Winter Wonderland

Or as they say over here....Vinter Vonderland!  It's funny how just this week I saw someone's name written out and the name started with a "W" but in my head I was thinking "V".    I really do love the german language and love listening to conversations but do I ever wish I could understand and speak it!!

We have been blanketed in a white winter wonderland most of January and the forecast is calling for more snow into the first week of February.  It's beautiful, especially like today when the sun peeks through for a few minutes at a time and everything sparkles ( yeah girls...just like Edward!)

The bad side of all this beautiful snow is that they are running low on salt and being able to maintain the roads.  The roads can get pretty bad with snow, frozen slush and ice.  This week we had a ROADCON RED which is serious enough to delay school and most work on base a couple of hours allowing time to clear the roads.  Then the next day after school had started it went ROADCON BLACK which essentially shuts down the base from all moving traffic.  The gates close and no one goes on or off base.  Luckily they lifted it to RED in time for the kids to get home after school.  


Today it was RED again and I got a call on my way to pick up Mike from the Bahnhoff in Landstuhl saying church was cancelled, standards night tonight was cancelled and the bishop had authorized having sacrament in our homes if there was priesthood available.  We got two phone calls from members who didn't realize Mike had just arrived back home asking if Travis and I would like them to come to our house and do the sacrament.  They really take good care of us :)  

So of course the biggest news this week is that Mike has finally returned after a month in Florida.  We are so happy to have us all under one roof again. He is happy to be here so he can now take Mike M. under his wing and "show him the ropes".  It looks like they have found a house about 10-15 minutes away in a village called Matzenbach.  It is a big brand new house in a very cute little village.  The highlight of Mike's trip was probably his visit over to Deland to see Scott and Emma.  They met up with Travis Pastrana and did a little motorcylce riding with him. 

I have had a busy week getting McGraths to where they needed to be when I could and also with some meetings. I had to wait one day for the heating guy to show up, which he finally did. He has to order some parts but hopefully the heat will be fixed for good sometime this week.  Right now it goes out every couple of days and the landlord has to come over, go up in the attic and hit the "reset" button to get it working again.

 Wednesday night is Schnitzel Abend at the gasthouse in Hütschenhousen.  We LOVE schnitzel!  Karma, Missy, Chris, Travis and I (Mike M. was sick so he didn't come) all met for dinner.  It was "sehr gut" as usual.  I wanted a picture of the boys and they were being so silly, so when they turned the tables on us and wanted to take pictures of US....WE got silly.  I am sure the very nice lady who runs the gasthaus was thinking "Ja, those silly americaners". 

I am anxious this week to get back to german class.  My teacher's husband had lung surgery the first of the year and she had been waiting until he felt better to start class again.  It's scary how fast you lose what little you know if you don't work at it everyday or two.  


Well that's about it for this week.  I hope you are all doing well.  We love getting the emails with news and pictures of home, the kids and grandkids and even Max...thanks, Donna for that one :)  


we love and miss you all, 
corri