Hello!! Wow – the weeks are going much faster now that I am with a playgroup and have something to do. Today was fun; it was the first time Alexis went swimming! I went with two other mommies and their babies to this indoor kiddie pool. It was very nice. Alexis loved it as soon as I took the first step in. She was so cute – I wish we could have had someone there to take photos. She was so crazy and very active in the pool – too fun! Looks like we might start baby swimming lessons in a few weeks on every Thurs. YAY! I want Ronnie to go so he can see and take photos – hopefully soon so you can see her!

Oh yea – our first date night was nice! We just went out to eat – but here going out to eat is a 2-3 hour journey. When the babysitter first came, Alexis just woke up from her nap and she was VERY cranky, then she started throwing a tantrum. It was very hard to leave, but we did. We left about 7:45, got home around 10:15. Sitter said she cried pretty hard before going to sleep and kept calling out for me “ma, ma, ma”. I do have to remember though; it was her first time to have a stranger baby-sit her – so considering, she did good. We also did not scare the babysitter away (that was our main concern), as she is coming back tomorrow to watch Alexis and we are going to our first movie AND dinner in many months. We found an English cinema - YAY! Only thing showing is Rush Hour 3, but it is in Paris, so should be cool to see.

I hosted my first playgroup this past Wednesday. It was 5 other mommies and their babies. Alexis did pretty well considering 5 other babies invading her space and toys. It was craziness here. Alexis only did one pretty hard hair-pull on one sweet girl, but other than that – she was good. The day before (on Tues) Isabella came over to play with Alexis and another side of Alexis came out. She did not want to share her toys and was hitting and throwing tantrums. But that was the first time for her to have someone come in and play with her toys. So I learned from that and had some of the other mommies bring toys on Wed and that helped out.

Alexis now has eight teeth, can crawl on top of the couch by herself, can crawl “under” things, walked for a few steps holding on to only one of my hands, and can maneuver her walker anywhere in the flat. She can answer questions properly on what sounds a cow, cat, snake, elephant, sheep, lion, and horse can make, and says “Amen” after I ask her, “What do we say to Jesus after we pray?”. So cute!

More interesting things I have learned:
The other day we went to the Englischer Garten – it is a very large garden/park and well known in Munich. I left the playground that we were at to walk Alexis to help her sleep and looked across the garden to see a man, his 9ish son and 12ish daughter hitting a ball back and forth. Only thing was the man and his son were butt naked! AHHHH! I went back to the playgroup and asked if that was normal. They replied – oh yes, that is the nudist section of the Englischer Garten – see the sign (very small - in German). They then told me that there is also a “gay section” and a “gay nudist section” – glad they told me! As we would not be able to read the sign and would have been surprised one of these days!

One day we were walking down the street and there was a man fully clothed, wearing a large diaper on the outside of his jeans. OK. Like I said, we have seen it all here.

Katja, in my playgroup, told me an interesting perspective of hers and mine generation here in Europe. Here, many people date, then think of baby, have baby, then MAYBE get married. So most of the women I am hanging with are not married, they live with the daddy and do everything as if they were, just no rings and no ceremony. They also told me that there was a problem with too few babies over here, so recently the government has started to offer a monthly payment to anyone who has a baby. Also you get 1-3 years to be able to take off work, and the company, by law, has to hire you back. So ever since the money incentive, there has been a baby boom here. I do see a lot of babies everywhere, many by older women (upper 30’s – 40’s).

Many people are un-churched and it is known that only older people attend church. Pray that God uses me in some way to plant a seed somewhere, especially within the playgroup.

If you are a Catholic or a Protestant in Germany, there is a tax that you have to pay to the government, in turn the government gives to the churches. Interesting. I guess when you become a member of the church – you go on file?!

Well that is our update for now – sleep time! Love and miss you guys! – Us3