Martinshohe Wind Farm

 Our little village sits halfway up a giant hill and when you are approaching our house, you can see the GIANT windmills of the wind farm on the top of the hill near the village of Martinshohe. It is still so amazing to see them everywhere and it is hard to even imagine how large they are until you get right up on them. Since the first time I saw them, I knew I wanted to take photos there and we found this location on one of our drives. It is just incredibly beautiful but I can't imagine how difficult it is to get up and down from Martinshohe when it is snowing! Jackson was thrilled to go up there and be right by the windmills -- he thought it was just great and he jumped and jumped around. :)

 

 

We also took pictures of my new car, Basil. I love it! It is absolutely my favorite car that I have ever had. :D

 

 

So today was our home visit from Jack's new teacher. Here at the DOD schools, the kindergarten classes start the week after all of the other grades and the kindergarten teachers take that week to visit all of the kids at their homes so that they can spend some one on one time with them and let the parents ask questions. I think it is a really neat idea! Jack's teacher this year is Mrs. Pruett and she seems really calm and experienced, which is great! He liked her a lot. Her assistant is Mrs. Lopez and she was very nice too. Mrs. Pruett brought some crayons and had Jack draw a photo of himself and write his name for her and he thought that was fun.

 

After they left, we went to the base to have lunch with Garry and I went down to the bus office and got Jack's bus pass. I cannot believe that my little baby is going to be riding the bus this year. It is SO scary! The buses here are really crazy-nice though. The DOD school system does not have their own bus fleet, so they use the big plush charter buses. How cool is that? Jack is going to be riding in style! He will meet the bus right at around 7:32 every morning and should get home around 3:15. I can't wait to see how he likes it. :)



Incoherent Insomniac Blog

Warning: Self-Pity Ahead

 

 

Huh. Wrong warning sign but still some good advice

If whoever is reading my blog everyday is looking for pictures of some castle, you are in for some disappointment for the next little while. Jackson's sleep issues are absolutely out of control and I have been getting between 2-4 hours of sleep per night for a couple of weeks now and it is taking a toll. Who am I kidding? It has been taking a toll for years and it is only getting worse. He has a visit to his pediatrician next week for typical school stuff but I am going to try to convince them to get him into a sleep study. I am SO.DAMN.TIRED. I am losing my appetite and starting to have stomach issues and nausea all day, double-vision and vertigo and we pretty much don't leave the house because I don't trust myself to drive. There isn't anything I can do about it either. He is on the highest dose of melatonin that I can give him and he fights it off within an hour of it taking effect. Anyway, this is going to become my sleep journal for a while so that I can show the doctor exact times, schedules, etc. Fun times.

 

 

It slays me that he can sleep for just a bit more than me and he is up and dancing and jumping and happy all day and I am like a walking zombie. He is dancing and watching Dora right now after playing Angry Birds in the  angarden for an hour in the sun! If he has to have ADHD that makes him stay awake, why couldn't I have it too?! Wouldn't that be only fair? And he pings all over the house all day long, so I have to drag my disheveled ass all over the house to make sure he isn't hanging out of an upstairs window, building a nuclear bomb, or building a nuclear bomb while hanging out of an upstairs window.

 

 

I have been wondering if he is going through a growth spurt and that is contributing to his sleep issues. It always does. Most kids sleep like freaking Rumpelstiltskin when they have a growth spurt but OH NOOOOOO not my kid! Ninja edit: That doesn't sound right. Rumpelstiltskin isn't the guy who slept for 40 years. My google-fu reminds me that I am thinking of Rip Van Winkle. So maybe he is growing again? Thank goodness I haven't started buying many winter clothes yet because my five year old will be in a size 8 before it snows.

 

Anyway, Jack just started climbing cabinets in the kitchen because he wants food again, so I am going to stumble off and make Lunch: Part Deux for him.  

 

 



Kaiserslautern Medieval Market and Car Show

Car Show

Last Saturday, August 18, was Garry's first car show with his car and it was H-O-T! Typically, the summer weather has been in the 70's but it magically went up to about 95 degrees and there was no shade to be found. Garry went early in the morning to shine his car up a bit and Jack and I came later. This was my first time really venturing out in my new car and I was relieved to find that driving in Germany is like driving in the US, only slightly faster and more daring. Poor Jack has never been someone who likes hot weather and so we had to find him something cool to drink pretty quickly and then we were ready to check out the cars. We ended up staying for a couple of hours and then I brought Jackson home so that he could cool off and eat a bit.

Medieval Market in Kaiserslautern

After the car show, Garry came home and we decided to go to the Medieval Market in nearby Kaiserslautern. It is one of the biggest in the area, so we thought that Jack might enjoy it. It took FOREVER to find parking and then we had to walk a little bit to get to the park but it wasn't too bad. The park was packed though and there were some....interesting...characters there. We had a really good time for a while but it started getting pretty rowdy as it was getting dark and Jack was getting tired, so we went home.



Trier

Today we went to Trier, about an hour away and it was INCREDIBLE!! Trier (tree-yair) is the oldest city in Germany and it was founded around 16 BC. There is actually a medieval inscription in the Hauptmarkt that reads:

ANTE ROMAM TREVIRIS STETIT ANNIS MILLE TRECENTIS.

PERSTET ET ÆTERNA PACE FRVATVR. AMEN.

 

(Thirteen hundred years before Rome, Trier stood 

 may it stand on and enjoy eternal peace, amen)

 

 

How cool is that? Older than Rome! Anyway, the first place we went was to the Konstantinbasilika, built by Emperor Constantine in the beginning of the 4th century. The Americans kind of burned it a bit in an air raid but it just messed up some of the 18th century decorations. Oops, our bad.

Jack in front of one of the gates.

Angel on the gate

Spitting sheep. This fountain (more to it than the sheep) acts as a very accurate sundial.

Part of the Basilica

Inside of the Konstantinbasilika. This was a throne room for Constantine back in the day.

Some statues that kind of cracked and broke after the allies set fire to the building.

Jesus

Inside the basilica.

 

Right outside of the Basilica is the Electoral Palace, built in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is considered one of the most beautiful rococo palaces in the world and I am really glad we didn't burn it down too! The statues were very lovely and someone had apparently "yarn-bombed" them because Mercury had a scarf and another gentleman was sporting knitted cuffs.

Jack and a mime friend

Jack in front of the palace. He fits right in, huh?

Bigger view of the front. Gorgeous!

A dapper gentleman with lovely knitted cuffs.

Mercury has a coloful scarf.

View of the gardens and Electoral Palace with the basilica in the background.

Jack in front of this relief in the garden wall.



A lovely little stamp we found on one of the walls, lol.

Jack and Garry walking back to the car. These flags were in front of the basilica. I spy the Stars and Stripes!

Next, we went to the Porta Nigra (Black Gate). It is a city gate that was built around AD 180 by the Romans, using bronze saws powered by mill wheels and put together without mortar. They have been held together by a system of iron rods. The gate was almost torn down and the stones recycled in the early eleventh century but a monk walled himself up in one of the towers and was actually made a saint. There were churches built in his honor within the Porta Nigra that were torn down in the 1800s but gorgeous carvings remain inside. It is called "Black Gate" due to the black pollution patina on the gray sandstone from medieval times.

The Porta Nigra. SO cool!

Spiral staircase that goes all the way to the top!

Garry and Jack

Relief of one of the Popes.

This particular Pope looked pretty fancy. And those little dinky gates were all that kept people from falling a LONG way. Europe is not quite as safety-crazy as the US and it made the experience quite a bit more exciting (especially with a wild, fearless 5 year old boy.)

Okay...this one made me laugh because it looks like that horn came from nowhere and surprised this poor guy by blowing in his face, lol. It also reminds me of the horns on the "cartoon portion of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Haha! Yes, this picture!

Jack sitting in what was probably a fountain? Or a toilet?

Pretty. From the old church

Garry and Jack

View of the Dom from the Porta Nigra.

Jack sitting on an old carving with a leaf.

Looking outside. He liked climbing up to stand on the gates and scared me to death.

You couldn't go on this part of the Porta Nigra but I stuck my camera through the gate so I could shoot this.

View of a church tower through the Porta Nigra.

This is the other side of the Porta Nigra.

Jack sitting in front.

After the Porta Nigra, Jack was starving and we ate pizza and had ice cream in the Hauptmarkt and Jack got to ride on the swings. He also LOVED chasing the pigeons (I almost wrote penguins, haha!).

Having a great time on the swings! Germany is such a fun place for a kid to grow up.

Swinging

Weee!

Poor pigeon. He LOVED chasing them!

An old fountain in the square

A really cool gate (with bums).

Jack and Garry by a TINY car.

I love this! I wish I could sneak up there in the dark of the night and cut out the castle and the peacock!

This bathroom had an attendant and charged me 50 Euro cents to use the potty!

Just from walking around, we saw another giant church and decided to go check it out. This is called the Dom, or Cathedral. The original cathedral was the largest Christian church in antiquity and was built after Constantine's last visit to Trier in 330-ish. The original church was about 3 times the size of the current church, which was built between 1196 and 1512. The inscription on the clock tower reads:

 "NESCITIS QVA HORA DOMINVS VENIET" ("You do not know what time the Lord is coming").

Burial place of the Archbishop of Trier (one of them)

Another burial thing inside the church

This is the alter.

Jack with his candle

He enjoyed this part.

Little fluffy did a great job!

Lots of candles

Chapel carving of the Nativity

Jacky's little candle

The back of the cathedral. Wowie!

The organ. GORGEOUS but it reminded me of a wasp nest hanging from the roof lol.

This is super-cool and creepy.

Statue

I thought that this turned out kind of pretty.

Woodwork was amazing!

The ceiling was more amazing.

I assume someone was buried here but I couldn't see who.

I looked up and these guys were looking at me! Eep!

Next door (kind of attached) is The Church of Our Lady, built in the 13th century. It is the oldest Gothic church in Germany. We weren't really supposed to go in there since Mass was ending but a group of us slipped in and boy I am glad we did! The light was shining through the incredible stained-glass windows and casting colored shadows all over the place. It was so lovely!

I LOVE this picture! Jack, in the light from the church window.

Gorgeous stained glass windows

The ceiling



More stained glass. See the red glass in the very bottom left window? I thought it was Lightning McQueen when I was looking at the pictures in the camera, lol.

So, we had a FABULOUS time and saw some beautiful things and we did it all in about 5 hours and didn't even hurry! I hope we can go back to Trier really soon. On our way back to the car, I found Hitler in the parking garage. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I think that blue crayon was the obvious choice for this graffiti.