Moran Family Fun

I love the basket factory so when my mom mentioned that maybe we could go there during their visit, I was more than happy to play chauffeur.  The plan for our day was basket factory, hike into France, and climbing around on castle ruins.  We got the first two done and had to put off castle climbing for another day. I don't know what this was supposed to be, but it would make an excellent time out spot for Natalie, our little mischief maker Samantha found this lovely top hat shaped basket And John almost  bought this amazing mask It didn't take long for everyone but Mom and I to have had their fill of baskets and masks, so we bought a few treasures and then headed out for our hike into France.   We found the trail head and set off, all the while hoping that we were going the right way.  The trail was pretty well marked, but there was some spots that were confusing.  At one fork in the road we did take the wrong path and we'd gone about ten minu...

  My parents and brother didn't come to Germany solely to celebrate Abigail turning ten, even though that was a pretty big deal.  They also came to be tourists!  After a couple of quiet days at home just spending time together and getting over jet lag it was time to get out there and see some sights.  Our first day was pretty close to home - we went to Kaiserslautern which is just thirty short minutes away.  Usually I do three things in Kaiserslatuern:  go to church, go to the commissary, or go shopping.  I vaguely remembered hearing about some things worth checking out on our newcomers tour when we first moved here so my objective was to find those sights.  The first place we stopped was this wonderful fountain - it really was the coolest fountain I've ever seen.  I didn't know much about the fountain when we went there, but I've since looked it up and found out that all the fun things symbolize parts of K-town's history.  If you want t...

Lucky duck Abigail got to have her grandparents and her uncle here for her birthday! They flew into Frankfurt on her birthday so she got the day off of school and drove to the airport with me to pick them up.  We celebrated her birthday a couple of days later and I think it was a success.  She was surprised by her presents and she liked her cake.   This was her face all day - permanent happiness There were presents to open and (just like on her first birthday) boxes to play with. Happy 10th Abigail, we hope all your wishes come true!

Jared has decided that we're finally "fully integrated" into our little community here.  It all started earlier this month at the fest to celebrate our Kindergarten's 20th anniversary.  As I wrote about  here , I was asked to play the piano for the fest.  Natalie and Samantha both took part in the program that day as well. Samantha sang with a small group of kids from her school who had attended the kindergarten in the past few years.  Samantha and the other elementary school kids sang with the women's choir here in town.  The first little bit of integration was when they got up to sing - Frau Meyer, the lead kindergarten teacher, asked me to sing with them since I'd been there for all the practices.   After the two opening songs, there were lots of speeches.  I've learned that at any German gathering there will be people making long speeches.  Three separate speeches to begin our little celebration.  One from our town's mayor, one f...

Do you love Muddy Buddies?  Or Puppy Food?  Or whatever other name you might call that delicious treat made from Chex cereal, peanut butter and chocolate, and powdered sugar?  Around here we really, really love Muddy Buddies.  I was so excited when I saw that you can finally buy Muddy Buddies by the bagful, but I was less excited when I bought them and realized that they had used Corn Chex instead of Rice Chex!  What?  Come on General Mills - Rice Chex are the only way to go with Muddy Buddies!  Plus, I can buy a whole box of Rice Chex for about the same price as a little bag of pre-made Muddy Buddies.  So I picked up some Rice Chex and grabbed the other ingredients from our pantry and got cooking.  Well, not really cooking - it was more like melting chocolate and peanut butter together. There are just a few steps to making Muddy Buddies.  First you melt the peanut butter and chocolate.  Then you pour the chocolate mixture over th...

Mother's Day was two weeks ago and I'm already looking forward to next year when my kids will cater to my every whim!  Seriously, because my husband and our children are amazing my mother's day was also amazing.  It started off with the usual breakfast in bed - cinnamon toast, scrambled eggs, and orange juice.  What wasn't so usual was that Jared was there with the girls to deliver the breakfast.  Usually he's already at church when I'm waking up on Sunday mornings.  I really appreciated that he took the time to rearrange his schedule that morning so I could see him for a little while before he left for church.  I was also grateful that Samantha climbed in bed to snuggle with me because I was full after the toast and she very kindly offered to eat my eggs for me.  That way whichever child made those eggs wouldn't feel badly that they didn't get eaten.  I came upstairs to a clean kitchen and children dressed and ready for church.  Not a bad...

Emily is a smarty pants and she has a certificate to prove it!  At the beginning of May she brought home an application to become a member of the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS).  Madison has been busy with their school's chapter of NJHS for the last two years and Emily really, really, really wanted to get accepted into the chapter as well.  She filled out her application and then proceeded to worry and obsess for the next two weeks.  It was torture for her as well as for the rest of the family.  Every day at least once a day we would have conversations about if she was going to get in or not, how she would feel if she didn't get in and her friends did, or if she got in and her friends didn't. Once she learned that parents would be contacted the week before the induction to let them know which kids made the cut, things got even worse.  Daily questioning from Emily commenced - "Did you get an email from NJHS yet?"  or "So and so got a letter in t...