The Feast of St.Nikolaus

In the midst of our boxes the kids managed to celebrate St. Nikolaus Day on December 6th. In Germany and other parts of the world, on the Eve of December 5th they put their shoes (Nikolaus-Stiefel) outside their doors and Nikolaus and Servant Ruprecht come to check on the children in the middle of the night. If their behavior over the last year was good, Nikolaus fills their shoes with small treats. If they behaved poorly over the last year a tree branch is placed inside their shoes. Servant Ruprecht brings fear to many of the children because as legend has it... he would beat the naughty children to bring out better behavior.

Our kids were happy to find treats in their shoes in the morning! It seems as though Nikolaus is helping Santa Claus out because our letters to Santa were missing out of our special North Pole mailbox in the morning. We can only assume that Nikolaus is delivering them to the North Pole for us.

Packing it Up

Just wanted to let everyone know that our movers arrived today and started packing everything up. I will be out of commission on the blog for a while. Probably a couple of weeks.... I will try to post some pictures of the new house in a couple of weeks. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

Disneyland Paris Photos

A couple of my viewers have asked where the pictures from Disneyland are? To be honest.... we didn't take a lot of Disney photos because we wanted to be able to take tons of actual Paris. Here are some of the best ones.



We thought this was appropriate for Charlie to pose with Mike from Monsters Inc, they seem to have something in common!

Beckett loves Sully and enjoyed chewing on his horns!

While Brady was waiting for Dad, Ava, and Jordan to come off of a ride that he was too small for, he had a fashion show with Remy from Ratatouille. Here is one of the pictures he made me take.

Ava and Jordan standing on a trash can to watch the Once Upon a Dream Parade. We watched the parade twice and it was definitely Ava's highlight. A little girls dream come true to see all of the Disney princesses dancing and singing.

Riding with Dad on the tea cups!

Our Tax Dollars Being Spent

As I was sitting down to figure out how much money I need to put into our German bank account to prepare for our move next week... I became completely sidetracked by the vast amount of money our government has spent to move us around 8 times in the last 8 years. Most notable, would be our move to Germany. Obviously a trans-continental move would be costly and I would put a rough estimate at $25,000 to get us here initially (only last January). That includes moving our car, household goods, and flying us here and paying for our hotels along the way.

Now, we are doing another COSTLY move. I'll remind you all that movers in Deutschland are paid in Euros (currently 1 euro costs us about $1.25). So, they are moving us again, putting us up in a hotel for about 9 days, and advancing us a whole lot of money to get us into our German house. We will be living off-post in a small German town and renting from a German because they don't have enough military housing available in Stuttgart. Then the military realized that military families with 3 or more children were having a hard time finding adequate housing, so they authorized us to go through a immobilien (German realtor) to find a rental. Of course, an immobilien comes at a huge cost to the government because the immobilien charges roughly 3 months rent to use their service. So our rent will be 1,580 euros a month which currently equates to $2000 a month. That means that the Army is paying this realtor $6,000 for his service in helping us find a house, then they will be paying our deposit of 2 months rent (another $4000), and each month they will be paying us the equivalent of 580 euros for our utilities.

So, this move is going to cost the government another $25,000 dollars, not to mention that they payed for Charlie to stay in a hotel for 2 months back in July and August at the rate 130 euro a night! I know this a ramble, but I just find the amount of money they spend to move people around a bit staggering!!!!!

Somebody needs to tell the government that they have spent way TOO much money moving the Baileys around for the last 8 years and maybe they could stabilize us for more than 12 months at a time. It's a wonder that Alaska felt the most like home to us..... our record is there and we spent a whopping 23 months in one place.

Paris

We just returned from spending almost a week in Paris. We actually stayed at Disneyland Paris because with 4 children it was the most economical way to stay and recieve unlimited access to the Disney parks. From Disney we were able to take a train to downtown Paris. We decided to see Paris without a stroller and I can't tell you how happy I am that we didn't use a stroller. Not having a stroller allowed us to see everything and climb the Eiffel Tower. All of us (except Beckett) climbed by foot, all 706 steps up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower!!!! It was quite a hike, but well worth it! We were able to take a break from climbing to have a picnic lunch on the first level.

By the time we hopped on a bus to head to the Louvre, Brady was ready for a nap after his big hike! At the Louvre, we followed Rick Steve's Paris 2008 guidebook and hit the main attractions of the Louvre (the place is enormous and would take better than a week to truly SEE everything)... it was pretty amazing to see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. Jordan and Ava didn't quite see the significance, but someday when they are in History class they will have a memory of being there.

Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe was probably our favorite sight. The kids enjoyed watching the traffic in the roundabout around the Arc. It is crazy with horns honking and cars zooming in and out of the circle. Definitely entertainment for the little ones. Later in the day we walked the 2 mile or better walk from the Louvre back to the Arc, via the Champs-Elysees. The Champs-Elysees is glitzy, adorned with cafes and fancy shops and it is hard to imagine what it was like during war torn times with armies marching down from the Arc de Triomphe.

On our last day in Paris, we toured Notre Dame Cathedral and did a historical walk through the Latin Quarter of Paris. Notre Dame is beautiful and my pictures do not do the place justice. I wish we could have planned to attend a Mass there, but our timing was more than a bit off.

Standing in the Tuileries Gardens at the base of the Champs-Elysees and in front of the Louvre with a view of the Eiffel Tower behind me.

The whole family standing on a bridge over the Seine River.

Jordan and Ava climbing the 706 steps up the Eiffel Tower.

Me, Charlie, and Beckett on the second level of the Eiffel Tower.

Standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

Charlie, Brady and Ava in front of the Louvre.

Me, Jordan, Ava, and Beckett on the Seine River with Notre Dame in the background.

Halloween Fun

Here is our Halloween Photos! This year's trick or treating was chaotic, but fun! Our housing area is open to the public at all times, which means that EVERYONE came trick or treating in our little community. The Germans are catching on to our Trick or Treating celebration as well. Charlie thinks that about 1/3 of the children were German. Candy, Bitte??? I heard that because we live in the first habitable building at the entrance to our neighborhood that we would be bombarded with trick or treaters. On Halloween morning I started to fret that maybe 10 bags of candy wasn't enough..... I hauled the kids to the store and we bought 10 more bags at a 50% discount because Halloween was already upon us. Let me just say.... Charlie handed out candy at the rate of 1 measly piece per child and he was out of candy in about 1 hour!!!!! I took the kids trick or treating around the neighborhood and we made it around 1 block because it was so overwhelming. Honestly, think about a pinata at a birthday party with 25 kids swarming for candy and multiply that by 25!!!!!!
Anyways the kids were happy and they ate until their little bellies couldn't take it anymore. Keeping up with tradition.... I allow them to indulge in as much candy as they want and then we throw it out at the end of the night. I know this seems wasteful, but it saves me the heartache of worrying about cavities. One of our past pediatric dentists had advised us that it was better for a child's teeth to get a ton of sugar all at once and then brush their teeth with the force of a pressure washer (just kidding, but I do brush hard after all of that sugar) then to give them one piece a day for 30 days, prolonging the sugar exposure! Most of you know that we have had enough cavity drama in the past 2 years that I can't take anymore.



FUTURE CHEERLEADERS OF AMERICA

Jordan, Ava, and Friends (Jordan was supposed to be a ghost, but decided his ghost costume wasn't working and he wore his pirate costume from last year.)

Our little Dunkel dressed up as a smiling banana!

The Chicken was supposed to be a monkey, but he changed his mind at the last minute. He was WIPED out and slept while Charlie handed out candy! Thanks for the picture By the Boot!

Quick Update

All my fellow bloggers have their Halloween pictures up. I swear mine are coming with a post about the candy frenzy in our Housing area that went on during Trick or Treating. In the meantime, we have been busy painting our house today and planning Brady's birthday party for tomorrow.

It's OFFICIAL: We are most definitely moving to Stuttgart on December 1st. Our movers come right before Turkey Day. So this will be 2 years in a row that movers will be packing us up on Thanksgiving. Maybe next year I will cook a turkey???