I signed my contract!!! Today was my second trial tour at work and after that I got my contract and will work Friday, Saturday and Sunday right away. They have about 5 worker, who got sick this week, so there is plenty of work to do. Tomorrow I will drive the same tour as today and my co-worker will sit next to me in the car, but I will be in charge and do all the work and try to find each patient's home...(driving around in Düsseldorf and finding about 13 to 15 different homes seems to be my greatest challenge ).

It is really different to go into the homes and take care of the people in their own environment. In a way it is less hectical than working in a hospital or nursing home. The people are very friendly and thankful. They all received me in a welcoming way even though it is not easy to have new people coming in all the time. I like the fact that I can really care for them and hope to bring some joy and hope into their lives.

The boys had their second day at day care and Tony had a little accident with one of the outdoor games today. His lips and nose are really swollen and he has difficulties to talk. My poor baby! But he still enjoyed school and looks kind of interesting because of his swollen face....

Everything works out great. But I can see that this brings quite some changes to us as a family and also for our work at Mosaic. We have a movie night this weekend and I will find hardly any time to get the house ready for this and I have to get up very early these next 3 days, which makes me a little nervous. So hopefully I will manage to fullfill all the different roles in my life right now. But I think it will be an energizing experience in spite of all the strength that it will require.

                                     Adaumir and myself

Adrian and Tony-our heros!

Two weeks ago I had my jobinterview. It went really well and I was invited to work a trial day last week. Tomorrow I will have my second trial day and if it all works out I will get the job for 40 hours a month. That is just a start and if they have more work to do I might be able to do more hours in the future. This is perfect for me to get to know this kind of work and to see how this fits in our family routine. In case my workload might increase soon I had to decide to put the kids into day care at their school beginning today because I can not enroll them during the year. So we made this decision and it is their first full day until 4 pm today. Here in Germany they only go to school half a day, some days my kids were done at 11 o'clock already. This is really different to the States and it is just getting more popular to put them into those whole day programms. First they do their homework their, have lunch and then different options what to do. At our school they have a very good offer of different activities for the afternoons like soccer, swimming, musik, crafts, computer and more. And they can also just play with their friends. Therefore it will be actually very beneficial for the boys, but German Moms feel easily guilty when they "send their kids away" like this. So I am very excited, but also nervous today to see how they will like this experience. Thankfully they felt very previlged to go there today.

Soon I will tell you more about my job.

The boys and their friend on the bikes.

                                 Adrian, Lamin, Tony

We just had a great teammeeting tonight! Mosaic Düsseldorf has the most awesome people. It was so encouraging just sharing stories about new friends here in Düsseldorf. It is wonderful.

At the same time I am pretty tensed because I am having a job-interview tomorrow. I am trying to find a part-time job as a nurse in homecare (is this how you call it?) On Monday I decided to look for a job and wanted to start getting my papers up-to-date, but then on Tuesday I found an ad, where I was able to call in and they invited me for tomorrow even though I told them that my papers are not all together yet. That is much faster than I expected and somehow unusual. So I wonder how it will be. Could you please think of  me tomorrow....? Thanks.

Yippieh! This is my first picture on the blog! And it is such a great reason why it was taken... We had our first baptism and it was in the cooooold rhine river. My brother-in-law Renato (from Brazil) and Chris (from LA) got baptized and my whole real close family was there (my Mom, two brothers and their families). Besides my Mom there are all not followers of Christ, yet, but they were really touched through this experience. And there were other real dear people and I think for most of them it was their first baptism with adults in it.

Adrian told his class at school about it on Monday and they said: "In the rhine rivier? But isn't that too cold?" And he just answered:" No, they were wearing diving suits!" "Oh, ok." Kids just acceept that a bunch of crazy people do such a thing during the coldest time of the year. That is so funny.

There is so much going on right now. Life is exciting!

I will go now, but I can't wait to try out some more pictures on you.

Wow-what shall I say? It has been about 5 months ago that I made my last entry. Could not remmeber my password and had to renew it.

A few days after I wrote my last sentences my Dad passed away. So many things have happened since then.

I am doing okay, but those holidays were days to remember how much we are all missing my Dad. Somehow the year 2005 brought so many good changes for our lives here in Düsseldorf: a new appartment, Adaumir's new job, livivng in the same house with the Baetckes (the other family that is here with us),  the band DoSul opened the doors to many opportunities, different events at Starbucks, many wonderful contacts to all kinds of people, Chris is here from LA for six months to work and to help us,  the Kings moved from LA to Düsseldorf to complement our team tremendously, visits from special people (Adaumir's brother: Renato; David, Holly and Eric from LA), Erica McManus is staying with the Baetckes (and us as well somehow...) for almost 3 months,  ....I could go on and on and on.

There is so much to be thankful for but somehow my heart felt heavy many times especially since my Dad got sick. My husband asked me: "Are you happy, Andrea?" When I said, that there are many times when I feel happy, he wanted me to name those moments. And I was happy because of the little things but many times I am feeling so burdened because of all the little daily problems that real happiness can't break through. My desire for this coming year is to be happy in that sence that I see the things with a thankful heart and not to listen to this little voice that is trying to steal my joy out of the daily life. So with all my heart I wish you and myself a truly HAPPY new year. Without portraying a happy attitiude I can not win other people over. I want to attract others to a wonderful life. Enough with that pittyparties, let's get up and enjoy every day. Will you join me?

What have been your "happy" moments lately?

P.s.: I have not discovered yet how to put up pictures on my blog, but check out AnsusBerkana, Erica is such an example and inspiration at blogging. I just saw her making new entries and got started again. Thanks, Erica.