Pictures

The 3 of us and 2 pictures of Christel-Ann after church, there will not be threesome pictures for the next month!

Monday Miscelany

What's up? An Aircraft is hogging all of my free time. It leaves Thursday. Thursday will be Party Time! Serious, we are going out Thursday Night to celebrate! I have not had time to go out much, but the delivery of this aircraft is reason enough to make arrangements for a Sitter and have a good time on the town!!!
We are preparing for Christel-Ann's departure on Wednesday. 2 more sleeps. Sigh. Going to Germany. Solo. We packed her suitcase yesterday. She is growing up too fast! She did some of her own ironing, matched her clothes to her accessories, tried to think of all possible weather case scenarios. She is looking forward to me giving her a list of "to buy and bring home" items. That is because she has not seen the list!!!
Paul is doing well, communication is excellent at the moment, we webcam/webcall daily.
Emma-Louise is cute as always. She wants to go to Germany with her sister, does not want to be without her. It will be different t only care for one child, especially the one who has never been the only child except for short vacations. 30 days will be loooong for her! Emma-Louise made a new friend. And with her you are either friend or enemy. She either loves you or will have nothing to do with you. It is hilarious how consequent she is in her liking or disliking of others. At her school there is a Ms Kathy who briefly worked in her room. Emma-Louise will not go into the room if Ms Kathy is there. She never has liked her (very nice lady, by the way) and probably never will. She does not even look at her and will go to extremes to make it perfectly clear that Ms Kathy is not a "trusted" person. So what do we (silly, there is no we at the moment!) do when her teachers are not in yet and Ms Kathy is in the room? Easy, Emma-Louise will go into the newborn nursery and love on the Babies until one of her teachers doe arrive. This is an Emma-Louise special, no other child has permission, but they do know Emma-Louise and know that she will NOT make a change to that attitude, not yet.

A slave to my yard

That's me.
What am I doing? Mowing the grass 2 to 3 times a week. Spending a good half hour to an hour weeding after work every day, trying to envision how the yard should look like in a few years. I am too cheap to buy larger size plants. I buy the cheap small ones and try and see what it will look like. Some have already grown quite a bit, others did not like where they were planted. But I think I am almost finished with the front and sides of the house. Why do we have the less than attractive power transformers right in the front of the house?? I bought different grasses to grow and hide those ugly monsters. The last project for the front yard. It has come a long way!Just one year ago we did not have a front yard!
On the picture you see my Magnolia growing on a trellis. I said that it grows up to 25 foot. That will be interesting! Paul will probably have to build a new trellis while he is home for R&R in January. I have been looking for the perfect climber for that side of the house for a year. Clematis, Rose, Kapuzinerkresse (tried this but it did not grow). I saw the Magnolia and had to bring it home! Can't wait for it to bloom!!!

Happy Birthday!

The true gift to my sister on her 40th birthday is that I am sparing her from me singing "Happy Birthday" to her!
Not that I should feel old, especially because she is 10 (9 1/4 to be exact) years my senior,but I vividly remember her 18th birthday! No public stoning here on her birthday though!
I hope you are having a happy birthday, Katja, celebrating with your family, our parents and friends with nice gifts and of course many more to celebrate.

General Petraeus shaking hands with Paul at the July 3rd Rehearsal for the Ceremony on the 4th.

More Pictures!

Now that my camera and the Schlepptop are talking to each other, I am putting up pictures with almost every posting!!
Here are the Girls in their new dresses from Hawaii!!
Thank you Auntie Ann!
And is it not funny how you can tell the character of these Girls by their hair? Christel-Ann's hair, straight as a stick, and then there is Emma-Louise, curly haired wild child.

Here is to Paul

His 4th of July-Reenlistment "Torte"

For each of Paul's Military milestones I have made special cakes that he shared with his comrades. I have been with him and promoted him alongside his commanding officers to every single rank. However, I miss the (re)enlistments! I missed the initial enlistment as in L.A. with his recruiter, he reenlisted for the first time in Ballad in 2003 and now 2007 and he is in Baghdad.
But I still made a cake. For you, Love!

50% American 100% Cutie

Emma-Louise! She is much fun, always up to and into something, has an answer for everything (yes, almost 4 going on 13) and enjoys living life HER way. I will have to write more about her later.

Behind the scenes

Behind the scenes of the largest reenlistment ceremony in U.S Army history:

Today was the rehearsal at the palace overlooking the Tigris river.
Tomorrows Independence Day festivities will culminate in a mass reenlistment ceremony, where about 300 soldiers will step forward, raise their right hand in front of their fellow soldiers and swear to continue defending the Constitution of the United States. And there will be more than soldiers from the rank of Private to Sergeant First Class affirming their oath of service.
There will be 180 soldiers swearing the oath to become citizens of the United States of America. As part of the ceremony they will promise to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This isn't going to be the first time these soldiers have made such a promise. They took a similar oath when they became soldiers of the United States Army. Their presence in Baghdad bears witness that they kept their word so that others might be free.
Last year President Bush signed an executive order making foreign-born members of the active duty armed services immediately eligible for U.S citizenship. That makes perfect sense to me, does it not!? If you are willing to risk your life to defend a country, you deserves to be a citizen.
But anyway, behind the scenes:
Paul received his "goody-bag" (more on the contents later),the award, the coin and had his picture taken with the General. Today. There will not be any time for that tomorrow. The "big wigs" are flying in for the ceremony.
There is a lot of media coverage on the event and Paul is sitting front row and center. Check "Good Morning America" and the News channels, you may just get a glimpse of him!

Happy Birthday America!

Remember the tree?

Here is a picture of the planted tree. Planting that tree was hard work! VERY heavy!

Special Messages from Daddy

Here are 2 more pre-deployment pictures. On the day before Paul deployed he took the Girls to the Build-a-Bear workshop to make special stuffed animals with them. each Girl picked one and Paul recorded a special message for them to be put into their animal. Christel-Ann picked a Husky and named it "Daddy" and Emma-Louise's very pink cat is named "Miss Kitty". Both Girls enjoy being able to hear the special message Paul recorded for them. I just hope that the batteries last!!

Mowing

Growing up my Mama always mowed our grass. Both of my parents enjoyed gardening, but my Mama cut the grass with our electric lawnmower. She had it down to a science. At least that is the way I remember it.
Paul mowed the grass growing up (at least he says he did!) and so I never really had to do it. In Giebelstadt our lawn was really small and easily taken care of with an old fashioned push-mower and while Paul was deployed in 2003 I cut the grass.
When we bought our house, I really wanted a nice size backyard. I guess I was not thinking about the maintenance that a nice size yard requires.
Anyway, when our neighbor "Mr. Mike" found out that Paul would be gone for 12-15-18 months, he vowed to take care of our yard. Well....right after Paul left, so did our neighbor. He will be gone until July 10th and I am taking care of our yard (as I should, I know). The grass is growing in really well and I find myself cutting it 2 to 3 times a week. I just put down summer fertilizer too. I can do this!
The only bummer: I cut off one of our sprinkler heads. I don't think I did major damage, but we now have a little fountain, rather than a sprinkler in the backyard.
So guess what's next on my to-do list: figure out how to repair a sprinkler head. Bigh sigh!

Casually strolling.....

Alligator Snapping Turtle

Here is the picture of the Alligator Snapping turtle that paid us a visit last month!