Bad clutch weekend...

or so it would seem given the difficulty we've had getting into gear. As I mentioned in a previous post, we somehow let the laundry situation get totally out of hand. This weekend our goal was to get on top of it. I'm not sure how many loads we did as I quit counting after the 100th. Regardless, order has been somewhat restored.

Yesterday we went to the mall in Viernheim for no particular reason. We ended up buying a bunch of DVDs to keep us and the kids occupied while we did the "warsh", as we say in Oklahoma. The girls stayed in the kiddy prison there while B, Robert and I had lunch. In case anyone's wondering, there's no preferential treatment going on with our offspring -- the mall was absolutely packed on Saturday so the "kiddy San Quentin" was only accepting kids 6 and younger.

Something that impresses me about Germany is the variety and size of the salads you can get at most places. Yesterday I had one with turkey breast strips that was off the charts. Who knew?

B styled the girls' hair à la Princess Leia which I found exceedingly cute. By the way, the kids' German is coming along quite nicely. They sometimes have entire conversations in their adopted tongue amongst each other and with other kids. Emily has displayed the inclination to fight with older kids in German whenever the opportunity presents itself.
You may have noticed in the picture above the Emily has quite the contusion next to her right eye -- apparently the result of a schoolyard fracas. Given the lack of her complaining about it and her well documented propensity for giving as good as she gets, I'm wondering what the other kid must look like.

Finally, after having been spoiled by such a handy place to park the kids at the mall, we were at our wit's end when we went to Media Markt later that same day. Lucky for us, they have convenient lockers at the front of the store where they expect folks to stash their backpacks etc. -- an anti-shoplifting measure I assume. We've found that for short periods of times, these little cubbies serve perfectly to keep the girls out of harm's way. Unfortunately, Robert is already too big. The preceding was a joke. No kids were forcibly crammed in tiny lockers in the making of this joke.