Ju Ju bees and a kiss from my sister!...

Stardate 678600929864986191...or thereabouts.
Sorry to leave out the commas.
It is 22:13, or for those of you who don't habla en army time...10:13. P.M. It is dark out and my body is tired from a long day.

This past week and a half has been incredible. I mean that in a
"We have not stopped working our tails off for almost 10 days straight" way. And the work is not over.

Let me embellish...
It is moving time for the Breitenmosers. They purchased this BEAUTIFUL home about 15 minutes drive north of where they are living currently. It has the typical flat-top-A shaped roof of many houses I've seen here. The floors are wood. The living room is huge. All the boys have their own rooms. Ecki has an office downstairs. There are winding steps that take you upstairs. AND if you don't want to be inside the house, you can go to either their front yard, or their back yard. They are both huge, garden filled, winding path filled, singing bird filled. If it weren't for all the painting, scraping, etc, we would have to consider whether life could be any better. The boys are usually running around in the back yard laughing (they stay outside ALL day long).
Nadine is amazing, and somehow makes lunch and dinner for us while we're there with a burner and a cooler. She wouldn't brag about the meals, so I will: She is making us warm lunches everyday, when we should be having sandwiches.... Now I'll stop, because if she read this, her head might get big. Hahaha.

Ecki has been spending nights there to fix all my painting mistakes :).
Just kidding. But it really has been a tough week for the family. It's felt non-stop. We work all day at the new house and then come home to a chaotic mess (that we actually cleaned up today, so we could show potential buyers the house).
Getting this move over with will be muchly enjoyed.

There is joy in this though. It's fun to work alongside with people. It bonds you together.
Also, last week I got the great pleasure of meeting Nadine's father. He is a kind, gentle, humorous man. He doted on his grandsons, built cabinets for their rooms (wow) and even brought me a bike to use while I am in Germany. He fixed it up himself.

Speaking of bike riding. That has been one of my favorite things to do in my spare time since I've gotten that bike. The country roads here are beautiful. There are particular roads that are made for bike riders only, and you can go for miles and only see villages in the distance, wind mills, bull frogs and cows. The weather here has been so nice that riding my bike, feeling the wind and swallowing bugs has been perfect.

(I don't really enjoy swallowing bugs...that much...)

Today, even, I rode to a park here. It has this well-groomed rose garden with little coves with benches tucked in them. The roses haven't bloomed yet...but it's still lovely.

It has been really interesting to not have anyone but the B-mosers to hang out with.
While I love spending time with them...it's really wierd to only have the internet or a book, or a bike ride, or the guitar to occupy my time. Usually I call a friend, or get in my car and drive wherever I want...
But I'm secluded by my lack of friends, transportation, and inability to speak German.
I'm not trying to use this blog as a place to dump all my emotions publically, but just to be honest, it can get really sad sometimes.
It is so humbling to be the only person in a room who can't understand what's being said week after week. Or to not feel like you can go too far because you're not sure if anyone will be able to direct you if you get lost.
In a lot of ways it's freeing, though.
One, I am doing a lot of things I never would have made time to do . I finally figured out how to record music on my computer. I ride my bike. I climbed a tree.
Two, I can do things and not worry about whether or not people are talking about me. Who cares? Sticks and stones, baby!

But the family and I have been doing some stuff that I imagined would happen while I was here. This Sunday, we all piled into the minivan and went to Hamburg (about a 2 hour drive). First we went to the world famous fish market. It's known for it's rambunctious salespeople. They'll offer fish at a low price and then keep on throwing in stuff to get people to come to their booths "We'll give you this salmon, and this eel with a box of ju ju bees and a kiss from my sister!"
Like that.
Then, we watched a marathon for a little while. No joke, we saw almost 50,000 people run by. Samy was really cute yelling encouragement to the runners as they went by. It got more cute when we walked off and he was yelling encouragement to everyone we saw. "Super! trash guys!!!"

I am afraid this post is getting too long.
I hope you all are well.
It's good to hear from you.
For those of you I have not e-mailed back yet, I am sorry! I will get to you!

Remember to give Pookie some love on his blog www.bdenker.blogspot.com
and e-mail me at alicecalvery@gmail.com
I love you all

Peace of Christ.