Happy Birthday Nick and Vic!

This week was the birthdays of two of our brothers-in-law - Nick and Vic!  Since their special days were so close, we decided to celebrate them together.  Since we are having such nice weather here right now, we decided that ice cream was an excellent way to celebrate instead of cake.  Hope you both had a great birthday!

Church Barbecue

This past weekend was a busy one which was good for me since I am still getting over jetlag and it forced me to wake up and do things.  On Saturday morning, we helped with a Kinderbrunch (children's brunch) at the Bodenseehof which is the Bible school where we attend church during the school year.  They do this program several times a year and it consists of games, crafts, stories, and brunch for kids.  Brian and I were stretched a bit in our German skills because many of the kids did not speak English.  We were very grateful for the ones who did!

I then took a nap in the afternoon to rest up for our church barbecue in the evening.  We had some small mishaps on our way there, but everything was okay in the end and we only ended up being about a half hour late.  We went to a piece of land that Dave's school owns on the Bodensee which he is allowed to use.  It was so nice to have our own area on the lake since these are rather hard to come by. 

We had three grills going with all different types of meat and also a few salads and other things to munch on.  It was fun to see all the different things that people brought and to be able to share them together. 

After dinner, the guys played a game they made up with bocce balls and we started a campfire.  We had some marshmallows to roast.  Brian got the award for the best marshmallows.  :)  Next time we have to figure out how to get some graham crackers here from the States so that we can educate our friends from Zimbabwe about what they are and how to make a s'more with a roasted marshmallow.

There also was a beautiful sunset over the lake that I took a lot of pictures of.

Meet Hobart and Russell!

Hobart and Russell

About a week before I left for Michigan, Brian and I decided to get a guinea pig.  Brian bought a cage on eBay (his new favorite toy!) and once it arrived, we headed to the "Garden Zoo" (a cross between Horrock's and a pet store) to buy a guinea pig.  Since our German is a bit limited, we knew it would be an interesting experience.  We went there wanting only one guinea pig, but when we arrived, we discovered that they only sell guinea pigs in twos!  They do this because they are social animals and like to have a friend around.  Since there was only one female available, we went with the two guys pictured above so that we wouldn't have any baby guinea pigs.

Hobart and Russell are brothers and were about 10 weeks old when we got them.  I've never had such small guinea pigs!  They've grown quite a bit since we got them.  Hobart was named for Uncle Hobart from the book "Ramona and Beezus".  Brian and I had seen the movie of the book at Christmas and thought Hobart was a funny name.  Russell is named for the main character in the book "Russell the Sheep" which is a story of a sheep who can't sleep and tries all different ways to try to fall asleep until finally falling asleep once daylight returns.

Hobart and Russell were pretty scared of us when we first got them, but they are getting more used to us and their surroundings now.  They venture out from under their "hut" more now and don't immediately run away whenever one of us is in sight.  They're still not too sure about us picking them up yet, so they run in circles in their cage until we can trap them to pick them up.  We're working on getting them more used to that.  We've discovered that they really like hay and carrots and aren't big fans of toilet paper tubes and lettuce.  It is nice to have other living things in the apartment with me during the day.  It gives me someone to talk to!

Here's one last picture of Hobart and Russell hiding under their "hut" in their cage.

American Pizza Night

About three weeks ago, we had an American pizza night here in Germany with our friends from church.  The Pizzuto's invited us all over to their house where we made our own pizzas, cooked them, and ate them together.  They were so yummy!  Brian tried his hand at making a stuffed crust pizza which actually turned out pretty good.  It was a wonderful night with amazing friends and good food!  Check out our Share site for more pictures.

Brian perfecting the stuffed crust.

Gus suggesting another kind of cheese to Mark.

Mark making his pizza.

Waiting for the pizzas to finish cooking.

Funkenfeuer

Now that I'm back in Deutschland after 2 weeks in the States, I'm hoping that I can catch up on some blogs before we take too many more pictures that I want to blog about! 

The first Sunday in Lent is an interesting day here in Germany.  Every town has a Funkenfeuer which means Beacon in English.  Basically this is the day that Germans build large fires to burn their Christmas trees from the previous Christmas.  Brian and I were unaware of this day until we were on our way to church in the evening and our friends told us about this.  They had taken some pictures of the process of the Funkenfeuer, so we got them to show my mom's students and put on the blog.

Here is Gus bringing their Christmas tree to the large pile of Christmas trees.  These will all be burned later in a very large fire!

Here is the beginning of the Christmas tree pile to be burned.  They build a wooden frame to support all the trees in one big pile and then they burn the whole thing.  Notice the tent and couch on the left of the picture.  This is where several people spend the night before the fire.  It takes a while to construct this and they don't want anyone setting fire to it before the time, so they stay there to avoid this.

Here is some more construction of the fire.  Probably not the safest, but it works!

This tractor came by several hours before the fire was to start.  These guys go around the town (drinking beer, of course!) collecting Christmas trees to bring to the fire.

Here is Brian, Lindsay, and I at the fire about a half hour after it had started.  It was still huge!  We saw fires like this all over on our half hour ride home from church.

Indoor Rock Climbing

Since Brian has been posting about his outdoor adventures, I thought I would post about one of our recent indoor adventures.  A few weeks ago we went indoor rock climbing with Pizzutos and our German teacher and her boyfriend.  Since Lindsay is still having troubles with her knee and I'm not a big fan of heights, we just sat at a table and read magazines while everyone else actually climbed.  I did get up a bit to take some pictures.  I'll post a few here, but there will be more on our Share site.  Let me know if you don't know how to get there and I can tell you the link.  I know they all had a good time climbing because we stayed until the very last minute that the wall was open. 

Alpine Adventure

 Our original plan for this trip was, to do a series of snowshoeing and rock climbing. Upon arrival there was very little snow so we decided to not take the snowshoes. Our hike started at just over 800 meters. We then continued up the Berg (German word for Mountain) for an additional 1100 meters to an altitude of 1900 meters. Were we saw some "deer" (I forgot the name). We were probably 40 ft from them and it was totally cool. The only bad part was that we had to back track down the Berg because we could not continue with the route we chose without climbing the wall and we did not have cams to anchor us into the wall. Needless to say we ended up doing the same thing again until we went to the other side of the valley where a Hut was.

Once at the hut we had lunch and relaxed for a bit. We ended up climbing to the top of the other side of the valley and we were able to see a better view as well. (Santis)
Below are some pictures of our adventure (I tried to arrange the pictures in the right order but gave up - sorry).

Pfänder Rock climbing

I think the next few posts I make are going to be about the new hobbies I have picked up since moving to Germany. The first one I am going to write about is rock climbing.

 I have been rock climbing on and off now for a little bit and this weekend Gus took me out for the real thing. The place we went to is Pfänder (a MT in Bregenz, Austria). Beth and I have been there a few times before and Gus has told of this place and we had no idea where this was because we never saw a place that looked remotely close to rock climbing. Sure enough it is there. Beth and I have never been to this part of the MT as we thought Pfänder was only the tourist place with a cable car. Come to find out it is much more. Not that we can say we explored anything more either.

From the parking lot it is a nice hike to the climbing section of the MT. There are many other hiking trails with great views of the city and Alps as well. There's even a trail that will take you to where Beth and I have always gone before - a trail I think we will have to explore later on. My first day to Pfänder we chose easier routs (level 4 to 5). This was for 2 reasons: 1 it was my first time doing this outside on real rock, 2 it was the first time this year for everyone and a good warm-up run.

The first climb was easy, but it surely adds a level of realness to it. It is hard to explain but when climbing indoors things seem much safer and things like that. The second climb we tried to do a level climb (I forget the technical term for it) where you both climb up to the top of one and then continue on the next one. This is what is done if you want to climb lets say 60m up. The rope is 60 meters long but you have to have enough rope to go up and down meaning you can only go 30 meters up at a time. (Sorry fellow Americans but get use to meters rather than feet - you know the metric system is better anyway. Multiply by 3 and you will be close) This didn't work as we couldn't find where the top rope was and therefore it didn't make since to continue on, so we all went back down.

On Sunday Gus and I did the same place again (Lindsay and Jeremy came along but went hiking). This time we did some other climbs and higher climbs as well. I was doing great until the last climb of the day. This was a level 6+. I was doing great until I was about 5-8 meters from the top. There are 2 really difficult parts to this climb. the first one was getting over the sandstone section and the other was getting pass a smooth section on the rock. I couldn't figure out how to get past this section so I had to repel down.

There is a saying Gus and Lindsay told me about. It is "tops off for Power". A friend of theirs went climbing with them and before he started he said "TOPS OFF FOR POWER!!!!" and took his shirt off. Come to find out he was 95% professional. Well, part way up the climb I determined I needed more power and it was tops off for power time. After I did this Gus decided he better do the same thing and did.

Below are some pictures from my climbing weekend.

 

Gus, Lindsay, and Jeremy - eating lunch

 This is Gus's leg looking down.

 Last climb of the day. The climb follows the crack most of the way. I got a little above the where the tree is in the crack.

The next few pictures I took at the top of my first climb on Sunday. What a great view!

 More pictures Gus took

Happy Birthday to 2 special people

33 or 53 years ago was a special day for my brother and my Mother. In keeping with the tradition Beth and I started while in Germany, here is your birthday cake picture. I decided to get a large one because there are 2 Birthdays and this of course calls for extra goodness. I am not sure if it is a good thing I have to eat this all by myself or not...I guess it is a good thing I ran (over 6 miles) today and I plan to do the same thing again tomorrow.

For those wondering what it is like...

It is a Milka cake/Tort. I ate 1/2 of it today...it is very rich as the top is like a Milka candy bar. The inside is like a layered cake with frosting in the middle - it was a frozen Tort so the cake part is more like a the frozen cake than a regular baked cake (hard to explain). The bottom is like a giant wafer cookie. The out side is lined with little ball like Milka chocolate.

Michigan

Sorry the posts have been a bit slow in coming lately.  I (Beth) have been in Michigan for almost a week now because my mom was sick in the hospital and we decided last minute that I would come to help out my family since I wasn't doing much in Germany.  It has been a good time here so far and Mom is doing quite well and improving since I got here.  I'm here for about another week and a half.

Brian is still in Germany and keeping himself busy.  He's had quite a few adventures this first weekend alone and is planning to have some more in the next week and weekend.  I'll have to have him post a few blogs with the pictures that he's taken this weekend and tell you about what he's been up to.  I'll try to catch up on a few things that we've been doing in the past weeks since our visitors were here in the beginning of March.