Lest I Forget

The patter of feet on the stairs roused me from my happy sleeping state. Opening one eye ever so slightly, I ascertained that it was too early for the festivities to begin. It was precisely 5:52 in the a.m. Without opening the other eye, I asked how many little people happened to be in my bedroom at such an hour. With excitement in her voice, Anna answered, "Three". Only Peter was still asleep. Informing them we would not begin opening gifts until they were all awake, I pulled the covers over my head, snuggled down into the bed and was just about to return to dreamland when they burst back in with one cranky boy and announced they were ready to open presents. That was at 5:58. By 7:15, the living room had gone from picturesque to destroyed, the kids were trying out all the new toys and I was in the kitchen making coffee and breakfast. Before the onslaught of present opening began. Notice the blackness still outside the window. Makes for very grainy pictures and very grogg...

As I stood in my bedroom this morning, deciding what to wear, I saw what looked like a hole in the mountain outside my window. Granted, I didn't have my contacts in, so I grabbed my glasses from the nightstand, almost knocking over the half-drunk glass of water of some little person who was still sleeping soundly sprawled out on my bed. Putting on my glasses revealed not a hole, but a golden orb just about to burst from behind the mountain and bring that elusive sunlight to the German sky. The fog and the wispy clouds made the scene so awe inspiring that I called to the kids to bring my camera quickly, for I could see that I didn't have but a minute or so before this beautiful vision would be gone. With camera in hand, I opened the door onto the balcony, breathed in the cold morning air, and snapped off a few pictures. I have been thinking about this blog. Pretty neglected most days, and there is so much about each day that I do not want to forget, yet those little mom...

Way back when we were first married, the dilemma of where to spend the holidays arose, as I am sure it does for many newlyweds. After many years, we settled into a routine of Thanksgiving with Tony's family and Christmas with mine. Being in Germany means thinking of a new plan. Also, Tony's job requires that he be gone on holidays quite frequently. This year, though, he did not have any jobs over the Thanksgiving weekend and we decided to travel. We wanted to get away from the cold grayness of Germany so we chose to go to Portugal. We could stay on the coast and go to Fatima and have a wonderful time. That was what I pictured. The reality was quite different. The following could be looked at as a complete disaster, or as a chance to find the good among all the not so good. I choose to look at it the second way. Firstly, the scheduling troubles. Portugal 2015 just happened to occur at the same time as the Reosti Pukefest 2015. Peter started the whole thing three days before we...