Merry Christmas

Well, we have almost made it thru the holiday season. I however, have still not finished shopping and it's 2:15 in the afternoon on the 23rd. Nothing like waiting till last minute right? I must be my mother's daughter. :)

Here are some things that have been going on with us recently:

1. We had a big leak in our radiator two nights ago. I turned it on in the afternoon then left the house. We didn't get home that night until around 9pm. We discovered the leak after noticing that our huge rug in the living room was totally soaked. So, at 9:30 at night, a guy had to come fix the radiator. It was completely broken so he just took the whole thing off and we're still waiting for a new one. As far as the rug goes, we had to move everything out of that room, including the rug and try and dry the floor. We are still dealing with a very wet rug two days later. It is way too big to move it far. We are trying to dry it, but it's just not working. It has now started to smell the entire house up.

2. I've been living at the gym recently. My gym is having a biggest loser compitition. They started in November and it goes until mid January. I'm on a team with three other girls. We are totally killing the compition. I've lost 17 pounds so far and hope to lose a lot more. I've started running a lot more lately. I spend two hours at the gym almost every day. I've discovered that it's almost an addiction. I have to exercise. I think it's the only thing that makes me sane. My cousin Renee is trying to convince me that I can run the half marathon in Paris in March. Call me crazy, but I'm actually considering it. There's a ten K in January and if I can run that, I'm going to keep training and try the 1/2 marathon. Renee is my trainer. :) Every day she tells me how far I need to run for that day. Monday I ran 4 miles, yesterday 2 and today 3. I have really big blisters on the bottom of my feet. That's a good sign right? :)

3. Hans is staying extremely busy with work and school. He just finished his finals for this semester so we are looking forward to having a quite, enjoyable time together as a family. It's must needed. We miss him around. We can't wait till his unit moves up here to Wiesbaden so he doesn't have to commute so far every day.

4. Eva is attending German Kindergarten every morning from 8:30 to 12:00. She seems to like it most days. Her teacher told me today that Eva is picking up on the language very quickly and she's now responding back in German to the kids and teachers. This has been a very good thing for her. As she gets older, she's easier and funner to have around. She's got quite the personality.

5. Gabe is very jelous that Eva gets to go to school and he doesn't. All the kids in Eva's school know his name though. He bolts straight for her classroom as soon as we walk into the school. He loves going to the gym with me every morning. He's my little buddy. However, if there are days when I don't have time to play basketball with him, he screams and throws the biggest fits. He LOVES basketball. He's even trying to dribble the ball now, which is a pretty advanced thing for his age. He might be getting tubes in his ears in Feb. The doctor wants to re-evalute him on the 1st of Feb., then go from there. I'm hoping it happens because he's having a little bit of a speech problem. He has also had nine ear infections in one year. Poor kid.

Ok, I think that was random enough for one day. Sorry it's so scattered. I feel like a chicken with my head cut off these days. I hope you all have a very merry christmas and happy new year. We love you all!

Lindsey