My Village…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Sorry! I can’t really blame it all on “real life” (though that is a big part), I just haven’t really felt much like posting. I haven’t even uploaded all my Prague pictures, but those I did upload, you can enjoy by clicking on my homepage! I know some of the pictures Lowandslow will go crazy over! lol

So many events have taken place lately…. most good. During my vacation I had another lovely visit with my ex-sister-in-law as well as ex-mother-in-law.

This past weekend was filled with events. Last night my flying club celebrated their 60th anniversary. It was great seeing many of my old friends again, and they seemed really happy to see me again. I felt really welcomed and “at home”. My village is having a 4-day party and it included opening the bell tower of the church, which I of course took advantage of and would like to share the following pictures with you.

This is a view from the tower which shows my apartment building.It’s the top floor under that redish roof.

This picture gives a pretty good impression of the area I live in…..and as you see, we had GREAT weather today!

Here are a few pictures from the church and bell tower….

engraved in this bell is the word “Liebe”, or “Love”

there are three bells all together…. and they ring EVERY quarter hour! And sometimes for a full 5 minutes!

Inside the church from the organ balcony….

More pictures of the quaint little village I live in can be viewed here.

I hope you all enjoyed this view into my world…. and hopefully I’ll get back in the mood to blog more often again.

Dorrie

Photo Quiz

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything…. did anyone miss me??

Lots of stuff going on, as usual. But instead of a “normal” entry, how about a Photo Quiz? Here are two photos….. try to guess what they are. The second one is probably pretty easy but the first one is tricky. One hint on the first… it’s job related!

Nope, nothing to win… just have fun figuring it out. The answer I’ll post in a couple of days…

Number one:

Number two:

Dorrie

Birthday and half-timbered houses….

Sorry, but I haven’t felt like posting much recently… well actually, not for some time. I guess I’ve lost that blogging feeling!

Yes, once I was well known for my smilies… ah, those were the days!

Since my last post, my granddaughter, Shiana, celebrated her 4th birthday. Of course we had a party and, amazingly for April, great summer weather!

Shiana (4), Priyasha (2), and Emely (5)

Where does the time go? The kids are growing like weeds and getting cuter all the time.

As my facebook followers know, I’m now a tour guide in the town I now live in. I was one already back in the 80’s so I just have to up-date myself. It’s fun learning about the history. The town has quite a number of half-timbered houses which have been lovingly renovated. We have a church with a wood-carved altar shrine and a castle. Unfortunately we cannot at the moment enter the castle… it has been sold to some RUSSIANS who are renovating it for a hotel!! Needless to say, we are all curious about what they are up to and hope it will be good. They do have lots of regulations to observe so let’s hope for the best. In the summer you can hardly see the castle because of all the trees around it…. this pic I took recently…

And here’s an example of one of the houses…

Any of you interested in more pictures, just follow THIS LINK.

This weekend is the Easter Market in town and maybe I’ll have more pictures to share.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Dorrie

Beautiful Germany

Yesterday I once again taught a job-related class with over 30 pilots in attendance…. and received lots of applaus at the end! (amazing, considering I’m one of those feared “Feds” lol). This coming season will be my last before I retire, and next winter the last for classes, and it does feel a bit odd. Will I miss teaching these classes? maybe…. The weather was marvelous and on the drive home I made a stop to see a monument I didn’t even knew existed… I drove to the spot to catch a nice view over the Rhine River and found the monument with a small, rebuilt temple. There is still so much to see in my “home” country…. and believe me, I really do appreciate being able to live here. This is a view of the Rhine and the rebuilt “temple”…

These are some of the original pillar stones. The original temple got destroyed in WW II.

And this is a picture of the monument itself. It’s in the process of being renovated but is quite impressive….

Dorrie

P.S. considering my last entry didn’t get a single comment (and I thrive on comments!!) I may not post here anymore *snif*

Flying around….

Last Saturday, after dropping Tamara off at home (she had spent the night with me), I decided to stop by the local flying club. It’s the same club that I’m a member of since 1983 and where I first learned to fly. One of my buddies, Michael, was there and invited me along for a local roundtrip together with one of his friends. Since the weather was fantastic, I jumped at the opportunity.

This is a view just after take-off of the now empty American army base… it has been deserted for around 2 years now.

More and more wind farms are being set up everywhere, destroying the looks of our beautiful landscapes…(can you catch that I don’t like them? lol)

We flew over the Main and Neckar rivers, wanting to see how the flooding was. In the mean time the rivers are pretty much back to normal, as you can tell (this is the Main River near Miltenberg).

A view of one of the many castles/fortresses that are found all over the place….

The balloonists were taking advantage of the weather as well…

Today I won’t go to work until noon because I have a job thing to do during night time, which includes a flight (checking the night lighting at an airfield). The past days the weather was cloudy with some now melted snow, today looks promising.

On the weekend I think I finally get some much needed housework done…

Dorrie

A New Year, remembering years past….

Some weeks ago my ex (finally) gave me some cartridges of slides. He prefered slides over paper film but we rarily got to see them… such a hassle to set up a projector and screen! (P.S. I assume you all heard that Kodacrome film is no longer being made and/or developed? Go google it….). Anyway, since the older madel slide scanner he gave me wouldn’t work on my comp, I went and bought a newer one and finally started scanning the slides.

The quality is not as good as vieweing them on a screen, but at least I have managed to digitalize some of them finally. Among them are some awesomely cute pictures of my kids!

I think this is one of my new favs… me with my daughter, Regina, on Christmas 1977…

and my son, Carsten….

and Regina practicing to become a good mommy…

It’s almost hard to believe that they both now each have two children of their own!

Last night I attended an Irish Dance performance with my friend Kornelia, one of my dancers and now good friend. The two of us went on the Greek Island Cruise last May together and had a great time! We then went to her home, which is only a 3 minute drive from mine, to talk and watch fireworks (which are legal for private use only on New Years). So I got off to a very nice start in the New Year! 

Welcome 2011! May you bring joy and HAPPY surprises!

Dorrie

Tamara visits her grandma (me)

It was fun having Tamara spend the night. I think she enjoyed it, too. This was her comfy place for the night….

And I let her try on a dress of mine…. that I wore in 1959, as flower girl at a wedding…

and me in 1959…

And with the tree decorations, she made her own nativity set…

Dorrie

It’s Saturday, but my week is not over….

It’s 4:30 am on a Saturday… crazy, right? I’m already awake and my hair is washed. I like having time for it to air dry before leaving the house. Well, I don’t have to leave until around 7:15, but my internal alarm woke me before the normal alarm, in spite of it being Saturday.

And it’s STILL stormy outside! It’s been stormy almost all week, with wind blowing more or less strong…. it’s strong now. It was strong enough to do some damage, like uproot trees, etc. So far my area was pretty much spared.

Today’s schedule: drive from here to the town I work in (27 km), then get one of our business cars (a nice Audi A4) and drive 100 km north. I have to be there by around 09:00 am. I teach a class there all day…. 31 people have signed up. So wind or no wind, I have to drive there. After that I have a work-related speech to give at 4:45 pm at a town which is another 38 km north of that. Then, when that’s over (around 6:15), drive the 138 km back to where I drop the car off. Day over? Nope! On the way home I take a detour a detour to a village located between there and home to attend an Irish music concert with a girl friend. If lucky, I’ll arrive there on time (8 pm).

Tomorrow I’m staying home!!

This whole week has been crazy. It started last Sunday when I attended a reading of a book, a crime book I had happened to just finish reading which takes place in the city I work in, by it’s author. Yes, he even signed my book! Then off to visit my dinner where I joined her family for dinner.

Monday: Go to work, leave at 1 pm as usual Mondays because my eyes burned. Originally I had intended to stay later so that I could go from work direct to my son to babysit his kids. As it was, I drove the 27 km east to my place, took a nap, then drove the 38 km west to his place. Watched the kids until 11 pm, got home at midnight. Originally they had wanted me to stay later and spend the night, which would have meant leaving the cat unattended until late Tuesday night. Oh, she would have survived that, but I do prefer sleeping in my own bed.

After work Tuesday, driving 50 km south to give 4 English exams (all 4 passed).

Wednesday night: dance class.

Thursday night dance class.

Wow, Friday I had nothing scheduled after work! Well, I did check my presentations to make sure they are ok and packed my stuff so I don’t forget anything today.

See why I can’t work on a new journalspace site? 

Anyway, if I haven’t been visiting your journals, now you know why. It’s now 6:00 am and I have to start thinking about what I plan to wear…. with that wind I shall refrain from wearing a mini-skirt!   

Dorrie

The Miramar Air Show

Sorry I haven’t been posting… after going back to work I have been too busy, then too tired, to even bother to blog anything. I haven’t even worked on most of my pictures from my trip yet! I know, I know….. shame on me!

But I did want to finally share with y’all some pictures from the Miramar Air Show! I’m sure you are ALL familiar with the movie “Top Gun”, well Miramar IS top gun and when I heard that their air show was on during the one weekend I was in San Diego, I decided it was a must do event (most of you may know that, because of my job, a sort of hate air shows… but here I made an exception). My son arrived also and of course he wasn’t going to miss it either.

This is one of HIS pictures of the Blue Angels!

Of course the military had to demonstrate their equipment….(these are all MY pictures):

And of course the flying….. Canadian Snow Birds and Blue Angels plus lots more!

I also took some films but they are finished and uploaded yet. I’ve just had other priorities the past days.

On Wednesday Tamara celebrated her 7th birthday (pictures coming… some day)!

At the office we got new furniture delivered… what a mess! Luckily jet lag didn’t bother me too much… I’ve been sleeping through the nights as if I’d never been away (yay me!).

This weekend it’s supposed to rain, I’ll be babysitting on Saturday, but other then that… lots of house work and pictures to work on! Plus a power point presentation for work…

Dorrie

P.S. more pictures can be viewed here

Flying “home”

Next Wednesday I’m flying home to San Diego to see my folks. Both mom and dad aren’t doing too well. I had originally planned to fly over in January, which would have suited me better, but things don’t always go as planned. It’s with lots of trepidation and yes, fear, that I fly over. My son, Carsten is following me over at the same time.

On a nicer note….

I never did post pictures of Tamara’s first day of school. Yesterday Regina sent me this one which I definitely want to share with you all!

See that big “cone” Tamara is carrying? All kids get those… either home made or store bought, big or small depending on the parents. It gets filled with lots of goodies, usually sweets and/or school supplies, to “sweeten” up the first day of school and begin of one of life’s more serious stages. More pictures can be viewed here (and I just realised, I never got around to commenting them…. I’m really getting sloppy! lol)

Here’s a picture of Regina on HER first day of school!

Last night I went bowling with my co-workers. I haven’t bowled in over 30 years and it was quite fun! I actually managed a couple of strikes, but generally I did terrible… *shame* But it was FUN!

I’ll be busy the next days preparing for my trip. Weather has been fantastic the past days, but thunder storms, etc. are forcasted for the next days.

Keeping in touch!

Dorrie