I have been attempting to write this blog since Monday. Seriously, now that I have to pick up Pauline at 1 every day I don't have any time for myself during the day anymore. And with the World Cup going on right now, my evenings are occupied as well. Right now I'm watching the game between Slovakia and Italy and the kids are playing in the garden, so hopefully I'll have enough time to do this now.

This past weekend was really busy. It started with a full day of babysitting on Saturday. I had told Güner that I would help her out and take care of Elif for a couple of hours while she went to an appointment in Köln. After I had breakfast with the family I headed down the street to their house. When I got there Güner was just putting Elif down for a nap, which meant that (as long as she stayed asleep) I wouldn't have very much to worry about. Güner also had a ton of laundry that she needed to do, which she hadn't been able to get to because she had so much to do with the baby over the past few weeks, and then she was sick with a fever for a couple days, so I offered to help with that while Elif slept. There were literally 2 laundry baskets full of clean laundry that needed to be ironed. So when Güner left I started with the ironing and turned on the TV to watch the game at 1. Elif slept basically the entire time and only started to fuss a little bit about 10 minutes before Güner got home. Even then, though, she wasn't a problem. I just held her in my arm (facing outward so she could see the world, of course) and continued ironing with my free hand, and that was just fine for her. When Güner got home she had Turkish food with her, so we had lunch while Elif sat on her little rocker and played with a ball.

After lunch I offered to stay a little longer to keep an eye on the little one so that Güner could get more work done. They were going to her parents house in Mannheim for 3 weeks and she still had a lot to do before they left. She called her husband, Seydi, to find out what time he and Zeynep would be home and when they were leaving for their trip. That's when she learned that they actually had an appointment at 6 to meet with someone about plans for the kitchen in the new house they're building. Taking Zeynep to that appointment was going to be an absolute nightmare, so Güner asked if I would be able to stay and watch her for an hour or so while they got that taken care of. That actually ended up turning into about 3 hours, because they didn't make it home until a little after 9. Then they put Zeynep to bed and I stayed to watch the end of the game with Güner and Seydi. I ended up not getting home until about 11:30, a full 12 hours after I left that morning. Needless to say, I was exhausted.

Sunday was a whole other adventure. I got a call from Alex, the DJ, after breakfast inviting me to go water-skiing with Tommy and Steffi (2 of the other lifeguards from the last time I went to the lake). I had been intending to stay at home with the family because Olaf's relatives were coming to celebrate Pauline's birthday, but Esther said that I should go to the lake since I had the opportunity. It was kind of weird because boats aren't actually allowed on the lake, so instead they had this machine with cables that went around in a big square, and you would hold on to a rope that was attached to this cable and it pulled you around the lake. We actually were using wake boards instead of skis. I never actually made it around the lake. I failed miserably at starting because I either put too much weight on my front foot, or let the rope pull my arms up too fast, or something stupid. I think that each time I went I had a different problem, which is pretty typical for me. Anyway, we were there for 2 hours and I don't think I ever made it more than 10 or 15 meters from the start. But I did go doubles on a knee-board with Tommy one time, and I managed to injure my arm, so all in all it was a pretty good day. Afterward we were going to go to the sauna, but everyone decided against it in the end and we all just went home.

I think the only other exciting thing that's happened was the game last night. I went to another Public Viewing with Alex, Tünn, Ingrida and Steven, but this time in Sinzig where Rudi and Tünn are from. We went to a Biergarten in the middle of this little town, and it was packed. It was seriously a struggle trying to move (or breathe, for that matter) but it was good times. It doesn't hurt that Germany won, either. Once again there was a huge party in the street after the game. We must have been there for another 2 hours, just celebrating with everyone. Ingrida and I were holding a German flag so that it stretched across the street for all the cars to drive under, and everyone was screaming and honking and having a good time. I wish I could have taken pictures or a video of it, but I'm a fucking idiot and dropped my camera in the toilet during the game and now its broken. Yeah, I'm really upset. Not only was it my camera, but it was a $500 camera that made really freaking amazing pictures. So I'm trying to let it dry out a little bit and hopefully there's not too much damage and it will actually function again. It already made some improvement this morning when it started beeping and then retracted the lens. Its a good start, but it needs to keep getting better.

And the US won! That was exciting. For whatever stupid reason, they chose to only show one game on the TV in Germany with intermittent highlights from the other instead of showing both games on 2 different channels. Unfortunately (but predictably) that meant that I was watching the England game and not the USA game. The ref had literally just blown the final whistle in the England game when all of a sudden the announcer starts yelling, "Tor! Tor!" and we just knew that the US had scored against Algeria. That was pretty cool, and really exciting. Yesterday was a good day for football.

Today was just a really relaxed day. After dropping off the kids and walking Amelie I took a nap because I was just way too tired from yesterday. When I picked Pauline up this afternoon she was ridiculously tired, too. We had to walk Amelie again, so I brought Pauline's laufrad and helmet and we went to the woods by Maria's. Pauline was really reluctant to get on the laufrad, and at first she started crying because she just didn't want to be there. I got her to calm down, but the whole time we were in the woods I could hear her fussing. It was kind of pathetic. We stopped by Esther's office on the way home and Esther was tempted to have me put Pauline down for a nap, but I convinced her otherwise. Its a good thing, too, because its 9 right now and shes still not sleeping, but if she had napped then she would never sleep. I'm just going to enjoy the Denmark-Japan game and let Esther worry about Pauline.