My Amy's back (hey-na, hey-na) My Amy's back

Straight off the bat, let me tell you that the joys of single parenthood are significantly over-rated.

With the help of the US Army (the finest army in all the world...they are a strong army of one, don't you know... apropos nothing, I used to think that the old army commercials used to say "beef, all you can beef, in the Army" not "be all you can be".  Imagine my confusion.) Anyway, with the help of the Army, Amy got a nearly all expense paid trip back to Maryland for a conference.

And was gone about nine days.

Nine days long days with no sleep, about three totals meals, and enough floor cleaning solution to kill a mid-sized wildebeest (I hear that they are sensitive to that kind of thing).

For the record, all animals and plants....well, almost all the plants, made it through the week with flying colors.  Some of those colors are back and blue and were received as a result of flying through the air, but "survived" is the key point I am trying to make. This was, in no small part, largely thanks to Sponge Bob Square Pants, the Dinosaur Park, and Futurerama (don't tell Amy about the Futurerama, she doesn't like it, but doesn't read this, so lets see how long it can remain a secret.  I'm looking at you, Diana).

The best, or perhaps the most exciting thing about Amy coming home (other than, hey, I've had a night of decent sleep) is that Amy brought her pet tortoise, Rocky, back with her.  The most exciting thing about this, is that we found out that Rocky, who is a Bell's Hingeback Tortoise, has somehow made her way onto the endangered/protected species list...which makes her export/import ever so complicated.  Which would have been good to know before Amy showed up at the Frankfort customs office with Rocky in tow. Thus, now we have to find a way to retroactively fill out the required US Department of Wildlife / Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (or CITES) paperwork that will allow Rocky to enter Germany...which, has already happened.  So, "confusion" seems to be the name of the game here.

Also, but unrelated, since Amy came back, the work on the backyard has commenced in earnest; most of the sod is down and slowly, but surely, the patio is coming together.  I'm not sure when the fence will be put in, but "eventually" seems to be the name of the game here (I don't like this game, I am not good at waiting).

Anyway, my head is a little wobbly this morning, Ari woke up at 0330 and I never really got back to sleep after that.  So here are pictures. Have I said that the Dinosaur Park saves lives?  It does.

Hard to see here, but the back of the car in front of me has a sticker that says "White Power" which is probably one of two things: a wholly inappropriate thing to call a little white car that you zoom about the Autobahn in, or, a proud declaration of racist beliefs. Most of the time, those here who support the "movement of the 1930's & 40's just put the Confederate "stars and bars" on their cars. 

Getting ready for school

At the Dinosaur Park there is so much to see, one must always be on the move

Best. Slide. In. The. World.

Climbin'

Slides and stairs and slides and stairs and slides and stairs

Sorry for the glare, but here is the backyard in progress

Annnnd...We're Back!

Well that only took three months.

So, as of yesterday we finally have internet.

Welcome to the first world nation of Germany.  We have outdoor plumbing and there is one guy two towns away who has electricity.

There is so much and yet, so little that has happened in the last three months.

 Firstly, we got all of our stuff.  Well, almost all of our stuff.  We had two broken items (Amy might know about more stuff) and my awesome tool box, which was a gift from Amy's folks was "lifted" by our movers (they took it).  We were later told that military movers have a habit of stealing tools and tool boxes.

 Secondly, and significantly more recently, work has begun on the house in ernest. The insulation has been put up, the stucco has been put on and painted, the scaffolding that was necessary to do all of that that has come down, and as of today, they are working the back and side yards with a mini-bulldozer in order to level the yard so we can put in our patio and fencing.

 Thirdly...and most importantly, we are fully involved in potty training.  The daycare now says that Ari is potty trained and that he was the easiest boy to potty train that they can remember.  He's still not asking to go, but he'll go when we ask him.  Yesterday we pee'd on a tree by our local carp pond.

Ahhh...just so exciting.

But enough about me, you want pictures. Some of these will be repeats from my Facebook page, but not everybody has seen that.

First zoo trip

Amy's not sure if she likes schnitzel 

One of our first walks around the new neighborhood

Crazy greek food place says "Oh Myyyyy"

Watermelon

Dinosaurs!

Pretzels! 

Ari looks down on Heidelberg 

Second zoo trip with new friend Hannah

Ice cream at Die Kutche

Scaffolding and stucco 

Looking tuff in our big boy undies 

Painted house...almost complete

All I have is my pride. And my wife. And my kid. Oh, and my dogs, ten bags of stuff, a truck, a couple of computers, and, these pictures

I am a little short on time tonight, so I will leave you guys with a series of pictures from the last couple of days.  We move into our new place tomorrow and we may be without internet for a while...hope these can hold you 'till then.

There was a family festival at Landstuhl on Friday night.  Games and prizes and not much food...which sorta sucked.  But there was a Bounce House, so it kinda evened out.  Granted there was no Emma associated with this Bounce House.

There was a obstacle  course at the festival for the big kids and Ari decided he had to do it...while the other kids were running the course.   Here he is doing the low crawl.  This was followed by jumping in and out of tires and then he interrupted a kid trying to squirt solo cups off of traffic cones with a super soaker, by running in front of the target.  

Dinner at Ramstein's newest BX addition.  Kinda meh.  Ari did grab the hair of the little girl who was sitting behind him, so at least there was some entertainment.

After dinner Ari ran to the bookstore and promptly started grabbing books.  The first one he got was a book on algebra.   There was no picture of this.  This is a picture of Ari with a magazine about remote controlled airplanes, out of which he chose planes for himself, Mommy, and Daddy.

This dark picture is of Mobil Martin.  It's sort of like an Ikea on really expensive steroids, where the furniture doesn't suck.  They also have really awesome food.   

 Apparently Mobil Martin also allows dogs in the store and the restaurant.  This one ate zitti while his old lady momma drank beer.

Schnitzel! with Jager and Hunter's sauces (a half and half, if you will). 

Ari was rocking out to something in the car.  If he's anything like me (and there would be some that would say that he is) it was probably Kaity Perry or whoever that first American Idol girl was.  Yes. I am ashamed of this.

More when we get there...

I cannot believe I blew my schnitzel wad on that

I have to say that, tonight, I had my first really bad food experience in Germany.

We went to a place called "Paradox" in the village of Ramstein-Misenbach (which may actually be spelled differently, but google maps is just too far of a click away for me to check right now).

We ordered nachos for the table, chicken tenders for Ari, some kind of flat bread pizza thing for Amy, and then Jagerschnitzle for me.

Why? because I love me some pork, pounded flat, breaded and fried, served with brown gravy, mushrooms and french fries.  Don't knock it 'till you try it.

We chose to eat outside, because it was a nice cool evening, and the inside was a bar, where people were smoking.

The first course, the nachos, came 45 minutes after we ordered it.  I was a little pissed, but, they were playing great 80's music, so I was rocking out (but a little pissed, and getting hungry).

As it turns out, the Germans eat their nachos with BBQ sauce. It's an interesting mix.

20 minutes later, Ari's chicken tenders and my schnitzel came out.  Amy's meal, as it happens, was dropped on the floor, and so they had to make another one.

But I had my schnitzel, so all was good in the world.

Let me explain that I love schnitzel. I LOVE schnitzel.  I have put a limit on the amount of schnitzel I can eat during the week.  I get one schnitzel. ONE.  And my week, nay, my life revolves around the mystery day of the week where my schnitzel embraces me with it's golden arms of love.

Today was going to be that day.

And then, the unthinkable happened.

A German restaurant made horrible schnitzel.  It was hard, overcooked (not sure how you dry out something that is fried...but they managed to do this) and tasked like old boot funk.

I left disillusioned and broken.

It's still hard to talk about.

Anyway.

Other things:

I looked at a Land Rover Defender the other day.  It was too beat up and the guy was asking too much (also there were some issues with the engine and gas milage that the guy wasn't being totally open with me about).

For those asking, Ari is doing great in daycare.  It is a small class and he is already best friends with the cute girl in his class.  There have been, however, a few incidents where another kid has smacked him in the face.  I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't punch a two year old, but I'd be lying that the thought hadn't crossed my mind.

Amy got her truck this week.  It is amazing how different the gas milage (kilometerage?) is between the diesel cars we had rented for the last month and Panzer is. Thank the Maker (what's up C3PO?) that we don't have to pay taxes on the gas we buy.

The large black dog bed that we shipped on April 24th showed up today.  There was grave concern that it wasn't going to make it...which would have sucked, because Harley has been sleeping on the bed with us and it has really been hurting my sleep (with Bucky usually somewhere around my head and Harley wedged in someplace else, I would just lay awake at night sweating, covered in animal).

We move into our new place on Tuesday, so if there is a bit of a blog lag, it is because we don't have internet yet.

Pictures:

Amy inspects Panzer with the only helpful person at the vehicle pick-up and inspection facility.

Ari needed consoling after a bad meal at "Paradox"

Nachos.  With BBQ sauce. Also, Amy's pizza thing that came so long after  Ari and I ate that Amy had to eat the nachos (no BBQ sauce was harmed during this meal).

Weird fountain in the middle of town.  Everything was cats.

A weekend of photos

Slightly random order...

Wine festival in Brucken...I want to call the musicians an "Umpa Lumpa Band", but I don't think that's right.

New friends on teeter-totters

Ari telling daddy to go away so he can wander through the crowd by himself

Ari was told he could have anything he wanted from the snacks/meals available at the wine festival.  He chose a salami sandwich.  Which he destroyed.  Just like his old man.

Lovely German countryside

King of camouflage

This one will stay with him forever

One House Down...

Yesterday we closed on the sale of our Frederick house to the People Who Shall Not be Named.

I sorta wish I had thought that through before I typed it, so that I could have come up with a better acronym. PWS(b)N just doesn't have a interesting ring to it.

Yesterday was also the day that we got our rental contract OK'd by the local housing office.

So lose one, win one.  Everything always seems to work out.  I think there was a Seinfeld episode about that.

That's not to say that there wasn't any last second drama in regards to getting the all the final paperwork signed, sealed and delivered from one side of the world to the other.

On Thursday night we got a final addendum from the buyers, who wanted some money because (and I'll say "we" here) we decided that we wanted to keep some drapes that we had originally put on the conveyance list (along with our basement freezers, which we had sold, and didn't  realize we were supposed to leave...oh well).

WWI Memorial.  Had an Iron Cross on the front of it,
not sure it is visible from this angle. 

So the plan was to have Amy print the paperwork from her office on Friday morning, and then we'd sign it, scan it, and send it off.

This made total sense.

As it happened, Friday was an Army "Training Day" and the floor to Amy's office was locked, so no access to her computer, printer, or scanner.

Landstuhl Internet cafe? Yeah, no printers.

Co-workers who could help? Yeah, all taking the day off.

Options: Buy a new printer / scanner at the BX (which would be a waste, as we have a new printer / scanner on a boat that is floating it's way to us right now), or, pray that in the time that we were running around the hospital that one of the people on Amy's floor decided to show up for work (and had a key).

It took a little convincing, but I got Amy to try her door again.

Eureka! And now every third Wednesday of the month Amy has to go on a date with some weird guy who came to work on his day off.

Small price to pay, if you ask me.

We also met with our real estate agent, the housing office, and had lunch in the town of Landstuhl.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating, the thing about Germany is all the Thai food you eat.

It's been a good Saturday.  The weather has been fantastic and I'm cooking roasted pork belly.  Might be gross, but it smells great.

Later kiddos.

Oh, and more pictures....

I think this is a convent.  It looked old as poop.

Hard to see here, but here is a lady walking her cat.
She had two cats and her husband was walking the other.
Whipped...

I love these guys.