The Big Move

Hi all!

I know I have been promising some of you that an update was coming soon but I did not realize at the time what serious problems we had with our DSL. After countless hours on the phone with the AT&T guy, hopefully it is on the way to working right, so bear with me.

Anyway, I know it has been a long time since I updated, but trust me, we have been busy. In fact, I have so much to update on that I am going to have to split it up. So here goes:

The move from Germany was chaotic to say the least, but overall not that bad.


It was like the peacock wanted to say goodbye. He was hanging out at the house while the movers were there. This is the closest I have ever been to him, in fact, I am actually outside and he is not running away.











Meanwhile, Meredith is sleeping away out on the patio. She did really well that week, with me shuffling her between friend's houses and our chaotic house. And yes, it is August, and yes, she is wearing long sleeves. It was cold! Even our movers have jackets on!












While we stayed with the Van Wagener family our last week in Germany, we went to several winefests. We had a good time at this one.


This dog had a balloon in his mouth, and the kids thought this was hilarious. Okay! We all thought it was hilarious!

Our family at the winefest.

Meredith and daddy rode a 2-story carousel at the winefest.



















I had to show some pictures of the moving trucks because I knew nobody would believe it. When I say our street was narrow, I mean it was wide enough for one car, and we did not know how they were going to get the trucks down our street. Unbelievably, they did. This was just the van that they used while they were packing.

The movers had the right idea - they had an assembly line and took things right over the edge of the loft. I wish we had thought of that sooner.

This guy was the head mover, and you can see he was working very hard! Actually, they were very hard workers - it is unfortunate that they weren't so good with the packing (more on that later!)

Here is the ship container - you can see how close they got it to our flower bed

Here is our container from the street side - amazingly cars were able to get around it. They couldn't turn it around, so when it was time to go they had to reverse it down the street for about half a mile or so- we have some good video of it - it was impressive.

We played at a playground in Hassloch in between packing and moving. She really had fun on the swing and in the sandbox.

On the right is a picture of our family at another winefest we went to that week. Directly below is a picture of the Van Wagener family, who we stayed with while we were moving.

Meredith loved practicing walking

Ellen and I at the winefest

Some snapshots of places we will miss -

our favorite Italian restaurant in Hassloch

The grocery store where we shopped every week

Meredith and Joshua playing at the Van Wagener's house.

Meanwhile, here Meredith is eating currants out of their backyard. She LOVED them! It's a shame it's too hot for them to grow in Alabama.

And finally, in the Frankfurt airport on our way home! We had a very nice trip, actually, until we were literally landing in Atlanta and Meredith vomited everywhere! Her ears were popping and she thought that eating would help, so she just kept on eating until she couldn't hold anymore. Like we said, if it's the worst thing that happened to us on our trip, then it wasn't that bad!

More to come soon, I PROMISE!!!