Maybe I'll be able to keep at least one entry short? I REALLY don't have time to be at the computer right now, but if I wait until we're home, I know I'll never go back and write this, and as I said a few days ago, at this point, this is more for myself than anyone else. Nobody else HAS to read this. :-)

Saturday morning (February 6th) two (of the three) elders and the pastor of our church came for a couple of hours, just to make sure we're all on the same page. It was very reassuring to know that the eldership is behind us, and that they will continue to represent us that way to the church.

Once they had left, we headed for Krefeld to have lunch with the H family. Again, too brief, but nice. Although their youngest son is 15, and the other two that were home are 17 and 18, they all spent good time with our children. At 3:00 I left, as we were expecting guests at 4:00 and I had to get gas first, as well, but Jörn didn't want to interrupt the good conversation at that point so I encouraged him to stay for a little while longer. Helen and I got back to Hamminkeln only a few minutes before Roddy and Erika and their son Alexander arrived. They moved to Switzerland about a year and a half ago, and then to Belgium just a few weeks ago, so came over this weekend just to see us. :-) It was great being able to chat with them with only Alexander (two years old) and Helen running around, before the rest of the loudness arrived  with Jörn. They stayed for dinner and until Roddy was falling asleep and we wanted our children to be doing the same, and then we all went to bed early. We haven't been able to get rid of the colds we've had ever since we arrived (Jörn, Katie, Helen, and I), and none of us were feeling great. 

Sunday, February 7th, Helen and I went in the C family's car and Jörn and the rest left a bit later in the B family's car to get to church for the end of the first service, to be able to say hi and bye to people. Very much enjoyed and appreciated William's sermon in the second service (he's so REAL--he doesn't sound like he's "preaching" at all, and his Irish accent doesn't hurt the delivery any, either--I certainly understand it better than some U.S. accents, to be honest!), they called us up and prayed for us to send us back to Cyprus, and then it was lots and lots of goodbyes and hugs and then a few more. I didn't cry too much...

After church we went out to a favorite Chinese restaurant that we used to go to with Jörn's father, and our friends from Belgium (well, now living there...she's from the U.S., he's from Scotland) joined us. More goodbyes, then both cars to Angermund, where we returned the C family's car to them and I put Helen in the sling and joined the rest of the family in the B family's car, which has 6 seats. And then we drove to Mülheim to have coffee and cake in our very own flat, as guests of our renter. It was admittedly bit of a strange feeling, and she is VERY different than we are, so that we hardly recognized it with all the fancy lighting and other elegance. However, she is very nice and obviously taking care of the place better than we did, so there's no cause for concern, rather, for reassurance. She intends to stay there at the very least until her daughter graduates from high school, which isn't for more than three more years, which was also reassuring, as we do NOT want to be trying to find renters from Cyprus.

After Lukas and Jacob had finished their cake, we all had a tour of the house to see the changes, and then the boys walked down the street to Peggy's house, and a little while later, Marie joined them. Without Marie to chase Helen around, it was a little less relaxing for us, but we stayed until nearly 6:00, and then went to Peggy's ourselves, where we stayed until a little past 8:00. It was great having one more evening with Peggy and Florian, only planned the day before, so reminding ourselves of the fact that that had been an unexpected treat was helpful in staying more-or-less cheerful as we said goodbye. This time, we put Helen in Katie's carseat and Katie and Lukas shared a seatbelt, and we were glad it was only a 35-minute drive, because Lukas, Katie, and Jacob squabbled the entire drive back. (We'd left Helen's carseat with the C family when we returned the car, as although it's our own carseat, we have more-or-less permanently loaned it to Margaret and Phil for their grandchildren, and had only "borrowed" it ourselves while we were here, so the Cs will return it to Margaret and Phil.)

And now it's Monday and I can't get away with any more time at the computer. We have a visitor at the moment (G from my August posts, for those interested) who will be here for lunch, then we're heading (via three trains and a bus) to spend the evening with the R family in Ratingen. That's our very last appointment while up in this part of Germany, as at 11:45 tomorrow we'll be getting on the train and heading for Frankfurt. On Thursday evening we fly back HOME, to Cyprus. :-)

It's now Monday, February 8th, and I should be packing, but most of this had been written already, so I'm going to go ahead and post it! Besides, it's hard to pack when some clothes are still drying. :-)

Monday, February 1st: This was one of our earliest starts to a day, as Jörn drove me (and Helen and Helen's car seat) to a slightly further away train station to get the train at 7:30. If I'd taken the train from here, I would have had to leave at 6:45 and after a nine-minute train-ride, had to wait for my connection for 35 minutes, so my husband took pity on me. Unusually, I only had to take two trains: one from Mehrhoog to Duisburg, and then one more to Krefeld, where my friend Sabine picked us up at 9:00 for the La Leche League meeting that I had attended every first Monday of the month since Marie was four months old, and then after I qualified, had helped lead for a couple of years. After LLL (three of us leaders--Ute, who was the original leader and is still there, and with whom I've been pregnant at the same time several times, as she had three children when we met and I had one, and now she has six and I have five, Sabine, and myself--and only three "regular" mothers), our friend Elisabeth picked us up to take us to her house in Neukirchen-Vluyn, where Helen devoured grapes and I devoured made-by-Elisabeth candied almonds, and then I read and Helen slept, while Elisabeth went to pick up Jörn and the other children in Angermund.

In the meantime, Jörn and the others had left at 8:45 for a much less pleasant event. The children were happy to be dropped off at Jill's house, who had also kept her five-year-old, Eva, home from preschool to play with Katie, but then Jörn met Phil and Margaret to ride with them to a funeral. Just over a month before, Ralf had been perfectly healthy, traveling and evangelizing in Siberia, and his sudden, and very short, illness had been quite a shock. We'd heard last Sunday that he was in the hospital and not at all well, and Monday morning he died. While not the happiest of places to be, Jörn did say that it was a very good funeral, and he also got to see several people he wouldn't have otherwise seen, from the mission work he'd been involved in for the seven years before we left Germany. (He had planned to attend one scheduled meeting, but the date got changed on short notice, and he couldn't go to the new appointment.) After the funeral Jörn took the train back to Angermund (as Phil and Margaret were staying for the coffee time afterwards, which Jörn also would have liked to stay for had they known before-hand that it was planned.)

So when Elisabeth with Jörn and the children got home to Elisabeth's, as well as the two teenagers, John and Rebecca, we had lunch, and also climbed up in the attic to visit all the things we stored there when we left Germany just over a year ago. I'd really wanted to get the rest of our photo albums (we only took about ten years' worth with us to Cyprus, and I've missed not having Marie's baby pictures), but we just don't have space in our luggage and I don't want to risk sending them by mail, so I didn't even open the box. :-( Jörn got his winter coat (which, for no reason I could understand, he'd insisted on leaving there, and had really missed since we arrived in Germany, although he was able to borrow one) and I got my maternity clothes and the baby clothes that I'd stored. Maybe I should have let the doctor tell me the gender, because it seems silly to take all of them to Cyprus now, but oh well. There are very few boy clothes (I only kept my very favorite things, and although boy babies are just as cute as girl babies, their clothes aren't...) and girl clothes only for the first few months, as Helen was four months old when we moved to Cyprus, so everything girl and unisex from that size up is in Cyprus already anyway. But there are also the sweaters my grandma made and two snowsuits (one bright pink, one red), which we most certainly won't need in Cyprus...and are probably going to take anyway.

Gary arrived towards the end of lunch, in time for cake (I'm not sure I ever realized before how much cake one eats in Germany, even though I DID remember how good it is...), and we were all able to talk while John and Rebecca entertained the children. Around 5:00 Gary and Elisabeth took us (in two cars this time, so one trip) to the K family's house in Viersen.

Leigh K. is one of the two people at IBCD who have been there longer than I have (or had...but I AM technically still a member) been, definitely one of my longest-standing friends. She's another U.S.ian married to a German and I absolutely love her sense of humor and appreciate how well she understands me. And yes, Leigh, I'd be writing that even if I didn't know you're reading my blog, and no, there isn't anything else I would have written if I'd thought you weren't! LOL For several years in a row the K's hosted an open house on December 26th, to eat lots of food and play games, which we enjoyed very much, and we weren't the only family who thought it was a pity that it only happened once a year. So it got turned into a monthly "games evening", the first Friday of every month for another several years, almost always meeting at the K family's house. We weren't able to make it to the February games evening, but this Monday just for us was just as nice, and less chaotic with fewer people! Connie and her daughter Vida also came for the evening, Connie being the fourth-longest member of IBCD having arrived very shortly after I did. In a church with an annual turn-over of about 1/3 of the congregation, it's fairly noticable who the "old-timers" are!

Dieter went to sleep at his mother's house, as there were so many people in his, and he would be getting up early for work, Anna slept in her room, four of our children and Lindsey slept in the living room, and we were given Leigh and Dieter's room while Leigh slept in Lindsey's room. Except once we'd gotten everyone else settled down, Leigh and I hung out in Lindsey's room for another couple of hours talking. Another good reason that we're staying at the Globe Europe headquarters and not with friends, as I would stay up talking late EVERY night, but I certainly enjoyed it! Helen and I finally went to bed a little past midnight and slept very well.

Tuesday, February 2nd: The next morning Leigh drove us to the train station (in two trips--it was very icy and we definitely weren't risking squishing), where we took--as with almost every single trip we've taken!--three trains to Honrath, where Lisa S. had been going to pick us up in their 15-passenger van. (They have seven children, the seventh having been born a couple of weeks after we left Germany.) However, we were met by Paul in their five-passenger, four-wheel-drive jeep, as the van was iced in and they couldn't get it out. He'd taken time out of work just to get us and take us up to the house (and we did squish everyone in--it was a short drive on very quiet streets, in a 4WD), and then he went back to work. We had lunch and a wonderful afternoon with the S family, then Paul got home from work, so we had time with him, as well, and then dinner, and then he took six of us back to the train station. Marie stayed there to spend the night, as their daughter Alice is a good friend of hers.

Three trains later, Jacob, Lukas, Helen and I arrived in Hamminkeln. Jörn and Katie got out in Düsseldorf to take the train to Angermund to pick up the C family's car again, and didn't get home until quite awhile after we did. When we changed trains in Wesel, it was raining, and I was not looking forward to the walk home. It's quite short, but pouring rain gets one wet very quickly. However, by the time we arrived in Hamminkeln, only nine minutes later, it had changed to nice, fluffy snow! I was happy to not get wet--Jörn was less excited about the drive in the thickly falling snow.

Wednesday, February 3rd: Brad and Jan got back from the U.S. on Monday, so we'd arranged to meet with them this morning. Jan had all our sympathy for not making it because of the jet lag, but it was good talking with Brad for a couple of hours, and we arranged to have breakfast together on Friday. After lunch, Jörn left on the train to meet Marie in Düsseldorf, where she (together with Alice and Emma) arrived by train. He saw Alice and Emma off on their train back home, and then they took another two trains to Kaldenkirchen, where our friend Caro picked them up. They arrived at the house just a few minutes before the other children and I arrived there by car at 5:00 p.m.. Her husband, Lutz, unfortunately couldn't be there as he was on a business trip, but the children enjoyed Jonathan (21 months) and his toys, and we were pleased to have Spätzle, a type of noodle, for dinner. Caro took Jörn (and Jacob and Lukas--this time Jörn had a "schöner Tag ticket", which is good for the whole state and for up to five people, so it didn't matter if he took someone over six this time--he's often taken Katie because she doesn't have to pay, being under six years old) to the train station, and the girls and I headed home in the car.

Thursday, February 4th: Jörn and Katie got the train at 11:45 and the rest of us left a little bit later in the car to visit the H family in Oberhausen, in their new house. I found their house easily enough and left the three older children with Andrea and Nils (16 and 14), to go pick up Jörn and Katie. Finding the main train station with all the one-way streets was less easy, and then they weren't there. Drove around again, finally parked and got out to look for them. It turned out that their train was 20 minutes late, which is rather unusual. Also, the train station was eerily quiet, as all the public workers in the city were on strike today, so no busses or trams were running. That also explained why Andrea and Nils were home--anyone who lived more than a 30-minute walk from school was not required to go to school, and very few people in their right mind would go to school on a day they've been told that they don't have to!! But I did eventually find them and we got back to the house, where Barbara was starting to make lunch, having just gotten home from Mini-Club, the playgroup that she leads and that I attended for over seven years on Thursday mornings--first with Marie and Jacob, then with Lukas, and finally with Katie. Barbara also became a good friend of mine and had babysat for us some, including having Marie, Jacob, and Lukas overnight the night that Katie was born, and Marie and Katie overnight the night Helen was born, and was the very first person outside of our family (except for the midwives!) to see Katie and Helen after their respective births.

After lunch we headed for the place where Mini-Club meets, as Barbara had arranged a get-together for the "old-timers". Several of them came without children, but we made quite a large group--I think there were eight or 10 other children, and at least 14 parents. Some of them had been there with me with Lukas already, so people I'd met six or so years ago. The hottest topic was of course how all their children were doing in their respective pre-schools (or in some cases, schools), but it was a good afternoon.

Back at the Hs' house we talked a bunch, while the children played with Andrea, and then we had dinner (not much...a big lunch and all that cake again!) and came home, this time in two cars, as the B family from Mülheim came by to lend us their car until Sunday night.

Friday, February 5th: A friend came in the morning to meet with Jörn. We were actually a bit nervous about this meeting, as we thought we were going to be "told off" about something, and didn't know what, but it turned out that he wasn't upset with us and that his insistance about meeting with Jörn privately and face-to-face, and not on the phone, had more to do with what he wanted to share of his own life than anything else. It was a good meeting and we're glad it worked out at the last minute for him to come up to Hamminkeln.

At 12:00 we left for Düsseldorf, where we had lunch with Marie's violin teacher. Marie had looked forward to playing the violin together, but Katie ended up occupying rather too much of the limited time by locking herself in the bathroom and not being able to get the door open again. I was eventually able to talk her through turning the key to pull it out, and after trying several other keys from the house (German inside doors usually have what I think of as "old-fashioned" keys, and sometimes--but not always--all the keys in one house will be the same, or at least some of them will be), we found one that would unlock the door. Marie did get to play one piece for Frau S, but then we unfortunately had to rush off to get back to Mülheim for Mutter-Kind-Kreis and Jungschar.

After the playgroups, we went to the B family's house for dinner. Jörn sweated a bit parking their car in their narrow driveway (between a hedge and a step) while they watched, but other than that, cheese fondue and great conversation and our children all occupied with their three children made for a very nice evening that surprised us by not ending until after 11:00!

I did finally start to wonder why I bothered bringing pajamas for at least the little ones along on this trip...the vast majority of the evenings, they've been taken sleeping out of the car or off of the train and put in their beds in their clothes. At least, over the years, I've finally stopped packing more than one pair of pajamas per person: if the one pair they have is in the laundry at bedtime, oh well--a t-shirt works just as well!

Saturday, January 30th, had been planned for months: the M family, who used to live in Germany but had since moved to Belgium and then on to England, was going to be in Germany for the weekend, so planned to come to breakfast. Then my brother-and-law and his wife were going to drive from Hessen (well over three hours one way) to have lunch and spend the afternoon with us. Well, a few weeks ago, the M family had already let us know that they unfortunately weren't going to make it to Germany after all, so I was able to arrange for my friend Andrea (who was, like Caro, one of "my" first mothers at my La Leche League meetings) and her family to come for breakfast. Silas is 14 months younger than Katie, but although Katie is by no means petite, he was taller than she was when she was two and he was one--now at not quite 3 1/2 he towers over her. And seven-week-old Carlotta could easily pass for a four-month-old! Just before they arrived, my brother-in-law called to say that after 45 minutes of shoveling snow, he still couldn't get his car out of the driveway, so they weren't going to be able to come after all, so we ended up inviting Andrea and Christian to stay for lunch, as well, and telephoned another family, Amanda and Raymond with their two-year-old Isaac, to come for coffee. Just as Andrea and her family were leaving, Amanda and Raymond arrived. They weren't able to stay long, but it was very pleasant, and having a quiet evening wasn't bad, either.

Sunday, January 31st: Jörn and Jacob left at 8:30 in Brad's car for the first service at our church, as Jörn was sharing at both services, and the rest of us joined them for the second service. We had a "faith lunch" (IBCD-ese for pot-luck) afterwards, so got to spend more time with a lot of people we wouldn't otherwise have seen, and as our family was told to go through the line first, we even got to eat something! (At our good-bye party, people were talking to us non-stop and by the time I got to go get food, a lot of people had already had seconds and there was no meat left, no bread, and not a lot of much else, either, so I confess to having much appreciated getting to go first this time.) We stayed until just about everyone had left, and then realized that if we left then, we would be 45 minutes too early to the M family's house in Dinslaken, which is WAY too early to arrive at a German home. (Five minutes at the most is acceptable, generally.) Judy pointed out that Daniel was sleeping and we'd be more than welcome to come hang out with her for awhile, which we very happily did. We'd been hoping to have lunch with her the week before, but she'd had to cancel because she wasn't feeling well, so it was great getting to spend some time with just her.

We then drove to Dinslaken for coffee and cake at Frank and Ulla's, with their three children, Daniel, Christina, and Benjamin. They used to live in Mülheim and I knew Ulla from Mutter-Kind-Kreis, but they'd moved to Dinslaken quite awhile ago (about six years ago, I think). However, we've kept in touch all this time, mostly with phone calls, and a very few-and-far-between visits. The last time they visited us they only had Benjamin with them, who is a year older than Lukas, so most of the children didn't even remember Daniel (18) and Christina (15). In the car Katie asked me again where we were going (it's been rather confusing to the children in any case!), and when I said "to Ulla and Frank, with their children Daniel, Christina, and Benjamin," she said, "No, the papa's name is Thomas!" I repeated all their names, not understanding at all why she was so sure that Frank must be Thomas...until Marie pointed out that our friends the H family, Ute and Thomas, who have seven children, also have a Daniel, a Christina, and a Benjamin! And "Ute" sounds pretty similar to "Ulla", so I could then understand quite well why Katie was so convinced that I had "the papa's" name wrong. :-)

Except for the tuba demonstration (Benjamin is learning to play the tuba, and for all I know, is doing very well, but it happened to be Jacob and Lukas doing the demontration...), we enjoyed the afternoon very much, and being "just us" for dinner for the second evening in a row once we got home wasn't bad either. Not that I actually had any dinner--once again, we had been completely filled up with the wonderful German "coffee and cake" time, which never, but never, includes only one type of cake, and obviously, one wants to taste the various types, all home-made. Far too delicious. Most of the others didn't eat much--except for Jacob, of course. And then we all, as always, collapsed into bed.

At this point, this is more for me than for anyone else, but for anyone who wants to wade through my notes, here you go...

Monday, January 25th: We walked "downtown" for some grocery shopping and to get information for sending packages to Germany, as we're almost definitely going to have too much luggage for the airplane, at the very latest after I've picked up my maternity clothes and the baby clothes that we stored in a friend's attic when we moved to Cyprus. I'd just been discussing with Jörn the possibility of squeezing the seven of us into the VW Polo (five seats)--something we would definitely do in quite a few of the countries we've visited (or rather, HAVE done...including in Cyprus)--but would generally never dream of doing in law-abiding (and fast-driving) Germany. Jörn wasn't getting convinced. As we kept walking, we saw a Mercedes pull very slowly out of a side street and start to turn--and keep turning, sliding around almost a full 360 degrees in the middle of the snow-and-ice-covered intersection. I turned to Jörn and said, "Never mind--everyone is riding in his or her own seatbelt." So much for that discussion.

In the afternoon, we were supposed to be having coffee with a friend, but she couldn't come, so a telephone call was arranged instead. While Jörn was still on the phone, Katie, Helen and I took the train to Düsseldorf, where we got to spend a little bit of time with my friend Margaret, then I left the girls at her house and walked to the C family's house, where I picked up the car again, drove it back to Margaret's, and loaded in carseats (which we had left at their house the night before) and girls, and then drove to Mülheim, where Jörn and the other three children were already at the G family's house. Their five-year-old daughter, Hannah, and Katie are good friends and both had talked about the other (and sent dictated e-mails via their mothers) all year long, and were very excited to have an evening together. Jörn had the car of the director of Globe Europe, who was in the U.S. at the time. Another good evening, and another one where we got home and collapsed into bed.

Tuesday, January 26th: Only one visit today, from 10:00 a.m. to late evening! We spent the day with the R family in Odenthal, near Leverkusen, and as we always do when we visit this family, we went for a walk after lunch. They managed to dig up a sled in the garage, although their daughters are grown up (and we just got the news that Sophia is engaged--yay!--but we won't be able to go to her wedding, which is three days before our baby is due...), which the children had a wonderful time with. I even got on it, but only to be pushed (by the three older children) on level ground. :-)

Wednesday, January 27th: We found out that using Brad's car was going to cost us too much, so we all took the train to Viersen, where Jonathan of the T family met us at the train station. They have 8 children (only five at home now), so a van plenty big enough to pick us up, and plenty of people around to entertain each other. :-) Lunch (during which I discovered that Helen LOVES spring onions! Very strange child, but very convenient for me--she ate all of mine), lots of talking, and the K family (another five children, youngest born after we left Germany) came over for the afternoon, as well. After dinner Jonathan drove us home--such a luxury to neither be on the train NOR driving. :-)

Thursday, January 28th: Eddi (director of Globe Europe Germany) and his wife Angie made breakfast for us, here, and we spent the morning together, which was very nice. They spent five years in Pakistan, going there when their children were four and six years old, and it was really encouraging to be able to compare stories and receive both understanding and helpful suggestions about dealing with children and cultural differences with families, etc. Eddi also told us that Brad had let him know that we could use his car for something we could afford after all, so we got to head to Mülheim again with two cars, to "coffee and cake" with the R family, Angelika and Erich and their son Philipp. So much cake, so yummy! And the weather had finally warmed up a little so that snow became the "right kind"--Marie, Jacob, and Lukas each built a snowman in the back yard. Maybe when I'm back in Cyprus I'll figure out how to add photos. (That is, my friend Sue will add them for me. :-) ) When we left, Jörn said that this might be our only chance to go to Maredo, an Argentinian restaurant that he loves. We used to eat there as a family once in awhile with his father (and Jörn ate there probably a couple of times a month with his father), but it had been quite a long time since we'd been there. Marie, Lukas, and Katie only ordered a chicken wing appetizer and french fries, and although Jörn, Jacob, and I did get regular meals, I could barely finish mine after all the cake from Angelika.  Jörn was also more than full, and Helen got plenty by getting french fries from all of her siblings. Jacob, however, finished his adult meal, finished his siblings leftover chicken wings and french fries (not one of the three managed to eat all four chicken wings each), and then asked for more. We said no. If he eats like this at age 10, I can only shudder to think what it's going to be like. And yes, he'd eaten plenty of cake, too.

It was raining when we left and by the time we got back to Hamminkeln, there was hardly any snow to be seen, so we thought that maybe the snow was over, however...

Friday, January 29th: We woke up to a snow-covered world yet again! The rabbit tracks all around the building were really cool. Jörn left early to run errands (talk with the bank about the fact that he'll be taking parental leave again before his parental leave for Helen has run out, pick up his glasses, and I think a couple of other things), taking Marie with him, and the rest of us left at about 11:45 for Mülheim. We first stopped at the doctor's office for me to pick up the results of my blood tests (everything normal, as they always have been, but I'm steadily adding "risk categories" with the years...), then bought Labello (lip balm, I think would be the generic term, Americans would say Chapstick, but anyway...) for all the children, then met Jörn and Marie at Konstanze's house at 1:15 for lunch. Individually made pancakes--yummy. :-) Konstanze runs Mutter-Kind-Kreis, and when we first started going, her youngest daughter was still part of it, but is long since out. We did get to see all three of her children, but unfortunately not her husband. Afterwards we left in three cars (our two and Konstanze's) to go to Mutter-Kind-Kreis/Jungschar, and after that we went to Peggy's house for dinner. Yes, we can get everywhere on public transportation if we have to, but again, it was very nice having vehicles!

Saturday, January 22nd: We drove to Almere, near Amsterdam, to visit the P family. Victor and Jörn met 20 or so years ago, and I met Victor and his wife Inge, and their then-new baby in Texas in 1996. They moved to the Netherlands about 6 or 7 years ago and we visited regularly, their children (they now have five) and ours also hitting it off very well. Being only 35 kilometers from the Dutch border here, it shortened the drive even more. :-) After lunch, we went to a nature reserve (10 children age 16 months to 13 years in a typical Dutch house with relatively thin walls make for unhappy neighbors!) where we saw quite a few different animals, the most exciting to me being the otters! And lots of snow and ice, and as we were walking back, it started sleeting. We had a great visit and safe drives both ways, despite the weather, and very, very grateful for the loan of the two cars.

Sunday, January 23rd: Helen and I took the L family's car to Düsseldorf, leaving here later than planned, as getting out of bed was quite difficult with jet-lag, or rather, by this time more of a Katie-and-Helen-lag. I missed the tram I'd originally intended to get and thought the next one was half an hour later, so stayed chatting with the L family for 15 minutes or so. I got back to the street where the streetcar stop was in time to see a streetcar just leaving--got to the stop and discovered that although the first few hours of the day were every 30 minutes, the next one after the one I'd wanted to get was only 16 minutes later, and that after that they were every 20 minutes for the rest of the day. So much for getting to church for the 9:30 service, as I didn't even get the tram until 9:40.  But it was a comfortable tram and a great-grandmother had a nice time talking with me and playing with Helen, and the walk through the woods was also enjoyable. I got to church in time to hear the last five minutes or so of Jörn's presentation, but that didn't matter, as then between the services I got to talk with people who had been in the first service, and of course was there for the whole second service, and then we hung around for quite awhile afterwards.

We very briefly stopped by Judy's house and waved to Daniel from the doorway--we all have colds and didn't dare risk getting closer to Daniel, who has Leuko-dystrophy and a severly compromised immune system, but it was wonderful to see him at home, as he'd spent much of December in the hospital--and then went to Margaret and Phil's house. We still had one car, and one child rode with Janet, who was also going to their house, and someone else must have ridden with Margaret and Phil. We had lunch there and a nice afternoon, including treasure hunts for everyone (licorice allsorts for me, baked beans for Jörn, candy and bubbles for the children!), and then Jörn returned the C family's car to them (they live quite close) and walked back, and we all took the train (as always, three trains...) back to Hamminkeln. We'd had such a large, late lunch that we didn't really want dinner, but Jacob simply always wants dinner, so Margaret packed "a few things" for the train. It turned out to be Brötchen, salami, mortadella, welsh cakes, mince pies, cucumber slices, and carrot sticks. We finished the welsh cakes on Friday and the mince pies Saturday, I'm not sure about the rest. Quite a feast for a snack!

This was supposed to be just-a-list-of-what-we've-done-so-far, but I'm no good at that, so have changed it to "the first few days", and am now writing this sentence after having written all the rest.

Wednesday, January 19th: The pastor of our church here came in the morning for a couple of hours. I think all the children were up by the time he arrived at 10:30 or so, I'm not sure. We had a good talk with him, and are glad to feel supported by him personally, and are sad that he'll be leaving soon. In the afternoon we took three trains and a bus to Mülheim, to the very street where we used to live, but two bus-stops earlier, to spend the evening with my friend Peggy and her seven-year-old son, Florian. It was wonderful how "normal" it felt, also no problem saying goodbye, as we had another get-together with her planned already. It was a bit weird getting back on the bus in the "wrong" direction--we didn't even see our house. But a bus and three trains later, we were back "home" and went to bed.

Thursday, January 20th: This was a calm day. Friends of mine, Thomas and Caro with their three-year-old daughter, Antonia, came for coffee in the afternoon ("coffee in the afternoon" is redundant in German--"come for coffee" MEANS "come around 3:00 in the afternoon", whether one drinks coffee or not) and also stayed for dinner. I met Caro through La Leche League--she was pregnant with Antonia at the time and came to my very first meeting, and is expecting a baby in April, and is considering becoming an LLL leader herself. When they left, they took Jörn and Katie with them and made a detour to drop them off in Düsseldorf, where Jörn picked up the car that the C family was lending us until Sunday evening. We CAN get everywhere by public transportation (although we wouldn't have been able to get to quite as many places as with cars), but cars are admittedly much more comfortable and we much appreciate the generosity of friends in lending us their vehicles.

Friday, January 21st: Jörn took Jacob and Katie and the three of them went to Düsseldorf (three trains and a streetcar) to pick up the car that the L family was lending us until Sunday morning, and at 11:00 Marie, Lukas, Helen, and I left in the C family's car for Mülheim, where Jörn and company met us. I had a check-up with my doctor (well, with my "new" doctor, the daughter of my old doctor, who has taken over the practice, but I had met her once towards the end of the pregnancy with Helen) at 12:00, having made the appointment back in November. Baby and I were both declared well, and Jörn and the children all came in for the ultrasound. Baby waved and turned over, trying to hide, apparently. The due-date is still mid-June, and if I have no more check-ups the rest of the pregnancy, that's perfectly fine with me.

Then we went to the Forum, a mall connected to the main train station, where we had lunch. Currywurst und Pommes (curry sausage and french fries) for the children and me, something much less interesting for Jörn. We enjoyed it very much, having looked forward to it for a year, but I'm also fine with the thought of not having it again for a couple of years. As Jörn and Marie both needed new glasses, after lunch we went to an opticians, where Jörn was able to have his eyes tested and order new glasses, but they refused to measure Marie's, saying that a child has to go to an actual optometrist. That was a bit frustrating, as I'd counted on just being able to go the optician, and so had not made an appointment with an eye doctor. The next week I telephoned around to several practices, but the next available appointment is in March. I guess we're going to have to look for an eye doctor in Cyprus.

At 4:00 we arrived at the Auerstrasse church where I'd gone to Mutter-Kind-Kreis ("mother-child-circle", a playgroup for children up to seven) since we moved to Mülheim in 2001, where it was very exciting to meet up with quite a few friends, and quickly felt very normal. Marie, Jacob, and Lukas (Lukas for the first time) went to Jungschar (a pre-youth-group? anyway, ages seven to 12) at the same time. It was a little weird and very cool how totally normal it felt to be there, as if we'd never been away.

At 6:30, when the older children finished (MKK finished earlier, but there was plenty of chatting with other parents waiting for the older children), we drove to Essen, where we met another group of friends at an Italian restaurant for dinner. The last time I'd been at that restaurant I'd said I'd never go there again--it was full of smoke and one couple stared at us non-stop the entire time we were there, I imagine because we had "so many" children. (I'm not exactly sure, but I think we had only three at the time, which is still more than twice as many as average, and I DO remember that they behaved beautifully that one time, and I was very uncomfortable with being stared at...) However, there are now laws about smoking in restaurants, and I'm finally (mostly...) immune to being stared out, and that was where the friends (five of them, two couples and one other lady) wanted to meet, so we did. Yummy German-Italian pizza--I had spinach and ham on mine--and the waitress was very nice and if anybody stared, I didn't notice. And Katie slept the whole time, which admittedly made for a much calmer evening than might have been otherwise, but it was traded off for a wide-awake Katie between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m.

Drove home in the snow, barely able to stay awake for the drive, and then wide-awake with jet-lag once we arrived...but at least I had a good book to read, as I'd ordered the biography of James Herriot (actually Alf Wight) from amazon marketplace some time ago, to be delivered to Peggy, who had given it to me the evening before. (I haven't finished it yet, as on Sunday my friend Leigh lent me "The Book Thief", which I'm reading now. Both are very good, but "The Book Thief" has higher priority, as I have to return it to Leigh.) Oh, and on the way home, I took a little detour and drove past our house. There was another car in "our" driveway and lights on. A very odd feeling. We'll be having coffee next Sunday with the lady who lives there. It was strange to think that she could have walked out the front door while we were driving past, and she wouldn't have known who we are, nor would we know who she is. (We were the first family of the original nine in the building to leave, and the only one to rent our our flat, but since we left, three other flats have been sold and have new people living in them, so just because someone we don't know were to appear, we wouldn't know whether that's our renter or one of the new owners.)

I guess I'll do the weekend in another one--we're going to have dinner and as always, this has gotten more than long enough as it is.

We've been here for nearly two weeks now, there's no hope of truly "catching up", so this is going to turn more into just a list of what's happened so far. One fairly exciting thing for us has been the snow. :-) Not that Jörn has appreciated it at all, and Germans love to say, "Who brought this weather?" (to be fair, they ask it about weather they're happy with, too, and in fact, if they ARE happy with it, are more likely to say, "Ah, did you bring this weather?") to which we generally answer that yes, we probably did. At least the children (and I don't dare plead not guilty...) had prayed plenty that we would have snow in Germany. We've had lots of snow--in fact, more snow than any of the first 17 winters I lived in Germany, and maybe about the same as my 18th winter in Germany, just before we left for Cyprus. Although not quite as cold. It was around MINUS 12 degrees Celcius in Germany the day we moved to Cyprus, and the lowest temperature I've seen since we got here was -9, and it's generally been closer to freezing. The children had played outside in the snow some, but it wasn't snowman-snow until Thursday, when it warmed up a bit. They built three snowmen in a friend's garden, and then the next day it rained much of the day. There wasn't any snow to be seen around here by the time we went to bed last night--but we had another 10 centimeters or so waiting for us this morning!

Anyway...to backtrack, we left my parents' house on Monday, January 18th, just after 8:00 a.m., completely filling up two cars with the seven of us, my parents, and my sister, Erin, who had come up for the weekend. The drive to San Francisco went very well (Helen slept the entire way!) and my dad decided to head right back north to put in at least a partial day at work, but as my mom didn't have any hurry, and had to take Erin home anyway, and we were pretty early for our flight, we talked Mom into staying with us at the airport for a bit, and Erin took Mom's car home. (Ten minutes from the airport--a lot more sensible than paying SFA parking!!) We enjoyed the extra time with Mom, and it was also quite a treat getting to ignore what the children were doing while we were filling out address tags and checking in, since they were all occupied with Grandma. Then she wanted to get them ice cream, which turned out to be more complicated than expected (I have to say, Sacramento Airport has a MUCH better selection of food than San Francisco, or at least better than the part of the airport where we were), but we did finally find ice cream. Helen, however, begged for a banana, instead, and although the thought of paying $1.19 for a single banana was painful, it was less than ice cream and better for her, so I gave in. Her siblings all shared a bit of ice cream with her, too.

We finally had to go through security, so said good-bye to Mom (who then called Erin to come pick her up--never having heard anything to the contrary, that all worked fine), and headed off. We had to take off shoes and sweaters, etc., but nobody commented on the bottle of cough medicine that I once more forgot to take out of my carry-on and which was bigger than the allowed 100 milliliters...

Our flight here was a bit better than our flight to the U.S. Still United Airlines, and they forgot to load the children's meals, and still didn't have any activities or treats of any kind for the children (much less sewing kits, socks, masks, etc., which used to be pretty standard), but at least the flight attendants were all polite on this flight and happily handed out as many extra bread rolls as the children requested. (This was especially good after one "meal" was a horrible sandwich with mustard on it--only Jörn ate it. Actually, Helen, who eats absolutely everything, ate a little bit, too, but then even she refused to eat much.) Also, the flight was well under half-full, maybe not even a third. They blocked several extra seats for us, so we had two sets of three and one of four--ten seats for seven people (only six with tickets) made for a much more comfortable flight, and at one point while walking up and down the aisles with Helen, I saw that many of the rows (three seats on each side, four in the middle) were occupied by one lying-down, sleeping, person each.

However, time was a bit close once we arrived in Frankfurt. The departure time had been changed since we had bought our train tickets, then the flight left late, and arrived in Frankfurt even later. Our luggage came through fairly quickly and we rushed to the left-luggage office to leave three bags with things we didn't need while in Germany (mostly things for other people and one 45-pound bag of books, mostly from Sonlight!), which friends of ours in Frankfurt (Peter and Christin) picked up for us later that day. We'll be staying with them our last two days before leaving Germany, so it was good not to have to take them on the trains. We then got to the train station with almost 20 minutes to spare before our train, so I left Jörn and the children and the luggage, and went to a bakery and bought Brötchen! Translated, that means "little breads", or "bread rolls", but one simply cannot call the wonderful, scrumptious, fresh-from the bakery Brötchen by such a common, boring term. They're Brötchen. :-)

We then got on the first train, an ICE, which is fast and stops only at big cities. About two hours later we changed in Cologne, no problem. (I've often said that it doesn't matter WHERE one is going, you HAVE to change in Cologne. It's a major hub in the west and I've changed there nearly every time I've ever been on a long-distance train.) Then we took an RE to Wesel, a slightly less fancy train, but fine (even the least fancy trains in Germany are fine--I really like the public transportation here), which left on time, but arrived about 12 minutes late, according to the announcement. As we had had 13 minutes to change scheduled, that was a bit close and we didn't even look at the clock--we just ran. Jörn took his carry-on, the lap-top, and two suitcases, and ran down the steps from our arrival platform and up the steps to the platform from which we were departing, Lukas and Katie each had their carry-ons and were told to "follow Papa!!" and Marie and Jacob each had a suitcase and their respective carry-ons and started down the steps. Yes, there was an elevator, but at the other end of the platform, and train-station elevators are notoriously slow, so there was no way there was time for that. I followed with my carry-on, another suitcase, the stroller, and Helen in the sling. Not quite sure how we made it (I think Marie waited at the open door of the train with the luggage Jörn had gotten there and Lukas and Katie, while Jörn and Jacob came back to help me?), but we did. The last train was an RB, and only 9 minutes from Wesel, but only goes once an hour, so we REALLY didn't want to miss it. And upon arriving in Hamminkeln, we had about a two-minute walk to the Globe Europe headquarters, and it only took us that long because we were tired, it was dark and snowy, and we had far too much luggage. :-) We arrived 23 hours and 15 minutes after leaving my parents' house in California, although the actual flight was less than 11 hours.

Eddi, the German director of Globe Europe, welcomed us, showed us our rooms, and gave us keys. By this time we'd woken up a bit more (I find jet-lag coming east MUCH more difficult than going west) and were hungry, so Jörn went shopping at Aldi, just down the street. We had dinner, made the beds, and did all fall asleep fairly quickly. And then of course woke up around 2:00. I was awake for about five hours that first night, the children less time each, but at all different times. The first night I slept through was the fifth or sixth night, but we're all pretty well adjusted now.

I'd been going to write more in this first post, but as usual, it's already too long, so I just changed the title to reflect what I've covered so far, and Helen just woke up, so I don't know if I'll manage another right now or not.

We arrived in Germany on the day before yesterday, and I will soon be beyond-hope-behind on our time here, so figured I may as well as least round up the rest of our time in California. It already seems like so long ago...where was I?

Monday the 11th was supposed to be a nice, calm day. The morning was fine, puttering around the house and spending time with my mom (my dad had to go back to work that day, after two weeks off), and then she went grocery shopping and took just Katie with her, which was very nice. For us, anyway. Katie is very loud. In the early afternoon, Mom left for a conference until Saturday, and we went shopping.

I hate shopping. Well, book-shopping is great, if one has money, and space in the suitcases, neither of which we had, so we didn't get to go book-shopping. The sole of one of Katie's shoes had finally come off completely on Sunday, despite having been glued more than once, so Katie definitely needed new shoes, and Lukas's shoes had several holes in them as well. Food may be much more expensive in the U.S., but shoes and clothes are cheaper.

So we drove to Grass Valley, as I wanted to make sure that I knew where the Raley's was where I needed to pick up a cake the next day (I'll get to that), and because I knew there was a J.C. Penny's, which my mom had recommended for Jörn's jeans, with a shoe store next door, and in any case, I wanted to find a bookstore in Grass Valley to get a gift certificate for my cousin for her birthday.

Katie, however, fell asleep on the way to Grass Valley. Helen did too, but Helen didn't need new shoes. Anyway, we left Katie and Helen in the car with Marie and Jacob, and took Lukas into the shoestore. The saleslady immediately pointed out some Spiderman shoes that light up with every step, which Lukas of course thought were wonderful. I wasn't thrilled with them, but probably would have broken down and gotten them for him--except that they simply did NOT fit his feet properly. We did talk him into trying on half a dozen other shoes, but he was adament that he only wanted the Spiderman ones, so we finally left with no shoes for Lukas. We checked on the children in the car, then took Jacob and Lukas with us into Penny's. Jörn got two pairs of jeans and Jacob got underwear, but they didn't have any thick tights for Marie.

Tried K-Mart, with no success, and discovered that there were NO bookstores in either of the two shopping centers with which I was familiar, so got directions to a bookstore downtown. Going to the bookstore was rather torturous, because I simply didn't dare look at any books. We just got the book certificate and some bookplates, and left. :-(

By this time the children had been squabbling in the car quite a bit, and I HATE shopping anyway, but I also wanted to get it over with, so we decided to head to Auburn, to Target. By the time we got there, I couldn't take the fighting in the back anymore, so I parked, then handed Jörn the keys and left. I wandered around Target for awhile, determined that they didn't have any tights in Marie's or my sizes nor any acceptable shoes for either Lukas or Katie. There were other things we wanted, but I couldn't remember any of them. I did buy a package of hair-thingies for Katie (72, in lots of colors, for 3 dollars, as opposed to four or so for at least 3 Euros) and a box of granola bars, and as I was leaving the store, met Jörn, who had taken someone to the bathroom. We went home, all seven of us sulking the whole way. I HATE shopping.

Tuesday morning we drove to Grass Valley again to pick up the cake that my mother had ordered for my grandma's birthday, to be served after lunch in the place where she lives. They hadn't been able to make a full sheet, but had done two half-sheets instead, and when I saw the size of the HALF-sheets, I was really glad--I don't know how we would have transported a full-sized one! I guess most people have space in their cars, but our car was full of people. Leaving the Raley's shopping center, I somehow got mixed up. I knew pretty quickly that I was in the wrong place, but couldn't figure out where, then remembered that my aunt's car has a GPS. Pulled over, figured it out (very, very easy--that was a relief), and put in the street where Grandma lives. They pronounce it "jore-skee", but it's a German word, so I knew how to spell it: Joerschke. As it turned out, I'd somehow gotten onto Highway 20 towards Marysville instead of onto Highway 49 towards Nevada City. (Including that just so that the family members of mine who might read this can all laugh!) I've been on Highway 20 towards Marysville several times in the past, never intentional, so I really should have figured it out sooner. Anyway, the GPS kept telling me in a worried voice to make a U-turn, which I did eventually, and eventually delivered the cake. Then we went to see Grandpa for awhile.

He was in a good mood that morning, and we had a lot of fun with him, taking a lot of photos. The children sang a song for him which included clapping, and he clapped along, then Katie sang "Away in a Manger" and he sang along with her. He wasn't too happy about us leaving, and put on his coat (he already had his hat on, which he keeps on most of the time because he's afraid someone will steal it) to "go for a walk". We walked him to the dining room for lunch, where he didn't want to stay, and finally I just had to leave him with the caretakers and walk away, while he was saying that he didn't want to eat, he wanted to go for a walk outside. It was hard.

We got back to Grandma's just as they were finishing lunch, and they had put candles on the cakes and the cakes on a cart. Everyone sang Happy Birthday, and Grandma was really pleased. She kept saying that most people only get one birthday party, that this was really special to have two parties. After we all ate cake (and Katie and Lukas flirted with every single person in the room), we walked back to Grandma's room with her, Lukas pushing her wheelchair. The night before she had fallen on her way back after seeing Grandpa and been taken to the hospital because her knee hurt. Nothing was broken, but it was pretty swollen, which was why she was using a wheelchair. We didn't stay very long, as the children were running out of good behavior by that time, and in any case, we hadn't had lunch and had plans at 3:00.

Back to my parents' house, quick sandwiches, then back in the car to see Nancy, the mother of the children I nannied for my first three years in Germany, who is now living in her parents' house ten minutes away from my parents' house. We had a wonderful afternoon there, Katie in particular was quite taken with Nancy's sister, Linda, who lives downstairs, Lukas loved the apple cider, Marie got given a book, and everyone played the dancing game on the Wii. It was cool hearing about Jenna and Eric, now 23 and 22, and seeing photos. Jenna lives in Washington D.C., but Eric lives in L.A. and was AT DISNEYLAND our last day there!! We didn't find that out until the evening we got home from Disneyland, however--I was REALLY disappointed to have missed him.

Wednesday morning we drove to Potter Valley to visit my aunt Elizabeth and her family, especially my cousin Paul, his wife Jessica, and their children Anaís and John, as they hadn't been at Shawn's wedding. The night before one of Lukas's shoes had broken, and my aunt lives out in the country and we were also going from there to Fairy Tale Town the next day, so now it was really desparate that Lukas and Katie get new shoes, as they only had sandals, so we stopped at Payless in Auburn on the way down. Only Katie and I went in--I picked out a pair of shoes for Lukas that I knew had fit him on Monday, and the first shoe we saw, size 11 1/2, dark pink with elastic and velcro and easy to put on, fit Katie perfectly and was on sale for 10 dollars. I was quite pleased that we were going to be in and out of there in less than five minutes--but first they had to find the other shoe, which was on display. Quite awhile later, the saleslady apologetically informed me that they had a size 12 on display, but no match for it, and no second size 11 1/2, so some customer had obviously gone out with one of each, so unless we also wanted one of each, we would have to find a different shoe.

We found a pair of less perfect shoes and got back in the car, and clicked "go home" on the GPS, which then of course led us to my aunt's house. :-) Helen went to sleep as soon as we started driving and slept the entire way, over three hours. She woke up about half a mile before we turned onto my aunt's road! It was great seeing Paul (whom I had last seen in 1999 at my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration), Jessica (whom I had met when Anaís was three weeks old), and Anaís (who will be four in February, so had changed a bit since I met her!), and meeting John (4 months old). Anaís and Katie hit it off amazingly well, trying on every princess dress in the house, of which there are MANY, with shoes and gloves and necklaces to go with them. We all went outside for awhile, admired Paul and Jessica's "cottage" next door, and had dinner. Paul and his family went home, we put our children to bed, and then we got to chat with Aunt Elizabeth and look at photos until long past when we all should have been asleep. Uncle Bill was working in Concord, so wasn't able to be home that evening, and my other cousins, Nathan and Karyn, don't live there anymore and weren't able to make it, but I had seen them at the wedding, as well as the oldest, Daniel, who lives on the east coast and had gone home right after the wedding. (The last time I had seen Daniel before Shawn's wedding was at our own, 15 years before.)

The next morning everyone had left for work before we even got up, and after breakfast and packing lunches, we got back in the car at 9:15 and headed for Sacramento. Helen again went to sleep very soon and slept until we were parking at Fairy Tale Town in Sacramento, at 11:45! We were supposed to meet my friend Jacqueline at 12:00 and finally left a note for her and went on in. She did find us about an hour later--she had sent an e-mail that she'd be later, but I hadn't checked e-mail, not being home. Her son, Noah, who is almost 10, got along with all of our children wonderfully, as did almost-four-year-old Elam, although he was a bit more shy. And we all enjoyed Fairy Tale Town, which is essentially a big playground, so lots of climbing and sliding. The Crooked Mile and the Cheese Standing Alone are still my favorite things there. :-)

Friday we drove down to Newcastle (by this time I was REALLY enjoying Aunt Elizabeth's GPS!) to have lunch with the parents of a friend of mine from Cyprus, then from there drove back to within a quarter of a mile of my parents' house to spend the afternoon with a "girl" (she's only 7 years younger than I am) I used to babysit, Sarah,  her mother, Ann, and her children, Darren and Eva. Her dad, Rick, got home from work just as we were starting out for a walk along the canal, so we got to see him, too. Darren will be five in March and he and Katie had a grand time together, as did all of the children actually, and of course everyone loved Eva, because there's nothing not to love in a 13-month-old. Just before Sarah and her children left to go home, I realized that I hadn't taken a photo of Darren, as I'd been chatting with Ann and Sarah the whole time, so I asked him if I could take his picture. He said, "Sure!" and gave me a big grin. Somehow, it's a lot cuter in other people's children than in my own!

Saturday morning we went shopping again, my favorite thing. Yuck. I really hate shopping. But we did finish everything on our list (angel food cake mix is the only thing I can remember...) and lived to tell about it. After lunch we went to Grass Valley to my aunt Theresa's house, for my cousin Emily's 13th birthday party. At some point Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Bill arrived, as did my mother with my sister Erin (Mom's conference had been quite close to where Erin lives, so she'd brought her up for the weekend), and my dad a bit later, who had been at a meeting all morning, and finally my sister Ruth and her boyfriend Justin. We had dinner and cake and a great evening. Helen, who has no fear of dogs who growl at her and have heads the size of her body, running up to them and scaring US like crazy, was terrified of Aunt Theresa's calm, friendly, totally non-yappy little poodle. Sasha never bites or even snaps, doesn't growl or even jump up on people, but Helen was scared of her just standing there. In the meantime, she desparately wanted to play with Emily's dog, who is a bit bigger and does NOT like unpredictable small children, and kept growling at Helen and even snapped at her a couple of times. Helen's not afraid of cats, either, so I found it very strange. Oh, and Ruth had just given Justin a puppy for his birthday (which was the same day as Grandma's), which they brought over. Loki was 8 weeks old, 3/4 bulldog and 1/4 beagle, and quite adorable. And Helen wasn't scared of Loki, either. After the party, Ruth and Justin came over to my parents' house so we could play games.

Sunday Mom made a cooked breakfast--she said her goal was to have leftovers to prove that it was possible to fill up Lukas and Jacob, as I said that I had never managed it, at least not with pancakes. Well, with a quadruple recipe of pancakes AND scrambled eggs AND two kinds of sausage AND bacon...she just about managed it. There were 12 of us, with my parents, Erin, and Ruth and Justin (who came over at 9:00), and there were six pancakes left over. Helen had only eaten one, but ate about five sausages.

Then our family and my parents left for church in Grass Valley, where my mom had grown up. Unfortunately, the large cooked breakfast and the curvy roads and pregnancy didn't make for a good combination, and I lost my breakfast in the street outside the church, which was rather embarrassing. Still, with nine pregnancies (and morning sickness during six of them), that was only the second time ever that I didn't make it to a better location, so I guess that's not too bad...

After church we went to see my grandparents, taking Grandma over to see Grandpa, as she's still using the wheelchair and it's hard for her to get over to Grandpa's by herself. Grandma didn't have her hearing aids in, and it doesn't often seem to make a huge difference whether Grandpa does or not, so the conversation was a bit interesting, to say the least. Grandpa asked Grandma if she thinks that his back is good enough to plant sweet corn and lima beans this year, and she answered that the pretzels are from cousins back east. And so it continued. At one point, Grandpa said to Grandma, "It's wonderful having all the children here, but the best part is you being here." They're not always that amiable with each other, so it was really cool to see. Although of course Grandma didn't even hear it, but she did smile back at him while he was holding her hand and patting it.

Leaving Grandma and Grandpa was really, really hard. Every time I've left the U.S. in probably the last ten years or so, I've wondered if it would be the last time I see them, and that's just stronger each time. Katie and I visited in May 2008, but the last time we were there as a family was March 2006, and I don't expect to get back again for at least several years. We were only able to go this time because of an extremely generous gift--with our move and not getting our apartment rented out for the first seven months, as well as other unexpected expenses, we simply couldn't have gone on our own. We do have enough miles for two "free" tickets now, but our experience so far in trying to use those is that the only flights ever available are the ones where the additional tickets (because there are a few more than two of us...) are astronomical prices. Once we were quoted 3000 Euros for the children--for EACH ticket. We didn't use the free tickets, but paid about 50 Euros more, total, and flew all six (at the time) of us to Costa Rica.

That evening I didn't get to play any games, because I was packing, and taking an absurdly long time about it, too. But it got done, and we left the next morning, which will be another post. Eventually. We're having visitors in about three minutes, so I'm turning the computer off now.

I've been trying to figure out how to write this--if I go into detail, it will take three days to write (and to read), but the only shorter option I can seem to come up with is "we went to Disneyland for three days and had a great time"!  But here goes an attempt at something in between...

To start with, my brother Scott and his wife had left a couple of days earlier, to celebrate their 17th anniversary on the way and to arrive at the hotel in Disneyland early and have everything ready for everyone else. That left 13 of us (my parents, my sister Ruth and her boyfriend Justin, my nephews Kyle and Alex, and the seven of us) from this area to get down to southern California. Shawn and Lindsey were flying, and Erin, Ginny, Kenneth, and Amelia were driving on their own. Even with my aunt's car (the only one with seven seats), that was going to mean three cars, and Helen is not generally the greatest traveler, so it was also likely to mean lots of stops for at least one car. So my parents came up with the idea of flying me and Helen to southern California--the gas saved by taking one less car would about cover the cost of the flight. For some reason, it didn't bother me at all to think of taking a one-hour flight with one child instead of an all-day car-ride with five...

So on Monday, January 4th, my dad dropped us off at Sacramento airport in the morning, then drove back to Rocklin, where he left one car and met the rest of the group. They had an uneventful drive down, the highlight for the children apparently being lunch at Carl's Jr., where they had never been before.

Helen and I checked in (the only luggage was the carseat), had a bagel and a yogurt milkshake for breakfast and wandered around the airport for awhile. We sat and chatted with an 85-year-old lady for awhile, who had been at her grandson's wedding and was heading home for Florida, then she caught her flight. Our flight was half an hour late leaving, because of a "loose screw on the wing", which was a little disconcerting, but the flight itself was fine. Southwest Airlines, incidentally, does preboard families with children under four, and everyone was very friendly. The flight was also only about 2/3rds full, so I had an empty seat next to me, which also made things much more pleasant. (Except that Helen was extremely happy with her own seat and not at all pleased to have to get on my lap for take-off and landing.) The man next to us had a tiny little dog in a carrier, which Helen enjoyed talking with.

Shawn and Lindsey had arrived at the same airport just a little while before we did, so they waited for us and we took a taxi (with three adults, less than the shuttle for all would have been) together to the hotel. Helen fell asleep on the way and stayed asleep for a good two hours, during which I caught up in my journal, which I haven't opened since...

Everyone else arrived in good time and we had a barbecue that evening, just across the fence from California Adventure, of which we had a great view from our hotel "villa". (Two floors, with three en-suite bedrooms and pull-out beds in both living rooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and a pool table. My parents, Scott and his family, and our family were in this one. The rest were in the slightly smaller "room", with just two en-suite bedrooms, a sofa-bed, a murphy bed, and a kitchen.) Kristy had arranged for Mickey Mouse ears for my parents with their names and "40 years" stitched on them, as well as ears for Shawn and Lindsey, a top-hat and a bridal princess, respectively. We all had buttons that said "Family Reunion", my parents had buttons that said "Happy Anniversary", Shawn and Lindsey had buttons that said "Newlyweds", and the several people who were at Disneyland for the first time had "First Visit" buttons. And we also had an anniversary cake for my parents.

The next three days we had "park-hopper" passes for Disneyland and California Adventure, and took full advantage of them. We all stayed together a little bit, but 21 people make for a pretty big group, so we did a lot of splitting up and meeting up again. Each of the aunts and uncles took each of the nieces and nephews for awhile at some point during the three days, which was also fun for all. Helen just looked bemused during the first couple of rides, but when Dumbo starting going up, she looked startled and then laughed, and enjoyed the rest. Her favorite ride was "It's a Small World", which was still decorated for Christmas and was playing a Christmas medley, to which she danced and clapped her hands both times we rode it.

I just asked the other children what their favorite rides were. Katie said, "Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh and the Tea-cup Party." Lukas's favorite was California Screaming, which, inidentally, he was tall enough for the first day, but the next day they wouldn't let him on and said he was just the tiniest bit too short! Jacob's favorites were the Maliboomer, which I doubt that I would have gone on even if I had not been pregnant, and Splash Mountain. Marie's favorites were Space Mountain (my favorite when I was 12, too, but I confess I opted out of going on it this time because of being pregnant) and California Screaming. Joern's favorite was also Space Mountain, and just to finish it off, I suppose my favorites were the Matterhorn and Splash Mountain. The absolute worst was Astro Orbiter, which Helen loved, laughing the whole time, while I barely kept from losing my lunch.

The second day was also the birthday of both Shawn and Erin (not twins--they're exactly three years apart), so they got to add "Happy Birthday" buttons, and we had a pizza party and more cake. Erin had requested "a sun, a moon, something green, and something purple." I had no ideas, but Jacob did, and sketched me a design that I ended up using: the globe (just part of it), with the sun on a light blue background on one side, and a moon on a purple background on the other. Shawn's request was just that Lukas choose the design, so he had chosen the clubhouse that Shawn had built out of our moving crates when he visited us in Cyprus in March. So that's what Shawn's cake had. I really need to figure out someday how to get photo files small enough to use them on here.

We finished up the third day with everyone going on Splash Mountain a last couple of times, as that's my mother's favorite ride, then back to the hotel to play games and collapse into bed. Actually, that third night I simply went to bed, without a word to any of the children or my husband or anyone else. The next morning I apologized to my husband, that I hadn't helped get anyone ready for bed, and had even left Helen awake, and said, "I've never done that before, have I." His response was, "Well, actually, you did that last night, too." Oh yeah, I forgot. But actually, the night before I'd been trying to get Helen to sleep, but when I realized that I was falling asleep and she wasn't, I lifted her back down to the floor and just sort of...stayed there.

The next morning started with a "character breakfast", a breakfast buffet with some Disney characters wandering in and out. The only ones I knew were Chip and Dale, the others were a bear, a raccoon, and a gorilla, all from movies I've never seen, but that didn't bother my children in the slightest. Lukas in particular was having a great time hamming it up for the camera, hugging them all and playing around. Helen was pretty wary of them, though, and screamed when the raccoon came close, but stopped as soon as he backed off.

Then we finished packing and started the journey home. Alex and Kyle weren't with us for the return trip, as they flew home to Florida with their parents, and Shawn and Lindsey also flew from LA to Virginia. Helen and the traffic were both amazing--we didn't have to stop the first time for Helen until after almost two hours and only stopped for ten minutes or so, then made it another almost two hours before stopping for lunch. She slept almost the rest of the way home, just one more stop, and we were home, with only three stops (plus one for gas), only eight hours after leaving. No traffic jams, no hours of a screaming baby. Very cool.

On Saturday the 9th we celebrated Grandma's birthday (a few days early) with her, as my parents, Ruth and Justin, and my aunt Theresa and her daughter Emily could all be there. We had pizza and ice cream cake, and Grandma and Grandpa both enjoyed it all.

Sunday we went up to Tahoe to ski and play in the snow. Lukas and Katie weren't enjoying the cross-country skis at all and my parents finally told us to just go ahead and they'd stay with them, so the rest of us took off. Helen was in the Ergo with Joern, who was using snow shoes, and Marie, Jacob, and I had skis. It was a great deal like bike-riding with my family, in nearly every way. One thing was that as soon as I was on skis, I felt totally comfortable and "right", although the last time I had skied was four years ago, and the time before that 15 years ago. It's like bike-riding, you never forget. (But although my brain remembered Telemark turns, my knees wouldn't cooperate, so I snow-plowed a bit more than I'd like to admit...) Jacob and I were way ahead, kept going back to find the others, and Marie was worried about every single little bump or slope of greater than 1 degree. And Joern was only doing it "because it was good for him", not because he actually wanted to be out there. (Of course, he doesn't bike-ride at all, so that comparison doesn't work. And Lukas wasn't along, and he's the bike-rider who is always far ahead of everyone else.)

I went down one sledding hill, very pleased with myself, then stood at the bottom looking up the hill--and suddenly was lying flat on my back. I banged the back of my head pretty hard and my glasses flew off, so I kind of freaked out for a moment when I opened my eyes and everything was blurry, but I was okay. My head did hurt for awhile, but that was my only fall.

So that was the end of our second week here, and today is the end of our last week, but we're going to play a game now and I'll need to pack, so I won't be able to write about this week until we're in Germany. Probably at 2:00  some morning while on jet lag--going east is SO much harder for me than going west.

I'm the oldest of five, left home in 1989 to spend a year in Mexico, lived with my parents again for a year while going to college and working, then moved to Germany in 1991 "for a year or two." Under NO circumstances was I staying for any longer, and I was most certainly NOT getting involved with a German. Spanish was my language and Latin America was what I loved, and German was the only class that I did badly in during my two semesters of college! Although my husband I didn't start dating until two years after I arrived in Germany, we actually met within the first couple of months. We got married a year later, and it was over 17 years that I ended up living in Germany. None of that is relevant to the rest of this post, I just liked writing it! :-)

My next sibling, Scott, is two years younger than I am. He and Kristy got married when they were 19 and 18 (it was actually only a month before Scott's 20th birthday, but 19 sounds more dramatic) and just celebrated their 17th anniversary. Their sons, Kyle and Alex, are 13 and 12. Scott is in the Air Force and they live in Florida, finally staying in one place for awhile. They started homeschooling temporarily when unhappy with the school at one location, and have just kept on, loving it, for about six years now, I think. Kyle plans to go to school starting with eighth grade, Alex at this point plans to homeschool all the way through.

The fourth sibling, Erin, is eight years younger than I am, is a clarinetist, and lives in San Bruno (near San Francisco), in the house my dad grew up in, and the youngest, Ruth, 11 years younger than I, is a pharmaseutical (spelling?!?!) assistant and she and her boyfriend, Justin, live in the house my mother grew up in, in Grass Valley.

Shawn is the one that this post is supposed to be about. He's five years younger than I am and has traveled much, much more than I have, although he's only ever lived in the U.S., mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the Washington D.C. area, now in D.C. When he announced on Facebook a couple of months ago that he was engaged to Lindsey (whom Katie and I met in May 2008 when we were here on a good-bye visit to my paternal grandmother, three months before she died), I wrote back that if he wanted us at the wedding, it would need to happen in California and between December 28th and January 18th! Apparently, they'd been thinking more of a summer wedding, definitely wanting it outside and with all sorts of outside activities, but they re-worked their plans for us, for which we were very grateful. They have friends all over the world as it is, so many of their guests were going to have to travel no matter what.

The wedding ceremony itself was scheduled for 5:00 p.m., outside, with a gorgeous view of San Francisco and the sunset. The weather cooperated, although it was rather cold, and the ceremony, officiated by my mother, was quite short. There were no attendants, but Marie and Kyle carried in jars of sand and Lukas carried in a bowl, into which Shawn and Lindsey poured the sand, and another little girl carried in the rings on a pillow. Then we all went inside for the party. The speeches were good, there was lots of food, and it was great seeing so many relatives, such as one aunt whom I did see in May 2008, but the last time before that was my own wedding, and her husband, whom I hadn't seen since our wedding. There was also dancing, and the music was good and not too loud! (Katie was really nervous when she heard that we were going to a wedding at all, as the last wedding we went to had horribly loud music and half the people were smoking. We all left coughing and with headaches. So Katie was immensely relieved that Uncle Shawn's wedding wasn't like that.)

At some point there was a variety show, something that the Americans apparently thought a bit strange, as hardly anyone signed up for it, but to Germans was the absolutely normal wedding reception. :-) Shawn and Lindsey started by making all the participants dance across the stage to the Muppet theme song (if we'd known that was coming, probably even fewer people would have signed up...), then the two of them sang a song together. One little girl (I think a niece of Lindsey's) sang "Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer", an aunt of Lindsey's did a stand-up comedy skit, and another little girl at the very end sang another song. Marie played the violin together with my sister Erin and Erin's partner Ginny, both on clarinets, and Joern and I narrated "Die Hocheitskuetsche", "The wedding carriage", a very commonly done skit at weddings in Germay. The actors were the bride and groom (princess and prince), the groom's best friend (coachman), the parents (the four wheels), the siblings (horses), the children (forest), and the audience (the forest path). Most people seemed to enjoy it--at the very least, there was a LOT of laughter--but my dad did make the comment at the end that he could understand why we got married in the U.S.! (Actually, the one thing I DID miss at our wedding was the typical German reception...)

Anyway, the rest was basically what a usual New Year's Eve party always was when I was growing up: ice cream sundaes, lots of junk food, lots of noise, and lots of board games. :-) Then at midnight, lots of noise, and being over San Francisco, we even got to watch a far-away fireworks display. Then it was clean-up and drive back to the hotel, where we collapsed into bed. Katie and Helen had both fallen asleep during the evening, but the other three children made it all the way through. Helen did wake up in time for midnight, meaning that Katie is the only one of all of my children to have ever slept through midnight on New Year's Eve.

The next day started with a breakfast buffet, then a hike to Shawn and Lindsey's "first kiss spot" in Tilden Park, then bowling, and then dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I can't say I enjoyed the bowling much--at least there wasn't any smoke (my last time bowling was over five years ago, in Germany, and one could hardly see through the smoke, and the time before that, which was also my first time ever, was well over 20 years ago, when they still smoked in public places in the U.S., too), but it was quite dark and the music was so loud that one had to shout to be heard, so there wasn't much conversation. Added to which, I think I got the lowest score of the 30 or so people that were there. 35 on my first game, and on the second game, which started with a strike on the first frame and ended with a spare on the final frame, had a total of 40 points. I kind of doubt that anyone else could get that low if they tried.

During breakfast one of my aunts was talking about lending us her car, which seats seven, for a couple of days, and the negotiations ended with her taking my mom's car back to Ukiah with her, and we left with her van for the next two weeks! My parents have two cars and a truck, and my youngest sister

January 2nd the festivities continued. After breakfast we went to an indoor climbing gym, where Shawn and Lindsey had been members when they lived on the West Coast, and everyone who wanted to got a chance at climbing. I didn't climb, but the children did, and there was a very nice (and quiet!!) area for sitting and watching and chatting with the other people who weren't climbing. From there we headed into San Francisco, where we had lunch on our own and then met up again with the group for a high-tech scavenger hunt. Shawn is a conflict resolutionist and travels around giving seminars, etc., and this was a version of one of the programs he leads. We were over 30 people and divided into 6 groups. Jacob was our captain and when he saw the GPS thing-a-ma-jig and saw that it was exactly the same one that he's familiar with from our friend Richard, who taught Marie and Jacob sailing last summer and has been having Jacob work with him on his new boat all autumn, he immediately took over that. Lindsey's father, Tim, and I, as the only adult native speakers of English on the team, worked on the word puzzles while we walked, and Magdalena from Switzerland took care of the camera. Her husband and Joern (who had Helen in the Ergo carrier) helped look for photo challenges and corralled the niece of Lindsey's who was along, as well as Katie, who sometime during the afternoon deftected from another team and joined ours. We came in second place, the only area we did really badly in was the quotations, getting only four out of 10 right, and two of those were guessed.

Then we headed back to Berkeley, to the home of some friends of Lindsey's, who had taken home the left-over food from the wedding. We saw a slide-show of photos from the wedding, ate our fill and then some for dinner, and finally drove home. I managed almost an hour, but was definitely falling asleep, so switched with Joern, who drove the rest of the way, another hour. As on just about every single day of our trip so far, the evening ended with us carrying sleeping children to bed and then collapsing into bed ourselves.

So that was my brother's three-day wedding! The next day Joern, my mom, the two little girls, and I went to church in Colfax, where I grew up. I didn't get to go there my last couple of visits to the U.S., as my mother is now a pastor in King's Beach (on Lake Tahoe), but she had taken all three Sundays that we're here off of work. There were two people I really wanted to see, and both of them were there: Myrtle, the widow of the pastor there from when I was 6 until I was 13, and who must be somewhere between 70 and 100, but hasn't changed in the slightest since I can remember; and "Mrs. Murphy", who has been in charge of the Sunday School forever and ever. She taught Sunday School that day, too, and Katie made up one-third of the whole Sunday School. All of the other people I had known there from my childhood have either died (most of them--my parents were the youngest adults in the church for 20 years) or moved.

That afternoon we finally got to go visit my maternal grandparents, who live about half an hour away. Grandpa is 95 and in a "skilled nursing facility" (I guess that's policitally correct for "nursing home"?), but doing fairly well, or at least, he was getting around better than when I last saw him in May 2008. Grandma will be 92 next week and lives next door in an "assisted living facility", but walks over to spend most of the day with Grandpa every day.  Grandpa has been losing his hearing pretty much for as long as I can remember, so even before there was the confusion that he now often has, conversations with him could be challenging, as he would suddenly say something that had nothing whatsoever to do with what the others were saying. He's also been mixing me up with my mother since I could remember, so that was nothing new, either. He did keep saying that he really deserves a two-week vacation from "this place" and asking if he could leave now, and he never really got Helen's name, but we did enjoy the visit. It was harder for me emotionally with Grandma, as her hearing loss is much more recent, as is her confusion, but I'm glad we got to see her.

And the next day we headed for Disneyland, which will be a separate post, and probably on another day, as I'm now going to play a game with Jacob and Lukas.

So...at the end of our 34-hour day, we got to say hi to my sister-in-law and one of my nephews, my brother and the other nephew didn't wake up.

In general, I find traveling west much easier than traveling west. I tend to stay up late anyway, and getting over jet-lag when traveling west consists of staying up as late as you possibly can, then collapsing into bed and sleeping because you simply can't stay awake any longer. We all slept fairly well the first night, being so exhausted, but were also awake and up easily for the events of the next day.

My mother, my brother and his family, my cousin, and Jacob and Lukas went skiing the day after we arrived. Jacob had been on downhill skis once before, about two years ago in an indoor ski-hall in Germany at the birthday party of a friend of his, and had cross-country skied with us four years ago in Tahoe. Lukas had never been on skis of any kind. They had lessons and apparently had a wonderful day. I haven't seen photos yet, but my sister-in-law said that at one point she went to take photos and saw Lukas speeding down the hill with a huge grin on his face, the instructor chasing after him yelling, "Lukas! Luuuuu--kaaaaas! Slow down!" That sounds like Lukas. :-)

In the meantime, my husband and the three girls and I went for a walk with my dad. It's always strange when I'm here how familiar and how different everything seems at the same time. Also, ever since I moved to Germany in September 1991, the vegetation here seems so brown and dry, as Germany is very, very green, all year round. However, after a year in Cyprus (where, incidentally, we regularly heard comments from the people who had lived there for awhile about how remarkably green in was that year!!), the wonderful green of the evergreens and grass everywhere here in northern California is refreshing and wonderful! But the bare trees are strange, too--some trees in Cyprus lose their leaves, but not many, and our citrus trees were all bearing fruit when we left at the end of December. This morning Katie told my mother that they should cut down "all those dead trees", referring to the apple trees and other trees here that do lose their leaves.

After we got back from our walk, Marie was going to practice the violin, but her D-string broke. So Marie, Helen, and I went with my dad to run a bunch of errands and get the new D-string. My dad was pretty sure that he knew where a music store was, near a post office, and we drove around there for awhile without finding it. I suggested asking at the post office, but he opted to keep driving. We checked out the place where a music store used to be when I was a teenager, but it's a Starbucks now. We completed all of my dad's errands and all of ours (a plug adapter, wipes, shampoo, etc.), and at the electric place I asked if they knew were a music store was. The lady's description sounded like the area we had first looked, then at the pharmacy I asked again, and got another similar description. So we headed back for that part of town, I again suggested asking someone, my dad again kept driving for awhile. He finally did stop at the post office to ask--but they were closed for lunch by that time. He did manage to aks somewhere else, though, and it turned out to be just around the corner. We'd driven by it before, but it's a very small shop with a well-hidden sign--I didn't even see the sign, I saw the drums in the (fairly dark) window. Mission accomplished, we then stopped at the grocery store on the way home. The prices of bread and dairy products in Cyprus had rather shocked us, being up to twice as much as in Germany, but the prices here are even higher! Even though the money wasn't coming out of my pocket, it hurt just picking up a loaf of bread that was at least four times as expensive as bread in Germany, and wouldn't taste half as good.

The next day, December 30th, was our 15th wedding anniversary. The day started with opening Christmas presents with my parents and my brother's family, then Joern and I went out to breakfast all by ourselves, to the place where we had breakfast on the first day of our honeymoon. Breakfast was the usual humongous American affair, and it was fine, but the best part was nobody interrupting!! The children were all perfectly happy at home with grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and siblings, although Katie was rather driving my dad crazy. (I called home at one point, and asked how Helen was, and my dad just said, "Helen?! No problem at all. Katie, on the other hand...)

Around noon my parents left to go down to Berkeley to help prepare my other brother's wedding, and Helen cried when Grandma left. She's even saying "Grandma"--she says "mama" to me, with both "a"s the same, but Grandma is "maa-ma", the first "a" the same short-vowel sound as in "grandma".

December 31st we headed to Berkeley ourselves, together with my sister and her boyfriend, stopping on the way to buy shoes for Jacob (who had paint-stained sneakers and broken, bright-orange, imitation Crocs) and shoes and tights for Marie (who was planning to wear a white blouse and a black skirt, and only had brown tights and blue sneakers), and then ended up buying glittery shoes for Katie, too, who had perfectly nice pink sandals already. Helen sang all the way to our first stop, then slept all the way to the hotel at Berkeley Marina, which was very convenient. Joern and the boys got dressed and headed for the wedding location to help set up, and I had a shower and bathed the little girls, barely getting ready by 4:00 to meet someone else I was following.

And as this is more than long enough already, I'll save the wedding for another post. :-)

To start with, the runway lights in Larnaka were working, so we left as scheduled on the 28th of December. Not quite two weeks ago, but it sure feels like a lot longer ago! We left our house at 12:40 in the morning--Joern dropped us off at the airport, less than 10 minutes away, then drove back home, parked our car, and loaded our luggage into our friend Richard's car. Richard dropped Joern and our luggage (three full suitcases, and one with two collapsible ones inside) off at the airport, and we were on our way. Lukas talked all the way to Prague, and in fact, all of the children except for Helen stayed awake for the flight to Prague, changing planes there, and the flight to Frankfurt.

In Frankfurt we arrived in Terminal 1, collected our luggage, and headed straight for Terminal 2 (the children finding the "sky train"--not what it's called in Frankfurt, but that's what it's called in Duesseldorf and I can't remember what Frankfurt calls it--extremely exciting, we less so, with the luggage), as that's where our flight to San Francisco was leaving from. We started there by going to the information desk to ask if there was a children's play area--yes, back in Terminal 1. But the lady told us that we actually could check in, even though it was still more than five hours until our flight.

I've heard plenty of positive raving about Frankfurt Airport, but I'm not impressed with the sign-posting. We did eventually find the United Airlines counters and got in line. Halfway through the line it occurred to me that this would be a good time to brush teeth, before our toothpaste was checked for the next flight, so the girls and I headed for the restrooms--which were hard to find and very far away. When we finally got back, the others had just gotten to the front of the line, but the entire area was being cleared because of a bomb threat. We watched from maybe 20 meters away while an area right next to where we had been standing was marked off by the police with orange and white tape, but couldn't really see what was going on. I commented that if there WAS a bomb, we really weren't far enough away, but in the meantime, sent Joern and the boys to brush their teeth.

They got back just as the bomb threat was lifted, so we started to get back in line, but then got to go to the very front. We checked in and started to head for Terminal 1 for the play area, when Lukas asked where his backpack was. Good question. We couldn't find it where the line had been, Joern was sure he hadn't had it with him in the restroom, so we went to the information desk to ask about lost-and-found. The guy there looked rather bored until Joern started the description, then he raised his eyebrows and said, "Child's backpack? I have to make a phone call." I joked to Joern that maybe Lukas's backpack had been the cause of the bomb scare.

Well, a couple of phone calls later, it was confirmed that Lukas's backpack had been removed by the police and taken to the place where they explode potential bombs, but that they had been able to determine that it wasn't a bomb before they needed to explode it, so it was now waiting in lost-and-found. Oops.

Following bad directions and the very occasional sign, we did eventually find the lost-and-found department, filled out a bunch of forms and paid four Euros to recover Lukas's backpack (which contained a change of clothes, a lion, and a bear), and then started looking for the famed grocery store.

More rare signs (but along a very long corridor with interesting ads for a car rental company that went through the whole history of the world) and a long walk later, we found the grocery store, where we bought Broetchen (bread rolls, but one canNOT call the delicious, German bread rolls by the uninspiring term of "bread rolls"!! After nearly a year in Cyprus, we really missed those!!), cheese, cold cuts, grapes, and water. I didn't quite understand why this grocery store is so famous--it wasn't very big and it was of course very over-priced, but I suppose just the fact that it IS a grocery store, which is open on Sundays and holidays, is exciting? They even had fresh fruit.

We found a place to sit and eat lunch, and then finally, after counting the carry-ons, headed back to Terminal 1 and the play area. It consisted of slides and a big ball pool, with benches and a food court all around. Helen was asleep (in the stroller) by this time, so I laid down on a bench and had an hour's nap myself. Then we headed back to Terminal 2 for our flight to San Francisco.

Czech Air, by the way, was friendly and comfortable, and on EACH of the two flights the children received activity packs and I was asked if I needed anything for the baby and offered extra bread for her. They also gave me a "baby belt"--an extra seatbelt which connects to mine to put around the baby. A flight attendant friend once told me that it doesn't do much to protect a baby, the main point is to keep the baby from flying up in the air during turbulence and landing on another passenger and injuring him or her. I don't particularly care if I have one or not, but the point is that they did acknowledge the baby.

On our flight to San Francisco, however, which was 11 hours, the children were not given anything at all for entertainment, we could hardly see the movie screens which mostly had stupid and/or inappropriate things showing anyway, we certainly didn't have more leg-room than on the smaller plane, and I think possibly less, the flight attendant looked put out when I asked for an extra bag of pretzels for Helen, and both Joern's and my seats were broken. (His wouldn't recline, mine wouldn't stay up.) And my headphones broke. It wasn't the first time that I rolled my eyes at the announcement, "We realize that you have a choice of airlines and thank you for flying with United." If we were able to make a choice based on something other than price, we would NOT choose United.

Also, no baby belt, and no directions on how to hold the baby. Again, not that I cared, but on dozens of flights with babies (dozens? maybe even scores...), I have been given nearly as many different instructions: "use the baby belt"; "no baby belts as they're banned"; "use the sling/front pack/any baby carrier"; "please take the baby out of the carrier"; "hold the baby facing you"; "hold the baby facing out"; even "hold the baby diagonally"!!  I've been given conflicting instructions on two different flights the same day with the same airline. But this was my first flight in which they didn't even say hi to the baby.

That Helen fussed and screamed for several hours wasn't United's fault, though. Katie and Lukas slept almost the entire flight, and Marie and Jacob entertained themselves with the movies and with reading, and Joern relaxed or even slept, but I spent a good portion of the flight fighting with Helen. I walked up and down the aisles with her, looked out windows, sang, etc. She did spend about five minutes scribbling on a magazine, and the pretzels kept her entertained for another five minutes, but that was about it. She wouldn't look at books and she wouldn't play patty-cake and she wouldn't even nurse. When she did finally fall asleep, so did I, but the head rests weren't anywhere near as adjustable as Czech Air's were, so I kept waking up with my neck hurting.

While waiting for our luggage in San Francisco, a sniffer dog found us and we were asked to turn in the three ham-and-cheese sandwiches we had brought from the airplane. I asked if we couldn't please eat them right away, as Katie and Lukas had literally had nothing to eat the entire flight, and the man hemmed and hawed and finally said that he wasn't really allowed to let us, but yes, we could keep them, but had to eat them completely--no, we would not be allowed to just throw them away if we didn't finish them, and it would be a 300-dollar fine if we didn't. We turned in one, and Lukas and Katie each ate one. Then we had to go through the red line, because we'd been "caught", and all of our luggage had to be x-rayed. The lady there looked very sorry, looked at five sleepy children and two exhausted parents and a huge pile of luggage and really, really looked like she wanted to wave us through, asked what the dog had found, questioned us about whether we had anything else (no), and finally apologetically said that she was very sorry, but we had to put everything through the x-ray.

My mother was waiting when we came out, she called my dad and my sister who then came from my sister's house (ten minutes away), and we piled into the cars and went to my sister's. We spent longer there than we had intended, eventually having sandwiches for dinner so that we wouldn't have to stop on the way to my parents' house (2 1/2 hours away), and then headed north, arriving at my parents' house at about 11:00 p.m. on December 28th--9:00 a.m of the 29th in Cyprus, so over 32 hours after leaving home. People like to wish that there were more hours in a day, but our December 28th had 34 hours, and it was NOT fun!!

But we made it, and the sequals will have to wait, as I now have to go finish getting children ready, as we're going up to Tahoe to play in the snow and cross-country ski. :-)

We had friends from Germany staying with us for the nine days before Christmas, which we enjoyed very much. Some more sightseeing around Cyprus, lots of games of Settlers of Catan, and they even babysat one evening so we could visit some other friends, taking only Helen with us. :-)

On the 24th we celebrated "German Christmas", as that's when Germans celebrate normally, and as Peter and Christin were leaving on the 25th in the wee hours. That meant we got to light the candles on the tree a day earlier than usual, as my husband won't let me light them until we open presents, and as he's married to a U.S.-ian who thinks it's silly to open presents after dinner and have hyper children who don't want to go to bed, we generally celebrate on the 25th. But the few "German presents" didn't take that long, and the children went to bed fairly happily, still anticipating Christmas morning. They weren't even that upset about saying goodbye to Peter and Christin, as we'll see them in Germany in February.

The rest of us then played two last games of Settlers of Catan, and at 1:15 I went to bed and Jörn took Peter and Christin to the airport. When he got back 20 minutes later, I asked if everything was fine, and he said, "Yes, it was quieter than usual--apparently, not many people want to fly on the 25th."

We didn't get woken until almost 7:30, and bought ourselves a little more time in bed (but with several children bouncing on us,  so not sleeping) by sending Marie to make the birthday cake. Once that was in the oven, we all got up and lit the candles on the tree again.

Rather than the free-for-all I grew up with, we all take turns taking a gift from under the tree and handing it to the right person. I imagine that "normal" children would choose something that they think is for themselves, but this is one of the times that I'm glad my children aren't normal. :-) I myself am not at all into gift-giving and would rather do away with it all together, but the children have apparently all inherited their father's main love-language and delight in giving gifts. Katie started, and chose the gift that she had made at preschool (where, two days a week, I work and she attends) for us. Then Lukas excitedly chose a gift from himself to one of his siblings, and on it went. The children were always pleasantly surprised and grateful for what they received, but were over-the-moon hyper with excitement about what they gave.

Around 10:00 the phone rang--it was Peter. Last week the airport in Frankfurt (which was where they were flying) had been closed because of snow, forcing 3000 people to spend the night there, so I said, "So you made it! Good!" Peter said, "No, actually we liked Cyprus so much that we decided to stay--we're in Ayia Napa!" I laughed and said that I know that I'm gullible and tend to believe whatever people tell me, but I wasn't falling for it this time. I could hear Christin laughing hysterically in the background, and it took awhile, but they finally convinced me that they were, indeed, in a hotel in Ayia Napa. The runway lights weren't working, so everyone had been taken by bus to a hotel in Ayia Napa, where they had gotten to bed around 3:30 and had just finished a big breakfast! They said that the hotel was nice and the food was good, but it was awful being surrounded by so many "fat tourists" and the "scenery" basically consisted of one hotel after another. They were very glad to have seen a bit more of the "real" Cyprus with us that most tourists ever do. They were going to be taken back to the airport at 11:30, and with a direct flight to Frankfurt, I imagine that they did eventually arrive.

I did find an article on-line about the airport closure, but wasn't able to confirm if they now have the runway lights fixed. I selfishly certainly hope so, as we're flying at 3:00 a.m. in two days!! We have a six-hour lay-over in Frankfurt (after changing planes in Prague), so there's a little bit of lee-way, but as our flights are not connecting (we booked separate tickets from here to Frankfurt and back, and from Frankfurt to San Francisco and back, which was considerably less expensive that booking all the way from Cyprus to San Francisco), I'm not sure what would happen if we were to miss the other flight--and I don't particularly want to find out, either. We were concerned about weather in Prague and Frankfurt, but it never occurred to us to wonder if Larnaca Airport would be open!!!

Anyway, we eventually finished opening our gifts, some people sort of had breakfast (they'd already been eating gummy bears and chocolate and such all morning--nobody even wanted any of the chocolate birthday cake...), and around noon we headed for the home of Sue and Richard, as we'd been invited to Christmas dinner and afternoon/evening with them.

Christmas dinner was scrumptious (tender, HOT turkey--not something I'm used to!) and the company was even better. The children behaved fairly decently, for the most part. I love visiting people, but sometimes find my own children's behavior to be so stressful for me (even when it's not even bothering our hosts) that I can't always relax as much as I'd like to. After dinner, chatting, and dessert (half a dozen different delicious things, for which we didn't  have room, but didn't let that stop us!!), we drugged some of the children with a movie, and the adults (five of us, as Sue and Richard's son Tim was also there, visiting from England) and Jacob played Settlers of Catan with the Seafarers extention, which they had received for Christmas. I'm rather "Settler-ed out" (and I know we'll have three more weeks of it in the U.S...), but as always, the best part is the people. :-)

We lazed around comfortably for quite awhile, nibbling and chatting, then had a concert by Tim (piano) and Marie (violin), and around 8:30, as some of the children were starting to lose it, decided we'd better leave before things escalated.

Children to bed, and we weren't long in following--and didn't get woken up for good this morning until nearly 9:00!! (The previous post is about this morning...) Today we have about 18 YWAM people coming at 2:00 for lunch and singing (oh yeah--I'm supposed to be looking for the words to a few songs in various languages...) and exchanging "white elephant" or "monster" gifts. I'm trying desparately to get clothes washed and dried (and it started raining about half an hour ago...I might actually put the drying rack in my bedroom and turn on the heating, as I'm running out of other options) for packing tomorrow afternoon/evening, and then we're off. And after those next six weeks (three in the U.S., which will include a wedding, two anniversaries, three days at Disneyland, three birthdays, and maybe even some time with friends, and then three in Germany, for which we already have over 30 different meetings with people planned...), we are REALLY going to need a vacation...

There were two in the bed and the little one said,

"Scoot over, scoot over!"

So they both scooted over and Helen climbed in.

There were three in the bed and another one said,

"Scoot over, scoot over!"

So they all scooted over and Katie climbed in.

There were four in the bed, but she wouldn't stop talking, so Mommy said,

"Go to your bed, go to your bed!"

So Katie went away and three went to sleep.

There were three in the bed and another one said,

"Scoot over, scoot over!"

So they all scooted over and Jacob climbed in.

There were four in the bed and another one said,

"Scoot over, scoot over!"

So they all scooted over and Lukas climbed in.

There were five in the bed and another one said,

"Scoot over, scoot over!"

But Mommy said, "How can I scoot?"

And Katie said, "By moving a little!"

So Helen climbed on Mommy's face and Katie tried to squeeze.

There were six in the bed but Katie said,

"I was here first, I was here first!"

There were many, many elbows, and many, many knees,

And lots and lots of fussing, and lots and lots of pleas,

Until finally, the Papa said,

"GET UP AND GET DRESSED!!!"

There were two in the bed...but  not for long.

The fact that I lived in Germany for over 17 years probably wasn't too helpful for my frustraton this morning, but the fact that I've also lived other places that are culturally VERY different from Germany did temper that some, and that I'm fascinated by languages and trying hard to learn Greek also made the morning not entirely a waste of time.

Four weeks ago I went to the hospital for a pre-natal check-up, mostly just because I wanted an ultrasound to have some idea of a due date, not being at all sure. (When I said I really didn't know how far I was, the doctor looked down again at my paperwork, listing all eight previous pregnancies, raised his eyebrows, and said something like, "By now you really ought to have some idea.") The baby's head-rump measurement spit out an age of 11 weeks (well, 9 weeks for the baby, 11 weeks as doctors count), due date June 15th, 2010. Anyway, I was there last time for 2 1/2 hours for a total of less than five minutes with the doctor, and as I was leaving, there was a near-riot going on in the waiting area, with dozens of pregnant women yelling at  a man in hospital clothes. While I myself had been waiting, women had been comparing their appointment times, and there were several with 9:00, one with 9:20, and several with 9:30. That was after 10:00 when they were looking at them--and I didn't even have an appointment at all, being told one wasn't necessary. After several women who had definitely arrived after I had had elbowed their way in, five women (two English, two Cypriot, and one who spoke neither English nor Greek but agreed with the others that I should definitely be next) pushed me in the next time the door opened. Quite an experience. Anyway, I'm glad I was out of there before the riot started, but felt bad for all the others still stuck there.

In any case, I let myself be talked into going back today for another check-up, with the idea that if the baby's size four weeks later still matched that due date, I'd be reassured of the due date, as I'd been told that I'd have another ultrasound. Also, I know someone whose twins were NOT seen at 12 weeks, so it was good to confirm today that there IS only one baby! But the doctor didn't take any measurements today, just checked the heartbeat, then as he turned off the ultrasound machine said, "How many sons and daughters do you have?" I told him, and then he said, "Well, it looks like you might have--" and I quickly interrupted him and said "Don't tell me! I don't want to know!" He was rather surprised at that, and then said that he wasn't really sure, anyway, but IF I go back at all, I'll be sure to mention BEFORE they start that I don't want to know the baby's gender!

But I really, really don't want to go back. I had been given "the first appointment", at 7:30 this morning. I was indeed the first person there--the doctor and an assistant didn't arrive until 8:20. But shortly after I arrived, other pregnant women started arriving. That's where the language practice came in, because happily, the first one to arrive spoke very little English, in fact, not more than I speak Greek. So although I'd officially learned how to tell time in Greek on paper, I could never remember it, but now I can. :-) It's her first baby and she's in the ninth month, and she had an appointment for 8:00. The next woman to arrive didn't sit down with us, but went and stood right at the door to the room where they take blood pressure and weight. The one after that was another Cypriot who spoke little English, then a Muslim woman arrived, then another who didn't talk, and then a Nigerian who spoke no Greek at all, but English, and had her six-month-old son with her.

By 8:15 there were 10 of us, and then at 8:20 the assistant went into her office, and lady number 3 had pushed her way into the room before anyone else could react. However, the rest of us (those who were sitting--there are only six chairs--as well as the others standing around) quickly moved over to the door, leaving most of the chairs empty--one was still occupied by a father. When the door opened, two women tried to push in front of me but I managed to slip in. My blood pressure was taken and I was weighed (just like last time, the doctor's scale gives me four more kilos that my scale--I like my scale MUCH better!!), was scolded for not having had an amniocentesis (I'd declined four weeks ago, which the doctor hadn't had a problem with), was handed my file, and got to go wait in the hallway again to get into the doctor's office. Arrival number 4 was the third one into the assistant's office, arrival number 2 was the fourth one in, I didn't pay attention after that, as I was enjoying chatting with the English woman I had met four weeks ago.

When arrival number 3 (who had gotten in first) was finished with the doctor, at 8:50, I managed to be the next one into the doctor's office. He did his best to impress on me the importance of the 20-week ultrasound, and I told him that I already have an appointment with my doctor in Germany (who will actually TALK with me) for the end of January, had the very quick scan, was given an appointment for February (which I don't have much intention of keeping), and was out of there again at 8:53. Not quite an hour and a half, so certainly better than last time.

When I got home, I called the three phone numbers I'd been given (by a lady who now lives in the U.K., but whose homebirth story I'd found by googling "homebirth Cyprus", as she had her baby at home in Cyprus two years ago) of a doula and two midwives who are reputed to attend homebirths. I left a message with one midwife's voicemail and there weren't any answers from the other two, but the doula called me back almost immediately. She's leaving on vacation tomorrow, but we're going to talk again in February, and she sounded quite encouraging.

As an aside, I find it rather unfair to be being dive-bombed by mosquitos while I'm freezing! Cyprus has a lot of great things--mosquitos in December is not one of them.

Efficiency doesn't happen to be one, either, but we did get a temporary reprieve at Immigration today. No real progress, but the good news is that I'll be able to leave Cyprus in two weeks without being given the third degree about why I've been here longer than my three-month tourist visa allowed, and I'll be able to re-enter once, by the 15th of February. (We get back the 12th.)

This morning my husband headed for Immigration in Nikosia and took our 7-year-old, some books, and as advised, my passport and our marriage certificate and lots of time, and he also took every other single bit of paperwork we've ever had, which we always do when doing anything like this. I've always said that walking from the car to the embassy or consulate or some other official place would be the best place to mug us, because our entire identity is contained in whatever bag we're carrying.

The first person he talked to didn't think that what he was saying made any sense, but finally told him to go to "Block 7"--the complex apparently has something like 9 buildings--which is where they deal with non-European foreigners. So Jörn went there and found it was closed. He got in a side entrance and was told that really, they're closed until January, as they're in the process of moving. (The only surprising part is that this is practically the first place in Nikosia that we've been to that had not YET moved from the address we were given...) No, of course they won't give letters saying that my application is in process--who told him so? Does he have a copy of the application? Good, because as they're in the process of moving, they don't know where anything is. (See, this is why we always take EVERYTHING, not just what they say they'll need...) The friendly lady made a copy, talked with her boss, and came back and said no problem, they can issue me with a one-time, re-entry visa. Where are the stamps, please?

My husband asked what stamps, and was told that he needs "revenue stamps from the post office, worth €10.27." So then Jörn asked where the post office was, and the lady said that she had just explained it to this other applicant, in Greek, who was standing next to Jörn, so Jörn could just give her the money and she could get the stamps for both of them. Jörn politely declined handing over the money, but did walk out to the parking lot with the lady and asked her where the post office was. She said she had no idea, somewhere near the Presidential Palace, but she didn't know where that was. Jörn did know, however, so was able to tell her, and then they drove off in their separate cars.

Nothing else too exciting--Jörn found the post office (after parking at the parking lot behind the Press and Information Office, where he'd had to pay a lot of money to get the children's birth certificates translated in the summer), got the revenue stamps, returned to Immigration, paid, and got the visa in my passport.

However, I still don't have a yellow slip (the registration paper, giving me permission to live here indefinitely), and the lady seemed to think it amusing that Jörn even asked her when that might happen. She told him to come back when we get back to Cyprus in February--at their new premises in the Old General Hospital. At least I do know where the Old General Hospital is, as I had to find that in order to find the Ministry of Health, and I imagine that we can count on Immigration not moving AGAIN before we can get there, so that's good...

I should have posted an update before, but there unfortunately wasn't ever any exciting news. My husband went to Nikosia (as he is the European, and as men tend to receive a bit more respect here, we thought it made more sense for him to go than for me to...) on the day they said that my registration should be ready, and they went through the entire rigmarole again: "We need such and such paper." "You have such and such paper. Right there." "Oh, okay. Then we need to make another copy." Etc. I don't remember all the details anymore, but very frustrating. The only interesting part was that the head of the department heard Jörn speaking German with the children (he had two or three with him) and was intrigued: it turned out that this man had lived in Bochum for 12 years, very close to where we used to live. So they spoke German with each other and the man promised to be on the case and gave Jörn his extension number and told him to call the following week. The following week Jörn called several dozen times, eventually reached him and was told that my registration was ready, but that he didn't know where it was at the moment, so please call back in an hour. Jörn called back in an hour, dialing many, many times. (He didn't count.) Then he started making lunch and handed the phone to me, and I tried over 30 times. No answer. We kept trying in the next few days, including (at the suggestion of several other people) trying from other phone numbers, in case they had blocked our number. No success. In the meantime, I had really hoped to go to Germany for the first week of December for a conference about families on the mission field. I was going to take Helen and my friend Sue, whom Helen is crazy about, to take care of Helen. I'd hoped to leave on a Friday (the conferenced started the following Tuesday), but on Thursday, still having no news, we found flights for Monday morning (well, middle of the night, to be exact...) instead, but still didn't book. On Monday Sue let me know that if by some miracle my registration came through that day, then she was willing to fly with me Tuesday morning, even. But, it didn't, and I'm sure the conference went well, but I wasn't there. In the meantime, another friend of ours told us that he has a friend in Nikosia who is a police officer with some kind of contact to Immigration. (One of the steps they took with my paperwork in Nikosia, incidentally, was to send it to the police department there to determine that our marriage is not a sham marriage. As my husband pointed out, there must be easier ways to sneak into Cyprus illegally than to marry a German, travel around the world with him for 14 years, and have five children, but, well, you never know what people will do...) Anyway, last week, this friend, Aris, got in touch with his friend, whose name I don't know, and she started calling immigration. Wednesday she didn't get through to anyone, Thursday she didn't, Friday she didn't. She called Aris, very apologetic, and said she'd keep trying. Yesterday Aris called: his friend had gotten through, and the result is that they have lost my file completely!! Nobody has any idea whatsoever where it could be. However, since it was now a police officer asking about it, they are now (as of this morning) willing to write a letter stating that I am in the process of applying for residency, and therefore, may leave and re-enter the country, even though I've long since outstayed my three-month tourist visa. When we asked for such a letter at Immigration in Larnaka, they said that that is impossible, that they never do that, and when we asked in Nikosia, they said the same. But a police officer asked, so now I can have the letter. Which is good, as we're flying to the U.S. in 13 days. However, they won't send it--one of us, preferably Jörn, has to drive to Nikosia to get it. Nor will they make an appointment, and they can't say when exactly the man who will produce the letter will be in the office, just that he will probably be gone next week. So Jörn was told that he needs to go to Nikosia, early, and have time with him, as he may have to wait an hour or two. So despite the fact that we have friends from Germany arriving early tomorrow morning, Jörn will be going to Nikosia tomorrow, and taking a couple of books, as well as Lukas, and hopefully, will get this letter. When and if I ever get my yellow slip is still up in the air. On the one hand, as long as I can leave and re-enter Cyprus without a problem, it doesn't really matter. However, once I'm registered, we can apply for various large-family perks, such as a reduction in our electricity bill and a percentage off of groceries at certain stores. Just the father (and the children) being registered is apparently not sufficient.

Today was much more frustrating than yesterday, although much shorter. We left at 9:45, got photocopies made of the paperwork from yesterday, and were at immigration by just past 10:00. Marie, Lukas, and Katie stayed outside on the rocks under the trees and Helen and I waited in the hallway, where an old man gave me a seat, then a younger woman gave the old man a seat, and everyone was very friendly and talking with Helen. After about half an hour, it was my turn. The lady at the reception desk said that Mrs. Maria is not there and won't be back until December 1st, please come back in December. I said that they must have the file, though--could somebody else help me, please? She sighed, called a colleague, and I got to go into an inner office.

At this point, Helen started fussing, refused to nurse, didn't want to play with anything, and eventually started screaming. She has a very loud, piercing scream. While she was screaming and I was trying to talk with the lady, Katie came in, took her shoes off, and started to roll around on the floor, and when I told her to put her shoes on and stand up, she had a temper tantrum. I sat her on a chair, not particularly gently, and kept trying to talk with the lady who didn't feel particularly responsible for me.

She first tried to tell me that I need to apply for a yellow slip. I explained that we had applied in JANUARY, that we had been there FOUR times already. She finally looked for--and found--our file, and said that I need medical insurance for my "babies". (The Greek word that actually means "baby" is used for children of all ages, and Greek-speakers, even those quite fluent in English, tend to use the word "baby" in English, rather than child. Lukas and Katie do NOT like it when they say that to them, but I digress.) I said, "Yes, I have the E106 here, and the Cypriot medical card." She wasn't the slightest bit interested in the E106, but took the medical card off to photocopy.

Then she came back and said accusingly, "I need to see the E106." I smiled and handed her the E106, which she took off to photocopy.

Then she came back again (Helen was still screaming, by the way, but Katie had gone back outside to Marie and Lukas) and said, "Now we can send your application to Nikosia." I said, "My application has already been SENT to Nikosia, and returned to you here. Mrs. Maria called me and said that I only need to provide proof of medical insurance for the children, then I can be given the yellow slip." She said no, since I'm American, my paperwork all has to be done in Nikosia, they can't do anything here in Larnaka. However, the lady who is doing Mrs. Maria's work at the moment will be in on Monday, so I can come again on Monday as of 7:30, if I want. But everything will HAVE to be sent to Nikosia, and they now have everything required, so there's really no reason for me to come back in on Monday. I asked how long it will take (as last time we were at this point, they said up to five months), and she said one week.

With Helen still screaming, I finally said okay, and left. I got all the children in the car, Helen finally nursed and calmed down, and then I left all the children in the car and went back in. (I ignored lines and simply walked into the inner office.) I asked if it would be possible for ME to go to Nikosia, and she said yes, of course, and gave me a slip of paper with the address. Not having much faith in addresses in the meantime (not to mention that there is no place to look up addresses in Cyprus...), I asked her if she could show me on the map  where the immigration office in Nikosia is. She said yes, of course, and she and another colleague spent a very long time looking and my map and pointing out streets that they knew and having some long discussion of which I basically only understood the prepositions and conjuctions (while useful bits of speech, they don't help much in following a conversation), and finally told me no, they couldn't. I asked if they could then give me my paperwork, please, so that I could take it to Nikosia, and they said no, they will send it, that they have to send it to the police there. This made NO sense to me, I explained again that Mrs. Maria had said that everything is done, they were just waiting for the children's medical insurance, but she wasn't particularly interested. I explained that I hope to go to Germany at the beginning of December (oh yeah--that's another story, except that there really isn't one yet, since without the yellow slip, I can't go) and that I'm running out of time, and she said again, "One week."

I went back and sat in the car for a long time, with my head on the steering wheel, ignoring the children's fussing, etc., then finally left, and was home again by 11:15. Jörn called around 12:00 and I told him the story, and he's going to go in Monday morning at 7:30. But at that point, my paperwork will probably all have been sent to Nikosia anyway.

I'm just remembering that I never finished the passport saga, so I suppose I should finish that first. We borrowed a friend's car so Jörn could take Lukas to gymnastics and I could go to Nikosia on a Thursday afternoon. I tried somewhere around a dozen times to telephone to confirm that that was really okay, but there was never any answer. Just before leaving town, though, I tried one more time and got an answer--the first lady told me yes, of course, no problem, but she'd just check if her colleague was in that day. Her colleague was in and said no, of course I couldn't renew my passport in the afternoon--only in the morning. So much for that afternoon, although I then did go get new passport photos--at a different place, one Euro less, and four photos instead of two, but with my typical "Yuck--I hate having my photo taken" face. Anyway, I went the following Monday morning leaving home at 6:30. I of course hit rush hour in Nikosia, so didn't get to the embassy until nearly 8:00, and it was about two hours until I was through, but there were no problems, and three days later I got an e-mail telling me my passport was ready to be picked up. The trip to pick it up was totally uneventful--I even left absolutely everything except my car keys and my old passport in the car, to make security easy. (But they had cubbies for purses and such--I'd had to leave the diaper bag there the first time, although when I then said out loud to Helen, "Okay, Helen, no pooping," they did let me take out one diaper and the wipes to take in with me...)

On to the immigraton saga...

First of all, Cyprus is part of the European Union. Jörn and the children are Europeans, and I'm not only married to a European, I have permanent German residency status. Therefore, it should be a very straightforward matter to register our family here in Cyprus. Within a week or two of arriving, Jörn went to the immigration office and got, in writing, a list of what we needed to have in order to register.

I don't remember now exactly what was on that list, although I do know that passport photos were required, and we had to go get photos of Helen taken, but had recent enough ones of everyone else. Jörn went along to the appointment a month or two later, with all the required paperwork, and by himself, as they had specifically said that the rest of us didn't need to come.

At this second meeting, they asked him why he had bothered with certain items, and why on earth he didn't have certain others. A new appointment was made for June, and would he please bring the whole family.

In June we all showed up for the appointment, and after waiting outside for a long time, they called Jörn in, but looked confused about why he had bothered to bring along his wife and five children, and asked us to wait outside. So we waited outside in the parking lot in the June heat of Cyprus while Jörn was inside the air-conditioned building. (There were trees, at least, but no seats.) They changed their mind about certain requirements and asked us to return in July.

In July we all went again, and this time, although most of the meeting was with Jörn alone while we again waited in the parking lot (but this time I had brought water and snacks, at least), they did call us in at the end to check each face against the passports. Jörn and the children were all granted "yellow slips" (not quite residence permits, but the idea is basically the same--legal permission to be here), but the evil American was told that her paperwork had to be sent to Nikosia. They said that it could take up to five months, which would be the end of December, and that if it did indeed take that long, they could no longer give me a yellow slip, as my passport was due to expire June 11th, 2010, and had to be valid for at least six months past date of issue of the yellow slip--in other words, if they took until after December 11th to approve me, then I would no longer be approved. That was one reason I had to get a new passport. (I needed a new one anyway because it was questionable as to whether, when we return to Cyprus next February, they would let me in with a passport only valid for another four months. Some people said three months is fine, but we've heard so much conflicting information for so many countries that it's better not to risk it.)

Then at some point, the immigration office here in Larnaka called and said that they had everything back from Nikosia, and that Larnaka was in trouble with Nikosia for having granted the children yellow slips, as they had "no proof of health insurance." Of course, now it was too late, as they HAD given the children yellow slips, however, ever since then, they've been holding MY yellow slip hostage until we provide sufficient proof of health insurance for the children. (The fact that we have USED this health insurance for four of the children, multiple times and twice at the emergency room, in the 10 months we have been here, is irrelevant.)

I have completely lost track of how many phone calls Jörn has made to Germany and to various offices in Larnaka, and he's visited four or five different offices here, as well, as he's been told at each one that a different one is responsible. We eventually obtained the required E106 form from our health insurance in Germany, which states that Jörn Lange, his wife Sheila Lange, and "all members of his household" are covered by complete health insurance. This form is of course in German, but it's a fill-in-the-blank form, with numbered blanks, and the idea is that these "E" forms ("E" for European--for members of the European Union) are universal. Here in Cyprus, they need only look at a blank form in Greek and see that if box so-and-so is checked on the German form, that means such-and-such. Germany cannot provide us with a form in Greek (or English or any other language)--only in German. That's the whole point of the E-forms. However, despite requiring it of us, nobody in Cyprus has the E106.

Soooo...the latest information we were given (after Jörn called, at my suggestion, the German consulate here in Cyprus) was that we should go to the Ministry of Health in Nikosia and get them to WRITE the children's name on our E106, put a nice official stamp on it, and everything will be fine.

Jörn took Jacob with him today to the worship seminar YWAM is running this week, and at a little past 9:00 I headed to Nikosia with the other four children. Just before 10:00, despite one missed turn, we arrived easily at the address given to us by the German embassy and marked clearly on the brand-new map we have of Nikosia as "The Ministry of Health." I'd enjoyed the slight detour, too, as we saw part of the amazing wall in the center of Nikosia, and I was thinking about how, if the meeting went quickly, we could go to the park at the wall, and maybe I'd phone up my friend Jane and ask if we could come hang out for awhile (she lives very close to there), or maybe I should just head back to Larnaka and get to immigration before they close at 11:30, or maybe we'd go to Ikea and I'd get another spice rack for my miniature books, or maybe we'd look for a decent-sized bookstore, or...well, there were many possibilities!

Pulling up to the building, though, I thought it looked rather deserted, except for the Pizza Hut take-away and the pharmacy on the ground floor, and I thought it was odd that there was no sign of any kind around what appeared to be the main entrance. And parking was very easy--plenty of space in the parking lot behind the building. Well, the very nice lady in the pharmacy told me that the Ministry of Health had moved two years ago, and that it was "verry, verry farr away." She thought it was behind the old general hospital, but she couldn't tell me how to get there, either, and it wasn't even on my map, although she could show me the general vicinity, but again emphasized that it was very far away. I pointed out that I had come from Larnaka and it wasn't as far as that, and I had to go there one way or another, and loaded the children back in the car.

The "other side of town" is starting to look quite familiar--that's where the German and U.S. embassies are--so I figured I'd head over there and probably see a sign for the "Old General Hospital", or at least be able to ask at a gas station or someplace. I didn't see any signs, and Helen was starting to get very upset about being in the car for so long. Traffic was much heavier, I was being distracted by Helen, and I got rather mixed up. I never did find where I was on the map, but by the sun eventually managed to get to the west side of the city and passed by the Presidential palace twice before I finally found a place to park and nurse Helen. I then went into an office supply store, where several of the staff as well as several of the customers were very friendly and helpful, and then finally one staff person who spoke excellent English even drew me a map--to the Old General Hospital, anyway, as she had no idea where the Ministry of Health might be.

I found the Old Hospital without any trouble, but missed the entrance the first time around, so got to drive around it twice, then into the parking lot, no place to park, back out and around the whole block again, and once more into the parking lot where I parked...um...well, probably not entirely legally, but safely, anyway, which is much more than can be said for most of the people parking in Cyprus. This time I left the children in the car and went to ask where the Ministry of Health is.

The lady at the front desk answered, "This is not the Ministry of Health. This is the Old General Hospital." I said "I know, but I was told that the Ministry of Health is very close." She told me to go out the back doors and then I would see the black building. Then I confused her by turning around and walking out the front door, but when I came back in a minute later with four children (and my purse and the bag full of paperwork...) she nodded.

We walked down the very long corridor in the obviously VERY old hospital, went out the creaky back doors, and found ourselves on the sidewalk, with no black building in sight. We walked for awhile, and then saw a modern building on the other side of the street that maybe could be considered black (it was all dark, reflective windows), but there was no sign in English on it. I carefully studied the Greek, but except for "Nikosia" (Lefkosia, actually, in Greek), several prepositions, and the address ("between the rivers", although more accurate would be "between the mostly dry sometimes trickles of water"), I didn't understand any of it. I should have at least found out what "Ministry of Health" is in Greek, but I hadn't.

Anyway, we did walk on a bit, but not seeing anything else that looked promising, we went back and went inside. There were several posters of health-related activities (brusthing teeth, washing hands, etc.) hanging up, so it looked promising. By the time it was my turn at the front desk, it was nearly 12:00. The lady there told me to see "Mrs. Marta, inside", and vaguely waved her hand behind her. There was a short hallway and three or four doors, all of them open, but none of them had the name "Marta" on them. I put my head inside one where there seemed to be a lot of activity and asked (in Greek, this time) where Mrs. Marta was, and the lady there waved vaguely and said (in Greek, at least!), "Inside." I went in the direction I thought maybe she had pointed, but that lady wasn't Mrs. Marta either--it turned out that she was at the back of the first office into which I had looked--inside.

Mrs. Marta didn't speak the most fluent English, but it was certainly hundreds of times better than my Greek, and I tried to explain the situation. All I wanted her to do was to write the children's names on the E106 and put a stamp on it. She told me she needed our alien registration numbers, and I explained that that was the problem: I do not have one yet, and I'm trying to get one, and that's why I need this form filled out! She kept explaining that I couldn't have a medical card until I had an alien registration, and to please go to immigration and get registered, then she could give me a medical card. I told her that I don't want a medical card, and that I can't register until I have this form. I even told her in Greek that my husband and children are German, but I am from the United States, and that's why I have a problem.

Mrs. Marta finally called Mrs. Emily upstairs (in Cyprus, people are generally all called "Mrs." or "Mr." and their first name), and then handed the phone to me so I could explain this to Mrs. Emily. Mrs. Emily spoke excellent English, but could not understand why I needed this. I sympathized--in fact, I've been told by other people that there is no law requiring anyone to even have health insurance, so nobody understands why the immigration office is requiring this of us. However, the immigration office is refusing to register me without this, so it's not like I have a lot of choice. I talked with Mrs. Marta again, and she called Mrs. Emily again, and then Mrs. Emily came downstairs to see my paperwork and talk with me personally.

By this time the children were getting rather ansty, and although I did quiet them, I apologized to Mrs. Marta and explained that they'd been in the car for nearly three hours and it was hard sitting for so long. (Actually, the car was only about 2 1/2 hours, but we'd also waited for awhile.) She raised her eyebrows and said, "From Larnaka?" and I explained that we'd first gone to where the Ministry of Health used to be, but a lady at the pharmacy there had told me that it had moved two years ago, and I had had a lot of trouble finding the new place. She said, "No, not two years ago--very recently!" I asked when, and she just said again, "Very recently, not two years!"

Mrs. Emily appeared to mostly understand, and said that they'd be happy to put the children on the form and issue a medical card for my husband and children, but that they couldn't issue one for me, because I didn't have an alien registration number. Nobody cared at all that we have European health cards which we can already use at any hospital and that I don't WANT a Cypriot medical card, but I finally said that was fine. She took the paperwork with her and asked me to wait.

In the meantime, Helen had a diaper that HAD to be dealt with, and immediately. We were given permission to use the "employees only" toilet, and off we went.

When we got back, Mrs. Marta happily handed me a medical card for Jörn and the children and the E106 with the children's names on it, but no stamp, and when I looked it over, I saw that MY name had been crossed off!!! I asked her why my name had been crossed off, and she said because I don't have an alien registration number, and therefore, cannot be issued a Cypriot medical card!!

I did not cry. I am very proud of myself. I explained again, very, very slowly, "This form was issued by my German health insurance to show that I have health insurance from Germany. I do not NEED a Cypriot medical card, I need to get the yellow slip! If they don't believe that I have health insurance, they will not register me. This form was from Germany. This form was proof that I have health insurance. I do have health insurance. You should not have crossed out my name."

Mrs. Marta called Mrs. Emily again, I talked with her for awhile. They apologized. In the meantime, my name is crossed out, in ink, which makes it look as though I do not have health insurance. I wrote down Mrs. Emily's name and phone number, and she said that the immigration office should telephone her if they have a problem. I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning if that works.

We finally got back to the car and left the parking lot at 1:10, four hours after leaving home. No park, no visiting Jane, no Ikea, and likely no lunch, either, if Lukas was to get to gymnastics by 2:30, especially as it was now the middle of the lunch rush hour. (Most Cypriots go home for lunch and many stores close for a couple of hours in the middle of the day.) At 1:40 I pulled up to a Zorpas bakery and bought too-soft bread (didn't get our favorite bread, because that would have needed slicing which would have taken longer) and expensive cheese, which Marie made into sandwiches and handed out as I kept driving. We made it to gymnastics with 10 minutes to spare, I let Lukas out, and we came home and I started typing this. At 3:30 I picked up Lukas again, and now it's 4:45 and Lukas and Katie are playing outside and Marie is doing math.

Tomorrow I'm going to the immigration office here in Larnaka, but at least I know where that is, unless they've moved since July...

A couple of weeks ago a friend told me that she'd read a post at my other blog that she thought I'd accidentally put there instead of here, but I didn't get around to checking it until just now. She was right, so I've copied and posted it here. I'm not sure if it will go in the right order or not, as I'm certainly not going to try anything fancy, just claim the original date and time, which was October 22nd at 10:55 p.m. Incidentally, I've since figured out just why I was SO tired, although I really should have been completely recovered from the flu by that time. Much to our happy surprise, we're expecting a baby next June! :-) (And the first trip to the doctor--two and a half hours, about three minutes of which were with the doctor--ought to be another post, but not today.)

Oct. 22, 2009 This week so far We have three computers (well, one isn't ours, but is more-or-less on permanent loan), all of which have different quirks. The main problem with this one is that it has a tendency to be near-dying--WHEN it's working, it's definitely the best of the three. It's the only one that lets me type easily, so I'm taking advantage of it working to try to update. Passport: after the futile trip to Nikosia on Columbus Day, I chose the next sort-of available time, Thursday afternoon. We borrowed a friend's car so that Jörn could take Lukas to gymnastics, and at 2:00 I left in our car, with Katie and Helen, first taking a friend home. I'd tried quite a few times to call the embassy to confirm the hours, but the recording between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. kept telling me to call between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. However, just after dropping off my friend, I pulled over and tried one more time, as I still needed new photos, and if they couldn't tell me where to get them near the embassy, I preferred to try to get them in Larnaka. I actually talked to a HUMAN!! A very nice human, too, who said that of course I could come that afternoon to renew my passport, no problem--oh, but maybe she should just check if the lady who does that was in. She connected me to someone else, who informed me that under no circumstances could I renew my passport outside of the hours 7:30 to 11:00 (which is, actually, what the website said.) So...I looked for another place to get passport photos taken (being embarrassed to go to the same place as the week before...) and found a parking space directly in front of a place that gave me FOUR photos (instead of two) for SEVEN Euros (instead of eight.) As expected, I look annoyed and wanting to get out of there in the photo. Oh well. Monday this week I left at 6:30 a.m., with only Helen, and arrived at the embassy at 7:45, and parked only about a five-minutes' walk away. (A friend came to babysit the other four children as of 8:30, and another friend picked up Jörn at 8:40 for work.) I had to go through three separate security checks, and at the second one they told me I couldn't take anything except my papers, so I said (out loud) to Helen, "Okay Helen, no being hungry or pooping." They ended up letting me take the wipes and a diaper after all, which they put in a page protector along with my wallet, but not the crackers. It's a good thing Helen is very happy with mama-milk, because that's all I was allowed to take in. The rest was put in a cubby, no problem. (A friend of mine renewed her daughter's passport in Frankfurt, Germany, a couple of weeks ago, and had to walk several blocks to a kiosk that does businesss taking a lot of money to hold cell phones of people going to the U.S. consulate--no cubbies there!) When I got home, I was falling asleep while talking with the friend who had been babysitting, and she talked me into taking a nap. I DO NOT NAP. But I agreed to go lie down. I started to drift off almost immediately, at which point Marie came to tell me she had found something, then Jacob came to ask a question, and then Katie brought me my cell phone, as Jörn was calling. And then I actually went to sleep and slept an hour and a half. The afternoon was fairly calm, although the children were rather horrid about going to bed (Jörn has a regular meeting Monday evenings), and then when Jörn got home at 9:00 he brought along a couple of friends who needed to talk, who stayed until about 11:30. Tuesday I went to Tots in the morning, which despite having something like 20 children, is considerably more restful than my own five at home. Katie and Helen mostly bee-bop around doing their own thing--I occasionally have to rescue some child's hair from Helen, and I did play peekaboo with Helen in the playhouse for awhile, and she fell off of her chair during snack time, but nothing dramatic. Then we took Sue home and visited with her for a bit, but it got exhausting chasing Helen and telling Katie to keep her feet off of the furniture, etc., so we were home in plenty of time for lunch. In the afternoon I let Marie stay home (Jörn was out) while I took Lukas to gymnastics, but I spent so much of the time trying to keep Helen and Katie off of the mats (Jacob helped by chasing Helen a few times while I was dealing with Katie) that I didn't get to watch Lukas much or listen to the Greek. Tuesday evening we had a prayer meeting here, but only until about 10:00. (Oh, and I translated and proofread some things for a friend, but it wasn't much.) Wednesday I worked at the YWAM preschool--oh yeah, kind of a major thing that I haven't managed to mention here on the HOMESCHOOLBLOGGER blog, but as of last week, I'm working Wednesdays and Fridays in a preschool. (Those are the only two days that it happens...) I take Katie and Helen, and there are two other preschool children, as well as the 6-year-old daughter of the leader. I was VERY apprehensive about it all, but it's working out well, and it's so peaceful there. The three older children are at home with Jörn--Wednesdays his regular meeting happens here at home (the children have lists of independent and cooperative, non-parent-needed, work to do, and instructions to interrupt only if there's blood, which there was this Wednesday, but not too serious), and Friday is Jörn's morning off. Wednesday afternoon we went to Sue's house to watch Swallows and Amazons--the children had actually started watching it Sunday evening on the "new laptop" (the one that we bought new just over a year ago, which has Vista, which we really, really can't stand), but about 15 minutes into it it started getting funny and then quit altogether, and our permanently-borrowed computer doesn't have a DVD player, and the "old laptop" (the one I'm using at the moment, bought used on E-bay 3 1/2 years ago and excellent in every way except for it's tendency to need repairs that would cost thousands of Euros if we didn't have friends who have done it for us for free twice in the last month...) wasn't working. Actually, by Wednesday it had been repaired again, but we'd already arranged to go to Sue's, and the children were REALLY excited about that. A much bigger screen and actual sound weren't too bad, either. :-) Shortly before we were going to leave there, we found out that the couple who was supposed to come to dinner at our house wasn't coming after all, so we invited Sue and Richard to dinner. After dinner we played Settlers of Catan with them AND with Marie and Jacob (who have been begging to play with Sue and Richard for ages), with Lukas, Katie, and Helen all trying to help. It was fun. I think. It was pretty loud, so kind of hard to tell. Then the children went to bed and we played a nice peaceful game. Today...Jacob complained that he got woken up by my shouting (at Lukas, who had just dropped a rock about the size of Katie's head within about two centimeters OF Katie's head...), but I refused to apologize when I looked at the clock and saw that it was 10:00. Other than that, the day wasn't too hectic. I took Lukas to gymnastics--this time Jacob stayed home, and Marie and Katie watched, and I stayed in the car with Helen, who had just fallen asleep, and sorted photos on the laptop. Then a friend dropped off two of her children while taking another one of them to the doctor (and she had her baby with her, too), so another couple of peaceful hours, because of course the children all went off to play. After the doctor's appointment, they came back here for dinner, which was very nice, although a bit loud. But not as loud with nine children as it had been last night with only our five...I don't get it. Tomorrow: preschool, Jacob and Lukas to Discoveries in the afternoon, Marie to Youth Group in the evening, YWAM dinner, and bed. And I just realized that it's nearly 11:00 p.m. I'm looking forward to the time-change this weekend, as I'm not really enjoying the 7:00 a.m. getting-up on Wednesdays and Fridays...