Berlin layover (pt 1 of 2)

We decided ahead of time to do a 3 day layover in Berlin on our way home.  One of the reasons for this was to have some time and space to grieve & decompress before we returned.  On one hand, I was eager to get back -  I was missing our boys a ton.  On the other hand, I really did need some time to process without the looming details of The Move over my head.  The time in Berlin was SO good for us.  We stayed with some new friends - they allowed us to crash there and the freedom to be on our own.

The highlight of our trip was meeting up with a friend of ours from Vienna.  Her family is in Potsdam and she had returned home, so we met up for the day and she showed us her city and her home. (You should know that all of these pictures were taken on the same day - notice the crazy changes in weather.)

We started off walking up to the top of a summer palace (Belvedere auf dem Pfingstberg) for the aerial view of Potsdam.  As we were headed up, we could see the clouds moving in.

By the time we got to the top, we had a quick glimpse before it broke loose.  With the view we had we could see all the patches of rain - very cool.

and it hailed...

Meike & I once the worst had passed

Seriously - this was 20 minutes later

Then we headed up to another beautiful site Sanssouci.  It was lovely to walk and talk.  Getting to spend the day with our sweet friend was wonderful and getting a tour of her city was a great bonus.

Then we had the opportunity to spend the evening with Meike's family.  Her mother is a Pastor at a local church Französisch-Reformierten Gemeinde and has presided over this community since before the Berlin Wall fell (Potsdam was located in East Germany).

Inside we took the opportunity to sing some German Hymns together.  

The acoustics are beautiful.

  

Dan even got to play a little bit on the Baroque Organ. 

We spent dinner together at a local restaurant and had the most lovely and memorable evening.  They were very open and candid about living in East Germany and some of their answers surprised my Western cultural views.  I felt that in some small way, I was a first-hand learner that history is written by the Victors and isn't always as accurate and exact as it might seem. 

I can't express how much we enjoyed our time with Meike's parents. 

They are such wise and warm souls and I understand more fully why Meike is as kind, generous and delightful as she is. A truly perfect day - despite the weather :)

berlin post will have to wait until later... but it was pretty cool too!

Vienna Goodbyes

This is going to be a hard post to write.  There's just too much to say and I'm already daunted by the idea of trying to articulate even a small portion of the emotions wrapped up into moving. I guess that's because it's certainly more than just the shipping of our stuff from one place to another.  It's saying goodbyes to sweet friendships, familiar places, a settled rhythm of life, broken hopes and dreams and to a city that we've really grown to love over the past 3 years.

We made a difficult decision to leave our kids back in the States with family.  On one hand, we really wanted to bring them to say Goodbyes properly.  On the other hand, we don't have a  trust fund with which to whisk our kids around the world on whims and we knew the idea of packing up our apartment in two weeks with kids under foot would be very difficult so the decision was sort of made for us.  In retrospect, this was a really great thing - despite our misgivings.

Right away we were able to jump into the logistics of prepping for the move.  This involved a lot of cleaning/sorting and organizing.  This was really the easy portion of our trip.  The hard part was the emotional goodbyes.  Every night (and many afternoons & mornings) were busy getting together with friends - taking the time to express our gratitude and thankfulness for their presence in our lives.  How blessed are we to have been surrounded by so many friends and neighbors?!   I'll spare you the Humble Brag, but needless to say we were deeply touched by the sincere words and affections which were piled on us. It was really too much to hear at times and I'm so thankful that God allowed us the opportunity to give and receive these tender emotions and thanks.

a tiny subset of goodbyes

One of the highlights of our time was attending a going away party for Dan by his amateur choir.  Over the last few years, I've had limited access to them, but always enjoyed the contact I had. Historically, Dan would come home from rehearsals and give me the rundown on people's lives, so in a way, I feel like I already knew many of them more personally than they anticipated.  We went to a restaurant that the choir frequents often and we all closed the place out - as only Europeans can do!  There was group singing (it is a choir!), a lot of laughing and sweet goodbyes.  It made me regret that I was unable to be more a part of it in the past.  A wonderful group of people and I'm so blessed to have been so welcomed by them.

Here are two "videos" of them singing that night.  This one is called "Until We Meet Again" and it's in English.

Please forgive the filming... I didn't record this for the visual, but the audio. It was a touching moment and felt that I was infringing on it a little by recording people, so did that once around and switched to candle :)

This is another song they performed too - Dan's singing lead on "Ain't Got Time To Die"

Can't say enough about how much this evening meant to us.  

The singing, the conversation, the laughing are all deeply ingrained in our hearts.

We also made a point of it to enjoy our visit as tourists.  We filled every moment with work so we could take Sunday off and relax without guilt. And the last 2 days - after our apartment was packed up, we were officially tourists.  With the stress of packing up behind us, we were able to visit an art museum and linger over beauty and quiet. And since we were there just before Easter, we swung by the beautiful Easter Market.

And on a lighter side note... I learned an important life lesson - If you ask someone at a bar at 3am to take your picture, the chances are the pictures will be out-of-focus & uncentered.  Hugs to our tipsy photographer :)

Life Goes On

In the midst of the last few crazy months - despite time feeling like it stopped in some ways, life continued to go on.  The daily distractions of busy little boys and their expanding schedules has probably been a blessing in disguise.  There is something helpful about being genuinely busy when our cares seem to loom so large on the horizon.  Here's a small sampling of our last few months in Florida.  This is the normal stuff - and sometimes Normal is a really lovely place to be.

Worthy doing his reading homework

our little guy accompanying us on (yet another) school function

sampling (and sharing!) American perfection doughnuts

the vote is in

Worthy went on a school field trip to Kennedy Space Center and had a blast! He's very interested in space and all things science so this was a real treat for him. We're so glad he got to experience this.  I hope he will always think science is amazing! 

We've also had our fair share of Emergency Room and hospital visits. William and Dan are the only ones that haven't had some injury warranting a visit.  Just this past week Worthy fractured his little finger, Calvin had a weight dropped on his foot and we had reason to suspect Christian had ingested some tiny little pills.

If you'd love to hear me rant & rave complain - just ask me how I feel about American Insurance companies.  

On a much brighter note - we've gotten to enjoy baseball and T-ball!

Just a small sampling of our past few months of Normal.  

Normal can get a bad rap, but sometimes there is something so pleasant about the mundane.

Humdrum - I'll take it!

Missing My Boys

Dan & I are in Vienna packing up our apartment and we find ourselves desperately missing our little guys. Thankfully, we've been VERY busy with the business of packing up a household and getting together with friends.  We've been out every night with someone so our minds have been quite occupied.  With every moment filled with duty or pleasure, we've been blessedly distracted from focusing on missing our Home.  I had a little time this afternoon and just had to look at a few pics - I am missing them dreadfully!

Thank you God for my Home.

In the midst of feeling like a wanderer, I know where I belong.

Wildlife Park

A new friend invited us to join her and her boys for a visit to the Homosassa Wildlife Park.  We had a GREAT time. We saw some manatees, oogled a huge (and active) Hippopotamus and generally just had a wonderful time in the sunny weather. Yes, while our northern (and not so northern) friends and family are getting pummeled by snow and meteorologicly sealed into their homes we were outside working on our Vitamin D intake. Calvin & Christian hadn't seen any manatees before and they seemed to be interested in them.

Older boys spotting the manatees

It was a beautiful day.

My friend's boys are almost exactly Cal & Christian's ages so it was fun to see them interact.

At one point they commandeered the bench and turned it into their own jungle gym (pun intended...)

About the coolest thing I've seen in awhile... the hippo emerged!  I've only EVER seen hippos in the water.  The size and scope of this guy just baffled me.  I'm still at a loss for how his tiny legs hold him up.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch, saw some snakes & birds and thoroughly exhausted the boys. All-in-all a really great day!

Becoming Natives

We are slowly slipping into routines and becoming locals.  Here's what we're learning or doing:

• Homework after dinner will always be poorly executed
• Kids eat free on Monday (and Tuesday) at Cody's
• The weekly library kid program is a must-attend

• Standing next to my husband during worship is wonderful.
• I just got a gas card to a local place that makes it a little cheaper.  (I hadn't pumped gas in 2 years!)
• There are too many gastronomic temptations
• 
• We need to exercise... a lot
• Soccer practice - it's more fun than practice

• I have to consciously remember to say "Excuse Me" when trying to squeeze by people so as not to seem too rude.
• The grocery store trip(s) has become a pleasant part of my week
• Attending a weekly Bible Study that I use to attend - same location with many of the same women - has been a highlight of my week.
• Being around older and vibrant Christians has been a balm to my soul
• Not bundling up in Winter Gear has been a really nice change

It's nice to be back. We miss Vienna.  We miss being home even while we are here at home.  We're so blessed to call two places Home.

ReCulture Shock

I've lived in the US for the majority of my life, so to some of you it might seem weird to have culture shock coming back here.  I'd say it's probably less shock and more just tremors.  Dan, Worthy & I are natives here.  William and Calvin have spent the majority of their time on this planet in Austria.  It's easy to forget that Vienna is home for them.  It's where they feel comfortable and understand the rules (even unspoken ones).  This is of course Christian's first time here, so he's still in tourist mode despite being a US citizen :)

A couple of observations:

• We got some fast food on our way home from the airport and William was shocked to have ice in his drink.
• My parents took the kids to Chick-fil-A one afternoon.  William came home and said, "Mom - you won't believe it... there was a playground IN the restaurant!"
• Going into Walmart.  At our grocery store in Vienna, we have 2 choices of orange juice. This was a delightful (and a bit overwhelming) culture tremor.

• Casual friendliness.  I'm not talking about friendliness with acquaintances at church or school.  It's the social pleasantries with strangers.  The greetings when walking into a store or shop, people talking to my kids in the grocery store line and just general nice-ness of people.  I'm not saying that Viennese aren't nice - they just don't display a casual niceness if that makes sense.  At the store a stranger was talking to Calvin and he asked me "Do we know her?"

These are just a couple of things.  Many happen in small doses and catch me off guard.  And while some of these things I've missed, some of them now feel foreign - like I'm a stranger in my own land.  Which is probably a bit how I should feel - knowing heaven is my home and this is just a temporary stay.