents... the people! The people really made the atmosphere special. There was no hustle and bustle. This wasn't about the shopping, it was the socializing. There was no rush to shop, no rush to eat. It was here a little, there a little... relax and enjoy. Here's a bench by another fire where we sat just taking everything in.
Did I mention the true meaning of Christmas? It's still remembered here in Germany. The Christmas Market is centered around... a church! Go figure. A Nativity Scene is prominently displayed...
Have you ever seen German Christmas Pyramids... with the candles that when lit turn the propeller of the Nativity Scene contained in it? Here was a life-sized version, with a little restaurant at the base of it...
A perfect evening, until... we arrived back at the parking garage. We didn't even think to check what time the place closed (it was automatic, why did it need to close?). We arrived here at 8:45 pm, the place closed for the night at 8 pm. So after calming down a crying Adayla, and a giggling wife...Tim found us a taxi back to Ramstein (only 30 Euros, ~$40 for that mistake... not to mention the lunch Tim owed a friend to drive him back out there in the morning to pick it up... oops!). I'm still just giggling when I think about it (Tim doesn't find it quite as funny as I do!).

Leaving England.....

Out on our first trip out of England... a week-long trip to Germany followed by a week-long trip to Amsterdam! It feels like we just got here to England... um, I guess we did.

As noted previously, we received our furniture/belongings from America the day after Thanksgiving and spent majority of that Saturday unpacking boxes... the rest of that Saturday we packed our bags to go on our two-week trip.

We woke up Sunday morning and after a two-hour drive, we arrived at the "Chunnel," which is the tunnel that crosses under the English Channel from roughly Dover, England to Calais, France.

Thirty-five minutes is all it takes...
A quick pit-stop at the rest area before boarding the train... ( and yes, we did get some burgers at BK).
Driving through the Chunnel... do you see that guy tailgating us? The Chunnel is actually a train that departs roughly twice an hour that we drive ourselves onto... then sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride at 140 km/hour (~88 miles an hour). Not bad, smooth ride...
Then the mind-bender. After six weeks of driving on the "wrong side" of the road in England, we had to relearn how to drive on the right side of the road. Here's the reminder in France before you cause a big accident (probably the only sign in France that's in English!)...
Five hours later, we had traveled through France, Belgium and arrived at our destination in Germany.

Boxing Day

In England (and throughout the British Commonwealth), the day after Christmas is Boxing Day. For us, the day after Thanksgiving was Boxing Day... as we received and unpacked our boxes that we hadn't seen since March. Did we really need this stuff?

Uh, where is the couch supposed to go?
The girls had fun re-discovering their things...
This was almost as good as as Christmas... (and Mom & Dad were just as tired as they frequently are on Christmas)

We can almost call our house "home" now! (almost...)

Happy Thanksgiving...

...or as Adayla thought of it, Happy Birthday to ME!

It is crazy to think we brought her home on Thanksgiving 7 years ago. Our original plan was to head to London for the day, but Wednesday afternoon our shippers called and said they could deliver our stuff Friday morning. We had Thursday and Friday off for the U.S. holiday, but the Brits were still hard at work while we celebrated Thanksgiving. We didn't want to exhaust ourselves with a day of visiting London, followed by two days of unpacking boxes at our house and then pack & depart Sunday morning to Germany for a week of fun (and work for Tim!). So we stayed in Cambridge and went out for the day.

Adayla didn't want turkey (I was okay with that)....she wanted Chinese (no surprise).

This restaurant was a Chinese Fusion and was very tasty.
A bit of shopping....
that ended with birthday pasteries from a local bakery.
Happy Birthday Adayla! Don't grow any bigger...