Monday, December 22, 2008

...und ich muss Euch sagen, it's Christmas'ing very!

Ach, als ein riesen Paket aus Einbeck kam - na aber! Volle Konzentration auf Zuckerguss...ich glaube, es klebt immernoch ueberall. Johanna war leider gerade nicht da, aber wir haben fuer sie mitgeklebt... There is nothing better than sugar at Christmas.....ok, maybe chocolate! The house is still semi-alive 2 days before the Big Day, good, huh!


And then winter came and then winter stayed! This is the first weekend of December. By now - 3 weeks later - WE ARE DROWNING! Allerdings muss ich sagen, dass es eigentlich recht schoen ist...so richtig weihanchtlich!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

The School Boy und der Nikolaus....! Ach, und Frohe Weihnachten auch!

When the snow falls wunderbar
And the children happy are,
When the Glatteis on the street,
And we all a Glühwein need,
Then you know, es ist soweit:
She is here, the Weihnachtszeit

Every Parkhaus ist besetzt,
Weil die people fahren jetzt
All to Kaufhof, Mediamarkt,
Kriegen nearly Herzinfarkt.
Shopping hirnverbrannte things
And the Christmasglocke rings.

Mother in the kitchen bakes
Schoko-, Nuss- and Mandelkeks
Daddy in the Nebenraum
Schmücks a Riesen-Weihnachtsbaum
He is hanging auf the balls,
Then he from the Leiter falls...

Finally the Kinderlein
To the Zimmer kommen rein
And es sings the family
Schauerlich: "Oh, Christmastree!"
And the jeder in the house
Is packing die Geschenke aus.

Mama finds unter the Tanne
Eine brandnew Teflon-Pfanne,
Papa gets a Schlips and Socken,
Everybody does frohlocken.
President speaks in TV,
All around is Harmonie,
Bis mother in the kitchen runs:
Im Ofen burns the Weihnachtsgans.

And so comes die Feuerwehr
With Tatü, tata daher,
And they bring a long, long Schlauch
An a long, long Leiter auch.
And they schrei - "Wasser marsch!",
Christmas is - now im - A....

Merry Christmas, merry Christmas,
Hear the music, see the lights,
Frohe Weihnacht, Frohe Weihnacht,

Merry Christmas allerseits...


Und dann ist da auch noch der Nikolaus gekommen....Man kann ja wohl sehen, ob die drei artig oder ungezogen waren, oder nicht...?
Da ist, mein kleiner grosser Junge. Seit 3 Wochen ist er nun im Kindergarten!

Wir sind sogut wie eingeschneit hier! Und es soll noch mindestens eine Woche so weitergehen. Wieder eine Schneewarnung bis mindestens Mittwoch....




Saturday, October 25, 2008

Cantemus Kinderchor

Oh, and I made it into the paper again! Kewl....here is a pic they took while I was teaching in Boyne. Not sure why this one was chosen as the photgraphy guy shot DOZENS!!
Well, all of a sudden I found myself involved in hosting a bunch of German kids, here for a concert series, with no host families. Everyone pulled together and we had the most amazing few days in a long time! These kids are phenomenal!
Saturday morning we hiked to the top of Avalanche Mountain and the kids sang there, although only 15 of 56 were with us. The weather was incredible, the colors almost outrageous, their voices like angels.
Man, did we cry at the bus when they left.....I have a feeling lots of new friendships were created.
Life is back to the usual, and snow is in the forecast....bummer....it never lasts, does it...!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Getting colder in Northern Michigan

Fall has arrived and is about to be over with already! I am guessing we are pretty much at peak with leaves raining at the slightest gust of wind. Frost is in the forecast for the next few nights. The pumpkins are picked and the yard needs to be raked. But I am not finding the time nor the energy to do much other than work and children. Teaching at the public school is going well, other than the occasional pain in the beeeeehind that a grant like this always brings with it - mostly disorganization.
Today, we are about to host 4 German kids, here for a few choir concerts. That is a whole new other story.... So the plan is to make their experiences memorable and fun, toting everyone around the area to see what this place is all about. The girls are excited to have German speaking peers around for a few days and Yannis has informed us that he can't speak to them... We'll see - he has a weakness for teenage girls in general.....
I will post a few new pics soon....still need to load the camera onto this here machine.
More later...and updates from the German side of things!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Reached completion...

I finished my latest painting yesterday. Reluctantly it is now put up for sale, but I am hoping at won't sell too soon. I need to 'soak it in' first before I can let it go.... The next one is already solidifying in my brain and as soon as I reach THAT POINT, I will begin to put it on canvas....

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Super Hero!

This time, he wants to be a fire fighter! He even got to ride in a real fire truck, one that is used for wild fires by the military.
It was an awesome day at the Firefighters Memorial, we even got to see a fallen semi being uprighted again.
A dip in Higgins Lake after the fun together with some pizza on the dock ended an incredibly beautiful fall day.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

A summer in the lives of....







Nun nochmal....habe ausversehen alles geloescht. An alle, die ein Interesse an unserem Leben haben, hier zieht sich der rote Faden!
Hier also ein paar Bilder vom Sommer....leider habe ich selber nicht sonderlich viel davon mitbekommen.
Die Maedchen sind wieder ihre 3km ueber den See geschwommen. Naechstes Jahr mache ich wieder mit!
Unsere Haengematte im Garten war ein grosser Hit. Habe viele Stunden mit einem Buch, haengend unter'm Apfelbaum verbracht. War ja sonst nichts zu tun....

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Heute mal auf Deutsch!

Ich dachte, auf diese Weise koennen unsere Familie und Freunde auf der anderen Seite vom Teich ja auch mal hier reinschauen und lesen, was wir hier so treiben.
Es herbstelt sehr draussen und die Temperaturen in der Nacht sind scharf and der Frostgrenze. Fuer die Kinder hat nun wieder die Schule angefangen. Noch ein Jahr, dann geht fuer Johanna und Teghan die Highschool los.
Im Moment sind wir dauernd auf Achse, zwischen Arbeit, Schule, Basketballspielen, Geigenunterricht,...
Yannis hat weitgehend seine Windeln aufgegeben und freut sich auf den Schnee.
Ich bin auch wieder mehr oder weniger auf den Fuessen und arbeite auch wieder vollzeit. Gelegentlich werde ich hier einige Bilder reinsetzen um den Fortschritt selber zu sehen.
Auch befasse ich mich mit dem Gedanken, eine Privatausstellung aufzubauen und den groessten Teil des Profits and die Krebsforschung (Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation) zu stiften....
Mal sehen, wie ich das auf die Beine bekommen kann.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Can't stop painting.....

I am having SUCH a hard time getting my thoughts organized in order to get the images in my head out onto the canvas. There are soo many of them, they are all finished in my head and I struggle deciding which one 'gets to go first'!

I wonder what the last 4 months of my life have actually done to me. One would think fear, and it is there, but there is something else.... I truly follow my intuition of 'what wants to get done', can get it out each day and it comes so easily!

There are no coincidences in life, and all this had /has a reason. I will find it and it is somewhere in my work, or rather coming out into the open through my work. So perhaps if I become the audience of my own work, I will see the thin red line threading through it all.

Friday, September 12, 2008

I have entered the world of blogging....

...thanks Nannette! It is all your fault and now I have to fight my way through yet another confusing maze of links, add-ons, post-its and what-nots. As usual, I will get used to it.
So this is it for today since I am really just trying to set this thing up for now. It will be fun to write what I am up to for the whole world to see - yikes!