September Creations with my Two Sous Chefs

Voila! One lovingly hand-picked and home-cooked apple torte (created with apples hand-picked from a little orchard nearby). Every bite is filled with memories of tree climbing, laughter, and ripped jeans (mine, ripped while climbing). Even the executive chef does a little "sous" chef-ing from time to time. Who knew that serendipitously discovering apple trees along a Nordic Hiking trail in the Rheinland-Pfalz counts as dessert preparation?

Deep sweet chocolate and Kahlua brownies with bitter almond-cinnamon cream and toasted almonds.

Fun at the Burg Nanstein Medieval Fair in Landstuhl, Germany

Goodbyes & Kisses

Goodbyes June 2008 - Leaving for Korea for One Year

Goodbyes are hard. But we've been through this before and we know what to expect. When Phil left in 2005, we were kind of floundering. I didn't speak very much German, Phil was in a potentially dangerous area, we never knew when he would be able to call us (and when he did, he had to wait in line for up to an hour, and even then there was no privacy), we had absolutely no support system here (I cannot stress that enough!) and we didn't have many friends. Phil had to live in a tent with several other guys (absolutely NO personal freedom or privacy) and he had to walk across an unbelievably hot and dusty base just to take a shower.

It was hard for all of us.

This time around, we're more rugged! We've been there, done that. There are so many reasons why this time will be easier than the last, even though this separation is twice as long.

Goodbyes December 2005 - Leaving for Afghanistan for Six Months

Top Ten Reasons Why this Year Will Fly By:

1. We know from experience that we can make it.

2. Phil will become NCOIC of the armory at Osan, and he hears that it's a great shop.

3. Phil has his own room.

4. The girls and I speak and understand much more German this time around, which makes us feel much more comfortable and capable here.

5. We've lived here for 4 years already, so Kaiserslautern feels like home. We know our way around, we know what's what. It's rare for a military family to feel at home somewhere.

6. The kids and I have many more friends.

7. Akychame is old enough to babysit, and Lvov is legally old enough to be home alone anyway (though I insist that they be home together). This is great because I get to avoid mom-burnout! I can have fun on my own, then be 100% present for my kids the rest of the time. The happier I am, the happier they are. So true!

8. Unlike the last separation, this sacrifice has two major pay-offs: Phil won't go to war in Iraq for at least a year and a half! And during that time, the Presidency will have changed hands. We're hoping that this madness will come to an end. But for now, our boy is safe! That alone is worth a year apart.

9. Here's the 2nd benefit: as you all know, as a reward for living apart from his family for a year, Phil has been assigned to a dream base in England! It's a tiny, laid-back base with a very low deployment schedule. And...it's located right next to Oxford, England!!! Oh my, life will be sweet. Major pay-off.

10. This one came as a shock to us all: military dependents who are not command-sponsored (that's us) are allowed to (and welcome to) get a visa to live in Korea for up to a year so that they can visit their sponsors on the weekends!!! So next week I'll be sending out our passport info and applying for visas...it'll take about 2 months for it all to process...then we can take a free military flight to Korea! Phil is excited to start looking for apartments for us near Seoul. We'll probably stay for a month or two. What an adventure! We're also pretty psyched about it because it's just a hop, skip, and a jump from Korea to Tokyo. Even though I remember Tokyo like the back of my hand, the kids' memories of Japan are unfortunately a little faded. Maybe we'll celebrate Christmas in Tokyo. Who knows?

Even though a year is a long time, we're actually very lucky because Army families have to be on their own for 15 months at a time while their soldiers are fightinng in Iraq - and once the soldiers reunite with their families (if they still have families by the time they return) they only have about a 3 or 4 month grace period before they're thrown back into the fire. We Air Force folks have it easy compared to all that. Kudos to all of those struggling families!

So, time marches on. Before bed every night, the girls will have a Hershey's "kiss" from Daddy. Each kiss brings us a day closer to being together.

Letters to God at the Church in the Cliff at Idar-Oberstein, Germany

The village of Idar-Oberstein lies about 45km up the Nahe River from Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg. It's a long, twisting drive from Kaiserslautern, a little over an hour through forests and mountains. We had heard so much about this quaint village, the church built into the side of a cliff, and the one-of-a-kind jewelry created on-site, that we absolutely had to check it out. For a weekend "quickie" trip, this was a lovely adventure!

Idar-Oberstein was once a mining center for precious stones and minerals, but when the industry exhausted its resources in the 1800's, the little town became renowned for jewelry craftmanship. This is where people go to find cutting-edge gemstone jewelry.

From Oberstein's Marktplatz (where most of the unbelievably artsy and wonderful jewelry boutiques are located, tucked into little corners here and there, and spilling out into the cobblestone alleyways), 230 steps lead up to the late fifteenth-century Felsenkirche, a late Gothic church set in a grotto about halfway up a steep rockface. Amazingly, you have to walk through a cave to get to the front door of the church! What a thrill...the drip, drip, dripping of water from the rock ceiling above us, the dank smell of minerals and forest, the darkness...

Inside, the church is clean, bright, and modern. One would never guess that it was built into a cliff over 600 years ago! Imagine our delight when we found a winding walkway through a side door of the church that led us between the church and the rock face, up to the bell tower and a little wooden lookout! We could see the entire town laid out beneath us. As if to celebrate this discovery, the gigantic metal bell sang out...what serendipity!

Before we left the church, we found a little nook overlooking the cliff. On a table, what we thought was a magnificent guest book lay open inviting us to read and to leave our impressions of our visit. When I began reading the entires, mostly auf Deutsch, it became clear that this was no guest book. It was a book of prayers to god! Each entry was different; the handwriting, color of ink, length of the entries,language, and the prayers themselves were all unique and beautiful the way they were arranged on the pages like a quilt of ink and hope. You can see Lvov writing a letter to God in this picture:

The church was so exhilarating, we wanted to keep exploring despite the sheets of rain. So we found a path that leads up from the Felsenkirche to two feudal castles, from which you can see views of Oberstein and the Nahe valley. Burg Bosselstein was built in 1196. Schloss Oberstein was built in the early fourteenth century and remained intact until it sustained severe fire damage in 1855. The Schloss, or castle, seems to grow organically out of the rockface, similar to the "church in the rock." The path led through old growth forest, the stuff of fairy tales, and across little foot bridges to the Burg and Schloss. Along the way we collected leaves, heart-shaped rocks, seeds with crimson tongues just poking out, and all sorts of treasures.

Before going home we bought a few crystals (I bought some "wands" to use on pressure points for massage) and then we stopped at a little restaurant in the village for a wonderful, sleepy dinner. Our family adventures make me so happy.

Celebrating the Sun at Hardenburg Castle

What a glorious Sunday this was! I love our weekend getaways. I've actually visited Hardenburg castle many times before. When Phil was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 and the kids were in school, I would come here by myself and walk the trails and have picnic lunches and take little naps and just think and dream...


Hardenburg Castle, near the spa town of Bad Dürkheim, is one of the largest castle ruins in the region. From the time of its foundation at the beginning of the 13th century until its destruction in 1794 during the French Revolutionary wars, the castle served as the residence of counts and princes. It's magnificent here: the lovely, formal garden, the cannon balls embedded in the thick stone walls, the dungeon, the small church, the spiral staircase leading to the turrets...


Inside, it's dank and dark. More of a fortress than a castle. In medieval times, there would have been hay and herbs insulating dirt floors, animals would have often lived in the building with people, to provide heat and sustenance, and inhabitants would live in constant fear of attack from the many neighboring villages. Not exactly the stuff of fairy tales (at least not the Americanized versions).


I often think of Grimm's Fairy Tales when I visit places like this (the brothers lived not too far from here, along the Romantic Road, where they collected their stories from old-timers). Earlier incarnations of the fairy tales were being circulated orally about the same time this old castle was lived in. Amazing!

Pages from the Gutenberg Bible

Before this old fortress was built, Gutenberg was already revolutionizing the printing process (and arguably changing the course of history) just 45 minutes away in Mainz! The dukes and princes who lived within these walls might have owned a Gutenberg book or two.

Speaking of old books, I love the idea of early medieval libraries (before Gutenberg came along). They chained books to the shelves for fear of thieves. Books were painstakingly handmade, every page an individual work of art. Most people were illiterate at the time, but even those who could read could rarely afford to own a book of their own.

Feast your eyes on these exquisite examples of medieval book arts:


I just want to crack these lovely books apart and breathe the smell of dust, glue, leather, and ink. I want to run my hands along the pronounced vertebra of their age-worn spines. Reading them would come later, after I had completely explored their bodies. No wonder they were fastened to chains!

Speaking of medieval books, check this out...reproduction medieval books for doll houses...oh my goodness...as a lover of books, miniatures, and especially since I often create my own miniature books, I am just delighted by these:

Jalina's "German Superstitions in the 18th and 19th Centuries" Article for the Herald Union Newspaper

German Superstition in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries:

A Fusion of Folklore and Magic in the Face of Fear

These days, we don’t often worry about making ourselves invisible to demons, or wonder how to ward off the “evil eye.” We’re more likely concerned with global warming and finding a good off-base vet. If we lived in Germany three hundred years ago, however, our priorities would have been very different.

In the 1700’s, Europe was still reeling from the disastrous effects of the black plague that decimated one-third of the population. Scientists and clergy were rendered helpless in the face of such inexplicable devastation. In a world where prayer seemed futile and science was a fledgling art, people turned to homemade quasi-religious talismans as a balm for their fears.

The use of protective talismans flourished in the cities of Heidelberg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Stuttgart, Baden-Baden, Mannheim, and Karlsruhe. It isn’t surprising that superstition would be so heavily concentrated in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany, home of the Brothers Grimm. The region was heavily steeped in a rich folkloric heritage rife with fictitious beasts, witches, and goblins.

At the Criminal Justice Museum in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, visitors can view the distinctive amulets worn by townspeople in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. These meticulously crafted curios are called “breverl,” meaning “little letter” in German. Breverl offered a magic shield against vulnerability in an era when many people still believed in witches and the potency of the evil eye.

The Museum der Kulturen of Basel explains that breverl are “a kind of spiritual writ of protection. This conglomerate amulet was either worn like a necklace, fixed to a belt, attached to a rosary or sewn into a piece of clothing. It contained a mixture of magical and religious symbols and objects derived from European 'animism' or from Christian folk beliefs.”

When a breverl is unfolded, a miniature altar of sorts is exposed—a collage-like assemblage of holy/magical symbols and miniature printed pictures of Mother Mary and Jesus, usually acquired at the site of a holy pilgrimage. Also glued inside the breverl are numerous fetishistic objects or materials such as clay (from a spiritual place), the hair of loved ones, metal foil, herbs, chips of saints’ bones, a piece of red cloth or paper, and coral.

Gold foil was included as a blanket protection from all evils, silver foil was specifically used as a safeguard against poison, red paper or fabric was used for protection against evil, and a dried, pressed cutting of fern was believed to make one invisible to demons!

Humans have always been compelled to explain the world through mythology, religion, and science. These explanations, however erroneous, have made mankind feel safe in an unpredictable world. Stories give us something to believe in and make us feel as though we have control over fate.

Even today, in our modern world, we grapple with the same existential questions our forebears puzzled over. We try to make sense of things in the midst of war, honor killings, and cloning, while cutting-edge technology and scientific discoveries perpetually remodel old paradigms. Who’s to say that our beliefs won’t seem silly three hundred years from now?

The next time you bring visitors to a local castle, why not tell them about the fascinating history of the breverl and its palliative effects on mankind’s fears over the years? They’re bound to snip a little piece of fern on the castle grounds as a poetic reminder of humanity’s perennial struggle for survival.

Akychame and Lvov Have Had their Portraits Sketched in Tokyo, Waikiki, Afghanistan (the artist worked from a photograph), Germany, and London

Lvov's 9th Birthday Party at the German "Schwimmbad" Water Park

Today was so wonderful! Lvov and five of her closest friends celebrated her 9th birthday (we were in Paris on her actual b-day). We threw a "pirates" party; in lieu of the Black Pearl pirate ship or Johnny Depp, we set sail for the local German water park and plundered it for laughs and ice cream.

Strawberry Picking in Landstuhl

Last week the girls and I went strawberry picking with a local homeschoolers' group in Landstuhl. It was sunny and the strawberries were bursting ripe! Our fingertips were stained red, and by the time we got home the car was sticky and full of little green strawberry leaves. On the way home we stopped to feed carrots and grass to domesticated deer. Their antlers are so fuzzy, they don't seem real.

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