The Florist

 Sadie was having a blast identifying flowers.  If you like daisies, roses, or Sadie, this is the movie for you.

Olsen Happenings

I have great plans in store to update you all on the Olsen happ's over the last couple of months. Really I do. But to be honest though, thinking about all the blogging that needs to go down over here intimidates me. So for the time being here is a brief synopsis of our new Euro life:

First off I would like to inform you all that we are now finally in a house. A house to call home, a place of refuge from the storm. It is a lovely house nestled in a small German village about 10-15 minutes from the Air Force Base. All our neighbors are either Germans or livestock. The girls are loving all the animals. When it's not raining or freezing here we like to take walks around our cute village and visit all the animals. We like our house. It was not easy finding a house here. We came at the end of the big moving season so there was not much to choose from. But we found a cute house with a big yard that has a plum tree and an apple tree that completely drowned our little family with its fruits. We had a jolly time making applesauce, apple crisp, and apple everything. Let's see, what else.... Sadie started preschool which she absolutely loves. London turned the big 1 year! We celebrated with our usual Mexican nacho fiesta. Mark is loving his job and works with some cool people (yo Dave!). I turned 27 years; found a few wrinkles but no grey hairs. Phew! We have a great ward and are meeting lots of super nice people. Mark and I just got called to the nursery. Marks sister Kristi and her husband Cade are over here in Europe till December so we get to hang out with them sometimes. It's always nice to have family on the same continent.

We have been traveling a ton. I cant wait to tell you all about the time we took London to London. Or the time we drove our little family 10 hours to Italy. Or all about our adventures in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria and Germany of course. We are loving all this traveling! But it can sure be exhausting dragging two little girls everywhere. We have a few more trips in the making. One of which is to Hungary. Why would anyone go to Hungary? We will find out and let you know. Does anyone have a place they love over here? We will go there in your honor. We accept all and any ideas. Or heck, come over here and we'll all go!

Here is Londy modeling at a beach in Italy. We told her in was inappropriate but she just wouldn't listen. It's how the Europeans do it.

So who knew that hooking up the internet here in Germany could take months? Goodness gracious! It's truly a miracle that I am sitting here connected to the world wide web. Miracle! WOW! I love it! With no internet and no TV I wasn't even sure if Barack was still our fearless leader or if California was still above sea level or if Lady Gaga is still producing horrible hits. So we cheated a bit having our iphone but please who wants to do all that work on such a itty bitty screen. I have much to share and much to tell. May take a few decades but we will get there. Together we will reconnect, friendships will be rekindled, emails will be answered, Skypes will be plentiful, it will be something alright. Here we go...

First on the agenda breathtakingly beautiful, bashful, butterflies. Also known as Halloween Costumes. We were knee deep in felt my friends. It was crazy.

Paris

Paris blew our minds! Awesome trip!! More coming soon...

The great berry hunt

One day we went out for a drive and nature walk and suddenly found ourselves deep in berry country. Apparently the real berry season peaks in a few weeks, so we had to search for the early ripe ones. When we found a bunch we told Sadie that we found the jackpot, so she referred to the berries as "jackpots" the rest of the day. Pretty cute. When we got home we didn't waste any time with pies, jams, ice cream, or cobblers... we got straight to work eating a delicious (but slightly tart) blackberry snack. Yum!

Pig Festival in Wittlich

A city just east of us has a yearly "pig fest." It's probably called something else, but it commemorates some type of event that happened years ago in town legend where a carrot was used to hold the city gates closed. One night a pig ate the carrot, the gate opened and something bad happened (like enemies, wolves, or the French came in or something). Anyway, the next morning the mayor declared that all the pigs should be burned (or slow roasted?), and that tradition has carried on since. It now includes a parade, pig choir, carnival, pork sandwiches (which can be a nice break from the usual bratwurst), and is basically just a great event for everyone.

Don't want to scare anyone, but take a closer look at a pig in the crowd. I found him/her/it particularly frightening. This little piggy should have stayed home. I think this mask may have been used in a 70's Stephen King movie.

Sadie found several things to enjoy at the fest...

Bernkastel-Kues

Ahhh... Bernkastel-Kues. As Rick Steves might well have said, Bernkastel-Kues is a charming village set on the banks beautiful Mosel River in the heart of the picturesque Eifel Region of western Germany's wine country. Apparently, if you fancy yourself a wine drinker this is the place to be. We ventured out on a whim on our anniversary. It is only 30 minutes from home, and well worth the drive.

Some old beautiful medieval castle.

So much good ice cream everywhere. Will it ever end?

Six years ago we were married in the San Diego Temple. So glad we decided to do that. Seriously.

Sadie is loving all the parks everywhere. She found a new love for teeter-totters/see-saws.

Our Travel to "Germally"

5 suitcases, 4 passengers, 3 carry on's, 2 strollers, 1 car seat, 1 pack and play and a partridge in a pear tree! We were quite the show!

Sadie was very excited when we finally got to "Germally".

Sadie is in heaven with all the farm animals that are everywhere. So far we have seen lots of cows, horses, sheep, donkeys and chickens.

Lots of pictures coming very soon!

Wilkommen in Deutschland...

Well, we made it to Germany. We have been here for about 10 days now. We are still in TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility-much bigger and nicer than the ones in Florida) and it looks like we are going to be here for a couple more weeks. We found a house, but it won't be ready for us to move into until about September 15th because they are renovating it. We are all looking forward to getting into our own home and getting all our stuff back. For right now we are living out of suit cases. We left Florida sweating and dying from the extreme humidity only to be surprised with cold weather here in Germany. We packed all shorts and Tee shirts expecting it to be summer but it was seriously freezing our first week here. It has warmed up a lot. The last minute I brought sweatshirts for the girls and I just because I thought it would be cold on the plane. I'm sure glad I brought them!

The flight over here went really smooth. We left Florida around 10 am and flew to Dallas and then from Dallas to Frankfurt was 9 hours. The girls were up for a few hours but once bedtime hit they slept the rest of the time. We got our very own row of 5 seats in the middle and we just all sprawled out. It was really quite comfortable.

So far what we have seen of Germany is amazingly beautiful. We are so excited to explore it more. There is so much to see here in Germany and in all of Europe that we are really not sure we can see it all in 3 years. But we will die trying! We have already been on a few very fun adventures. We don't have a car yet but everyone here has been super generous and very friendly and welcoming. Two people have even loaned us their cars, which helped us accomplish some major milestones. Like successfully driving on the Autobahn, going to work and church without getting too lost, and even finding our way back home. So the last few days we have been driving around checking out the area. On the 19th it was our 6 year wedding anniversary. We didn't have a babysitter so as a family we went and explored Bernkastel-Kues on the Mosel river. It was spectacular. We tried a very delicious doner, which we were able to purchase, eat, and pay for with several awkward moments. Moments that can be referred to as "international incidents". And yesterday we went to our very first Pig Fest! We tried the traditional Bratwurst. YUM! This time the ordering process went much more smoothly. So smoothly, in fact, that we proceeded to venture out and buy ice cream, chocolate, more ice cream, and other various treats. Sadie is a big beneficiary of us learning to order treats in German. The food here already has exceeded our expectations.

One of our favorite things is to just drive around and enjoy the breathtaking sceneries. We came across this town that is called Kyllburg. It is a city built on a very steep valley around the Kyll river. It was amazing! All the towns here are little villages surrounded by beautiful countryside and farmland. But the towns have narrow, skinny little streets with very European-looking houses and cars.

Pictures and more about the Pig fest in Wittlich and Bernkastel-Kues later. We have some seriously slow internet right now!

Germany, here we come!

The last couple weeks have been filled with lots of organizing, packing, consolidating, selling, cleaning, and shipping to prepare for our big move to Germany, and even some traveling mixed in the whole thing. A few weeks ago the girls and I took a trip to Cali, then we all went to Orlando to ship our car (and go to Disney), and then off to Utah for a week. We have barley had time to stop and smell the flowers. On top of all this we have been trying to sell one of our cars (Sal) for the last couple of weeks and no bites. We were starting to panic a little... or a lot. We really didn't think we would sell her. Monday we decided to say a special prayer that we would sell the car. And lo and behold, we sold the car today! The day before we move out of the country. Truly a miracle. Seriously the day before! Wow! Tonight as I sat on the beach and watched Mark play with our sweet girls in the water I thought about how blessed my little family has been. I feel like everything always works out one way or another. The Lord seriously always looks out for us. I really enjoyed pondering about all of the tender mercies that I have had in my life lately. I feel like I don't always get a lot of time to just sit there and ponder. I guess you have time for stuff like that when you have no car and are stuck on base and your husband is watching the kids.

So the last couple of days we have been staying at the TLF (Temporary Lodging Facility) on base here. It is super duper small, we discovered a few cockroaches and have only a few raccoons scratching at our doors. Needless to say very excited to get to Germany and find a new place to call home. We are all packed up and ready for the long flight in the morning. I can't believe we are leaving tomorrow. It seems like we have been preparing for this for a long time. We are all very excited but also pretty nervous for the big change. Germany here we come!

helping mommy clean

Saying goodbye to the house we brought our Little Londy Loo home to

Help! There is no room here at TLF

I will miss you Salvador!! You were a good car!

Playing at the park on base

Dancing Queen

At James and Carly's wedding, Sadie wasn't feeling her best. Long days on the road combined with refusing to nap created the perfect recipe for a Wedding Grump. But we learned that Sadie comes to life on the dance floor. This was basically the only part of the reception that Sadie liked... and the candy.

The River

A little dramatic? probably not.

Bag-Baby Movie Project

This is a cautionary tale of inner-city life.

In case you didn't read it in the Sunday paper...

More summer time fun...