Davina's birthday in Fegersheim

Since we waited to celebrate Davina's birthday with family, I still wanted to do something for the actual day. Kelly to the rescue! She set up balloons and even gave her a little gift. 

These are Kelly's kids. Left to right; Eric (7), Ronnie, Davina, Talia, Krista (10) and Kaitlyn (3). Evan, 13 months, was taking his nap.

Us.

Blowing out the candle.

Present opening! 

Kelly is seriously into photography and took this of us.

She wanted to use Talia as a model, because of her eyes.

Waldersbach

We liked having a "staycation" because we were able to do some of the things we never have time for during the week. We went to Plumy Park, ice skating, swimming, had Emilie and her family over, went to Fegersheim and then took Thursday to go up to see Cheryl and her family in Waldersbach.

Eric, the oldest, was in class with Talia. Actually, I met Cheryl when we were both pregnant, me with Davina and she with Sarah and actually talked her into sending her son to St. Jean. Good move as he turned out to be an excellent student.

Last year, their dad was posted to be the Lutheran minister of Waldersbach, in the Vosges mountains. He's in charge of several communities up there. It's actually a historic position, previously held by Jean Frederic Oberlin in 1860.

http://www.answers.com/topic/jean-frederic-oberlin

It's a whole different lifestyle from downtown Strasbourg where they lived for seven years. The children attend a school in the next village with about 40 students in all grades up to high school.

It wasn't nearly as remote as I thought it would be. Basically I got there in about 45 minutes and it was a straight shot off the highway. I did get stuck in the snow once I arrived in Waldersbach but that was only because another car wanted to pass on the small one-lane road where they live. That made me go on a packed snow bank that my little Yaris can't handle. I called James who came down but the best solution was to simply roll back down the hill, let the guy pass and then head back up on the paved part of the road, no need to drive on the snow.

They, of course, had way more snow than we did. They took advantage of the hill behind the house.

On the right is their new cat. They got her from the SPA in Strasbourg after Aleph died only a month after moving up there. It was sad since they now live in a great place for animals.

Cheryl took me for a walk around the house. Of course the sun came out as the kids were ready to go back in but in the sun, Waldersbach showed off it's true charms. I was ready to move up there!

It's definitely a trade-off living in a location like this. There are some very distinct advantages and disadvantages. "Remote" in France is not at all the same definition as it would have in the U.S. Remember this beautiful place is under an hour from a major city.

We can't wait to visit them in the Spring! (Hopefully the sheep we can hear and see from their house will have some little sprogs soon!)

Emilie's visit

One of Talia's gymnastics friends came over to play and have a snack one of our vacation days. They're originally from China but the kids were born in Belgium. Emilie is very cute and very, very flexible. She and Talia are only two months apart (Emilie's birthday is 02.02.02) and they're the two youngest in their group, by quite a bit (the next oldest Clara just turned 9). 

They made a friend for Snowflake and put Talia's scarves on them. 

Emilie's brother came too. He's very cute but a little camera shy. They both play piano so they tried ours' out. Of course there were the gymnastic games. 

Emilie's mom is behind her. I think actually Emilie does this as well or better than Talia but the photo doesn't show this.

You can kind of see Arnoud in the back in this photo but really, Emilie is scarily flexible. We had them all do the "bridge" for this photo. Davina is hanging in there! 

Introducing "Snowflake"

Here is the snowman the kids made. Her name is Snowflake. Davina named her and decided that it was a girl. I guess that makes her a snowwoman? 

Random photos of our Alsatian Winter

I just uploaded some photos and thought I'd share...

This is Davina dressed up for her school's Carnival celebration. They did it early because of vacation. 

Here are some photos another parent took and shared;

Davina's down in the corner in this one;

I just realized that I'm out of order here but I took the kids to a Tu B'shevat sedar. They decorated the pots, which you can't really see too well in these photos.

The kids did an ice skating course last week. The older two did and Davina want to activities in Cronenbourg three days. The last day I took her skating to join Ronnie and Talia. Not the best idea as it was really crowded. 

I had to take these photos because I don't have enough of Talia doing the splits and all of them skating!

For Valentine's Day, we had lunch at the Hilton. They had a separate room for the kids and they built this "house" they wanted a picture with. 

Plumy park is now bigger and has cars. I let the kids try it out. I think the 1.50 Euro fee is is a bit steep for such a small track but my objection was just that they had such a long wait. We waited until the place cleared out a bit and let them have one go to try it out.

What's up with the Neocounter?

I'm a big doubter of this Neocounter. I mean, this blog is not on the directory and I don't really share it but they say I have readers in Bahrain. I know I have one in Samoa ;) since I read hers' too but the rest... Should I scrap it? Anyone have any insight on it?

It's free and my friend had one so I thought "why not?" but now I'm just kind of wary of it. I find it doubtful that this blog has gotten almost 6500 hits.

The hole in our kitchen

Here's the lovely corner of our kitchen!

It's been repaired four times. Yes, four. We keep it open to 1. dry it out, 2. make sure it's not dripping.

This is directly below our main shower. We had all sorts of people look at it. One guy came with dye so they could confirm that it was in fact, coming from the shower and to make sure it wasn't a pipe. I was convinced that it was from a pipe but no, the conclusion was that the water is leaking out of the "joints", the rubber stuff between the tiles and base of the shower (help! I'm forgetting English!!)

While we were in California, Daniel had the whole base of the shower replaced. The cleaning lady said it was a mess. The original one was plastic and the repairman said that it moved to much, breaking the seal of the rubber along the edges. So we now have a ceramic one but yet again, it leaked. He said that the cleaning products used on the tile broke the seal. Whatever...

That whole wall is damaged and this is why we're replacing the kitchen. That was a foreseen project but this whole leak story has moved the project up a bit. Now we're arguing about how to arrange it, what kind of cabinets, etc. to get. We're only decided on the sink and floor! It's going to be a long battle (especially when he pointed out how "great" a burnt orange kitchen was, a la 1960's...)