New Habitats

In case you haven't heard yet: Our two stink bugs died. No one is really too sad about. Although, once Max was able to refrain from squeezing them in his hand every 5 minutes, they didn't smell so bad anymore. Last weekend the boys went on a 3-day camping trip and brought home a new pet. A walking stick bug. Those are actually pretty cool! So now the death feigning beetle has a new friend. We celebrated its arrival by giving them a new habitat: the bottom of our old and leaky water container. What could be better? 

We finally got a new dishwasher after the old one had been broken for a while. Yay for apartment living! We didn't have to lift a finger or spend a penny on it. And, lucky for the boys, it came in a nice big box! 

And, as we all know, boxes are super fun to play with! They were busy with that box for a long time! And when it was time to go to bed they convinced us to let them sleep in the box. Sure. Why not? So they got all comfy in there...

And a little silly...

It was a bit crowded in the box though and eventually Max decided he had had enough and moved into his bed. Noah, however, spent the rest of the night boxed up. They even slept in a bit longer than usual! Considering that we will be going camping a lot this summer, I am glad the boys sleep well even when not in their own bed. 

I thought I would throw in two more pictures for fun. Karl and the boys went to some sort of festival the other day and Max and Noah loved this activity for obvious reasons... 

I wouldn't mind having one of those at our house. Seems like a pretty safe way to get out lots of energy! 

Afternoons with Max

Since the last post on my training and racing blog is mostly about what Max and I do on most afternoons, I figured I would put a link to it here. 

Go here to find out how Max has been making progress on his bike and why he still gives me heart attacks every day! 

Thoughts on Mother's Day

First of all I want to wish my own Mama a very happy Mother's Day. 

Which is a little superfluous as she is vacationing in Southern France right now. 

How can you not be having a very happy Every Day down there? 

So it's not too terrible that I didn't send her a card (or anything else for that matter), right?

I mean, she wouldn't have gotten it today anyway. 

Maybe I will get around to it tomorrow. 

Do they even have Mother's Day in Germany? And if so, is it the same day? 

While every American and their dog posted something about Mothers on Facebook today, my German friends were rather quiet. So who knows. 

The following picture still cracks me up. 

My sister is screaming her head off and I seem to be pouting. Nice!

While we've always known that our mother loves us very much, she also made it very clear that we'd better be out of the house at the age of 20. I basically left when I was 17 to go to Utah as an exchange student for a year. Then I was home for 2.5 years to finish school in Germany. I left again at the end of 2001 and have been in the US ever since. And I definitely miss my mom a lot! And, of course, the rest of my family. Some day we will be back, I promise! 

If you are interested in finding out what it was like for me to grow up German, you can go here. 

I love being a mom to these two kiddos! 

I mean, look at them! How could I not? They are the best!

And it breaks my heart to have scary things happen to them. 

Like last Friday when a crazy guy escaped from the hospital and got on Noah's school bus. 

(You can read more about that story at the beginning of this post. I am going to write a longer post on that topic soon but some things still aren't clear to us.)

I am super impressed with Max's gift to me. I knew it was going to be awesome when I found out that my swimming buddy and amazing artist, Liza vonRosenstiel, was helping these little guys create something beautiful. It turned out wonderful!

A heartfelt Thank You to my partner in parenthood. 

Very glad to be on this journey together!