Going Dutch

Hello World!


Yes, we are terrible at updating our blog - we know. Hopefully you will all forgive us. We have been keeping busy.

First, we're happy to announce that Atticus Berkley Hochstein arrived on June 22, 2009 at 16:59 and we are so happy that he is here. He is such a good baby and he amazes us continually at how much he learns and grows. He is a strong little guy, smiles a lot and keeps us laughing.

Here is Atticus just after getting all cleaned up.

Family photo before heading to church to bless Atticus.

2 Months old already! He enjoys listening to swing music, classical, Mormon Tabernacle and Julie Andrews (he has a very acquired music taste; if he doesn't like something, he'll make sure you know via crying)...and LOVES anything that involves mommy and daddy working out their arm muscles (e.g., being an airplane).

As we're sure most of you have already heard, Jason's contract was extended with a relocation to The Netherlands. It is an exciting move for us, a new language and new adventures. We were able to go on an apartment hunting trip and found a great little apartment, scoped out the ESTEC campus, attended the small English speaking branch, and even had some family photos done on the beach. It was a great opportunity to check out the things that will be nearby once we move.

Before the move we have plenty to do. Jason has one more week of work left at EAC, then he has some time to help get the move organized. Laura is enjoying her time with the little man and working on her schoolwork on the side. And Atticus, well, he is working on being as cute as possible!

After the move we will be working on navigating our new surroundings, building up our food storage further and perhaps taking on baby sign language (if anyone has any tips about it, please let us know!). It should be exciting. We feel very blessed to be able to do so much and love our little family.

We think of you all often. Love you and miss you.

Love,

Jason, Laura and Atticus

Can you believe it's already June!?

Guten Tag Familie und Freunde,

Things here sure have been busy and we're enjoying it. In the last little while we have been able to still enjoy a little leisure time while working, studying and making sure we have everything in place for the little man.

A few weeks ago we made a trip to the Drachenfels Ruins (in some old German dialect this means "Dragon's Rock"), which is only a 15 minute drive away. We rented a car for the weekend and ended up getting a SmartCar. It felt like we were driving a go-kart! It was quite the experience.

Here's Laura (35 Weeks) looking out over the Drachenfels Castle with the Rhein in the background. The hike up to the Drachenfels ruins was quite the jaunt but very beautiful.

Last weekend a baby shower was put on for Laura by women from the Relief Society and some friends. Here's Laura at 38 weeks with her also-pregnant friend Carol.

You may be wondering "What exactly are they doing here??" Well, as part of the baby shower, we played a game to see who of the four fine people shown above could spin a pacifier around in their mouth without using hands. Jason won hands-down with 6 spins! The next closest runner-up had a mere 4. It was quite the sight to see! The shower was great fun, and we got some great baby gifts too.


Last weekend being Pentacost meant that Jason had an extra day off for work (gotta love all these European holidays!), so we spent an afternoon in the nearby Rheinau Park in Bonn. Among other things, the park sports a mini-golf course! We played all 18 holes; however, who actually won in the end is still under investigation.

Here's Jason trying to see just how difficult putting hole 10 was with a pregnant belly! Close, but no dice, that's for sure!

As we cruised through the park, we found this awesome totem pole that was gifted to the community by - who else? - CANADA! The totem pole came from an aboriginal artist in British Columbia. How cool!

Otherwise, things here are going splendidly. The baby will be here any day now. We're so excited, and we'll be sure to let you know when he arrives! Hope everyone is doing well and has a fabulous week!

MayDay MayDay!

Hey People!

Yes, that's right, it was May Day weekend here in Germany. Gotta love these European holidays! There is a tradition specific to our area where large trees are placed outside the home of a girl that a boy admires. The top of the tree is decorated in streamers and a heart with the girl's name on it. How endearing!

We were fortunate enough not only to have Jason get the day off work, but also to have a friend lend us a car for the long weekend. Sooo...what better way to spend it then going to the temple in Frankfurt AND castle exploring!!!

The Frankfurt Temple is only about two hours away from where we live. Of course, that's when you're able to travel between 120-160 km/hr and nobody blinks an eye! It was a beautiful day and we were pleasantly surprised by the lack of traffic.

(The Frankfurt Temple from the side. There were beautiful gardens in near-full bloom.)

(Couldn't quite get the angel Moroni from the temple spire in this picture, but we still like it. Jason seems like he could use a shave, though. Oops!)

After the temple session, we drove towards Burg Eltz, a nearby castle that has been maintained and is now a big tourist site. On the way to the valley where the castle sits, we had to traverse a couple of rivers and maneuver the car down steep slopes filled with hairpin turns, and hair-raisingly narrow lanes for two-direction traffic!

Here's Laura (34 weeks along!) on a ridge overlooking Burg Eltz. The people who live here were probably Dukes and Duchesses rather than Kings and Queens. Still, they were probably making a decent living from all the peasants they leased their land to.

Here's Jason yelling "Don't take the picture yet!" No, not really, he's just being a goof. There were a number of hiking pathways around the castle. We explored one until it got a little too muddy.

(Some nice German guy agreed to take this picture of us.)

Otherwise, life continues to roll on here. Only 6 weeks until Laura's due date!!! We'll be starting pre-natal classes this week, so that's very exciting. We'd also got to try some real Turkish Delight (Rose flavored) that one of Jason's co-workers brought back from Istanbul the previous weekend. Sooo good.

Also, we want to say congratulations to Rory and Jenny, and our good friends Camille and Heather on the recent marriages. Way to go!!! We wish you all the best for the future. Hope everyone has a great week.

Love you all!
Jason & Laura

Frohe Oster!!!

For those who might not have guessed it, "Frohe Oster" is German for "Have a most excellent Easter". Yes, it was quite the wild weekend here in Deutschland. Easter's pretty big here with the Germans. Tree branches are decorated with fancy painted eggs, special cakes line the bakery shelves, and chocolate is abundant! We tried to take full advantage of the extra days Jason got off from work to enjoy the fantastic weather and spirit of the season.

On Friday we took a rental car back to the Netherlands to visit the temple in The Hague. We were a little dubious driving there and seeing black clouds on the horizon, but in the end the weather was just as nice by the North Sea as it was in Germany. It appeared that the Dutch were just as much into Easter as the Germans (and they make really good Easter cakes!).

With a car at our disposal, Saturday was errands day. Besides our normal weekly stuff, we managed to find a great stroller and carseat for the baby. And then....it was baking time!!! Our landlady had kindly given us two homemade German Easter cakes in the shape of a lamb and a bunny. It was unexpected, but quite delicious.


Sooo, in an effort to repay the deed, we attempted super-duper chocolate cupcakes! Unfortunately, we were lacking a little on the super-duper front as all the cupcake tops fell off. Oops! Fortunately, Laura is a baking genius, and in no time at all we turned them into CAKE BALLS (we decided that "cake balls" wasn't that great of a name, nor nearly descriptive enough, so we now affectionately refer to them as "Chocolate Cake Coconut Truffles").


In addition to our baking fiasco, Jason got to play handyman and put together some nice patio furniture that our landlady supplied us with.


Later that day, we hopped in the car for a driving adventure. Our adventure found us in Stadt Blankenberg; an old walled city on top of a hill. We were able to explore what is left of the castle and walk around the city, which is still within the remains of the wall and has plenty of people living in it!

(Laura in front of the tower and entrance to Stadt Blankenberg)

(Jason in front of a 400 year old Wine Press a.k.a. Baumkelter)

(One of the castle towers)

(Approaching the Castle!)

(Laura heading into a castle tower)

(The view of the beautiful valley from the castle)

(The view of the city from the castle)

(One of the city streets. Big enough for one car only.)

Sunday began with a great time at church. Great lessons, great talks and a gift of hand-painted eggs from the missionaries. We drove to a beautiful park on the Rhine for an afternoon walk before the rental car needed to be returned.

(Jason taking a break in the park)

Sunday evening had us enjoying a ham dinner and special talks and videos on Christ. We also gave a Norwegian Easter tradition a try called Egg Knocking. It was great fun! Monday involved spring cleaning and making brunch for the missionaries. On the menu was: Ham & Egg Casserole, Mandarin-Spinach salad with homemade Raspberry Vinaigrette, fried breakfast potatoes and cake (with fruit and homemade vanilla pudding)!

(Jason with the yummy food!)

That wraps up our weekend. We have been very fortunate to have good weather and have been trying to make the most of it. The pregnancy is going very well and we are getting excited to meet our little man.

(Laura in week 30)

We hope you all had an equally great Easter weekend. May the Lord bless you all.

Love,

Jason & Laura

Monkey Business

Hello World!

It's about time we made another update. Funny how fast time flies by! The last month and a bit have been chock full of school, work, and baby preparation busyness. Laura is already 28 weeks along. Not long ago, we visited an ultrasound specialist who measured all the baby's organs and bones. Apparently, he's a LONG baby! Actually, based on the measurements and what we've read in all the pregnancy literature, we think he might be a little older than what the docs say, but who knows! Anyhow, the coolest part of that visit was the 4D Doppler images they took of the rascal. Very cool!
The weekend we had that particular doctor's appointment was pretty busy, so we decided to rent a car to make the getting around a little bit easier. We thought to try a cheap rental company called Sixti with whom you can rent a car for just 10 euros a day! Granted, the cars are small, and not all that terrific, but who can complain for that price. Anyhow, when Jason went to pick the car up after work on Friday, he was told that the car we'd booked wasn't available, soooo...we would have to drive a Mini Cooper instead! It was actually a lot of fun. Not much for trunk space, mind you, but boy could it take corners!



This past weekend was also Jason's birthday...and yes, it was a birthday weekend. From Friday to Monday, we did something fun each day. Jason took the day off work on Friday, we rented a car, and we drove to Holland to go to the temple. We had absolutely beautiful weather. Unfortunately, the Dutch tulips weren't in full bloom yet, sooo...we're just going to have to go back to get pictures! While we were there we did manage to take a walk around Zoetermeer's lovely pedestrian shopping district AND find some absolutely amazing natural peanut butter! Peanut butter is hard enough to find in Germany, let alone good quality stuff. It was a veritable gold mine!

On Saturday, after our normal weekend errands, we went for dinner at the China Paradise Ocean Restaurant in Bonn. It's a huge triple decker boat seated on the Rhein River that looks like it was pulled right out of Hong Kong. The buffet was pretty decent for being in Germany.

Sunday found us baking cakes after church to take to Jason's work. It's tradition in his office for people celebrating their birthday to share cake with everyone else. A mighty fine tradition if you ask us! Anything for cake!! We shared a little bit of it with missionaries who came over for dinner that night.

Finally, on Monday (Jason's actual birthday), came the big surpise. During the day, Laura had been put her mad baking skills to work, and surprised Jason with the most incredible peanut-butter monkey-faced rice krispy treat EVER MADE IN THE WHOLE WORLD AND BEYOND!! Seriously, though, this monkey kicks butt. And tastes pretty good. But since we couldn't eat him for dinner, we decided on homemade waffles instead with whipped cream and strawberries.

Here's a picture of us sporting the shirts that Jason's grandparents sent from Canada for his birthday.


And finally, just because we think it's absolutely hilarious, here's a picture of a dog that regularly carries his master's bakery goods home from the bakery every week. Who wouldn't want a dog like that? Just hope he doesn't slobber too much.

Well, it's been a crazy month, and it's going to get crazier. We hope everyone is doing fantastic. Jason thanks everyone for their birthday wellwishes. Have a wonderful time back in Canada!

Love you all!

Laura & Jason

Wij houden van pannenkoeken!

Goedendag! (That's Dutch for "Howdy!")

Last weekend we spent an amazing three days in the Land of Tulips. We rented a car Friday afternoon and drove to the Netherlands, which is only about two hours away. We spent that evening attending the temple just outside of The Hague. It's located in a small city named Zoetermeer. Beautiful and intimate, the temple is located on a small parcel of land. The local church building used to be there, but they tore it down to build the temple! The temple has an underground parking lot complete with a distribution center. But one of the coolest hallmarks is the enormous 4oo kg brass door that adorns the front of the building. Incredible! (the hinges had to be changed twice!)

We started Saturday by attending a second session of the temple (can't get enough of a good thing, right?), and then headed to Amsterdam. Fortunately, we'd been advised not to try and park downtown, so we only had to wait ONE hour at the edge of the city for a parking spot at a Park and Ride. The transit system there is pretty amazing, though. In the city we cruised the canals by boat, ate Dutch pancakes, and took in the enormous diversity of people, architecture, and history. We even got to see the famous house of Anne Frank!

Sunday found us traveling through Leiden, Noordwijk, and The Hague. We attended a small English-speaking Church branch in Leiden and enjoyed their warm welcome. We then cruised the coastline of the North Sea before hunting down a few windmills for good measure. Before heading back to Germany, we drove through The Hague and saw their parliament on the water. It was a truly fantasic time.

Otherwise, things are going well for all 2.5 of us. School and work keep us plenty occupied. This weekend we found our new favorite place to stop and enjoy our little village: the local gelatto cafe - complete with an Italian owner! Mmm...we love gelatto!

We hope everyone is well and enjoy your weekend!

Love,

Laura and Jason

Us outside the Haag Netherlands Temple

The Haag Temple

A view of the front entrance.

Jason standing along one of the many canals in Amsterdam

Look closely...the house on the right is sinking!

There are over 2500 houseboats that line the canals in Amsterdam. Most of them are used as full-time residences.

There are more bikes than people in Amsterdam (and that's a fact!). We saw quite a few of these bikes around town.

Hoisting hooks on the warehouses-turned luxury homes in Amsterdam. Once used to hoist freight into the warehouses, they are still used for furniture since the stairways are too narrow.

Jason in front of Anne Frank's house.

The worlds most public urinal. Laura is not so impressed.

The Noordzee

A trip to Holland would not have been complete without taking a snapshot of a windmill.