August Fun

August was a great month!  We were finally in our house!  We were fully unpacked in a week.  The girls got to go on 2 weeklong adventures in Germany without us.  School started.  Hooray for normality & schedules & routines!  Life is grand.

Finally being in a real house again with a kitchen & having all my pots & pans, I've started cooking at least 1 authentic German meal every week.  The kids are loving it.  Their favorite so far is schnitzel with jägersosse & bratkartoffeln.  Yum.

While my girls were gone for 2 whole weeks at Girl's Camp & FSY, the boys got a little extra time with mom which may or may not have involved some pretty funny carbonated mask moments.

I had the chance to meet up with a dear dear friend from Spangdahlem AB.  We hadn't seen each other in probably 10 years, but had a blast remembering our time in Germany together.  It was fun catching up & hearing all about her life & her beautiful girls.  I just love reuniting with friends from past bases.  It's such a joy to me.

My kids are making friends like crazy.  Every day I come home to 6-9 kids in my house.  Half the time I don't even know who they are or where they belong, but they sure love playing on our trampoline, playing board games with my kids, & building with legos.  My favorite though are the sweet little German boys that come over all the time.  They are always SO excited to have more boys to play with (my 3 boys), but then there's that language barrier.  It's hilarious to me because my older 2 boys try to play charades to communicate while Canyon is just so matter of fact it cracks me up.  "Hey mom!  This is my friend.  He speaks a language!  Come on friend, come play!" and then the friends just follow him around.  But the crazy thing is he'll run up to some random kid & say "Halo, Ich heisse Canyon, wie heist Du?"  Then he'll turn to me & say "I think that means what's your name. The kids at the pool say that to me & I'm pretty sure that's what it means."  The kid is brilliant.  He's going to pick up German SUPER fast.

We've also had some pretty amazing rainstorms in August.  And you know when there's rain, there's always a beautiful rainbow afterwards.  Look at this double rainbow from my craft room window!

Also in August, Taya & I took a trip down to Saarbrucken to visit a custom string workshop & picked up a handmade viola perfectly fitting Taya.  She's been begging me to learn viola like me for years & it's finally time.  We got her viola & started her up with a private teacher online who is currently studying with the Paris Music Conservatory.  He's an amazing teacher & Taya is loving it.

August was a great month full of fun, & new experiences.  We can't wait to see what other adventures await.