"Look up, smile, and say thank you"

So to be honest I don't remember if Mothers' Day was last week or the week before, but this picture is from then.  We all got adorable baby roses, yes even though I'm not a mother, and so of course I took a cool picture with it...I know I'm like the most narcissistic looking person in the world...

 ANYWAY, so Monday I had school off and it just so happened that there was this meeting in Switzerland that evening where President Uchtdorf was coming because he was already in the Europe area.  All the Bishopbrics and Stake Presidencies in Switzerland were invited, as well as other important people like my parents.  So we went to the meeting and heard him speak.  It was basically a big question and answer session, and although it wasn't meant for me, I learned a lot and felt the Spirit.  The whole thing was in German, which was also special to be able to here President and Sister Uchtdorf speak in their native language.  

After the meeting we drove up to Stuttgart to stay the night there so President could stay there and do interviews.  The next morning Sister Kohler and I got dropped off at the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof to catch our train back to Munich and got back in time for me to catch the last part of school.

 So between Tuesday and yesterday I had exams in school and such, so that's always exciting...But then yesterday we drove to Ellwangen and stopped at Dinkelsbühl on the way because I hadn't been there yet.  It's basically just an old and typical Germany town.  Very cute, and quaint.  We walked around and then got something to eat and the weather was perfect.

 I couldn't get over this tower, it looked like the one from Rapunzel

 In this picture we may look happy, and we were, but in truth I was being smashed against the wall

 I spy a tiny house of a house

 I looked at my pose in this picture and thought: that is something Tanner would do.  But I thought this was a cute picture.

 Post-dinner Eis

 After Dinkelsbühl we continued our drive to Ellwangen and stayed over night right outside of it.  This was on my parents' hotel bed.....weird

 Then we went to the branch there this morning and it was awesome.  The branch is so great and I felt so welcomed in all three meetings.  It was a good day at church.  On the way home we stopped at Nördlingen, a small town with an existing wall of about 3km in circumference.  We walked up the millions of stairs to the tope of this tower and it was so pretty.  Then we went into the connected church.

 These are the times when we are driving through the gorgeous spring fields of Germany with the windows all the way open, or walking through Dorfs eating ice cream, or going to a branch I've never heard of that I just look up, smile, and say thank you.

When the Weather is Fickle

Quote of the week: (not that I'm going to start doing a quote of the week or anything, I just keep finding great quotes for the week that describe my life.  So there you go.)

 Anyway, you could possibly be wondering why that is the quote of the week, and there is no great reason, just that this last little while I realized how much time I spend on the floor.  No matter what I'm doing; homework, watching a movie, making food, getting ready for bed....I just always seem to end up down there!  Well...here...I'm actually lying on the floor right now.

So Sunday was Mothers' Day and I think we all know how amazing my mother is so I don't need to write a lot, but I don't think anyone really understands how amazing she is and what kind of sacrifices she makes.  She is incredible and I love her.

 Because the weather was so schön, we thought we would walk to church, and on the way home Sister Kohler was so overwhelmed with all the beautiful blossoms, so the caption to this picture is "Wait, I just NEED to smell these!"

 And the all-time best part of the day was getting to skype Tanner-poo!!!  We got to talk for a good hour, us in Munich, Tosh in Provo, and Tanner in Balti, Moldova.  It was really nice and super comfortable and it felt good to all talk together.

 Another artsy picture...this is at a playground close to our house.  It has a few swings and sometimes I just go there when I need a break, and swing because I love swinging.  That day it happened to be a bit wet from the rain, so the swing was wet, but I didn't really care.

 Friday afternoon, we got out early from school, so Tacie and I headed over to Sneddons to hang out for the afternoon, and we had a good time, but by the time we walked to the train station the last time, the rain had gotten pretty heavy and we got soaked despite my green umbrella.

But a little rain never hurt anyone, right?  Only all the stuff in my backpack...

Everyting in the Wolrd in One Blog Post

Quote of the week:

These may just seem like artsy pictures again, and to be honest they are, but they are more than that.  These prove that I started running again this week because this was me procrastinating running on Monday.  See, I've been trying to be good at running again.  I did over the summer, then stopped when school started, then picked it up again over Christmas break and I've been pretty good since then, but then recently it started getting super painful and we decided I had shin splints.  So I stopped for a few weeks, and am now back at it.  Anyway, that's my excuse for posting these.

 The following are videos of our music class concert this last week.  We are kind of an eclectic group, but we put together 6 pop songs for the unit and had a little concert to perform them, so here are portions of three of them.  If the filming is bad blame my friends.

 Something else that happened this week was Sister Berry came back to visit with her mom!  She was an awesome sister who served here in Munich and we got to be really good friends.  It was really fun to have dinner with them.

Friday was my friend Alex's birthday so that night a group of us went bowling and had a good time, so here is a picture of that.  (From left to right: Raven, Ashrita, Alex, Me, Flo, and Chelsea in the front)

 Yesterday after running Sister Kohler and I made orange and cinnamon rolls because...we both exercised so why not make it worth it right?  Anyway, here is my wonderful creation.

That evening Sister Kohler wanted to go see this thing she had seen posters for.  It was a marionette show, and she was super excited about it.  So we drove there, but we were early so we walked through this self-cut flower garden and it was so pretty. 

 This was where the show was, just a tent and trailer set up in the middle of a field.

 And...the seats were plastic chairs, but at least there were chandeliers!

 Most of the people there, actually no, probably all of the other people there were parents with little kids so we stood out a little bit, but we had a blast!  And watching the little kids was easily as entertaining as the show itself.

 The stage was adorable

 I tried to sneak some pictures during it.  The show was Rumpelstiltskin, or as they call it in German, Rumpelstilzchen.  And yes, the whole thing was in German, but we are champs at that by now so it was no problem.

 After the show they did a little extra thing with singing and dancing, so here was a little marionette mariachi band.

 The cast

 Today is May Day!  This year they were putting up a Maibaum in our neighborhood so we went to go see it this morning.  It was already this far up when we got there, so we're glad we got to see what we did!  It was definitely not as exciting as last year, when we saw them putting it up by hand, but it was about one and half hours quicker...

 You can see the priest on the left, and before the Maibaum went up he blessed it.

 There was a lot of great Trachten

It was a great occasion to wear my very own dirndl.  I got this one a while ago from a newly baptized lady with some other things.  It didn't fit super well and I couldn't wear it because there were no ribbons for the bodice.  So last night I pulled it out and lo and behold, the ribbons were in the pocket!  Hooray!  So now I can wear it. 

 And...because it is so gorgeous and springy outside and I was wearing my dirndl, or course we had to take pictures.

Have a great week!