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)

International Travel with my Toddler

Evey and I did the trip over here just us girls, since her daddy had to be here earlier than us for his job stuff. I was *slightly* terrified of doing an international flight with my toddler and totally terrified of having to do it by myself. But terrified or not, it was going to happen!
The traveling itself wasn't so bad. Guy's mom took us to the airport and got a pass to help me to the gate. The help through security was wonderful.

What I had with me and didn't check was:

• My backpack (crammed with diapers and sippy cups and snacks and military paperwork)
• The carseat (the lil hobbit had her own seat, so even though it was a pain to lug around, the carseat was lovely to have her sit in during the flight)
• Her backpack (her Grandma got her an itty bitty pink backpack that I put some fun new toys in for her)
• The stroller (which I used to cart all this crap around on or I would have been found dead on one of those floor escalator things in the Chicago airport)

We had a three hour flight to Chicago, a couple hours layover, and then our big flight to Frankfurt. My favorite thing that day was the tablet. I loaded it up with toddler apps and episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. It was worth its weight in gold! I had even ordered Evey her own pair of headphones so the other passengers wouldn't have to listen to Mickey doing the hot dog dance. When we were in Chicago and I found our next gate I let the munchkin run around like a wild woman. She was having a blast and the other passengers were very sweet to her. 

It was when we were checked in to our Frankfurt flight that it sank in that we were leaving the country. Signs for our airline were listed in German first, with English underneath. People around me were having conversations I couldn't understand. I'm pretty sure Vernon Dursley has a German brother and that he was on my flight. This man was huge with a magnificent mustache and thick accent. He was outraged when he was informed that his carry-on was too large and would be checked at the gate. His face even got purple like Vernon's, I'm convinced they are related. 

Evey fell asleep not ten minutes before we were supposed to board out flight. She was in her carseat and with the help of an airline employee we managed to get her on the plane and buckled in her seat without waking her up! It was miraculous! She even slept through the safety announcements (both the German and English versions). I thought for sure she would be out for a couple hours, she hadn't napped all day and was TIRED. Then the woman seated in front of her fully reclined her seat 45 minutes into the flight which squished Evelyn's feet, waking her up and destroying my hope of a break. Looking back now the flight is a blur of weird airline food, cartoons and rocking/cuddling my baby trying to convince her to go back to sleep. 

There was a child who screamed "Nein, nein, NEIN" at his mother for about 6 hours of the flight (not exaggerating) It was awful, but I'm just glad the tantrum thrower wasn't my kid.

I got lots of help from some very kind strangers and I survived flying to Germany with my toddler. I even survived the Frankfurt airport pushing a cart loaded with our 5 suitcases with one hand while pulling the stroller with the other. We found the USO and caught a shuttle to Ramstein where the husband was eagerly awaiting our arrival. The End (whew, even just thinking back about that day is exhausting...)

Willkommen in Deutschland

I am a terrible blogger. I am going to change that (hopefully, maybe...) Why would I change now when being a terrible blogger seems to work so well for me? We moved to Germany and this would be a great way to fill in our loved ones on all our adventures without having to figure out the time difference for a phone call.

So to get the stragglers up to speed:

• We have an awesome kid, her name is Evey and being her mom totally rocks
• The husband is now enlisted in the U.S. Air Force
• We (as of a few weeks ago) live in the gorgeous country of Germany

Oh, Hello Again Blog...did you miss me?

I recently had this thought, "Oh, I have a blog. When was the last time I looked at it? It's probably feeling neglected...maybe I should post something..."

I bet you thought I was never coming back.
I bet you thought I had forever abandoned you.

In order to not make this the longest post EVER (because who would want to read that) I will give you a super quick recap on our lives since last June (*gasp* it really has been a long time):

• We moved...not far away...but we LOVE this apartment and it has 2 bedrooms.
• We work. I go to school.
• Our brothers came home from missions and Guy's brother has been living in our 2nd bedroom since August.
• We learned from the runaway incident (see last post) and Dexter has been sporting a handsome green collar/id tag ever since.
• I'm graduating in APRIL...yep, that's in three months.
• My Dad moved to Alaska for a job and the rest of my family is making plans to follow him soon. I'm still dealing with how FAR AWAY Alaska is... :(
  

....

And the most beautiful/exciting/mind-blowing/humbling/terrifying bit of news:

There is a beautiful baby girl growing in my belly.
After praying/wanting and grieving the loss from two miscarriages its hard to believe sometimes that this miracle is happening to us.
She's healthy. I'm healthy. We couldn't ask for more.
She is making her grand entrance this May (four weeks after I graduate).
I'm totally in love.

Our Runaway

This morning when Guy and I woke up...there seemed to be something different in the house. The lump at the foot of the bed wasn't there, and the friendly "Good morning!" meows we get everyday could not be heard. Dexter wasn't there!
We looked through the ENTIRE apartment and in all his usual spots- NO Dexter. This was when we started to panic.
We walked around the yard, front and back- NO Dexter. Guy had to leave for work so I was left to continue the search all by myself while trying to not have a full on panic attack.
Dexter is our baby. We love him. He is an irreplaceable member of the Sundwall family. Needless to say I was really scared and had all of the worst-case scenarios running through my mind.
I set some food outside our door for him and took off on foot. I walked around our entire block shaking his treat can and calling to him. NO Dexter.
I made some Missing Cat listings and put them up online. Frantically called some sleepy friends to enlist them in the search (this was still all before 9 am). And I set out walking again. This time I only made it two houses away when I see the most adorable orange face peeking out at me from a stairwell! DEXTER! He recognized me and just walked all casually over to me like it was no big deal. I scooped that baby up and took him right home.
I am just so grateful that I was able to find him, and find him safe, and relatively quickly. We don't know how he got out, but we think it was sometime in our coming/going last night.
Needless to say I am going to be keeping a very close eye on this little runaway.

My thought of the Week:

Its REALLY hard to admit that you need help.
I'm not always strong and I can't do everything myself.
And its OK.

I've been having a rough time lately and I am overwhelmed by how many people in my life have popped out of the wood work and blown me away with their selfless love/understanding/support.
In my personal trial right now I want to suffer silently and handle it on my own, but I can't. And these people in my life make it so I can get out of bed and carry through my day (I wish I was exaggerating).

I know this sounds pretty melodramatic, but whatev. I'm just feeling loved and wanted to share.

Just Because: Hair Cuts, Arm Injuries and Miley Cyrus

I'm blogging today without a topic in mind- but I haven't blogged in a while...and this is a great tool for me to avoid the school related things I should probably (*definitely) be spending my time on instead.

First order of business: I have bangs! They aren't full straight across bangs like I had in 5th grade but rather side swept bangs that hit right around my eyebrow. You, dear reader, probably don't really care about my hair cut, but it is monumental to me...and this is my blog. I got it cut this weekend and I love it! I don't have any pictures to share (yet) so will just have to take my word on how cute my new hair is.
Second Item: My Hubby looks like a completely different person. I think maybe aliens abducted my Guy and replaced him with a clean shaven, longer haired, alien version of himself. The Husband also got a haircut this past week- I guess it was just a week of new hair in our house (Maybe we should give Dexter a haircut....) His hair is a lot longer than he usually has it and I love it. Here's why: Its long-ish but still cut and well groomed and it is fantastic to run my fingers through and it looks really good on him. He also shaved this week- like totally clean shaved face- goodbye goatee! Oh! and he got new glasses! (YAY Insurance!)

Tangent: I can't decide if I have a preference on Guy's facial hair, as long as its not a mustache (because my father has a mustache and I REALLY can't kiss a man with a mustache because of it), I really like whatever he does with it. I find hair on a man's face extremely attractive.


In other news not related to my vain ramblings on our appearances:

I'm in school- Spring semester is in full swing down here at the Y. I'm beginning to think I was insane for deciding to take classes straight through the Summer. I really want a vacation.

My Husband has injured himself. Guy has been playing on a company softball team and Inter-mural Ultimate Frisbee Team. On Wednesday he 'threw out his arm' which basically equals a LOT of pain for him. He's supposed to be taking it easy on his arm- he's been icing it and wearing braces on his elbow and wrist- but of course he hasn't stopped playing!

I've also stumbled across this video while 'studying' (aka wasting time online) and I kinda, sorta, really secretly love it: (Don't judge me!)

Some things I know:

God knows you. He loves you.
He will always answer your prayers.
But not always in the way you expect.

The Other Woman

Sooo, Guy has been saving up his pennies for a while now and finally bought himself this:

Its a Playstation 3, slim- the 120 gig one if you are tech savvy and know what that means. I have affectionately named this piece of sexy black machinery 'The Other Woman', because she now occupies a significant portion of my husband's time.

We only have two games right now: Modern Warfare and Little Big Planet.

This is Guy's game:

In this game you shoot and kill people.
He tried to teach me how to play it- and I lasted for 17 seconds....no joke.
Its really hard, or maybe I'm just not a natural killer.

This is my game:

Its super fun! (and no killing required)
You play as a Sack Boy character (that cute little thing on the cover).
You beat different levels in a Mario style adventure, and you can even build your own!
Did I mention that its super fun?

The feature that I'm most excited about in this gaming system is that its also a Blu-Ray/DVD player! The Other Woman has booted our old DVD player off of the shelf, and rendered it obsolete. And now we can try those fancy Blu-Ray movies too!

My Hubby Spoils Me

If you have read any other posts you might know that I am in love with Guy...its true I really am. He's awesome, all the time, but every once in a while he does stuff that is EXTRA awesome and sweet and I don't always deserve.

For example:

Last week I came home from school and he surprised me with flowers. He got tulips for the kitchen and then put a BIG vase of daisies (my fave!) in the bedroom. I would post pictures, but I haven't taken any...so enjoy these pictures from the internet!

And then last night I got another surprise. Guy got home from work and told me he had a surprise for me I just had to follow his directions. So we got in the car and got McDonalds for dinner (not the most romantic restaurant out there, but it was fun because I didn't have to cook) adn then he put the McDonalds bag over my head and drove around in circles a few times so I would have no idea where we were going. Again, no pictures, but I guess I looked pretty funny being driven around with a McDonald's bag on my head!

Turns out he was taking me out to a movie! Not just ANY movie, but this movie:

I had mentioned to him a few months ago when I first saw the preview that I really wanted to see it but then I completely forgot about it. I didn't even realize it was in theaters! I really enjoyed the movie alot (the main couple fall in love and then write letters to each other for years because he is in the military- now I don't have experience with military, but we do have experience writing letters, so that made it even more fun for Guy and I)

Merry Christmas

I read this story on another person's blog and loved it so I figured I would pass it along.
I love the Christmas season so much because of stories like this. I hope this brings a good spirit to your day!

Hero at the Grocery Store

By Stephenie Meyer (Ensign, December 2006, 20–21)

I had been grocery shopping for almost an hour by the time I got to the checkout lines. My two youngest sons were with me, the four-year-old refusing to hold onto the cart, the two-year-old trying to climb out of the basket. Both got progressively louder as I tried to keep them under control, so I was looking for the fastest lane possible. I had two choices. In the first line were three customers but with very few purchases. In the second line was only one man, a young father with his own crying baby, but his cart was overflowing with groceries.

I quickly looked over the three-person line again. The woman in the front was very elderly, white haired and rail thin, and her hands were shaking as she tried unsuccessfully to unlatch her big purse. In the other line, the young father was throwing his food onto the conveyor belt with superhuman speed. I got in line behind him.

It was the right choice. I was able to start unloading my groceries before the elderly woman was even finished paying. My four-year-old was pulling candy from the shelf, and my little one was trying to help by lobbing cans of soup at me. I felt I couldn’t get out of the store fast enough.

And then, over the sound of the store’s cheery holiday music, I heard the checker in the other line talking loudly, too loudly. I glanced over as my hands kept working.

“No, I’m sorry,” the checker was almost shouting at the old woman, who didn’t seem to understand. “That card won’t work. You are past your limit. Do you have another way to pay?” The tiny old woman blinked at the checker with a confused expression. Not only were her hands shaking now, but her shoulders too. The teenage bagger rolled her eyes and sighed.

As I caught a soup can just before it hit my face, I thought to myself: “Boy, did I choose the right line! Those three are going to be there forever.” My mood was positively smug as my checker began scanning my food.

But the smiling woman directly in line behind the elderly lady had a different reaction. Quietly, with no fanfare, she moved to the older woman’s side and ran her own credit card through the reader.

“Merry Christmas,” she said softly, still smiling.

And then everyone was quiet. Even my rowdy children paused, feeling the change in the atmosphere.

It took a minute for the older woman to understand what had happened. The checker hesitated with the receipt in her hand, not sure whom to give it to. The smiling woman took it and tucked it into the elderly woman’s bag.

“I can’t accept …” the older woman began to protest, with tears forming in her eyes.

The smiling woman interrupted her. “I can afford to do it. What I can’t afford is not to do it.”

“Let me help you out,” the suddenly respectful bagger insisted, taking the basket and also taking the old woman’s arm, the way she might have helped her own grandmother.

I watched the checker in my line pause to dab at the corner of her eyes with a tissue.

Paying for my groceries and gathering my children, I made it out of the store before the smiling woman. I had made the right choice of lanes, it seemed. But as I walked out into the bright December sunshine, I was not thinking about my luck but about what I could not afford.

I could not afford my current, self-absorbed frame of mind.

I could not afford to have my children learn lessons of compassion only from strangers.

I could not afford to be so distant from the spirit of Christ at any time of the year—especially during this great season of giving.

I could not afford to let another stranger, another brother or sister, cross my path in need of help without doing something about it.

And that is why I hope never to forget the Christmas hero in the grocery store. The next time I have a chance to be that kind of a hero, I can’t afford to miss it.

Pictures of Our Fall

I know I have been really awful at blogging (Sorry Shawna) so I figured I would give a little update:

Our life is still great.

We still love each other like crazy.

If you want to see pictures of our great life this past couple of months click HERE



*I'll post again soon with pictures of our house in the holiday spirit!

Changes!

Sorry for the lack of posting, but we have been SUPER busy for the last couple of weeks- all for good things too!
We have moved! We love our new place and it is starting to feel like home. The boxes are ALL unpacked and its been fun setting things up. We painted our bedroom (pictures will be coming...when I get around to putting them on the computer). It used to be really dark with 70's wood paneling and ORANGE floral wall paper, but now the wall paper is gone and we painted 3 of the walls white and the wall above our bed is a grape green color. It still needs a few finishing touches, like curtains....but it is MILES better than it looked before. AND to tell you about how awesome our landlords are- they were totally cool with us painting the bedroom, and even bought the primer and paint for us.
Funny story about moving in: our big shelf entertainment center thing we put our tv and all our books and stuff on couldn't fit down the stairs to get it into the apartment (we are in a basement). SO my handy husband decides that instead of just getting something else that we will be able to move in, he just saws our shelf in half then puts it back together with holes and wooden dowels once we get it inside- he's AMAZING!

I started school this past week, so I have been a little busy with that :) I'm loving school SO much. I finally have figured out what I want to get my degree in and it is awesome. I am loving the classes I am taking. I am also in a play right now for BYU, their Young Company Shakespeare traveling show. We are doing The Tempest and every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the semester we tour around and perform in different schools. it has been alot of fun getting the show ready and our first tour day is on Tuesday!

Guy has been working, and we are really looking forward to the company he works for to move their office down to Orem because it will really cut down his commute. He is also playing Ultimate Frisbee every Wednesday and Saturday and he really loves it. He even signed up for the Orem city league and that starts this Saturday and runs for two months and then they have a tournament at the end.

Dexter is over a year old now and has just been loving life. He takes alot of naps, chases all the bugs in the house, loves laser pointers and playing fetch. He is a pretty awesome pet and I can't imagine our family without him.

Other changes: We are now the proud owners of a 150cc orange and silver scooter! Its really fun and great for going around town. I love our Cadillac, but the scooter gets alot better gas mileage and costs maybe $3 to fill up the tank.

I'll probably post again soon and put up some pictures because posts without pictures are kinda boring, but until then...thanks for reading the blog. We are still in love and loving living in Provo!

Idaho Weekend Festivities

So we are going home to good ole IDAHO this weekend and I'm pretty excited.
(we also went last weekend with the intent of going rafting, but that got canceled due to weather. boo. so we are trying again this weekend)
So besides just going rafting which is going to be awesome we are also going to a wedding for Guy's second mother and we are SO happy for her!

and last but not least on the list of awesome things happening this weekend: (drum roll please...)

OUR ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY IS ON SUNDAY!!

So its starting to look like its going to be a pretty good weekend :D

Dexter Playing Fetch

Our cat plays fetch. He will play with hair bands and twisty ties. We were having some fun with him the other night stacking up all the pillows on our bed and then shooting the hair band into them so Dexter would have to jump over them. We now have video proof that our cat does in fact play fetch.

My Husband is REALLY Cute

I just want to post about one more story because my hubby is really cute and I want to brag:
So on last Thursday I was kinda sick and not feeling well and was in bed all day, until Guy calls me on his way home from work and we are just talking about our days and then he says he is going to hang up and call me right back, and this is how that conversation went:
G: Hi, is Alison there?
A (playing along): This is her.
G: Hi, this is Guy Sundwall and I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me tonight?
A: (giggling) Sure. What time to you want to pick me up?
G: How about 5:30?
A: Okay, see you then!
Then I did a mad dash to look cute for our date and Guy shows up, a few minutes late, with a bouquet of flowers to pick me up. Then we went out for dinner and a movie at the dollar theater. It was a REALLY fun date and I REALLY REALLY love my cute husband!

These are my pretty flowers! Dexter has knocked them over spilling all the water twice, and won't stop trying to eat them.

Independence Day!

Our 4th of July was pretty fun too. Guy went and played Ultimate Frisbee in the morning while I cooked up some delicious food. Then we pretty much spent the rest of the day over at our friends' apartment. We had a barbecue and ate WAY too much food, and played games, and talked and watched the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire. We really are blessed to have the great friends that we do.