2 of 52 Weeks

These pictures were taken at the Camp Grounds where we live here in Baumholder. They were taken on a whim.

The girls and I LOVE sushi. Of course being in Germany there aren't many sushi bars like we were used to in Campbell. The commisary in Campbell had a sushi bar right in the store and many days that was mine and Kamryn's lunch. So I found a lady who makes homemade sushi by the order and sells it, really cheap. The only thing is we have to drive about 30-35 mins to pick it up. That might not be bad for most people but when you have a car with 5 kids three of whom are toddlers, 30 mins can seem like an eternity! We did it tho and had most all of the sushi eaten by the time we got back to Baumholder lol. I decided that this would be a great day since the kids were cooperating to have my oldest, who is awesome with a camera to be just 10 years old, take pictures of us all. I am telling you I think the girl has a future in photography!

Pictures from ZOOM

 I finally got the pics over to my new computer. I could not find a link to offer those of you who live here in Germany I will try to find that and add it at a later date. Taking care of 5 kids by myself, and recoverying from surgery still I am wearing my self a little thin these days.The first pictures of course is my 3 adorable little girls. from left Kamryn, Ramie, and Cecilia. Just look at those smiles!

In the second picture is Kamryn and Turner's long lost cousins.........LOL we told Kamryn the whole time that we adopted her from a Zoo and this was her family. She was so mad at first. Then she saw how cute they were and just fell in love with them. She is such an animal lover, even more than me. I keep telling her she should be a Veterinarian.

Third picture are the Zebras and what ever animals those are in the back ground. But you can see how close you are to the animals and how awesome there habitats are, the animals look good and well taken care of, which ment alot to me. You know I am the type that wouldn't take my kids to the circus because I don't condone animal cruelty!                                                                 

Jeff and Kamryn playing paper, rock , scissors to see who gets to slide first. He is such a big kid lol.

My beautiful family (with out the boys) in front of the Giraffes. They were feeding them at the time so they all gathered right in front of us. It seems like they could just walk right over to you. It was really like being in Africa, and it was so hot that day.     

http://www.zoom-erlebniswelt.de/START/home.asp

I found the link to the zoo, there is an option to switch it to English.

1 of 52 Weeks

52 Weeks is a Weekly Meme that I have joined. They say that moms aren't in the pictures enough (which I believe is true) and have challenged us to post a picture of our selves every week for 52 weeks (1 year)! Lets see how well this works.

This picture was taken in June of 2009 in Germany at a large zoo. ZOOM is a wonderful place to take a trip, it is about 2 hours away from Baumholder where we live.
We started our family vacation at Movie Park http://www.movieparkgermany.de it is the Nickelodeon  version of Disney World. They have Dora, Back Yard Agains, Sponge Bob, Jimmy Neutron, just to name a few. We all had a blast, I have pictures but they are on my "old" computer, I am gonna have to move everything. But I will post them when I get that done.
On our way home from Movie Park we saw signs for this ZOOM and we decided to take a little detour and check it out. We were all soooo glad we did that. They have an Alaska part of the zoo where you can see all the animals native to Alaska and its history. Africa, China and North America as well. The thing we liked about this zoo is that it wasn't walking up to animals and starring at them in cages, they had boat rides where the Hippo's, Rhino's and monkeys were right there, it seemed like you could touch them. The Lions were right there as well, there was a huge trench type thing to where they couldn't get to you but there were no fences or cages. It was awesome you really felt like you were walking threw the jungle, the animals looked happy and healthy, the park really tryed hard to make the habitats for the animals as "real" as they could and the animals had plenty of room to roam. 
The vacation was a hit! Movie Park rocks everyone in Germany should try it along with ZOOM out!

Questions and Inspiration

I am adding some new things for all my followers onto my blog. As you can see I have added a "count down" for when we will be coming back to the states.
I am also adding a "questions" link to the end of all my new posts. I really need everyone to ask me questions or leave me a comment about something that you want to hear from me. example: can you tell me a little about the German town you live in?
Or maybe you have read my blog and have some burning questions about the content. This is a place for you to ask me. Please help me make this a better blogging experience for me as well as for those who want to hear what is going on in our family and in my head :-)
Lets hope I can figure out how it all works myself lol!

The process of Recovery

I have been home from the hospital for 4 days. It gets easier everyday, I wish Jeff were here to help......but somehow he always gets to leave right when things get going. Incase you haven't picked up on it I am alittle bitter about that lol.
The kids have been...well as good as kids usually are when their dad is away and their mom is stuck on the couch or bed and can't "enforce" the rules. The boys don't understand what is going on and why mommy isn't up and playing. Yesterday I had my friend Natasha over here helping me all day, she got here at lunch, she was doing dishes, sweeping, and general pick up. Ramie came over to the couch and said "moma how come Matasha is cleaning and you are not". Of course that made me feel like a piece of crap.
I have been doing to much I can tell that this morning it hurt and I wasn't even out of the bed yet.
I have given birth to 5 kids and I am here to tell you, this surgery was 50x worse than laboring a 10lb 2 feet long baby (Cecilia). I have stitches in places I can't even mention and can only see with a mirror. The day I came home from the hospital my "va jay jay" was so swollen it was hard to put my legs together let alone sit down. But like I said everyday it gets a little better. I just hope that by the time we leave it will be better, I could not imagine sitting in an airplane for many many hours in this condition.

Preparing for Surgery

On Wednesday September 30th I will be having my Uterus and cervix taken out, a bladder tack and vaginal re-constructive surgery. I will be having all of this done at a German hospital in a town called Birkenfeld. My Doc is Dr. Von Der Osten. he has very high recommendations and I have heard nothing but good things from other people (americans) who have had surgery by him. I am confident that he knows what he is doing. I just don't like being put to sleep lol.



This week has been filled with cleaning, running errands, getting paper work, making schedules, and tying up loose ends to get ready for my surgery. I will go to the hospital Tuesday morning at 7am and stay. Even tho my actual surgery will not be until the next day. After wards I will have to stay in there for 5-7 days, then come home and basically be on bed rest for 3 weeks. On top of all this the wonderful Army has decided to send my husband to school (on the other side of Germany) for the whole month of October, so he will not be here to help me. Now most people who are not associated with the military are like "just tell them you need your husband home with you" well you see it doesn't work that way. It will also be better for him to go to our next duty station (New Mexico) if he already has this school done and over with so he doesn't have to leave us right away after getting there. If all that stress wasn't enough just the fact that I am having MAJOR surgery in a foreign country is enough to scare the crap out of me, I have been in German hospitals and this is in no way an exaggeration they are scarey, dark, and not sterile looking at all. Basically they look exactly like what you see in horror movies. I will be stuck in a room with no T.V. well there will be T.V. but it will be all German. The food they serve is not like American, for breakfast you get a roll, butter and like this nasty looking bologna stuff with unsweet tea. They provided you with all the water you want BUT it has bubbles in it (how the germans drink that crap I will never know). Lunch is a hot lunch but good luck trying to figure out what it is. Then dinner is the same as breakfast. I am gonna take this as an opportunity to loose weight lol. There is phone service but you have to pay for it, like you buy a prepaid card,
well thats freaking expensive since its in Euro. Maybe I can just catch up on some well deserved sleep over the course of 7 days.......hhmmm that sounds like a great idea! Or maybe read a book I haven't done that in about 4 years!
I am so nervous it is only Friday and I was awake all night last night thinking none stop of things that I have not done, things that I have done, was I forgetting anything (I tend to have a really bad memory). I have two German ladies who have been helping me for the last year and a half or so with the kids, the house, going to Dr. apts with Turner and things like that who will be staying here at the house with the kids while I am in the hospital and also after while I am on bed rest. They are awesome people, the kids love them. Talking to my mom and I was telling her that Ramie was so excited that "oma" (thats german for grandma) was coming to stay with her. My mom said "well thats the only grandma she knows". Its true "oma" is older she was born in 1936 her daughter Monika was born in 1958 so they know how to run a household, I feel completly comfortable with them here. Shoot they will probably do a better job at taking care of the house and kids than I do!
What I am nervous about is the actual surgery I mean I have had 5 babies I know how bad that hurts I can only imagine how bad this is about to hurt LOL. But it will be worth it in the end, no more peeing on myself all the time lol
I will take my computer with me to hospital maybe I will get a internet connection and I will be able to keep up with my blog, that will give me something to do ;-)

The Boys First Hair Cut

Jeff and I have been talking about getting the boys hair cut for a couple days. We were a little torn, should we go long and let it curl or do the buzz cut look? Kamryn likes to fix the boys hair, she will put gel in it and make one all messy and the other a mow hawk they look adorable, but they have those long strands behind their ears that just look bad.
At lunch when Jeff got home from work he said "you wanna go take the boys to get their hair cut today?" I said "sure". The plan was, first I was going to drop him off at work so I could run some errands that I needed to. Second, run back to the house, pick the girls up from school, then finally go to the barber shop. The plan started out working just fine up until the point when we got to the barber shop! Kid by kid piled out of the van and into the barber shop. I was getting the usual stare by people as I was walking into the barber shop by myself with so many children. There were 2 German women and 1 German man. Both women were working so I asked the man "can you cut my babies hair, both of them?" he said "will they sit?" I looked at the babies and said "I hope so." He pointed to the chair. So I put Turner on the chair and instantly he freaked out so I picked him up and traded Cecilia for Taylor. He sat in the chair and did fine at first, all of a sudden he just went crazy. Poor baby was turning his head, crying, and reaching for me. Finally the dude just stopped and said "no more you don't have to pay". So the kids and I piled back into the van.
I drove straight to the PX and bought a pair of clippers. As soon as I picked Jeff up from work I explained what happened at the barber shop and that we had to fix it. "I can not let my baby go around looking all gaped up like this" I said. He just laughed and said "poor baby". Right when we got home we pulled a chair into the kitchen, took the clippers out of the box, put the boys in the chair one by one and started cutting their hair. Turner did good as long as we had his hands occupied. Taylor on the other hand, he just didn't want his hair cut today LOL. Jeff and I got it done and they look very handsome. Jeff did most of the cutting while I did most of the "moral support" lol. But let me say this.......cutting boys hair is a totally different territory than girls. I'm sure this just a start to a whole new world I am entering with having 2 boys now. I am gladly looking forward to it, after today I think I might need to invest in clippers and maybe finish cosmetology school! LOL