I can speak German?

This past Saturday Logan, Chris, Connor and I went to our friends house in Magdeburg. It's about 2 hours (on the train) southeast of Berlin. Here's a little Wikipedia for ya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg.

The family Grunert (I really need to get some pics up here) live in Magdeburg. Chris was friends with Volker Grunert. Volker died of a brain tumor back in 1996 or '97 I believe. He was only like 28 years old. He is missed. Volker is survived by his sister Annchia (sp?) and parents; Christal and Gehart (sp?). Sorry I'm bad at writing German names :-( Volker's sister Annchia is married to Andreas and they have two boys; Christian (12) and Henrich (8).

We love this family so very much. They are good good friends. We are lucky to have them nearby. It's always wonderful to visit them. On this visit I was armed with lots of new German words. I was determined to speak German.

We had a tough train ride. Connor usually naps from 11-1/2ish and we didn't leave our flat until noon. Once on the train he was crazy. Over tired and hungry. We feed him but getting him to nap was going to be difficult. All he wanted to do was walk or run all over the train. Chris and I took turns chasing him down. Logan sat back and laughed.

Once we got to Magdeburg we met up with Andreas. He took us to their house. They have a lovely home btw. Immediately I began to speak German. Slowly of course but I was speaking German. The Grunerts understand English pretty well and like me with German are slow (and a little shy perhaps) to speak. It was fun I think for all of us. By the end of the evening I was tired and was looking forward to the quite ride home on the train (knew the kids would both sleep and they did).

Chris said I did well. He said I was much more confident as the day/evening worn on.

Today Chris and I spoke some German to each other. It was fun. Again I'm slow to speak but he understood what I was saying which is of course important.

Berlin goes Ghost

Another film is being shot here in Berlin. We are such a popular city
:-)

The Roman Polanski film "The Ghost" is being shot here starting Feb. 4th. Chris and I will have do some searching around. Check out this article http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/2009/01/pr_polanski_goe.html.

A New President

We have one and I'm hopeful :-)

Chris, Logan, Connor and I had a little party last night while we watched CNN.com via Facebook. It was fun to watch President Obama get sworn in. We started watching at 2 p.m. our time here in Berlin and finally turned off the computer at midnight. I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. What a great day for the US. What a proud moment for us all.

New Post for the New Year

I've been bad. I've been playing myFarm like a crack addict on Facebook. What's wrong with me??? I must say it's fun to play but I've gotten a little carried away. It all began when I visited the myFarm discussion forums. I learned too much and went bonkers. Instead of one nice steadily growing farm I have 5. All in various stages of development. Logan is helping me with one but can only farm on the weekends so that leaves me to tend 5 during the week. I've got to get a better hobby :-) So if you want to take a look at my most properous farm go here http://apps.new.facebook.com/farmgame/visit.pS?sid=822758894 I'm saving up for a 2nd chicken coop and a barn. The barn allows me to be able to sell animals. The coop protects the chickens. The developers of the game have promised fences and for the chickens to lay eggs.

Okay I didn't want to fill this post with my latest addiction. What's been happening these past few weeks you ask? Well,

LOGAN
Logan is back at school. He started winter semester and is doing well. In fact we have a book report to do this weekend. It's about robots and humans and their battle with each other on this mountain. Fun stuff! He'll have winter break the first week of February which he is looking forward to already.

CONNOR
Connor is on the bullet train to two. He's a running maniac. We'll have to take some video and post here. We had our last music class yesterday but will continue on for another 8 sessions. It's our Friday afternoon fun time.

Connor's also having a great time in Montessori class. He really enjoys the kids and the teacher. I wish I could take video of him but it's probably not allowed. I suppose I could ask. The room is set up into different stations and the kids walk around the room going from station to station learning and experiencing new skills and objects. For example, one of Connor's favorite stations consists of two metal bowls. One bowl has a spoon in it and the other a bunch of large chestnuts. He uses the spoon to transfer the chestnuts from one bowl to the other. At first he couldn't work the spoon so he would just dump them in. After some practice with the spoon he can use it to transfer the chestnuts. His new favorite thing is to find other cans, cups, boxes, bowls, etc. in the room to put the chestnuts in. It's fun to watch him explore and figure things out for himself.

Last week all the kids were running around the room. Talking to each other in baby language, patting each other on the head or just laying on the floor looking at each other. It was really fun to see. After 5 sessions they really haven't paid much attention to one another so this is really a treat. They also began to work together at different stations by helping each other figure things out. It was a really good class. Chris was able to attend with me and wants to come again on Monday. Connor often walked past us and smiled looking for praise at what he was doing.

CHRIS
Chris continues to hunt for a job. He's got a few headhunters helping him now which is good. He can use the help :-) He's had a few good interviews unfortunately one fell through already but he's still waiting to hear from the others.

JENNIFER
Besides playing myFarm; I'm still working on my German. My class ended prior to Christmas so I'm hoping I can go back in March with some of my other classmates. I've been hanging out with a few folks from class which has been nice. Trying out new restaurants and speaking German. Last night some friends of ours came over to deliver a table and some chairs for us to use and I was able to speak somewhat okay with them. They can understand English but don't speak it too often so I broke out the German. I felt I sounded bad but they said no, and where I didn't use the correct grammar they did understand what I meant and told me the correct way to say it. It was tough but fun.

This week I'll start working on my resume and begin the task of looking for a job myself. I'm going to have to plant 3 day crops on my farm so I don't have to check it every day. ha ha