Bugged!

Our apologies for not posting much in the last few weeks. The truth is that we've been taking turns to get sick. There seems to be a throat infecting virus/bacteria going around Rostock... we've heard of friends and friends of friends getting it. In our family, the germs have made a complete round and come back to me again. Sick a second time in 2 weeks!!!

As soon as I'm back on my feet and back on track with my photo uploading, I'll set up a decent blog entry. In the meantime, I'm wishing our blog followers better health!

In memory of our beach time...

Summer has officially ended :(. Actually with daily lows of below 10 degrees, it's starting to feel like winter.

Here are a few pics we took over summer of Warnemunde, a touristy beach town about 20 minutes by train from where we live. It overlooks the Baltic Sea right across Sweden and Denmark. We were there practically every weekend that was not rained out.



There's more to Warnemunde than surf, sand and sea...

You can tell just by looking at her face that her heart skipped a beat as she came down this long and steep slide! 

Apartment tour: Girls' room

Thanks to our lovely landlady Hanna, Minori and Marisa have a room in our rented apartment decorated just for them! It looks quite bare because the girls play out in the living room usually.



After bringing home a parsley plant from the supermarket, Minori took it, changed into a dress, and started dancing with it like it were a bouquet of flowers! Girls will be girls!

Has it been 9 months???

It's amazing how quickly time flies! Marisa has already spent more time outside the womb than inside. And from the way she observes her older sister, we can tell that she can't wait to grow up.

Daddy's soccer girl!

There are many places in the little town of Rostock where we can just sit out and enjoy the sun (and a kebab!). This video was shot in May in one of these nice parks.

Minori making daddy very proud!

Apartment tour: bathroom

It's huge and we do everything in it - shower, bathe, toilet, laundry and hang our clothes out to dry. Yes, I was also surprised to learn that in Rostock people don't use a dryer, considering that it's usually rainy. They love hanging their clothes out in the garden in spring, summer and whenever they can, according to my landlady, because the clothes smell very nice this way.

We live on the 3rd floor and there's no way I'm able to lug our laundry up and down three flights of stairs with the two little ones several times a week so we have a little portable hanger for our clothes in our bathroom. We live in the "penthouse" (hahaha!) so there's a huge window in our bathroom ceiling that brings in a lot of fresh air and sunlight. I absolutely love this bathroom!





We used to have to try all sorts of tactics to get Minori to take her bath every evening. Since moving here, she jumps at the opportunity to dip in the long bath with her little sister.

Nothing much has changed for Marisa in this regard. She has always loved her baths, and she still does!

View from our window

Timmy and Linda, our landlord's children playing in the garden.



A couple of times a week, hot-air balloons carrying advertisement fly over the apartment.


I think this photo was taken slightly before 10pm (yes, these days we're still wearing our sunglasses after 8pm!). The sky at sunset looks different every day from our apartment. Sometimes it's very blue and purple, yesterday we had streaks of pink. A favorite past-time now is to just sit on our couch and watch the sky.

No haircut for me today

The Euro 2008 ended yesterday. Before the game, fans here in Rostock (which is everyone I guess) flocked the bars and pubs to collectively watch the final match between Germany and Spain, and to get drunk. I think even outside of the country, Germany was the favorite to win (having won the cup three times before). Black, red and yellow everywhere.

But alas...

We still heard bad singing and drunkards shouting in our neighborhood streets after the game, but things would definitely have been louder if Germany had won. Still, I think I'll miss all the excitement that surrounded the games.

I had thought of getting a haircut this week (many German women have very chic short haircuts) but maybe not today. There's a very good chance the hairdressers are soccer fans... had better let them "mourn the loss" first.

Guten Tag

Dear friends n family:

I just want to post a quick "hi we're alive although we haven't been blogging or online in the last three months."

It's a long story that I'm very tempted to share but the bottom line is that we finally got our internet access yesterday. Once I get up-to-speed with things, I'll be posting photos and videos. Lots of them. Please check back soon!

Love,
The 4 of us

P.S. While typing this, Marisa just clapped for the first time! Oh these developmental milestones... we never get tired of them, first or second baby!

P.S.S. Weird photo taken by PhotoBooth application on our MacBook. How else to take family photo with just us. Please try to ignore the pajamas.