Making America Loud Again: Discovery

Today was all about discovering new things. Patrick, along with myself, was surprised to discover that Peter, like Gizmo, can become quite the ass when you put him in water. 

This was Peter's evil grin directly after he had given Patrick an unwanted chlorine eye-bath. The next gleefully wicked head-shot came shortly after he had thoroughly baptized David without his permission.

Normally the second-born child would simply delegate the love and vent his aggression on the third born. The problem with that sound logic is that the third born in this case has been training hard-core for three hours a day, six days a week, for the last five years. David never stood a chance. 

At one point, Evil P decided to take break from tormenting younger humans to use the bathroom. Along the way, he discovered that my parents had recently installed surveillance cameras that were digitally capturing his nefarious and tortuous escapades for all of eternity. Smile!

The next discovery came in the bathroom. Over the years, my dad has decorated the entire house in what one can only be described as eclectically-bizarre with a dash of bat-shit crazy. The toilet closet was no exception.

Take another look. This truly frightening sculpture of Van Gogh sporting a Russian medal is hung at exactly the eye-level of a grown human that is standing.

If this is not the best deterrent to standing and peeing ever, I don't know what is. I used the bathroom shortly after Peter and I certainly sat the hell down. 

Tom also made a discovery of his own. I call this one 'Don't-fall-asleep-if-your-brothers-are-total-asses-and-have-a-ball-point-pen'.

After lecturing Things One and Two on the dangers of ink poisoning their sibling, we rewarded the entire crew with frozen sticks of milk-chocolate, because, you know, that's what good parents do. Right?

Time flies when you're doping up delinquent young-ins and before we knew it, it was time to free up three beds at the Johnson ranch.

Knowing that my parents had just dealt with a week of loudness, we decided to give them a bit of quiet time. After saying goodbye to Christine, Patrick and Stephanie, we hit the road and invaded the northern side of Carolina.

For reasons only privy to Tom's arguably faulty brain, he decided to drive around a roadside market riding a tricycle that he had found in the corner collecting cobwebs.

After nearly getting kicked out of a rather nice and rustic roadside market, we ventured on to a beach close to where they claim the first plane was flown.

The boys had a blast. They're city kids, so drinking a gallon of sea water and inhaling sand particles was something new and strangely exciting for them. It did build up a mighty fierce hunger so we were all glad to come back to the ranch to find Pop-Pop manning the grill and flipping burgers.

After almost twenty years of living in Germany, I have discovered the root cause of why German burgers suck. NEWS FLASH - IT'S THE BUN. In the land of Deutsch, the buns are crap. Entschuldigung. They either turn mushy because the patty is too juicy or they crumble because the bread is too dry. The buns in America are probably not even made using real bread, but they are delicious so I don't care. I also prefer American peanut butter which looks and tastes nothing like the real peanut butter you can find at Aldi. And don't even get me started on mustard that is not yellow, the lack of which also prevents German burgers from even competing with what my dad brought to the table.

After the old man and the BBQ, Pop-Pop tucked the boys in bed and started to read 'The Old Man and the Sea'. 

It's not exactly the most riveting story and the boys had spent all day in the sun and had bellies full of burgers, so it was not a shocker when they conked out after the third page.
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Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we went to Kitty Hawk and had a good time. 
David: The beach. 
Tom: That we went to the Kitty Hawk beach. 

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That Patrick and Stephanie had to go. 
David: The drive. 
Tom: That I got smacked by a couple of huge waves and water came in my nose and my neck and everywhere.  

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: Go to the mall. 
David: Go to the mall. 
Tom: Go to the mall. 

Making America Loud Again: Landfall

Being the Johnsons, we did not trust ourselves to wake up in the middle of the morning in time to make it to the airport for our flight to the States. To shorten the drive and decrease the odds of inadvertently leaving any children behind, we stayed at Grams overnight. At 4:00 in the morning, my alarm went off. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 7:30 in the A.M. from Frankfurt, which is only about 25 minutes away at that God-awful hour.  I checked my phone, wishfully hoping for a flight delay. I then rubbed my eyes and checked again. WHOO-HOO!! Our flight was delayed until 11:00! Thank you, American Airlines!

I then reset my alarm and got three more hours of that beauty sleep that Angie keeps telling me I don't need. We also called Heidi and Klaus, who had graciously volunteered to let us park at their place and have them drive us to the airport. They live about five minutes from the airport, so this saves us some seriously ridiculous parking fees. Klaus was also loving the extra beauty sleep that Heidi keeps telling him he needs.

As I slept, I had a nightmare and flashed back to our last trip to the U.S, where Angie had impatiently thrown a stuffed teddy bear at a TSA agent while going through customs, causing a complete lock-down that ended with bomb-sniffing equipment being brought to the scene and us missing our connecting flight.

I woke up sweating, but tried shaking off the anxiety by telling myself that nothing similar could possibly happen again. Of course, I've also told myself the same thing about family members embarrassing me in public, so I'm obviously shit at paying attention to ominous foreshadowing.

A short side note, and I am not trying to assign blame at all, but... it was ANGIE who was in charge of packing the suitcases for the boys. The only mistake that she will never own up to is that she allowed each of them to pack their own carry-on.

Sensible Peter packed earphones, a pillow, a book, and a sweater in case it got cold on the flight. Not-so-sensible David packed a bag of potato chips, fifty individually wrapped Life Savers, a soda, and three decks of magic cards.

Tom was really the joker card. Was he going to lean more towards Peter or more towards David? In the end, Tom chose the by me-self path, and that one told his ten-year old brain that what airplane folk needed the most in their carry-on were water pistols. Two of them. And nothing else. 

This is Tom, quite tickled with himself that he had been chosen out of all the people going through security to be invited to a personal interview with a security agent that was not quite as tickled. Oddly, though, he didn't address Tom. No, no. I was slightly less than tickled to have that honor.

'Sir, you are not allowed to bring weapons of any kind on an aircraft!'

'Okay, but come on! They're brightly colored plastic water guns and obviously look nothing like a real weapon. Besides, they're not filled with any liquids.'

'Sir, you're gonna have to take a step back. I'm calling in the Federal Police, they can decide.'

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that my lovely wife was not wielding any stuffed animals.

'No problem, Sir. I'll wait here patiently with my delinquent third-born.'

A few minutes later, two heavily armed police officers showed up. After a few brief explanatory exchanges, the officers lowered their weapons and had a peek into Tom's carry-on. One of them then stood up and glared at the security agent that had initially stopped us.

'Oh, come on! They're brightly colored plastic water guns and obviously look nothing like a real weapon. Besides, they're not filled with any liquids.'

I vaguely tried to avoid smirking and failed miserably. Instead, I avoided eye contact with the red-faced security agent, quickly collected Tom's arsenal of dangerous plastic weaponry and fled the scene with my fugitive family to our gate.

Despite Tom's lack of attention to detail when it came to what was allowed in your carry-on luggage, we actually made it to our flight twenty minutes before boarding. Being the wise and seasoned sailor that I am, I asked my merry bandit of seamen if anyone needed to hit the head before embarking on our voyage. When they didn't understand my jargon, I asked if anyone needed the bathroom. Tom and David signaled their interest.

When we got to the restroom, there was a cleaning lady standing by the sinks and repeatedly hitting a green button on the wall. I am witness to strange things on a daily basis so I simply ignored this and went on with my business. When I was done, I went to wash my hands. The lady looked a bit startled and quickly pushed her cart out of the bathroom. I washed my hands and then had a closer look at the buttons she had been frantically pushing. 

That's right. The buttons were to allow patrons to vote on just how satisfied they were with the cleanliness of that particular restroom. The green button was a smiley, which apparently worked well. It made me smile.

After visiting what was beyond a doubt the most satisfyingly clean bathroom ever, we boarded a shuttle to take us out to the plane.

We had a brief layover in North Carolina where we had to clear customs. One short hop later and we landed in Norfolk. While waiting for the bags, the boys began to wonder if the belt would be rotating clockwise or counterclockwise once it started. I don't remember which way was correct, but as is apparent with this picture, Mama was right. Again. 

After collecting our bags, David and Tom raced across the room and began attacking an elderly couple that looked a lot like Oma and Pop-Pop.

About a month ago, Christine and I were talking and we realized that her visit with my parents and our visit were going to overlap. Her kids go to a U.S. school and ours go to a German school, so we had always thought that there was never a possibility for the cousins to see each other during the summer break. We were wrong, though. There was a one-day overlap, and they made the most of it.

Holy shit! Zoom in and check out Tommy. I'm quite sure that this is the same glimpse that pterodactyl victims witnessed seconds before having their entrails presented to them.

The cousins had an absolute blast for several hours. The evening ended with the only respectable way I know of to feed ten humans - pizza.

After dinner, my dad brought out a homemade strawberry-Jell-O-sugar cake that highlighted his utter lack of wisdom when it comes to winding down hyperactive cousins. The only thing that saved the day was that our wild ones had not slept on the plane and were losing power quickly. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow! 
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Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we arrived and that we saw Patrick and Stephanie - that was a surprise. 
David: The surprise with Stephanie and Patrick and Christine and jumping in the pool again. 
Tom: That we came in and that Patrick and Stephanie were here. 

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That we had to fly almost the whole day. 
David: Finding out that Patrick and Stephanie had to leave the next day. 
Tom: That the waiting in Germany for the flight was really long. 

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: Go in the pool. 
David: I want to have fun with the rest of the time with Patrick and Stephanie and go in the pool and, oh, yeah - eat a dill pickle. 
Tom: Go into the pool again with Patrick and Stephanie. 

Walking in a Winter Weirdoland

This morning started out like any given Sunday - Angie tried making me a coffee and failed. I shouldn't add, but of course I will, that we drink instant coffee, which really boils down to two steps; boiling the water and then pouring it. 

In her defense, she did start to boil water before she completely lost her focus. I tried my damnedest to help her find her focus, but she was too busy explaining to me how I would be spending my day.

If you've ever had the mild displeasure of dealing with me pre-coffee, you'd probably think twice about picking that top o' the morn to run your itinerary by me. Angie has met 'Morning-Me' at least once daily since we've met and still hasn't figured out the proper sequence of caffeine first, day plan second.

'So, instead of going over to Ute and Alex's nice, warm apartment for coffee and cookies, I thought we could pick them up and, you know, go out hiking in the snow.'

I'm a firm believer of gut instincts and first impressions. The first thought that comes to your mind is normally one that will piss off other people, but only because they can't handle the truth. That's where I come in.

'Hmmm... that smells like a bad idea, Butter Buns. The kids are just going to nail one of us in the neck with a snowball and you know how sensitive my ears are.'

'That's nice, but I've already texted Ute and she's breaking the happy news to Alex as we speak. Let's go.'

Rather than continue the recap of my one-sided chitchat with Master, I'd like to simply show Exhibit A and let a jury of my peers make their own conclusions as to whose gut was right.  

First impressions turned out to be a theme on today's hike. Tommy spent a whopping four minutes in the frozen forest before announcing his.

'It's cold!'

I was about to congratulate Chill-boy on his observation when Ute intervened with an approach that I had seriously not even considered.

My first impression was more like a first-world complaint.

'Shit! I forgot my hat.'

Luckily, I've been through cold-weather survival school, so I know how to endure the elements.

I have my Mom to thank for the nice Cashmere scarf. And I have Angie's cackling to thank as a reminder to never dress up as a Babushka in front of my wife's camera again.

As Hyena-gal was winding down, I thought I heard Ute mention the word 'moon'.  

I, of course, immediately scanned the woods for my three boys, certain that I would find one of them engaged in an act that would soon be making the pages of 'Papa's Book of Unfunny Things'. Then I followed Ute's starry gaze.

'Oh, that moon. Well, that's a relief!'

Peter's first impression instructed his face to plant itself in frozen water. The strange thing is that his brain accepted this challenge.
 

After confirming that he can't fly, Peter posed for a chilly reenactment of the three monkeys.

'See no evil' would be Peter, because he was looking, surprise, surprise, directly at the camera. 'Speak no evil' would be David, because his lips were thankfully frozen shut. My tiniest baboon decided to take an alternative approach, which I like to call 'Snow is Evil'. 

On the last stretch, Tommy un-thawed long enough to try and whack Mama in the face with a snowball. Unfortunately, small children tend to fall down easily when confronted with indifferent moms.

Angie took the nice attempt in stride and even managed to look sympathetic. Kinda.

Peter is a VERY just kid. When he sees his kid brother at the playground getting beat up, he normally does not laugh and point fingers. When he sees his Mama smugly stroll past a fallen brother, though, he takes retaliation to a hilarious level.

Shortly after Peter's icy revenge, we tackled an innocent couple and forced them to make us look beautiful. Hey, one of out seven ain't bad.
 

I won't single out the beauty; you'll just have to use your top-right imagination. I also won't point out that Ute, who had just eye-witnessed Peter's brutal attack on his own mother's neck, was slightly distancing herself from the pack. No, no. I'm fine. I'll just kneel over here in the sprint position.

After our frosty hike, the boys volunteered Alex and Ute to serve them hot chocolate and cookies. On the drive down the mountain, an Audi driver passed our car and the two cars in front of us. The road is slightly bigger than a bicycle path, it's covered in snow, and in places can be rather steep.

After the next curve, traffic had pretty much stopped. I put on the brakes and made what I thought was a witty comment.

'I bet there's a wrecked Audi around the bend.'

Tommy didn't get it. 

'Where's the Audi?'

'No, Tommy. There is no Audi.'

'Huh? We saw it. It passed us.'

'Yeah, I mean that the Audi did not crash.'

'But you said it did.'

Spoiler alert - there was no crash; the traffic was simply backed up because half of Heidelberg had also had the brilliant idea of walking around in an outdoor freezer. The extra traffic did mean that I had an unexpected twenty minutes to try and explain concepts like wit and humor to Angie's children.

As Alex and Ute transformed milk into warm energy, David decided to play a game of solitaire marbles and Tommy decided to watch. And give unsolicited commentary.

The problem with solitaire is that, in case the name didn't give it way, it's meant to be played alone. In addition to wit and humor, Tommy also does not understand 'alone', let alone 'leave me alone'.   

The real eruption didn't begin until Peter also tried to intervene with his thoughts on how the game should be played. At that point, the War Games were thankfully interrupted by the Hunger Games. Looks like Tommy'll win.
 

Holy hell! Check out the Jaws of Life on that boy! Rudolf might have been popular for his bright nose because Santa needed to see through fog, but I guarantee you that Santa would call on Tommy if he ever needs someone to chomp through a blocked chimney.

Everyone (uncool people excluded) has heard the song 'Born to Be Wild'. It starts with 'Get your motor running...' which is exactly what happens to Tommy when you fill his tank with hot chocolate and cookies.

Tommy spent the next five minutes zipping around Alex and Ute's collections of breakable stuff before getting in Peter's face and playing a game called 'I'm not touching you!'.

Okay, I do admit it - I showed them this game, but it's way more fun when I do it.  The way it works is you get right up in someone's face and start moving your hands all around them, kinda like you're going to tickle them, but you don't make contact. Then you just keep repeating 'I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you' over and over again until a) the other person laughs or b) the other person punches you in the face. Either way, the other person gets a good laugh.

After cookies and games, we exchanged Christmas gifts. Tommy got a cool Darth Vader sweatshirt, that he absolutely had to put on. That's when Alex made an embarrassing discovery.

That's right. Go ahead, Alex, try all you want. Truth is that Angie forgot to change Tommy's shirt for the last few months and now the damn thing won't fit over his head. I keep telling Angie that we need to just butter up that boy's noggin and yank it off like a loose tooth that's ripe for picking. She doesn't listen, though. She just stares at me like she has no idea what I'm talking about.

Like me, Alex has many hidden talents, but one that we only stumbled upon today is that he is quite proficient at uncorking children's heads from their hoodies.

David also got a Star Wars shirt, but his head apparently hasn't spurted recently. Peter got a book of illusions, which captured his brothers' attention. Trust me, this is not an easy feat.

After a while, Tommy got worried that the rest of us were getting bored and decided to wow his Ute by doing the splits.

See, Tommy has been doing gymnastics for the last three months. Apparently, one of the first things they teach you is how to make other males wince.

Shortly after Tommy's splits, we also split. We had to make it back to the zoo for a virtual meeting with Pop-Pop, Oma, Vena, Christine, George, Patrick and Stephanie. They couldn't all fit on the screen, though, so I suggested that Patrick and Stephanie jump on the stage with Santa Clause.

This evening ended like any given Sunday - Angie tried bringing me a beer and failed. I shouldn't add, but of course I will, that it was me that forgot to stock the fridge, so I had an unexpected hour as the freezer transformed warm beer into Papa's milk.

Since Tommy was asleep, I couldn't use my unexpected time to continue our lessons on wit and humor. Instead, my thoughts drifted, as they sometimes do.

My thoughts can be a bit strange, just ask Angie. Sometimes, they even like to hum along. Today's melody would most certainly be 'Walking in a Winter Weirdoland'. 
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Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we went up to the Königstuhl.
David: That we could call Vena, Christine, Pop-Pop, Oma, Patrick and Stephanie on ooVoo and that we could walk Alex and Ute to the Königstuhl. 
Tom: That we was on the Königstuhl with Ute and Alex. 

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That my ear hurts.
David: That Simba scratched me.
Tom: That I didn't was so good by the phone call with Patrick and Stephanie.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: To wake up and everywhere is snow. 
David: I want to play with Luca and my brothers 'cause I have a new Yu-Gi-Oh deck.
Tom: To play with Simby, the Bimby-Gimby.

Back to Chaos

'You have to make it fun for them.'

Angie's words were ringing in my ears as we drove to visit her on day two of her hospital stay. Peter broke my concentration with a question that I'm pretty sure he would not have asked if Mama had been in the car.

'Can I roll down my window?'

There is no speed limit in Germany on a lot of the highways, so we were cruising at 140 km (around 90 mph). I was about to explain when one of the voices in my head reminded me. 'You have to make it fun for them.'

'Go for it!'

The insane giggling could still be heard over the roar of the wind. It brought a smile to my face, which was something I had not predicted at the beginning of day two.

In the weeks that followed, Angie's mantra would lead to a lot of things that probably would never have happened.

'Papa, can I have an ice-cream for breakfast?'

'Go for it!'

'Papa, can we go to McDonald's every day for lunch?'

'Go for it!'

'Papa, can we make milkshakes for dinner?'

'Go for it!'

'Papa, can I climb up the side of an elevator wearing Crocs that are two sizes too big?'

'Go for it!'

'Papa, can we ignore the big "NO TRESPASSING" signs and go check out the cool helicopter next to the hospital?'

'Go for it!'

'Papa, can all three of us get into the tub and splash gallons of water onto the floor?'

'Go for it!'

'Papa, can we ball up all of the newspapers that Mama isn't here to read and use them for a summer-time snowball fight?'

'Go for it!'

I like that in the end, David and Tommy teamed up to take Peter down. Peter apparently didn't like this.

'Papa, can I punch David and Tommy in the belly?'

'Buddy, I have to draw the line somewhere.'

So, yeah - I think you get the point. I tried making it fun for them.

We also went for a visit every day. Understandably, the trips in the beginning were a bit solemn.

After a week or so, the boys got into playing games with Mama.

I love this shot because the expressions speak volumes.

David's is saying 'Who won? Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh biggity-bonk yeah!'

Peter's is saying 'If you don't stop gloating, I'm gonna drop-kick you in the teeth.'

Mama's is saying 'If Peter tilts his card just a little more, I'm so totally gonna cheat.'

Angie was still in the hospital when Christine and George flew in. For some reason, my family normally tends to visit us for one, max two days. For my sister, it was two days.

Angie wasn't up for a hospital visit, though, so I had to entertain. My managerial background kicked in and I simply delegated the task.

'Boys! Go have fun with your cousins!'

After scaring some hearing-sensitive neighbors, the boys took Patrick and Stephanie to the bridge over the Neckar.

After scaring some hearing-sensitive swans, the cousins broke the Guinness Book of World Records for the loudest picnic ever. Ever.  

After scaring off hearing-sensitive humans, the loud ones turned on me.

'We want ice-cream, and we want it NOW!'

'Uh, umm...Go for it?'

After an ear-piercing afternoon with five sugar-packed wildlings, nothing hits the spot like a bottle or two of wine.

After this lovely gem, Stephanie announced to everyone that she loved David and that they would be getting married soon.

Shortly after Stephanie's impromptu proclamation, Christine ordered another glass of wine. Make it a double. Then, like the ass I am, I tricked my older sister into playing a funny game with the kids.

I felt guilty, so I reminded Christine of two things:

1. I was taking pictures.
2. I write a blog where I tend to embarrass immediate family members.

In her defense, there was a slight pause before she responded.

Shortly after, George called for the bill and we said our goodbyes.

A few days later, we visited Angie on her last night at the hospital. I tried to strike up a conversation that would subliminally warn her of the state of our apartment. As if it were a sign that things were slowly returning back to chaos, she completely ignored me.

'Steve! The boys have been eating McDonald's every single day. You have to promise me that you're not going to McDonald's tonight.'

'I promise.'

As we left the hospital, we passed a McDonald's, which was conveniently located right next to the hospital.

'Papa, can we go to McDonald's for dinner?'

'Nope, sorry. I promised Mama that I would not take you to McDonald's.'

The boys complained, but only briefly. They know by now that whines and nags are the two things that I can expertly tune out.

As we entered Heidelberg, I remembered the promise to Angie that I would not take the boys to McDonald's for dinner and simply drove past the second set of golden arches. As we passed Burger King, though, my brain nudged me - should we?

'Go for it!'