Stuff that rocks about Germany

• Rolladens. These things are brilliant, they are like blinds, except metal and they roll down on the outside of your windows and block everything out. I don't know why these aren't everywhere because they are fantastic. 
• 'Big Pretzels' are my child's new favorite snack and for 29 cents to a buck (depending on what bakery you go to) I'm okay that she loves them so much. I love them too- the best ones are crunchy on the outside but soft and fluffy in the fat part. 
• Kinder Eggs. Also one of the munchkins new favorite things. It is a chocolate egg and inside is a yellow plastic egg that has a toy. What's not to love? (Except that they are illegal in America because apparently Americans are too dumb to not eat the big plastic egg inside...)
• It is beautiful here. Sometimes in the day to day stuff I forget just how awesome it is that we get to live in this beautiful country- and then we go on a drive and I pinch myself.  

Normality has been achieved!

We are in our new home. Our stuff is here. Guy goes to work. I play with the toddler. We eat dinner and watch Netflix.



And sometimes on weekends we go see cool places like:

Stuff Evey Can Do----Jan 2013

Miss E is a pretty smart cookie and I was just realizing that she's got a couple new things she can do and interests that have caught her attention even in the couple weeks since we've been in Germany. So I thought every once in a while (I'm not organized enough to say how often) I could do a summary on all the cool stuff going on with her. Some of these she's been able to do for a couple months (like her colors) and come are newer (like shapes)

Colors
-She can identify all the standard rainbow colors plus pink and brown. If we have a bunch of colorful things and ask her to pick or point to a certain colored one she can. She can also verbally identify most all of the colors. Orange is still hard for her to say. If I ask her what color something is she can tell me.

Letters
-She can point to and identify about 3/4 of the alphabet (i.e. I'll ask 'Where's the S' and she points). She can tell me what a lot of letters are and their sounds: A, B, D, T, S, W, M, and a bunch more I can't think of.

Numbers
- She can point to and identify numbers 1-9. She likes to count things when I ask how many, but she only counts to 2. If there are more than two of something she just keeps repeating "One two one two one!"  and sometimes will throw in a number 9, "One, two....NINE!"

I tried to get a video of her counting, but her attention was completely on Brave, our cartoon of choice that morning.

Shapes
-She can identify the following: circle, square, rectangle, star, triangle, diamond. She tries to say them but the only one she is really good at is "STAR"

Dress Up
-This girl is also in a huge tutu phase! Everyday she asks to wear a tutu, which results in some awesome fashion statements of wearing tutus over jeans and jammies. Her favorite thing to do in  her tutu is to 'twirl'. This kid has some awesome dance moves.

Favorite Toys
-She loves her baby doll she got from Santa. Her babies will cry (she'll be doing something else and will make a 'wah, wah, waaaaah' sound) which usually means her baby needs a snack or to be rocked. She also loves to color and play with her Little People.

Favorite Shows
- Brave is a new one she likes (and we've watched a couple days in a row) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is always good (thanks to her Auntie for giving her a Mickey DVD for Christmas). Elmo is now a big deal and Blue's Clues was a hit as well.

She also has a new found love of escalators. There is one at the KMCC (the ginormous BX here) and she and her Daddy rode it 11 times roundtrip before she was done. She got so good that she could even step on and off herself.

House Hunting: Ramstein Style

House hunting around the base here is like a competitive sport. We could have gotten housing on base, which would have been a two bedroom stairwell unit on a base that is actually like 15 minutes away from Ramstein where Guy will be working. By going off base we were able to find something we liked a lot better, with more space and with a shorter commute for the hubs. 

So we started looking, driving around for a couple days was a great way to get more familiar with the area. We looked in bigger towns and small ones, houses and apartments. While we were looking for our new home so were bunches of other Americans. Twice in a row we showed up for an appointment to view a property only to be told that it had just been rented to the people before us. Luckily for us we got here in the off season for PCSing, I've heard that in the summer time it is even crazier to try and find a place. 

Our new home is in Obermohr, which is just west of the base. It took us 8 minutes to get to the gate. It is newly remodeled 3 bedroom 1.5 bathroom. The landlords are a super sweet older German couple that live next door  They have 6 grand kids so were pretty excited to have Evelyn as their neighbor. We will move in on the 22nd, which was the earliest date the office on base could deliver our temporary furniture. 

Here are a bunch of pics of our sweet new home.

The kitchen

Evelyn's Bedroom

Her wardrobe was her favorite part- hiding spot!

1st Bathroom

Entry Area

to the left is the spare bedroom, in front is our bedroom and to the right is the rest of everything

Our Bedroom

The 3rd Bedroom

I realized I'm lacking pictures of the family room and 2nd bathroom. We have a video that gives a better feel of the whole place, but blogger wouldn't upload it so I'll just stick in on facebook. But we love this place and can picture our family living here. I'll leave you with this, which is the view of our town from the balcony off of the family room: (click it to see it nice and big)