It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 8!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

And the week is almost up, but I haven’t finished the year yet! This is now the eighth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, yet more castles, Ruth and John’s visit, our trip to EuroDisney, and more travels and more visitors.

After we went to Belgium with my family and Steve’s parents, one of the highlights of my life happened. They went to Paris — and dropped me off at the Abbaye de Royaumont outside Paris on April 11. They picked me up on April 13, after I attended the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference.

When I walked through the gate of the Abbaye, here is the sight that greeted me!

When I prayed about the conference, yes, I hoped an editor would discover my work and beg to publish it, but what I really prayed for was that I’d make some connections with other writers of middle grade novels. I was feeling a little bit of a freak, since I didn’t know anyone else who was desperately trying to find time in their lives to write children’s novels.

That prayer was answered in spades!

But first, some walking about the Abbaye grounds.

My roommate was Vicki Sansum, and she proved to be delightful! We were pretty sure they’d given us the Servant’s Quarters, but the conference was so good, that was a minor detail in comparison.

That first night, at dinner, I sat next to someone — who ended up being Arthur Levine, the editor with Scholastic who had brought the Harry Potter books to America!

I had given Josh the first Harry Potter book for their birthday, having read about it in Horn Book Magazine. But I hadn’t read it myself yet! (What an opportunity lost!) It was shortly after this conference that Josh told us this needed to be the next book we read at bedtime. (We were trying to read to both kids at once, now that Timmy was 4 years old.) And so began a wonderful family tradition. Steve did most of the reading aloud when we were home. (In fact, when Steve moved out just after Book 6 came out, when I was crying about it, I said, “But who will read Harry Potter to us?” What, after all, is important?)

Anyway, the conference was wonderful. I got to talk with editors. I got a critique of my first book. I affirmed my intention to be a writer. And, best of all, I made connections with other writers.

Here’s the luxurious dining hall. Vicki’s in front in the blue.

By the end of the conference, we’d formed an email critique group. It ended up being me, Vicki Sansum, Erin MacLellan, and Kristin Wolden Nitz. Within the next few years, all three of them did get published, and I’ve put links to my reviews of their first books. (I kept saying it was my turn next, but I stopped critiquing awhile back because now I’d like to get on the Newbery committee before getting published.)

For awhile, we emailed very faithfully, and they became my dear friends. We call ourselves the Sisters of Royaumont. We had a reunion at another SCBWI Writer’s Conference at the Abbaye de Royaumont in 2005 — which happened the day after my husband told me he wanted a divorce. These women were my lifeline! (But more about that later.) Anyway, it all began at the beautiful Abbaye de Royaumont in April 1999.

Here I am with Vicki:

And here are Erin and Vicki:

And I’m afraid this isn’t the greatest picture of Kristin, but think of her as a Woman of Mystery.

It was an amazing weekend. And I came home now having new lifelong friends who shared my passion.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 7!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

But my 34th year was a big one! This is now the seventh post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, yet more castles, Ruth and John’s visit, and our trip to EuroDisney.

Well, so far I’ve gotten to the winter….

One major event that happened on December 15, 1998, was that my Grandpa Bates died, in Oregon, of a brain tumor. I couldn’t afford to fly to the funeral at Christmastime prices. (I hadn’t heard of bereavement fares, though any amount would have been difficult.) That made me feel far away from family. And it gave me a fresh wave of grief about my college roommate Colleen Jenks, who’d died of a brain tumor in Oregon in March of that year.

As the winter carried on, my job-share Sonia moved away, but it took them months to replace her. From January through August, I worked 27 hours per week instead of 20. At the same time, I was taking my writing very seriously, trying to spend 7 hours per week writing. But I was also working, being a Mom, trying to keep a large house decently clean, going to castles on weekends, and trying to get all those pictures I was taking into photo albums. (I did not succeed, but some of them are in nice albums. Now I’m trying to post them all online, which is a much more doable task.)

My journals are interesting. There was lots at this time about being my Authentic Self — probably natural now that I was in a job I loved so much. I also believe that’s a side effect of my theology changing. If God is going to eventually save everyone, it doesn’t make sense that my main purpose in life is to convert people to Christianity. Maybe the other gifts I have to bring have meaning. Maybe God made me my quirky self for a reason and takes joy in what I can bring. Working in a library certainly makes my heart sing. And Writing.

And I was delighting in my sweet kids. When it snowed, Timmy loved to go outside and use his bubble mower and “mow” the snow!

Here’s our beautiful view with snow on top!

And here are the kids sledding in our own yard:

Here’s our pretty house at Christmastime:

And look! I took some pictures at the Sembach Library! The first one has my dear Elfriede!

Did I mention our cat, Oskar? He came with the house, and quickly “informed” us that he was allowed indoors, and that he did not tolerate dry cat food. I swear he liked to go walk in the mud and then come back into the house, just to annoy me. He also liked to rip the “skirt” off the back of our sofa. You can see him here making nefarious plans. But the kids loved him.

We got to one castle that winter, on February 27, 1999. Castle #64, Burg Reipoltskirchen, a Wasserburg (with a moat!) — I think the only moated castle in the Pfalz. Most there were built on hills instead.

Josh turned 11 years old. They were a winner in the 5th Grade Oral Reading Festival!

But on March 25, 1999, Steve’s parents came — for a month! That put a lot of pressure on me. I was already trying to find every spare minute to do my writing. Now I had to set it aside to be a good host. Only I was scheduled for a Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators retreat in Paris in April, during their visit. And there was homework. So I really had to get that homework done before the retreat.

On top of that, as soon as they arrived, I got sick with a bad cold. But we took off two days after they arrived and headed south to the Black Forest.

And the next day, we went to Mainau Island and visited Castle #65, Schloß Mainau.

That next week, of course, we went with Gram E and Gramp E to Falkensteinerhof for dinner and visited Burg Falkenstein.

Springtime! We could eat outdoors with the beautiful view!

My main homework assignment for the writer’s retreat was to illustrate the poem “I’m Hiding.” Since I don’t draw, I decided to use photos. Setting them up was a lot of fun. Here are my favorites.

On Easter Sunday, after church we drove to Bern, Switzerland, and saw the bears!

And the next day, April 5, we visited Castle #66, Schloß Burgdorf, near Bern.

When it came time for my SCBWI Retreat, the whole family went on vacation. They visited Paris while I was on the retreat.

First, we spent a night with Steve’s Dad’s cousin in Ghent. The flea markets there were amazing!

And of course we made sure to touch Burg Ghent, Castle #67!

The city of Ghent is lovely.

This is at Steve’s Dad’s cousin’s house. Beautiful countryside.

And we stopped in Brussels for a couple hours on our way to Paris and were dazzled.

You have to have chocolate in Belgium!

And of course we visited Mannekin Pis!

Well, it’s getting awfully late, and I still haven’t been able to finish. Next up is my amazing SCBWI Writer’s Retreat at the Abbaye de Royaumont in Paris, where I made some lifelong friends.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 6!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

I’m afraid now that I’ve reached the Germany years, it’s taking multiple posts! This is now the sixth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, yet more castles, and Ruth and John’s visit.

That brought us to the end of October, 1998. For Halloween that year, naturally Timmy was a knight.

And here’s the first snow day of the year, on November 19.

But the next Big Event was when we decided what to do with the $740 from the Beanie Babies Aunt Kay had given to the kids that Steve had sold in Colorado. It was really the kids’ money — so we decided to go to Disneyland Paris!

Knowing Disneyland (California) like I do, it seemed ideal to go over Thanksgiving Break, when the French kids would be in school. (This was, indeed, an excellent idea.) I’m going to quote from my journal for most of the description of the trip.

“We left on a cold, cloudy morning. We left fairly late — 10:30, and arrived at 3:30. It took us an hour to find the Ranch Davy Crockett and check in. It was so foggy when we arrived, we couldn’t tell where the park was when we were in the parking lot!

“We entered Disneyland Paris at 4:30 — It was open until 6:00. There were no lines whatsoever. First, we all rode Star Tours. It’s the same as California, only the robots speak French! I’m not crazy about that ride, because it doesn’t give the whooshing feel I love on roller coasters, and is so jerky. Timmy said it was too scary.

“Then Josh and I went on Space Mountain. Josh was just barely tall enough — they checked him twice. He’s 1.40 m tall. I was glad they had a Space Mountain, and liked the Jules Verne décor, but I expected the ride to be exactly like Disneyland California. How wrong I was! It had both a 360-degree loop and a corkscrew! As we went around, I was laughing delightedly — ‘Space Mountain doesn’t go upside-down!’ Ah, but it does! The ride was also darker and faster than the other Space Mountain — all-in-all, one of the best roller coasters I’ve ever ridden!”

“That night we also rode It’s a Small World and the Teacups. It was an excellent hour and a half.

“After the park closed, we looked at Disney Village.”

“I wanted to eat out since it was Thanksgiving. We shelled out well over $100 for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. It was rough on someone with a headache (me) — too much shooting. I expected tables — dinner theatre sort of thing. Instead, we were crammed into a bleachers sort of arrangement. Anyway, the boys did enjoy it.”

The next morning, we did the Character Breakfast. I love the way Timmy’s face is shining in these pictures. (And we’re all wearing my knitting!)

“On Friday, we were at the park by 9:30. Sure enough, they let you in before opening at 10:00.”

“This time we headed first for Frontierland — for Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril and Big Thunder. We took turns riding those and being with Timmy. I liked Big Thunder better than the California one. It goes underground at the start, to go on an island. And it seems faster to me. Indiana Jones is another roller coaster that goes upside-down.”

“We had a marvelous day. There were no lines at all. I liked Adventure Isle — no boats to get there, just bridges — how nice. It has more caves and tunnels than Tom Sawyer’s Island.”

“Another thing that’s different is Alice’s Curious Labyrinth — instead of a ride. Rather fun.”

“Timmy also liked Storybook Land — both the boat and the Casey Jr. train (which goes faster than the California one).” Here’s Belle’s village in Storybook Land:

“We got to go on everything — Timmy went with us on Pirates of the Caribbean and Phantom Manor (both updated) and even Big Thunder! He must be exactly 1.02 m tall — the height limit. On that ride, he clutched the bar and my hand tightly and looked pretty scared. He said it went ‘too fast.'”

The Pirates of the Caribbean got a castle! (No, I didn’t count any of these castles! They weren’t 100 years old!)

“Another highlight that was different was the 360-degree movie — a journey through time and Europe, instead of America. It was fun.”

More pictures from that wonderful day:

I love the oh-so-French shrubbery:

This part of Frontierland looks almost the same.

I call this one “Tired and Cold”:

But there was still enthusiasm for Eeyore!

“The next day (Saturday), we took the kids to their favorite rides and headed home about 3:30. The lines were short — max was 30-45 minutes, but we had been spoiled the day before!

“Josh chose Star Tours, Space Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean.

“Timmy chose Peter Pan, It’s a Small World, and Autopia. We did those separately, and all rode on the Teacups together (another favorite of Timmy’s).”

“Saturday was cold and even rained a little, a contrast from our lovely day Friday. I did like that they had “galleries” behind the Main Street shops, so you didn’t have to be outside. We ate at Buzz Lightyear’s Pizza Planet for lunch.

“On the way home, we ate at a French restaurant, where I had absolutely scrumptious pear ice cream.

“A nice finish to a fabulous vacation!”

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 5!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

However, I can’t seem to restrain myself when it comes to talking about Germany! This is now the fifth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, visiting the village of Sondra, and yet more castles.

In October 1998, Ruth and John came to visit!

The night they arrived, of course, we took them to eat at Falkensteinerhof. It was too dark to see the castle that night, so we took them to Burg Falkenstein the next day.

But that day, October 19, we took them all over Burg Lichtenberg. (This was a castle we’d already visited, Castle #14.)

Burg Lichtenberg is right outside the village of Ruthweiler, so I thought Ruth should get a picture with the sign, too.

And the next day, we took them to the Rhein River. We showed them an old favorite, Burg Rheinfels, but also took them to Castle #61, Burg Sooneck.

Here’s Ruth in front of the Lorelei, where sirens used to sing riverboat captains to their doom.

After this, Ruth and John went off to Bavaria and did some sight-seeing on their own. We did some sight-seeing on our own, too, driving into France on October 24, and visiting Castle #62, Chateau de Fleckenstein.

On October 25, Steve had to work, but the rest of us went with Ruth and John to Trier, where we visited Castle #63, the Kaiserthermen, the Imperial Baths. Now, I know I had a reason for calling these a castle. They were used by the Roman emperors, and I believe it was part of a palace structure… maybe I was stretching it, but it was fun to roam around in the passages with flashlights.

I’ll finish off this post with some views from our home in Gundersweiler.

And this one from the balcony outside my bedroom:

I was definitely still loving living in Germany! So far, my family seemed to share my enthusiasm for castles! (I never did get tired of them. This was not necessarily true of everyone else by the time our 10 years were up.)

I’m still not even halfway through Year 34. Next up: Eurodisney!

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 4!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

However, when I lived in Germany, each year was packed full! This is now the fourth post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job, our vacation in Spittal an der Drau, and visiting the village of Sondra.

I still haven’t gotten through the summer. It was about that time that my cushy schedule of working Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday switched to working four hours a day, five days a week. In a lot of ways it was nicer — I could get a regular schedule and usually worked 9:00 to 1:00, which was very nice. It was a three-week rotation, and every third week I had to work Saturday and Sunday.

I was still trying to spend lots of time writing. I was trying to sell my first novel and trying to write my second. Working a little bit more days was conducive to that (though being a Mom wasn’t — there were always things that came up).

I remembered that just when my boss told me my schedule would have to change, I’d bought tickets to go see the Student Prince in Heidelberg. Fortunately, Elfriede took pity on me and took that Sunday.

So on August 16, I went on a bus tour with band wives Kathy Huggins and Daphne Ciufo, and we got a tour of Heidelberg and got to see the musical “The Student Prince” performed in the courtyard of Heidelberg castle!

First was a tour of the city.

And then we saw the musical “The Student Prince“! They set up chairs in the courtyard. They brought in a real carriage and horses! And used an upstairs balcony for some of the scenes. It was a wonderful summer night, not too hot, not too cold, and most of the play happened as the sun was slowly setting.

My favorite part was when the Student Prince would say, “Ahhh, Heidelberg!” talking with longing of his time there — as we were sitting there in Heidelberg. It was wonderful.

Our busy summer finally ended and Josh started 5th grade.

In my quiet time notebook for this year, I see that this was when I first read the compilation of George MacDonald’s writing, Discovering the Character of God. My journals are joyful. Lots of quotes from the book. On September 18, I wrote this:

But my mind has been expanded. George MacDonald is convincing me little by little of his belief that God is so loving that all will be saved — eventually.

I knew this was a big deal. I figured I wouldn’t be able to teach at Biola any more, since I wouldn’t be able to sign the statement of faith as written. I wouldn’t be able to become a member of our church for the same reason. (Though Steve couldn’t become a member because he was baptized as an infant. But still.)

We had switched churches when we moved. We’d been attending Faith Baptist Church near Ramstein. But when we moved, we missed lots of weeks, and even though I was singing in the choir, no one seemed to notice. (To be fair, there was so much turnover, it was hard to even know who was new or who’d moved away.) So we started attending Sembach Bible Church, near the base at Sembach. A nice thing about this is it made us more part of the Sembach community. I’d see people I knew from church at the library, and some of my friends’ kids went to school with Josh.

I still believed that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So I could still worship with them. But I was starting to think that Jesus brings some people to the Father in a way I might not recognize.

After I read the George MacDonald book, I began reading through the New Testament with this new lens. Could it be true? It seemed impossible before I tried it — but to me the new view actually seemed a better and more natural interpretation of the words of Scripture. (Since then, I’ve read many, many more books on the topic. And found out that this was actually the view of the Church Fathers. And there are many today who believe it as well. For more, check my book reviews.)

On Labor Day, the whole family was off, so we drove into France to Strasbourg.

There we visited Castle #59, Palais de Rohan, and the Musée de Beaux-Arts.

On Saturday, September 19, I spent the morning at work, and then we drove on the Hunsrück Schiefer- und Burgenstraße, and on a whim followed signs to Ruine Koppenstein. There was a nice path — a Rundweg — through the woods to the castle.

We weren’t sure if the huge rocks were part of the old wall or part of the mountain.

Either way, they were fun to climb on!

And one day, Josh came home from school and said, “Steg is worth a THOUSAND DOLLARS!” Steg was one of two Beanie Babies that Aunt Kay gave us when Timmy was a baby and Beanie Babies were just cute. 1998 was the height of the Beanie Baby craze. The kids were fine with selling them. So when Steve had a band trip to Colorado in October, he took the Beanie Babies with him and sold them in a mall. He didn’t get a thousand dollars, but he did get $540 for Steg and $200 for the other dinosaur (a triceratops, if I remember right). Now what to do with the money that really belonged to the kids….?

While Steve was in Colorado, I went for the first time to the Frankfurt Book Fair with Elfriede. Now that was an amazing experience! Even just staying in the English-language hall, it was overwhelming to see so many books, so many publishers.

And next up — Ruth and John came to visit!

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 – Part 3!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

But now that I’m covering the years I lived in Germany, I don’t seem capable of keeping it to one blog post. This is now the third post about being 34, after talking about my new home and new job and our vacation in Spittal an der Drau.

On August 8, 1998, we got to do something I’d been wanting to do for awhile.

I think I mentioned that one of my first purchases in Germany was a hiking map. Well, I also bought a road atlas. And I loved to look at the atlas and plan these trips to castles.

Well, once when I was looking at the atlas, I was delighted to see a nearby town called Sonderhausen. Anyone who reads my blog knows that Sonder is a German prefix meaning “special,” which I picked up on right away. So Sonderhausen means “special houses.”

I figured there were probably more place names with Sonder- as a prefix. So I went to the index in the back of the atlas.

Imagine my delight when I discovered a town named SONDRA! Exactly my name! It was located in the former East Germany, about three hours away from us. I found a castle nearby as well, so that a trip would involve more than taking pictures of the sign. The closest castle is the Wartburg, which is where Martin Luther translated the Bible.

So, on Saturday, August 8, 1998, I dragged my family with me, and we visited Sondra!

I later made a t-shirt and a sweatshirt with the image. I still wear that sweatshirt when I feel like affirming who I am.

Here’s the sign that tells you you’re leaving Sondra:

And I just had to get lots of pictures taken. It took us 3 hours to get there, after all.

While we were taking these pictures, an old lady wearing a kerchief was working in a field. I wonder what she thought of us.

(I did think the villagers should take better care of their signs.)

Another Leaving Sondra sign:

The Wartburg was a fascinating and beautiful castle. Nicely preserved, and with a museum. We took a tour and learned about Martin Luther translating the Bible there.

I always like low ceilings that show how tall I am. Josh could reach this one!

Timmy? Not so much.

Cannon are always fun!

Back home, I’d forgotten to mention that Josh played baseball again that year. Their team even won the little league championship! (Believe it or not, there were enough American bases in the area to have a complete league.)

And our next outing was much more prosaic: A Corn Labyrinth! We hadn’t been surprised by these in Illinois. A little more so in Germany.

It felt a lot more appropriate to go to a Medieval Fest in Kaiserslautern that same night.

We did buy a Kinderhelmet.

This, predictably, resulted in some sparring later.

And that was the first couple weeks of August! Year 34 was full…. More to come!

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34 — Part Two!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

However, it seems that now that I’ve gotten to the years when I lived in Germany, I’m just not capable of cutting it down to one blog post. I’m having so much fun looking at old pictures — I’m afraid I’m going to stretch these out over several posts.

Last time, I covered the beginning of the year I was 34. We did lots of exploring on top of the new hill we lived on in Gundersweiler. In fact, here are some pictures from another exploration of our hill. (So beautiful! I loved exploring the fields up there, with the world laid out around us.)

We discovered this marker up on top of the hill. These are the villages in that area, on various sides of the hill.

And this crazy seat? It was probably something for hunters to use, but it had the label “Pfalz-Thron.” (The Pfalz was the region of Germany where we lived.)

My sweeties:

Steve had a day off on Monday, July 20 — so naturally, we went to a castle. This time we went back to Schloß and Burg Rheingrafenstein, which we’d visited in November when Jody was visiting. This time, it was much warmer and sunnier.

Now, every year the USAFE Band took leave at the same time (or at least half the band would take at one time and half at the other) — so that they would always have all the instruments they needed to perform. Ours was in July, and we were going to be gone during Timmy’s birthday on the 29th, so we threw a birthday party for him at the Bowling Center on base. The kids from Miss Angie’s home day care came, and Angelika and Katharina from Leithöfe. I made him a train cake!

Remember in 1986, when we were engaged, I spent the summer in Austria? The first place I wanted to go, now that we lived in Europe, was to go back with my family to Spittal an der Drau. And I wanted to take the cable car to the top of the mountain, Goldeck, and hike down. Because what could be better than a hike on a hill when you never had to hike uphill? I mean, what could be easier? (Famous last words!)

Now, the previous year, we didn’t have a choice where to go on vacation, because Steve’s parents took us on an amazing trip to Sweden. But this, my first year living in Europe when I could go anywhere for vacation, I wanted to go to Spittal an der Drau. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but we got a hotel room for four nights, traveling from July 27 to July 31.

I wrote in my journal on the 30th, so happy to be there in Spittal. I felt that God brought me back to Spittal, and — Wow! — I wrote, “I think maybe I read something revolutionary today in George MacDonald’s writings, but I still have to think about it and process it.” (I hadn’t remembered that I read that from George MacDonald in Spittal an der Drau! More on that later. That was a life-changer.)

We drove through Bavaria, and our first full day in Spittal, we explored the town — so much as I remembered it. The kids played in the castle park, and we all touched Schloß Porcia, Castle #55, the palace in the middle of the park in the middle of town.

Josh and Timmy played with the giant chess set in the park.

The 29th was Timmy’s 4th Birthday! The hotel folks brought in a cake with lighted candles at breakfast and sang to him! (I say in my journal, “Too bad I was the only one who liked the cake!”) We did bring his presents with us, and he was thrilled.

Have I mentioned yet how much little Timmy loved everything Dilbert? We had “Dilbert’s Desktop Games” on our computer, which he played often. And that led to the comics. I had the only three-year-old who pretended to be “Techno-Bill.” Anyway, we gave him a stuffed Dogbert.

Quoting from my journal, “After that, we did what I dreamed of doing for twelve years. We took the cable car up Goldeck (2142 m) and hiked ALL the way down.

“When I first glimpsed Goldeck Tuesday, I had a sinking feeling that it was bigger than I remembered. But we did the WHOLE thing. We exhausted ourselves, but we really did it. My boys and husband were wonderful troopers and didn’t complain and let me fulfill my dream.”

First, the cable car.

From the top, we had to find the right path back to town.

But we did stay on top and enjoy it for awhile.

We started hiking down.

There was a halfway point where we could have caught the cable car the rest of the way down. I’m still thankful Steve let me keep going.

Oh, and all the way down, I was singing, “It’s Timmy’s Birthday today! It’s Timmy’s Birthday today! Hooray, Hooray, Hooray, Hooray! It’s Timmy’s Birthday today!” (And most of the way down, Steve was carrying Timmy.)

At the halfway stop, there were treats! (We’d already had lunch at an earlier mountain hut.)

Reader, I’m afraid it took us six hours to get down that mountain! We crossed this river, and there was a restaurant right next to it where we stopped to eat.

I was completely exhausted when we stopped for dinner. I knew I needed some caffeine to perk me up. Well, I ordered fresh-caught trout, and the waiter would not let me drink coke with it! No, for such a fine dish I had to have white wine! He bullied me into it, and I had a glass of wine with the trout.

It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life, but after six hours of hiking — I was so tipsy, I almost couldn’t walk straight to the hotel! Since we were walking to the hotel, and since it really was one of the best meals of my life, it was probably worth it!

Back at the hotel, we lit candles on some cupcakes we’d brought for Timmy, and then all fell asleep.

The next day was quieter. (We actually got our car keys stuck in the hotel room safe!) But we did enjoy the hotel pool and visited the castle museum in Schloß Porcia.

And enjoyed this little car on Main Street:

In the evening, we drove to Millstättersee and rented an Elektro-boat!

And then we drove back through Spittal and up a winding little road partway up Goldeck and visited Ruine Ortenberg, the first ruined castle I ever saw, 12 years earlier.

We headed home the next day, but on the way we saw a castle where we had to stop, Festung Hohenwerfen, Castle #57.

The view from the castle:

Looking down at the lower castle from the upper castle:

I don’t think we caught a Raptor show there, but they did have raptors.

So that was our Austrian vacation, 1998!

As if that weren’t enough, the following Sunday, we wandered over the border into France and visited Thillombois and Lac de Madine. We didn’t find any castles, though!

And I believe I took these pictures because I got my pictures up! Only 3 months after moving in — not bad! This was the living/dining room of our beautiful house.

So — two posts, and I’ve only gotten through two months! I think it’s going to speed up, as we didn’t take vacation all year! But you’ll still be hearing more about Year 34….

It’s time for Project 52, Week 34!

34 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 34 — June 14, 1998, to June 14, 1999.

Now, this week I’ve decided to give up on the idea of posting about the whole year in one night. I’m going to spend about an hour and a half, and probably won’t get very far…. But being 34 was a good year to think about.

I had just begun working at Sembach Base Library in May. Last time, I talked about how I almost didn’t take the job. When I did, it felt like such a gift from God. It felt like the job was made for me. Surrounded by books! Half-time, so I still had time with my kids! Jade (then called Josh) could walk to the library after school! It was a job share, so I actually got Holiday time and Sick Leave! I did story times! I even found a way to do some programming!

The first reason I got to program was that they were hand-writing overdue notices. I made an Access data base to print them and put the overdue books in order so we could check the shelves without having to use the cards. Believe it or not, at Sembach Library, they were still filling out cards with your name and address on each card and the title, author and call number of each book you were checking out. At first, they wouldn’t let me make a data base for check-out — since they’d bought a computer system and it was supposedly coming. But there was no way I was going to take the time to hand write overdue letters when I could invest a little time in making a program to do it for me. So that was the first thing. I loved having a small chance to program again.

When I started, my job was shared with a woman named Sonja. (How’s that for confusing? Sonja and Sondra started at the same time. At least no one ever called me Sandy!) I’m afraid that Sonja did not really like the job and complained a lot about it. Which was a drag, since I was so completely thrilled to have it. Staffing at Sembach was always an issue. When we were fully staffed with a librarian, our German library assistant Elfriede, and two half-time library technicians, we got by okay. But when we were in between librarians or technicians — it was really hard to cover the hours. I went through 5 librarians in 8 years, and 5 job-shares. Jeff Conner was the librarian who hired me, and I really liked working with him.

But my dear Elfriede! The treasure of Sembach Library! She’d been working there 26 years. She is an exuberant, delightful single lady who drives a little red convertible (very very fast) and has never grown up. She loved to feed me, going to the “coffee place” (bakery) for lunch and would always bring me back a pastry. It made her genuinely happy to feed me, so I didn’t want to hurt her feelings and refuse.

As the years went by, Elfriede became my biggest fan. And you know what? it’s good to have a fan! In turn, I am a fan of Elfriede, one of the most delightful people I have ever known. She was the constant over my eight years of working at Sembach Base Library.

But we also had a new home! We’d gotten kicked out of our apartment in Leithöfe, but found this wonderful house in Gundersweiler to rent, just when I got a job so we could afford it.

The Gundersweiler house was incredible inside and out. Take a look at this incredible bathroom!

Yes, that’s a heated towel rack.

I *loved* the German toilets that came out of the wall. You could mop under them so easily. No ridiculous screws that catch dirt. All simple as can be. Sometimes I’d wonder what would happen if one clogged, since the mechanism was in the wall. Well, ten years in Germany, and we never once had a toilet clog! (German bathroom technology is wonderful!) (After I moved to Virginia, a toilet clogged when I wasn’t home, and Tim didn’t have a clue what to do. He’d grown up in Germany, so that was his first clogged toilet.)

Yes, it takes three photos to show the whole spacious and luxurious bathroom!

And on my birthday, June 14, there was a Balloon Fest going on! It was across the valley from our house. I took this picture sticking my head out the bathroom window.

And then we decided to go for a walk up our hill. This was a longer walk than the one up our hill in Leithöfe. But incredibly spacious once we got up there. In the first few pictures, there are dots in the sky that are the balloons still taking off.

We tried to re-create the previous year’s picture.

Like in Leithöfe, walking up there felt like being all alone on top of the world.

I love this one of Josh! I’m afraid we did find a tick on Josh’s back that evening.

And that night, they made me a birthday cake. I love the beautiful windowed nook where we kept our table.

And that July 4th was noteworthy. While we were moving our stuff from Leithöfe to Gundersweiler, we kept passing a sign that said “Bungee Jumping in Gehrweiler July 4!” (The sign may have been in German, but that was the gist.) Steve knew that he always worked on July 4, so he said that if he wasn’t working, he’d go bungee jumping.

Well, that year July 4 was on a Saturday. The official U. S. holiday got moved to Friday so people could have a day off. Steve and the Brass Quintet played a party at the Paris Embassy on Friday — and was home on July 4! So we went to Gehrweiler, and Steve really did go bungee jumping!

A couple other band people were there, and that was the day I met Jeanine Krause! Jeanine was married to Nick Althouse, a trumpet player in the band. It quickly became apparent that Jeanine was a kindred spirit. You’ll be hearing more about Jeanine! She was my first best friend in Germany.

And after bungee jumping, it was a Saturday in July, so we went to the Rhein to see The Rhein Aflame!

On a lot of Saturdays during the summer, Germans shoot off fireworks from castles! It’s dramatic and exciting — and they ended up being the most amazing fireworks I’ve ever seen on the 4th of July. We didn’t take a cruise to see them, since that ended up being expensive and would go late. Instead, we went to a Fest taking place by the river in Bingen. From there, we could see fireworks going off from four different castles. It was amazing.

Here are the kids messing around in the afternoon when we were still figuring out what we were going to do.

And we were still enjoying our home. The first time there were horses in the pasture next to our house, I had to take a picture!

And there was a soccer field down the road where we flew kites.

Another thing that happened about this time was I found out what was causing my joint pain. I’d been having joint pain and malaise since just before we left Illinois. I thought I was getting either rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, and the symptoms seemed to fit lupus best. Well, I got in with a German rheumatologist in Mannheim, and he ran a bunch of tests. I see by my journal that I also finally asked a lot of people to pray.

The rheumatologist told me that although some things were elevated, they were not at the level they would be if I had lupus. He sent me away and said, “Check your medication.”

Well, I was now working in a library! We had a Physicians Desk Reference. I looked up Inderal, the migraine preventative I’d started taking six months before I had any joint pain symptoms. It said that in “very rare cases”, it may cause drug-induced lupus! So — I stopped taking Inderal. It took a couple months, but my symptoms completely disappeared, never to return. Yep. That was it.

I wrote in my journal, “I went from thinking I had an incurable disease to one with a simple cure: Stop the Inderal. What’s more, my headaches had gotten so much better during my time not working, it looks like I’ll get along fine without the Inderal. So a shadow that’s been hanging over me for the last two years has been suddenly removed. And I feel so thankful.” (Alas! I was naïve about the headaches. But so thankful about the drug-induced lupus.)

I haven’t gotten very far tonight. But let’s see if I can get through the year if I post a little bit each night….

Tonight was about just how happy I was to start my wonderful made-for-me job and to move into my dream home. I barely got through a month….

It’s time for Project 52, Week 33!

33 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 33 — June 14, 1997, to June 14, 1998.

Last week, I covered moving to Germany when I was 32. But alas! It took me three posts to cover the whole year. I don’t want to actually spend three nights writing each blog post, so I learned I’m going to have to cut down the number of pictures I post. Somehow. This is hard, because my heart lifts every time I look at the pictures from our time in Germany. The only thing that saved me last week and allowed me to finally finish was that I never did scan a whole chunk of pictures from 1997.

So I’ll see if I can summarize. (Ha! I have my doubts.)

The setting: We were living in Leithöfe, in a 3-bedroom apartment on the first floor of a house where our landlord and landlady lived above us. We had large windows in every room, and were perched halfway up a hill, with a gorgeous view out the windows. We could even see the Air Force Base across the valley — but had to go around the hill to get to it.

I got to quit teaching when we moved to Germany, and it was lovely to be home with 2-year-old Timmy, and home in the evenings with 3rd-grader Jade (then called Josh). We had a wonderful evening routine of often going for a walk up our hill after dinner, or maybe playing Monopoly Jr. together.

There were some negatives. I still got waves of mysterious pain in my joints. I thought I was getting lupus. (It turned out to be drug-induced lupus, but I didn’t know that yet.) I had days when I just felt sick. A draggy malaise. (It gave me permanent sympathy for people with rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or fibromyalgia.) Kind of too bad that the whole time I got to be at home with my kids, I had drug-induced lupus. But overall, it was a wonderful time.

And despite all his traveling with the USAFE Band, Steve was willing to go castling with us on his days off. Which I appreciated very much. A lot of the other spouses would go traveling together — but I liked that we could do it as a family. We’d already touched 21 castles before my birthday in 1997.

My 33rd birthday fell on a Saturday, and Steve had to work in the evening. But before he left, we went for a walk on our hill, and the weather was simply glorious! (I remember as a child living in Kent, Washington, the weather was always wonderful on my birthday. Well, Germany has a similar climate, and it seemed to work that way in Germany, too.)

Here are some pictures from our walk that day. (I got just some of those pictures scanned.) And look at me, I can’t resist posting the pictures I have from that glorious day. I think they begin to express how lovely it felt to climb that hill and be on top of the world.

Our house is the one in the center with the dark wood under the peaked roof.

The next day was Father’s Day, and we had a picnic lunch to celebrate. More enjoying the lovely weather from our beautiful new home.

Now, this is still the time period where I don’t have many rolls of film scanned, so I’m just going to list the castles we visited.

Castle #22, Burg Frankenstein (really!), June 28.
Castles #23-25, Burg Altdahn, Burg Grafendahn, and Burg Tanstein, July 8. These three castles are all right next to each other, near the town of Dahn, and I do have some pictures from that visit.

One of my scariest moments ever when castling happened when I’d taken Timmy to the top of the tower, and I was trying to navigate these ancient, terribly worn stairs — and Timmy had a meltdown. I was afraid I’d drop him. I finally stepped back and cooled down — and took his picture.

A lovely castle on a lovely day.

On July 15, we picked up Steve’s parents at the Düsseldorf airport, and they took us on vacation! In fact, we stopped for lunch at Castle #26, Burgturm Davert.

But we spent that evening in Bremen!

The cool thing about Bremen was that when we told Josh we were going to move to Germany, Josh’s teacher told them about the statue in Bremen of the Bremen town musicians. So we made sure to visit it.

The next day, we drove into Denmark, and visited LEGOLAND!

(That’s the only picture scanned so far from LEGOLAND, but a cute one!) The funny thing about LEGOLAND was it made me notice that from living in southern California, I’m used to lots of people at an amusement park speaking a different language from me. (At Disneyland, it’s Spanish.) What I wasn’t used to was lots and lots of blond children who looked just like my kids! Both Steve’s parents are of Swedish descent, so my kids are half Swedish, and fit right in with all the Scandinavian children.

We visited Roskilde, Denmark, and the Viking Museum there. We rode a ferry and went to Sweden. In Sweden, we got to take part in a family reunion and meet many of Steve’s Dad’s cousins. (There are ten cousins in a picture, which I don’t have scanned.) We saw the little red house called Lövudden where Steve’s grandfather was born. We stayed and talked and talked until very late — but the sun didn’t set!

On the way back, we visited Castle #27 — Kronborg in Helsingör, Denmark — the setting for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Castle #28 was Burg Nohfelden, and Castle #29 was Burg Rheinstein.

Then on August 16, we took a train to Koblenz and visited Castle #30, Kurfürstliches Schloß, and Castle #31, Festung Ehrenbreitenstein. We also visited the Deutsches Eck, where the Rhein and Mosel Rivers meet, and the Schängelbrunnen.

But we decided after that day’s outing that it was much simpler to drive our own car. We didn’t have to worry about missing the evening train, and we didn’t have to pay for 4 tickets, and we didn’t have to walk around the city once we got there. So we didn’t do much train travel after that, except when I made journeys by myself to Paris later.

The Moore family — the pastor who married us — visited Germany at this time. I met the family at the Frankfurt Bahnhof, where Connie and Krissy caught a train to Brussels, and then took Doug with us sight-seeing, and he spent the night at our house. Steve was in Italy at the time, but got back that night. We took Doug to the airport in the morning. For the sight-seeing, the kids and I took Doug to our favorite castle on the Rhein, Burg Rheinfels, and we had dinner in Otterberg next to the beautiful Cistercian church.

I do remember that Doug asked how Steve was doing spiritually, and I couldn’t really answer him. We usually attended the Baptist church out by Ramstein, and I was singing in the choir. But Steve had told me at one point that he wasn’t even sure he was a Christian any more. I hadn’t pressed him, but remembering that conversation reminds me that I took a lot for granted. But we were both still very happy about being in Europe, and so far he didn’t begrudge me all the sight-seeing and castling I wanted to do.

Castle #32 was Burg Wildenburg, a castle fairly close by that we visited on a Saturday, September 13.

Then Steve had a long weekend September 27-29, and we went into France! (Josh’s school was super understanding about letting kids off for “educational family trips.” They understood those were way more meaningful to the kids than classes, at least in elementary and middle school. I appreciated that attitude so much!)

I wish I had scanned the pictures from that trip! We went into Alsace, and besides fall color in the trees, all the windows were decorated with flower boxes. It was so beautiful!

I took 2 years of high school French, but Steve had taken 4 years, so he was pretty good at communicating. On the way to Alsace, we first visited the Black Forest and the waterfall at Triberg in Germany. Then we crossed into Alsace.

Alsace is a tourist destination — for Europeans, not Americans. We followed signs and saw a couple of very cool things: The first was Montaigne des Singes, Monkey Mountain, where they give you a handful of popcorn and you go walk among a bunch of gibbons (I think it was) and feed them the popcorn. They lift it right out of your hand. Well, except for one mean monkey who’d pat at your hand and make you drop all the popcorn so he could have it.

The other tourist event was an eagle show, Volerie des Aigles, at a castle, Castle #35, Chateau du Kintzheim. This all happened on September 28, along with visits to Castle #33, Haut Koenigsbourg, and Castle #34, Oedinbourg.

On the 29th I finally have some pictures. We followed signs to a Cascade.

And then we had a picnic next to a small ruin, Castle #36, Chateau de Hell. (Really!)

In between, we did more hikes around our hill. If you didn’t go straight up, there were actually hiking trails all over the hill. Remember that hiking map I bought when we first moved to Germany? It helped.

I was impressed by these mushrooms!

We took a trip to the Mosel River on October 6.

We visited Castle #37, Schloß Schöneck and Castle #38, Ehrenburg:

And finished the day at Castle #39, Burg Eltz:

Two days later, on October 8, Steve had the day off, and we went to Castle #40, Burg Stauf:

I hope by this time you get the idea why I SO LOVED living in Germany! We were doing awesome vacation after awesome vacation! To this day, I think castles are awesome. And we could just pick a spot on the map, and go see a castle! It was a huge adjustment when I moved back to the States to realize that a 3-day weekend no longer meant I could take a little trip to France.

November 1, we visited Castle #41, Burg Neuleiningen — the first castle we’d seen after moving to Germany, visible from the Autobahn.

And by now Jerry had moved in! Jerry was Steve’s friend from the band at Scott AFB. Steve talked him into coming to Germany, and he moved in to the 1-bedroom apartment next door to ours in the same house. Here’s Jerry on a hike with us through the Leithöfe woods.

I was still knitting:

And then our friend Jody came to visit! Jody the Band Spouse from our first assignment in New Jersey!

We met her in Luxembourg and then took her home. (It was a rainy day, so I didn’t take many pictures, but was charmed with Luxembourg.)

Luxembourg City is a walled city, so we counted it as Castle #42. (A beautiful city, too.)

Castle #43 was another walled city with Jody, Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

On Monday, November 17, we took Jody to the Rhein River.

And visited Castle #44, Marksburg.

On the 19th, we visited Castles #45 and #46, Schloß Rheingrafenstein and Burg Rheingrafenstein, but by the time we got there, it was already getting too dark for good pictures.

We took a break from castling during December. That was the Christmas when Timmy was 3 and full-on into pretending. Like Josh, I brainwashed him into having his first person he pretended to be was Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh. By Christmastime, he was consistently Pooh, and could even spell his own name, P-O-O-H. I was Piglet. (Which sometimes really bothered me when he’d call me from his room. “Piiiiglet!”) Josh was Christopher Robin, and Steve was Tigger. We actually put those names on our Christmas presents.

That Christmas was the first year I put a Top Ten list on my Christmas Letter. Here are the Top Ten Ways You Know You’ve Lived in Germany for a Year:

10. You no longer even think about asking about the Band’s schedule for the day after next.
9. You don’t pronounce “Burg” and “Berg” the same way.
8. You stop gawking at the scenery on your way to work or school.
7. You no longer say, “Let’s stop at a German restaurant for a quick bite to eat.”
6. Someone asks you how far away something is, and you answer in kilometers.
5. You can pronounce “Gewerbegebiet” correctly on the first try.
4. You lose interest in a building when you find out it’s only 100 years old.
3. Your idea of a kid’s meal is Pommes Frites (French fries) with ketchup.
2. You don’t hesitate to drive your car through narrow openings, as long as you have a few inches to spare on either side.
1. You cross into Luxembourg, see the speed limit is 120 kph (75 mph) and say, “Uh oh. I’d better watch my speed.”

In January, we got to castles again. On January 10, we visited Castle #47, Burgruine Hohenecken, right there in Vogelweh village, near the BX.

Steve had a band trip to Luxembourg at the end of the month, and on January 28, we met him there. After all, I’d driven myself to Luxembourg twice before to pick up Jody and take her back to the airport. (It was about two hours away, on empty Autobahns, which you could take at high speeds.)

I heard the Louvre is free the first Sunday of the month — so I had the brilliant idea to drive to Paris! It’s “only” 6 hours away. We got off to an early start and Steve and I each drove 3 hours, with him navigating the Paris traffic. We even found a good place to park ahead of time on a map.

This time Josh really did get their head between the pyramids!

The first catch was that it ended up costing us $40 in tolls and $50 in French gas. (We could buy cheap American gas — about 10 times less expensive — on base in Germany, but not in other countries.) Then when we got to the Louvre, they had just opened a new exhibit, and all of France was there to see it! The line was two and a half hours long! But a helpful person at the Tourist Office directed us to walk through the Garden of the Tuileries to the L’Orangerie, an Impressionists Museum.

We had a lovely walk through the Tuileries, and the L’Orangerie was a lovely, peaceful museum. The most amazing thing was in the basement. Two large rooms have their walls filled with paintings of Water Lilies done by Monet. The walls are curved outward, and you feel like you’re in a capsule submerged in an aquarium. It’s astonishing and peaceful. I hadn’t realized the paintings are so enormous.

The other catch was that on the way home, Steve and I were having such a good time talking with each other, I missed a turn and didn’t figure it out until much later. So the cost and gas went up yet more. We didn’t get home until 1 am, so my bright idea didn’t seem so bright.

On February 10, we visited Trier, which was once a Roman capital. Castle #48, the Porta Nigra, was our oldest castle so far. We also counted Castle #49, Palais Kesselstatt, and Castle #50, the Amphitheatre, which was once part of the city fortifications. I got a weird feeling when I realized that Christians had actually died there.

Still some silly times at home in Leithöfe:

And we celebrated Josh’s 10th Birthday at the base bowling alley. Ryan Scott was already their best friend.

On April 6, we visited Castle #51, Burg Ruppertsecken.

And I need to post a few pictures showing how gloriously beautiful Leithöfe is in the Springtime.

Toward the end of March, a band spouse, Donna Crump, who worked full-time at the Sembach base library, was leaving Germany (with her husband). I thought about applying, but so liked being at home with my kids. Then they cut the job into two job shares, each half-time, and the job got more tempting.

Then our car broke down. It ended up being easy to fix, but I realized that if we had to buy another car, then I would need a job — that’s how tight we were cutting things. So why not apply for a job I was awfully sure I’d love?

The interview with Jeff Conner happened on April 10. I was already a regular library customer, and I had Spouse Preference and a Bachelor’s degree, which was a requirement. Donna had probably put in a word for me. The interview almost wasn’t even an interview — he told me how the job would work. I found out the same day I got the job!

What’s more, the first person I shared the job with wanted to work every weekend. So when I started at Sembach Library, I had a regular schedule, working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 6, 6, and 8 hours. And the very next week I found a home day care provider, Miss Angie, recommended by another Band wife, who would watch Tim 20 hours per week without charging me a full-time rate.

But then we got some bad news. On April 30, our landlady told me that we were going to have to move.

She cried when she told me. Silke’s father was getting married so her parents were getting divorced after years apart, and Silke’s mother had to sell her old place. She was moving in to our apartment.

Steve took it harder than I did. It helped that I saw Silke’s tears. I think Steve was upset that Jerry got to stay in the 1-bedroom apartment. I felt like getting that apartment was such a miracle in the first place, surely God would provide again. I began looking for a new place.

And on May 5, 1998, I began my first job in a library, as a library technician at Sembach Base Library. Here’s what I wrote in my journal:

“My first week of work at the Sembach Library is complete, and I love it! Today was the best day of all — I’m settling into the work and can enjoy it. And every day I’ve come home with a book or two — or many. I can’t seem to reshelve books without finding many that I want to take home with me.” (This problem has persisted.)

I say later in the journal, “I don’t feel like I ‘found’ this job. I feel like God found it for me and presented it to me as a special gift.”

May 10th was Mother’s Day — and of course I asked to go to a castle! We went to Castle #52, Burg Trifels.

After that, Steve was working 6 day weeks, and I was working three days a week, and Timmy was trying to adjust to daycare. And we needed to find a new place to live. We thought we found one — but none of us was happy about it, and it felt so depressing.

But meanwhile, we had company! My friend Karla from high school came to visit. We took her to the Rhein River for Castle #53, Burg Pfalzgrafenstein, the one on the island in the middle of the river.

And after that, we had dinner at Burg Liebenstein, Castle #54.

And we made a trip to Worms Cathedral, not real far from us, even though we couldn’t count it as a castle.

Still discouraged about finding a place to live and with Steve out of town, I went to the base housing office one more time — and found a listing that sounded interesting out in Gundersweiler. Here’s where I write about that:

At the housing office, they had some new listings, and I was able to make one appointment. On the way, I passed through another village with a house for rent, so I decided to try to find it and see if it would be worth pursuing.

Just as I was about to turn around, I found the street. The house was on the very end, and when I saw it, I was so dazzled, I felt shaky! On a hill, it had a view and large windows — what we knew we’d miss from Leithoefe.

After I got Josh from school, I brought him by the house because he was very sad about having to move, and I wanted to cheer him up. Well, as soon as we parked in the driveway, who should pull up but the owners from Stuttgart, there to clean since the previous renters had moved out the day before.

Once we saw the inside, I was hopelessly hooked on this house. It had FIVE bedrooms, two big bathrooms, a basement, and a windowed “nook” where we eat looking out on meadows and hillside. Yes, we took it — The catch being that we had to move the very next weekend, and we did it ourselves because the Air Force wouldn’t pay.

At first, it seemed like terrible timing that this happened right when I was starting a new job, but it turned out that it costs a little more than what the Air Force will give us for rent — so without my income, we wouldn’t have dared take it.

And so that was how we got to move into my dream house — Of all the places I have ever lived, the house in Gundersweiler is my favorite. Here are views of it shortly after moving in:

So — I ended my 33rd year with a new job and a new home, still completely in love with living in Germany.

It’s time for Project 52, Week 32, Part 3!

32 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 32 — June 14, 1996, to June 14, 1997.

But, boy oh boy, am I ever going to have to start editing myself! So far, I’ve done two posts about the year I was 32, and I still haven’t gotten half done, and just barely got to Germany! Sigh. If I want to finish the year in a week of blogging, I’m going to have to leave out a lot of the castles and sights and try to give the big picture.

Last time, I’d gotten us almost through November, which ended with Steve’s 32nd birthday. We had our landlady Silke and her girls, ages 3 and 5, down to share our cake.

They were very interested in Steve’s tuba!

But the super significant thing about Steve’s birthday that year?

Now all the ages of people in our family were odd powers of 2!!!

Tim’s age was 2 = 2 ^ 1.
Josh’s age was 8 = 2 ^ 3.
Steve and I were both 32 = 2 ^ 5.

!!! I know! Thrilling, or what?!

This (of course) never happened again, once Josh had their 9th birthday. (The next year, all our ages were odd multiples of 3, which always happens the year after your age is an odd power of 2, but it’s not nearly as rare for our whole family. In fact, just last year, I was 3 x 17, Jade was 3 x 9, and Tim was 3 x 7.)

But back to moving to Germany…

On December 1st, we visited Castle #2, Burg Falkenstein.

Burg Falkenstein is only about 20 minutes from Sembach Air Force Base, and ended up feeling like “our” castle. It became our favorite place to take visitors when they just got off the plane. It’s a little castle, but the view is beautiful. And close by. And no admission charge. It’s just there. There’s also a restaurant just up the road from the castle, though I don’t think we discovered it just yet. Oh, and the road to the castle has a 25% grade, so I was always glad that Steve was driving. But fortunately, you can drive to the level of the castle and don’t have to walk up the hill to enjoy the view.

So here’s “our” castle, Burg Falkenstein, the first time we visited it on December 1, 1996. (This is probably the ugliest it ever looked — still very beautiful.)

On December 5th, we got our household goods and Josh started 3rd grade at Sembach Elementary School.

I think it was the very next day, a Friday, that both kids came down with a fever. Timmy got a super high one and burned it out within a day, but Josh didn’t have as high a fever and was sick long enough to miss some school the next week. Steve made a special trip to the Base Exchange at Ramstein to buy a video for them to watch. I think it was Toy Story. We’d found our TV and VCR, but we hadn’t found our videos yet. (The folded up bed in back is loaner furniture, which got removed on the 11th.)

Remember how I’d been trying for a white Christmas ever since 1990, when we left California? Whenever we went back West for Christmas, they’d get snow at home, and whenever we stayed home, we wouldn’t get a flake during Christmastime. But this year, all that changed. Here’s how I put it in the Address Change Letter I wrote the following March:

“And, yes, at long last, we had the White Christmas of our dreams! It snowed on the 23rd, but on Christmas Day there was not a cloud in the sky, and the view from our house was breathtaking! Thanks to an ice storm on the 22nd, the treetops really did glisten, as if coated with diamonds. It was incredible. We went sledding both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, simply walking up the hill behind our house. They say that they haven’t had a white Christmas here for 8 years, so again, we feel that this was a special treat from the Lord. We’re glad that wherever we go, He still watches over us.”

Some Christmas pictures:

The glistening treetops:

In the afternoon, after some sledding, we visited Marie-Laurence and Sam Sikaly, who now had newborn Joel as well as Elise.

Marie’s Grand-mere was there, who only spoke French. Elise “only” spoke French and German. Marie, of course, speaks excellent English. We played an interesting card game with English, German, and French all used.

That first Christmas was when Steve and I bought each other a cuckoo clock, complete with a German band of musicians in front.

On December 28, we went to another favorite castle, Castle #3, Schloß Heidelberg. I love Heidelberg’s Castle, because it’s got picturesque ruins and a beautiful view, but it’s also got luxurious parts still and even parts that are still used today. And there’s an American base in the town of Heidelberg, so they give castle tours in English.

The day we went to Schloß Heidelberg, the temperature was in the single digits Fahrenheit. The Germans were going on about how COLD it was. We didn’t think too much of it — days like that always came along in an Illinois winter. Well, it wasn’t until about our last year in Germany that we ever experienced weather that cold again! And the next time, we were complaining right along with the Germans. Brrrr!

(Interesting to me, I also visited this castle later on one of the very hottest days I ever experienced in Germany, about 102 degrees Fahrenheit. I think I actually prefer single digits.)

Here are pictures from that very first visit to Schloß Heidelberg, Castle #3:

Josh is posing below the statue of Joshua:

The green thing is a heater, which was on:

Well, I’m going to have to stop going day-by-day, or it will take me the rest of the year to finish the year I was 32! Now, I just realized that I missed scanning the film from several months of 1997 — beautiful months, too! So perhaps that will help restrain me.

Let me quote again from the letter I sent in March 1997:

“Steve has already been to England, Eastern Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, and he played at many of the Christmas markets in this part of Germany. For our tenth wedding anniversary, we took a bus tour to Paris, where, to quote Timmy, we saw the “Awful” Tower. Paris was wonderful, but the bus was indeed awful. Anyway, we figure that one of the great things about living in Europe is that we really don’t have to do our sight-seeing with tour groups. All the weekends in February were beautiful, and we spent them “castling” and hiking. As a family, we’ve now visited 12 castles or palaces, including Heidelberg and some along the Rhine. There’s something magical about spending a Saturday roaming over an 800-year-old ruin! And they’re all over the place! We won’t run out of hiking trails either.”

So now I’m going to *try try try* to restrain myself and just post some of the pictures I do have scanned.

I have to show this one! At the Louvre, Steve told Josh that if they could get their head between the pyramids, they’d become super smart! Then this exact spot was important in the book The Da Vinci Code.

I was so excited to find a street named after a mathematician across the street from Notre Dame!

From the “Awful” Tower:

At the L’Arc de Triomphe:

Snow was on the ground the entire month of January! (The longest it was ever on the ground during our ten years in Germany!) When Aunt Kay sent money for Christmas, we decided to buy a German sled.

Our landlady had a costume party for Fasching:

The house had wonderful window ledges for Timmy to drive cars off:

And, okay, more castle pictures, since I’ve already cut them down to size for the blog. These are from when we went back to Burg Nanstein, Castle #1, above Landstuhl, which was closed the evening we first touched it. We went back on February 1st.

Okay, NOW I’m going to try to post fewer pictures. (The above, I’d already selected before I’d realized I was overdoing it.)

Here’s one from a hike in our woods by Leithöfe:

Oh! And another significant Castle! Castle #6 was Altenbaumburg, above the village of Altenbaumberg. (I’d counted Versailles and the Louvre — once the home of kings — as castles.) Altenbaumburg had a restaurant, and it was only about 20 minutes away from Gundersweiler, where we moved in 1998. So we visited many more times. Again, cool ruins, beautiful views. And this one also had hiking trails leading away from the castle, which we explored for a bit.

On March 1st, we took our first climb to the top of our own hill. This later became a regular after-dinner tradition. A game of Monopoly Jr., a walk to the top of the hill…

That’s our house, the white one right in the center of this picture:

Here’s our town’s sign:

And the front of our house:

We visited Castle #7, Burg Berwartstein, on March 2, 1997.

More Castling on March 8 — First Castle #9, Burg Neuwolfstein:

(This one is to show how tall I am, filling the doorway!)

Then Castle #9, Kyrburg:

A few from Leithöfe:

On March 12, 1997, we took our first car trip along the Rhein! We touched another castle that ended up becoming a favorite — but that day it was closed by the time we got there. Castle #10 was Burg Rheinfels.

And Castle #11 was Schönburg (“Beautiful Castle”):

It’s probably just as well that I didn’t get the rest of my Year 32 pictures scanned. There are rolls and rolls. I do have this set in photo albums, and there are many that are truly gorgeous. Clearly, I’m not able to restrain myself from posting them. Here are the castles we visited:

Castle #12, Ebernburg, after Schönburg, also on March 12, 1997.
Back to Castle #10, Burg Rheinfels, on April 4.
Castle #13, Burg Reichenstein, April 4.
Castle #14, Burg Lichtenberg, April 11.
Castle #15, Hohenburg, May 3.
Castle #16, Burg Breitenstein, May 17.
Castle #17, Burg Spangenberg, May 17.
Castle #18, Burg Meersberg, May 31. (We met Darlene here!)
Castle #20, Neuschwanstein!!! June 1.

And that brings us up to my 33rd birthday!

You can see that it would have taken me hours longer to finish this year if I’d still had all the pictures. Neuschwanstein! Leithöfe in the Springtime! The Partnach Klamm by Neuschwanstein! So much more! (I will scan them eventually and post them on Facebook, so my friends will get to see them.)

But one thing I do want to say about our move to Germany: A few years before, someone had suggested writing down your dreams for yourself. So I’d written down some wild dreams I didn’t imagine could ever come true until maybe I retired. Well, I counted up, and I remember now that NINE of those dreams came true when we moved to Germany. I don’t remember all of them, but some were:

1. To quit teaching.
2. To have more time with my family. (We used to play Monopoly Jr. after dinner, then go for a walk up our hill with its glorious view.)
3. To live where it’s beautiful. (Wow! That was the most incredible view I’ve ever had. It fed my soul.)
4. To travel to Europe again.
5. To learn other languages. (Well, one.)
6. To be able to go hiking right from my doorstep. (The crazy thing is, since then, I’ve never lived where I can’t do that, but that was the most far-fetched one of all when I first wrote it down. Not something you can do where I grew up.)
7. To write a book. (Now that I wasn’t teaching, I finished writing my first children’s book! I really finished it!)

I don’t remember what the other two were. I never dreamed of getting to touch castles! But let’s just say that I felt that God had given me so many desires of my heart.

The funny thing about moving to Germany — many other band folks hated it. Now, the band commander was reportedly verbally abusive and awful to work for. So it was harder on Steve than on me. But Steve and I had a private joke about a couple we knew who hated it in Germany and wanted to go back to Scott AFB, which we were so glad to leave. When we saw a beautiful sight that seemed prototypically European, like passing a cathedral or quaint shops or a beautiful view, Steve would say, “Doesn’t it make you wish you were back at Scott?” And we’d laugh together.