Livy the Dancer in Video

This is a follow-on to a previous post. Livy is such a sweet girl and she is such a ham on stage. Here are videos of her dress rehearsal and dance recital in May/June earlier this year. She is so fun to watch and she loves to dress up as a ballerina. The rehearsal (first video) is actually a better run-through of the performance and Livy seemed to do the dance better in this showing. (I do apologize for the the high-pitched noise audible throughout the video. That is Livy's dance teacher yelling out instructions.) The recital (second video) is worth watching all the way to the end for a little theatrical surprise from Livy. She kills me. Where does she come up with this stuff?

We enrolled Livy in an Irish Dancing class taught by a bi-lingual instruction in downtown Wiesbaden this year to keep her in the dancing frame of mind. It is also a good way to immerse her in a German environment. Her favorite phrase thus far is Knie hoch!

Cooing and Other Family Habits

Our family time on Easter Sunday this year was centered around watching Jude being Jude. This video is good footage of Jude showing off his growing confidence in cooing. Shamefully, I must admit that the semi-naked kids that come into view from time to time are ours as well. It's just safe to assume that Livy will be in her undies more often than not. I used to fight it, but it's no use.

Play Room Fun

Sometimes it's fun to sit back ... and put on stretchy pants ... just for fun. 

Wait. Sorry. Wrong post. What I meant to say is that it's often fun to sit back and just watch my kids interact with each other in their distinct playtime elements. This video captures one of those moments. Each of my kids is so different, but yet so similar. I love being a dad.

Sistine Chapel Incognito

During a business trip in early June to Rome (I know ... hardship assignment), I took a day of leave to revisit some of the sites. This was my 3rd time in Rome and it never gets old. It is probably my favorite city in the world. I ended up being a tour guide for an awesome co-worker, who happens to be the most devout Catholic I have ever met. I have nothing but respect for the guy. The whole scenario was ironic: a Mormon tour guide leading a Roman Catholic around Rome. 

During our visit to the Vatican, I managed to sneak the following covert iPod video of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. Pure awesomeness.

Asher's Garden Tomb

I try to spend individual time with each kid on Sundays. During a Micah session engaged in a game of Settlers of Canaan, Asher decided to join the fun by playing with the spare pieces. After about 10 minutes of silence (a world record for Asher by about 9.5 minutes), he looked up over his bent glasses and said, "Look daddy, Jesus' tomb and cross." To my complete surprise, he had managed to reconstruct a rough outline of what he envisioned to be Golgotha and the tomb. After a little more input from me, he successfully finished his model of the Garden Tomb (a.k.a. Gordon's Calvary) complex in Jerusalem. What a proud-dad moment! 

Mary always tells me that Asher is a carbon copy of me. With those disfigured glasses, which appear to be functionally useless, I'm starting to see the resemblance.

The raised portion is Golgotha with the 3 crosses. The center cross does not have a white peg (i.e. Jesus) because this scene is post-death, but pre-resurrection. The row of blocks behind Golgotha depict the spectators at the crucifixion. The red string of blocks represent the path that leads from Golgotha to the tomb. The light orange crusty thing in the bottom left-hand corner is some sort of food remnant from a meal a few days back. Nice touch; completely unintentional artistry. 

Sweet-action closeup of the tomb. The rolling boulder piece in front of the tomb is the perfect, creative touch by Asher. This moment was too priceless not to blog.

Jude Struts his Stuff

Jude will be 1 year old in less than a month. To keep up with his siblings, he has been walking here and there for the past few weeks. I took the time to catch him on video with my iPod Touch 4G. The older kids are going to be jealous when they grow up because we have more videos of Jude as a baby than the rest of them put together. It is just so easy to catch everything Jude does with the iPod video functionality. Oh well. I can't do anything about that now. The good thing is that each of our babies have been cookie cutter offshoots of each other, so in essence videos of Jude are really videos of all the other kids as well. (That's what I'll keep telling myself to make me feel less guilty.)

Part of my birthday gift to Mary this year was to help arrange for her and 3 other sisters from the Wiesbaden Ward to take a 3-day trip to Poland on a Polish pottery shopping spree. Mary had a great time and brought back some sweet pottery. (I'm sure she'll post pics of the pottery). This was the first time all 4 kids were put in my care for an extended period of time without Mary. (I'm sure she was more nervous than I was.) The kids and I had a great time. Even little Jude started to warm up to me, only because he had no other options! 

This video was taken during this period of extended "daddy time." It is a sweet take of Jude in his early stages of walking. The best part is that he is decked out in his full Germany soccer uniform. (Micah has been jealous for months that Jude received his first full uniform as a baby.) Jude loves to play with the soccer ball, as is obvious from the clip. 

I love this little guy.

First Tournament PKs

Asher's first tournament with his new German club was rather memorable. He scored the first goal for his team in the tournament with a sweet far post, top corner, left foot strike. To determine the winner of the tournament, Asher's team had to have a penalty shootout (Elf Meter Schiessen) with the other top team. Micah had participated in a tournament shootout before in Georgia, but this was the first time around for Asher. He was a little nervous, but he stepped right up to the ball, blocked out all the German sounds around him (which are like gibberish to him at the moment anyway), and took a well-paced left-footed strike. Watch the video to see the result:

Asher never outwardly shows any excitement after scoring. He has quite a bit of Balotelli (Italian striker) in him. Balotelli was recently asked during Euro Cup 2012 why he rarely celebrates after scoring. Balotelli simply responded: "To score is my job. Does the postman celebrate after delivering the mail?" I guess this kind of sums up Asher's approach to the whole thing as well. To remedy this situation, I did just offer Asher 5 euros if he does some type of obvious celebration after the next goal he scores in a game. We'll see if it makes a difference.  

Fussball, Los Geht's

One of the big advantages of living in Germany is soccer! Soccer is everywhere, which is exactly how it should be. We took the plunge this fall and signed Micah and Asher up to join the local soccer club in our village. Our village is lucky enough to have an artificial turf Sportplatz, which is a 10-minute walk from our home. It is a huge deal to have one of these artificial turf complexes because it really puts a German locale on the map. Germans (and Europeans in general) love to have a community place to congregate to socialize over a drink and Bratwurst. The village church used to serve this purpose, but those days are past and the new sacred ground for any German village is the Sportplatz.  

The boys are the only English-speaking kids on their respective teams. We actually like it that way because this German soccer experience provides an "immersion" type environment for them to learn the language. In just a few short weeks, the boys are already well-versed in the fundamentals of German soccer vocabulary: Anstoss, Eckball, Abstoss, Elf Meter, schiessen, abgeben, aus, Tor. Understandably, the boys are still both a little shy with their teammates simply because they have no idea what anyone is saying. Luckily, both of their awesome coaches speak great English, so they provide translations as needed. My hope is that by the end of December, both boys will be comfortable with the language on the soccer field and conversing with their teammates. That is what language immersion is all about, and it helps if you throw in the fact that both boys are emerging as the top players on their teams. Many of the parents have asked us where the boys learned to play the game. When I tell them they learned it in America, they don't believe us. I guess they are shocked that a few American boys can come to Germany and play the game so well. 

I'm proud of both Micah and Asher. I love to see them play soccer. I now have a greater appreciation for my own dad, who always urged us to play sports as well so that he could watch us have fun. What a great lesson to learn: there is no greater joy as a parent than to see my kids smile.

Here are few pics from Asher's first home game (Heimspiel). He played extremely well, scoring two goals and adding on an assist. 

His uniforms are sweet. German club uniforms are a big deal. The team manager brings them to each game and the kids get dressed from head to toe right there at the field. The jerseys come with matching shorts and socks. This whole scenario, plus the bonus of playing on "professional" artificial turf makes the boys feel like they've hit the big leagues. 

Micah has yet to play in a game because we are waiting for his paperwork to be processed by the overarching German league association. Each player who plays at Micah's level (and above) has to have a "football passport" to play with his club at a game. Once we get his passport, we'll have plenty of photos of Micah to post.

Love of My Life

Living in Germany has many benefits. One of them is exploring an endless amount of little villages in search of the perfect place to eat. A few weeks ago, we discovered this picturesque Italian restaurant at the Gehring Hof outside of Nierstein. The ambiance of the place is perfect, as it is set in Tuscany-inspired vineyards for as far as the eye can see. The Italian food was authentic, the white grape juice was sweet, and the setting was gently romantic. The whole evening felt like an episode from the Bachelorette playbook. It even included an after-dinner stroll through the vineyards at sunset. I fully expected to see cameras pop up at any moment with a spotlight on Mary's second or third date for the evening. Even if that were the case, it would have been worth it because the woman I was with is the most gorgeous and kind woman in the world. She is the love of my life. I couldn't imagine sharing this Germany experience with anyone else.

 

The bill for dinner turned out to be an even 50 euro. How often does that happen? I had to take a picture of it.

Best Toilet Ever ...

During a recent business trip to Africa, I came across this toilet ....

I can officially mark this as my best toilet experience ever. I especially liked the well-defined spots for my feet. It was a perfect match: size 9.5 shoes. Very fun indeed.

The whole trip wasn't only about toilets. Here was the view from my hotel ...

Repentance in Poetry

This is one of those proud-moment posts that most fathers would look forward to publishing. Last month I was working with Micah on his Faith in God for Boys award. Micah is making great progress and understands the principles taught in the program. (Tangent: I wish he would read the scriptures more frequently by himself because he always seems to get a good bit out of each reading session when he commits to it. That is something I still need to push him towards.) After a discussion on the repentance, Micah sat down and wrote the following poem in about 5-10 minutes.

The scanned copy is not the most pristine. So, here is the text of the poem to make things a little easier to read:

Poem on Repentance

Whenever I make a sin or mistake, what must I do? Repent.

Whenever I make a choice I shouldn’t make? Repent.

And from this poem what is the lesson we should take? Repent.

Repentance is one of the things we must learn to go to our Father above.

For a 10-year-old, I think it's pretty impressive, but I may be somewhat biased. It is concise, symmetrical, doctrinally sound, and some rhyming is even thrown in just for fun. There is nothing more important than to learn the principle of repentance at such an early age, for we all know he will need to rely on this principle for the rest of his life and beyond.

Olivia dances

Olivia started ballet this year.  She has LOVED it!  They worked hard and we were finally able to see them perform in their end of the year recital (practices were closed, so we couldn't watch).  It was so fun to see her dance and do so well.  She looked so grown up and she did GREAT!  They danced to "I don't want to live on the moon."  It is a Sesame Street song by Ernie.  It is really cute.

 Olivia at dress rehearsal with her teacher.

 The class.

She is a great little dancer and excited to start again!  Hopefully I can get a video uploaded soon.

I've got a Golden Bear

 We have been thoroughly enjoying our summer.  It has gone by way to fast and I've got lots of fun stuff to share, but before I can get to that, I have to play catch up...again. 
Towards the end of the school year, the principal of the boys' school approached me to tell me that Micah had been nominated for the "Golden Bear" award.  Being fairly new to the school, I wasn't quite sure what a golden bear exactly was.  So in the car on the way home from school, I casually asked the boys what it was.  Micah responded, "Someone who is awesome.  They have to do awesome at all their school stuff and be nice to people."  Sweet.  I wasn't sure if he knew about the award, so I didn't say anything.  The next day though, he came home and told me that he got the Golden bear for 4th grade (one from every grade).  So at the end of the year program, he was recognized for getting the 4th grade Golden bear, all A's, and being a Gold Belt recorder player (the highest group). 

We are so proud of Micah and what a good student he is!  He IS a golden bear:)