Soccer and Slugs

The first freight train has finally left.  It took off with almost all of our household goods and car as planned.  Now, we get to wait out the last few months until we fly out.  In between, we will likely rent a car and stay in a hotel for several nights.  Yay for tax returns!

This week, moving things aside (for all week), the Spring rains have finally come, and even the slugs and snails are trying not to get wet!

I also had another home soccer game today.  Home soccer games are nice, because I literally have to walk two blocks to the town stadium, and it is indeed a nice field...although I do pity the spectators, whenever we have them.  We won again 2-0 with me getting the first goal with a header.  The rain helped a bit to keep the goalie from holding the ball too tight.  There was pretty blatant favoritism from the referee toward our team, but we've won on opponent fields with opponent refs, so I don't feel too bad.

Interesting cultural note too.  After getting the goal, I cheered loudly but briefly more out of surprise than anything else.  I was told kindly by a teammate to not laugh so as to not be disrespectful.  This is the second time (from a different team) that I was told this.  I find it interesting that my cheering is not interpreted as the self-joy that it was but as jeering.  It's totally a cultural thing.  Stateside, I'm pretty sure it would not have been interpreted as such, but again, I'm not stateside right now.  I'm grateful to my team for speaking up and informing me when I execute faux pas's.

I asked the team if I could buy a soccer jersey for when I move back to the states.  They said they would try to find a solution.  It was then that I learned that one of my teammates has actually been to the place where we are going to be stationed next.  He's not military, but works for a international US military contracting company.  What are the odds?  It's strange how small the world can be sometimes!

For our recent anniversary, we bought our much desired authentic German Black Forest Cuckoo clock.  We shipped it right away with our household goods.  I neglected to take a picture, but below is a copy of a picture of it from the website of the place we purchased it.  Funny story.  We actually drove to Wiesbaden to get a clock from their big clock store in town there, only to feel awkwardly intimidated by four store clerks there staring at us while we were just trying to look at the selection they had.  We ended up driving an hour away to the House of Clocks in Ramstein and got a clock there.  Way more easygoing and satisfying purchase, and the store clerk there was not pushy at all and very accomodating and informative.

I'll finish things off with recent pictures of our little one expected in September.  We have a name picked, a theme for the nursery, and many supplies on our Amazon list.  J's now 22 weeks along, almost fully viable if things go wrong and she has to deliver prematurely.  It's getting exciting!

This was in the room where they ultrasound was done.  I thought the post was pretty funny.

 Pretty irrefutable proof of gender.  We will be very surprised if we have a girl at this point.

Yeah, he was pretty mad about the whole ultrasound thing...moving around a lot, and a few 3-D pictures of him crying like this one.

Oh!  I totally forgot!  For Easter, we went to a local Restaurant and Inn lunch buffet.  The food was ok, but the best was the "Dancing Truffle."  It's a drink that's kind of like a champagne but they put a truffle in it.  Over time, the truffle gets enough carbonation that causes it to float to the top of the drink and sink to the bottom of the drink while you eat.  Totally a nerd thing I found fun, but I thought I would share :)
(Your audio works, I just killed the volume because we were just bantering back and forth while taping this.)