Happy New Year (from the Slacker)!

We had a wonderful Christmas in Berlin with our South African friends! Although I really wanted a white Christmas, that did not happen. We arrived in Berlin on the 22nd with some snow on the ground. Unfortunately, the next day it rained and washed away almost all of the snow. It is, however, possible to have a merry Christmas without snow. We had a very enjoyable time decorating the house with the Clarks and enjoying company for a Christmas lunch/dinner.

Happily, about a week after we arrived, it decided to snow! It snowed most of the day. So, at about midnight, we all decided to take some sled saucers to a park in Priesterweg and go sledding! It was a blast! At one point we had a train of 6 people going down the long hill. It was possibly the most fun sledding I've ever had. And, to top it all off, it snowed several days after that. When we left Berlin two weeks after our arrival, it was still snowing. :)

It even snowed on New Year's Eve. We had purchased some fireworks at the store. Fortunately, the Clarks have a huge triangle at the end of their street with plenty of space for lighting fireworks. We lit fireworks you'd never be able to light in the States (unless you live in Wyoming). We had Roman candles, rockets, and huge batteries. Now, if it had only been a bit warmer...

People across the street were lighting fireworks on their balcony. Maybe it's my Utah upbringing that has sheltered me from risky fireworks, or the fact that someone in our ward growing up had their house lit on fire by a bottle rocket, (or maybe I'm just getting old), but I honestly thought these people were crazy! Sparklers are one thing, but they were also lighting ground fireworks on their balcony. I guess, to be fair, there was no chance of lighting a spinning ground firework in the snow, but who lights fireworks on their balcony?!?!

At any rate, we brought in the new year very happily. So, Happy New Year to everyone!

Our Christmas Card

We were unable to send out Christmas cards this year due to lack of funds. So, instead, we decided to make our own Christmas card that we could e-mail to everyone. I'm not terribly fond of e-mailing cards, but this type of card is a little different. We decided that we would make a recording for you, which meant that it couldn't very easily be mailed (unless we burned it onto a DVD). Unfortunately, the recording proved to be too big to send through an e-mail, so we are posting it here. Hopefully you will enjoy it just the same.

The picture is just a Christmas card that my dad and his wife sent to us. We thought it appropriate for this song. The song is called "Guard Him, Joseph" and was written by Sally DeFord. I was introduced to it in our ward choir this year and fell in love. Please listen to the words. This song is not just a pretty combination of chords/notes, it also paints beautiful pictures.

Disclaimer: We have no high-tech recording equipment, so the quality is not wonderful. In fact, we just used our digital camera. So, please be forgiving. :) And have a very Merry Christmas!

The Art of Gingerbread House Making

Yesterday, we went to Emily & Will Haurand's house to make gingerbread houses. I can't remember the last time I made one. It's been a while. So, I thought I would document the occasion. I tried to take pictures of the process. Disclaimer: I couldn't possibly get every stage of the process as I needed both hands to help Stewart put the whole thing together.

Stewart with Geneil & Josh Johnson...those are the sheets of gingerbread that Emily made. And, yes, they were nice enough to get us some delicious Egg Nog from the PX. Mmmm!

Don't those trays of gingerbread look yummy? Well, they were! We tasted some before we started making the houses. :) Oh, and those are just some of the yummy candies we had to decorate them.

Look at that! We went from a tray of gingerbread (pre-cut by Emily) to four walls! Whoo hoo!

We went a little overboard on the frosting, but it seemed necessary at the time in order to keep the walls up.

The Haurands made a gingerbread manger scene, because she forgot to cut a fourth wall for one of the houses. I thought it was a cute idea. They were just hoping they weren't going to be struck by lightning.

And the Johnsons' house was coming along well too.

Look! We have a roof now!

Josh let Geneil do the hard part while he held the baby.

And the manger scene was coming along, too.

Ta da! Here it is...complete with grass and a potted tree?
The little red peanut M&M in the doorway fell off the wall above the door and straight into the frosting below. We decided he would be the little kid peeking out the door for Santa. The two chocolate slabs on the side of the roof are the solar panels. It's a cost-efficient house.

This side of the house shows you Santa (the green Tiki guy in the back) and the 9 reindeer. Rudolf is, of course, the red one. Blitzen is the white one that's falling off the roof. He landed into the snow pile on the roof head-first. Some of the reindeer had a bit too much egg nog, hence the lack of straight lines.

And here we are with our finished product.

Will & Emily with their finished product.

I think the manger scene was pretty creative. It even has a thatched roof. The wise men have fallen over, but you can just think of them as being prostrate. ;) And they look like they came from the East, with their Hershey Kisses hats. :) The purple one is Balthasar.

Josh & Geneil with their finished product. Josh did most of the decorations.

It's some big battle scene. I'm not sure if there's a story behind it or not. I guess he made a tank one year.

When we brought it home last night, we decided to leave it on the table in the dining room for everyone to appreciate. This is what we found this morning.

I posted a "Please don't eat" sign so that everyone could see it before we destroyed it. This morning, someone changed "essen" to "FRessen," which is the term used when animals are the ones doing the eating.

It's also apparently for sale...as a foreclosure.

This one says "Caution! Cookie Monster sighted!!"

This one was more political. It says "Nazis get out...the end of capitalism...Santa Claus is a $!@ capitalist!...No more Berger!" (Please excuse the profanity, I didn't write it). Apparently this sign is similar to the kind of graffiti you would find at a university.

At any rate, everyone seemed to get a kick out of the gingerbread house. Haha! So, maybe tomorrow we'll demolish it.

Routine Pleasures

At the Institute of European History, we have a pretty posh set-up. That is, of course, if you don't take into account that we live in one tiny room and share a kitchen and a bathroom. Fortunately, we're not laden with belongings. And, believe it or not, I've never trekked down to the shower with all of my toiletries/shower items and found someone already in the shower. Naturally, it helps that there are only four girls on this floor, and sometimes only two.

As for the "posh set-up" I spoke about, we have two washers and two dryers in the basement...and they're free! We also have free wireless internet. That's certainly helpful when you have little to do. However, even more exciting is that we don't really have to do any cleaning. Every morning (except Saturday and Sunday), a maid comes to clean the bathrooms and kitchen. Then, once every two weeks, she comes to clean our rooms. The concierge comes every Monday to take our soiled hand towels and give us clean ones. And finally, the first and the middle of the month marks the time for clean bedding, at which point we put our soiled bedding downstairs for washing. So, I'll say it again: We have a pretty posh set-up.

There is, unfortunately, one thing that rains on my parade: my least favorite chore. Everyone has to wash and dry their own dishes. Ugh! I'd clean the toilets over washing dishes. And, of course, we do our own laundry. But, all in all, I really can't complain.

This is the House That the French Built

Now that we've been in Mainz for two months, pictures of our home are probably long past due. So, here they are, and I hope you enjoy. And for those who might have read the previous post, I am unable to clump my pictures together because I don't have Photoshop. So, the endless stream of photos will have to do.

This is the top portion of our building.

This is our building.

Our building again, but this time with the St. Quintin Church.

And our building again.

#19

Stewart on the side of (and kind of behind) our building.

Our building from the back.

That's our window in the middle.

The garden (or backyard) of our building.

And again...

The sign on the front of our building.

The doorbell for the Institute.

The doorbell for our floor.

The lobby of our building.

I know it's blurry, but these are our mailboxes.

And the lobby again...from the other side.

The laundry room in the basement...2 washing machines and 2 dryers.

The ping pong room in the basement...REALLY in the basement. Actually, maybe we should just call this the dungeon. Stewart and I love playing ping pong, and oddly, we're the only ones that ever seem to go in there.

Those ladder rungs on the wall go up to a tiny "window" that's impossible to escape from because it's completely covered over with a metal grate.

2nd floor lobby

2nd floor sign showing you which way to go...we live to the right (in the Wohnheim)

The door to the 2nd floor Wohnheim...yah, that's me in the reflection. ;)

2nd floor hallway...pretty boring, eh? And it's usually dark in that hallway, no matter what time of day it is.

Sinks in the 2nd floor girls' bathroom...I'm sure the boys' bathroom is the same

2nd floor girls' shower

There's a sink in the shower room...

...and that's the heater and water heater for the shower room.

And just what you always wanted to see...one of the toilet stalls.

2nd floor kitchen sign...blurry again, sorry.

2nd floor dining room

2nd floor dining room and kitchen

2nd floor kitchen

This is the sign on the fridge so that we know who has which shelf.

This is our shelf in the fridge...and that's why we shop about every 2 days.

Our freezer drawer (that we share with two other rooms).

Our cupboard shelf

The door to our room

Our room sign

The inside of our room

Our sink

Our bookshelf

Our desks...yah, that picture on my screensaver is me at the Fountain of Trevi. :)

One of our beds

Our closets

The inside of our closets

And the other closet

I'll post some pictures of Mainz next week. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed the tour of our building. Until next time...