Mr. Rutz & Ginger

Does anyone know who Mr. Rutz is? He must be some exciting person in the imagination of my children, because I certainly never heard of him until Sunday night. Now Nathaniel is very happy to be Mr. Rutz himself, and take orders from Ginger, who is really his bossy sister, Ariel.

Well, the character Ginger you see, is a bossy Brit herself, but is well organized and can think on her feet. She is a chicken. On a movie. Chicken Run, to be exact. But, Mr. Rutz? We have yet to figure that one out. Maybe it will always be a mystery to us. But it is amusing to hear Nathaniel refer to himself as Mr. Rutz, and respond to that name as well, and even more funny to watch Ariel pretending to be Ginger and ride her imaginary pony, Pinto, at the same time. Like chickens would ride a pony. Funny indeed.

Money

Can you believe it? The American dollar has hit an all-time low on the exchange rate charts.



Check out this article;



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297557,00.html



This does not make me happy at all since we are amongst the million Americans on payroll that live outside of the country. Where is our payraise to compensate our loss? We pay our bills in another currency, and all of us signed contracts when the dollar was worth significantly more. At least by 15cents on the dollar. Do you realize that equals almost $17,000/ yr for our contract? Can you imagine your paycheck being cut like that and you being ok with it? Granted, we would have to get the exchange rate of every single day that has past in order to get a more reasonable assessment of what we've actually lost in income for the past year, which is not that much. But the year isn't over yet, and neither are negotiations. We shall see what the future holds soon, I hope.

Schwaebisch Hall

So, on Sunday we spent the day traveling to Ansbach to look at a van for our family. Yipee! Although now it turns out that we're not going to get it, we still had a great day Sunday.

On the way back home, we stopped in Schwaebisch Hall for lunch. It was on our list of places to see, and it was a glorious day. As we entered the town, we saw a sign saying it was Freund Tag, and so we knew something had to be going on. We parked near the river on the lower half of the town, and walked towards the music. The buildings here seem to tower over you as you stroll because the stadt is built into the hillside, which emphasizes their height.

We were all excited to hear the traditional music playing, and happy to see that they had a small fest set up in the marktplatz, including a stage and vendors with all kinds of treats. We decided to have lunch on the sidewalk of a hotel that looks over everything that was going on. We enjoyed the different entertainers very much, excepting the modern, horrible dancing by some pre-teens set to distasteful, lustful modern music. But, beside that bad sideshow, the rest of it was great.

We detoured for a few minutes into the church that overlooks the platz. Follow this link to see pictures of the stairs to this place, as I didn't get any pics. Inside was lovely, with lots of what looked like newly done paintings. Ariel had a good lesson of Christ's sacrifice on the cross because this place had real colors on the statue of Jesus, including the blood. She was upset because she thought that they turned the real Jesus into a statue, and we had to explain that it's just a reminder of what happened, but the real Jesus is in heaven.

Shortly thereafter we left and stopped at the spielplatz on the way back to the car. It was a new one, and the kids had fun on it. It was along the river amongst large shade trees, and very lovely. We had a fun day, and Ariel wants to take Grandpa & Grandma there to play. I'd like to go back because we didn't see any of the upper part of the city. It was a really cool place to see.

Meine Tochter

Ariel is so silly. We were out in the yard the other day, just enjoying the weather, and she was singing to herself, mutilating the daisies and making funny faces.

And look what we spied in the grass!

Ok, ok, so it's not grass. It's flowers that have taken over the grass. But it's supposed to be grass!

Kopfläuse

Anyone care to guess what this means?

Head lice.

Yup. Ewwwww so gross!

We got a letter notifying parents, in German of course, that there is head lice at Kindergarten, so everyone has to clean up and get check out. It makes me itchy just thinking about it. It does not make me happy at all. And then trying to translate 4 pages of this letter is frustrating me as well. Do you know how long German words can be? They combine them to make phrases, and sometime even whole sentences, but it sometimes changes the meaning slightly when combined. ugh. I am still on the first page. Wish me luck. Or better yet, pray for my sanity. lol

My son

So, last week Nathaniel started to tell me, "I love you, Mommy". It is what every mother loves to hear, and it is so adorable coming from the lips of my son, in his baby voice he still has. What a little sweetie pie he is! He's always been an especially snuggly little boy, and a Mommy's baby, but this new affection puts a huge smile on my face.

Although adorable, he has also started to help add his pictures to our collection on the sliding glass door. Instead of using tape to adhere it to the glass, he found that he prefers to use a glue stick, much to my frustration! I now have 4 pictures that will have to be scrubbed off the glass. So, I am leaving them up for a little while, ignoring that extra work.

Well, I have an assignment in German lessons that I am supposed to complete, so I'd better go work on it. Lifes' daily little achievements are what motivate me, or should I say prevent me from becoming a complete vegetable. Good grief.

Rothenberg ob der Tauber in September

Click to play Make your own Smilebox

On Saturday we took a trip to Rothenburg again. It was the yearly Imperial City Festival, in which they re-inact the colonial days. Dressed in period clothing, they host a trial, have dances and music, and have miniature towns set up on the street, complete with cooking on open fires, and babies in old fashioned cradles and wagons.

It was fun too to see the war-torn soldiers march down the street. Ariel was in shock at the injury the first man had sustained. It was an eye/head wound, complete with blood down to his collar and a head wrap. It was pretty good makeup.

I didn't get many pics of the colonial setup or people, but we investigated a few new places there. The altstadt is just huge, and even though we've been there 4 times now, we still haven't seen everything.

After some shopping, a picinic in the car, and lots of walking around, we were pooped and came back home, skipping the evening fireworks. What a great way to spend a Saturday though!