Styrofoam Ice Capades

One of my (Ami) favorite movies is "While You Were Sleeping" which is truly Bill Pullman and Sandra Bullock at their best. The comedy relief of the flick is the drop-out, plumber-like son of Lucy's (Bullock) landlord, Joe Fusco Jr. Throughout the movie he pursues Bullock with lame lines like "Luc, Thursday night, you and me I got tickets. Ice Capades. I know a guy."

In any case I had front row seats to a version of Ice Capades on Wednesday night starring non other than my wonderful husband, David.

Our Bible study had wrapped up at about 9.30 that evening and as we stepped out of Sara's apartment building we noticed that it was raining, but the rain was freezing as soon as it hit the ground. Hmm. This should be interesting. We made it to the car without any problem and started home.

As you may have read before, our wonderful little village of Mettweiler, somehow isn't on the map of salt trucks and plows, so it is always an adventure getting home. We made it about half way up our hill and began to slide backwards (in the car). We finally came to a stopping place and Dave decided that he would have to go up to the house and bring down some wonderful German Struegut, which I have mentioned before. He got out of the car, and I thought that he was assessing the situation...only he was assessing for about 10 minutes. Being 7+ months pregnant I sat in the car like I was told to do. Eventually I saw Dave come around the back of the car, though he was walking a little funny, and as he came into the view of the headlights I noticed that he has tied styrofoam to the bottom of his shoes. It was so slippery he couldn't stand up on the street without holding onto the car, so he found a piece of styrofoam, broke off two pieces of it and tied each piece to the bottom of each shoe. He then "skated" up the hill to the house.

He came back down the hill with his shovel and a tarp full of struegut which he threw all over the road. He actually had to make another trip up to the house to get another pile of the gravel and bring it back down before we have enough traction to get up the hill.

Of course, as normal, the Germans were watching us from their windows. It was somewhat amusing to see lights pop on from the houses on the street and then shadows of people at the window staring at us trying to make it up the hill. They must be REALLY bored! At least in America we know not to turn on the light if we are going to watch someone at night.

All was well the next morning and we are hoping not to have freezing rain again.

It's in the Cards

Have you found yourself ever getting totally worked up about a card game? What is it that makes people lucky or unlucky? Do you know someone that can roll double sixes every time? It seems that I (Dave) have this natural gift at a certain card game that Ami and I have recently been playing. The problem (or blessing)with the game is that very little skill is involved, and luck of the draw defines the winner or loser. Simple mathematical odds would say that Ami has just as much of a chance to win as I do, but this has apparently not been the case over the last eight matches. I do have a lucky shuffle that I use which I can attribute at least fifty percent of my wins to. Ami has reached her wits end on more than one occasion, but begs me each night to play the game again because she knows that the table eventually needs to turn to favor her. The problem continues to be her defeat and subsequent feverish anxiety at the close of each match. We only play to see if the luck will change, I don't see any forseeable hope for my poor wife. We both get such a kick out of her fits of rage, me especially. I want all of you reading this to hear me say "I love Ami McNay" :^)

Clothes for Cubby

OK, I promised myself that I would not buy any clothes for Cubby before she was born. I have a friend here who is giving me all of her little girl clothes and I figure most women like to buy clothes for little girls, so if I am going to get things at a shower it will most likely be clothes.

BUT, the PX was having a sale and so I purchased these two outfits. Both were 75% off and I spent a total of $6 on them. She won't be able to wear them until next Christmas time, so she has soemmthing to grow into. Aren't they cute?

Last Fling Before Cubby Arrives

For New Year's Dave and I decided we better make it count because we probably wouldn't be able to travel again until after Cubby comes in just 8 short weeks!

I think that we did a good job of making this trip count and having a blast. We spent one night in Frankfurt at the coolest Best Western ever! It had a heated massage whirlpool-wave pool thing.

We then drove to Eisenach and met our friend, Dave Stoddard and his brother Brian. Dave and his wife Eowyn are missionaries with Mission to the World in Berlin. Eisenach was a cool town for a couple of reasons. 1. Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, so we toured the Bach House. 2. It is a famous town for Martin Luther fans.

Martin Luther went to school in Eisenach and was a choir boy in the Georgian Church. But the real reason Eisenach is a famous Luther town is because it is where he translated the New Testament into German. After Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door in Wittenburg, he was called to Worms and asked to recant in front of the pope. It was there that he said "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. So help me God." aka "No way Jose." On his way from Worms back to Wittenburg Frederick the Wise (one of the German Princes) had him kidnapped (for fear that he would be killed) and taken to Wartburg, the castle in Eisenach. He hid in Wartburg for 10 months and while there he translated the New Testament. I think it is a pretty amazing story.

OK, so after we spent the night in Eisenach we headed down to Rothenburg, a walled, ancient, Roman city. We walked around, ate a good Chinese dinner, attended an Organ Concert in a 1,000 year old church, and celebrated the New Year by setting off fireworks (or watching others set them off).

On the way home on New Year's day we stopped at a couple other cities along the way. The picture of us is in the town of Dinklesbuhl, another ancient walled city close to Rothenburg.