The Heymann Family Journal

Good News. The director of Sarah's school is allowing her to miss a week of school and travel with me to America next week. It took me all morning to find her a ticket. And so Sarah will come with me to visit the family! More luggage space! She wants to learn how to crochet. She also wants to cook with grandma, and see the new Disney movie Cinderella. Let's call this a Birthday gift to grandma. She was only 4 the last time she traveled to America. I was younger too!

Juergen is working on our taxes, so I’m looking at ways to spend the refund (just kidding).

Sarah just showed me her report card. She got an A- average (1.5). Two years ago she was stressed out getting D's and F's (4’s and 5's). We made the hard choice to have her repeat the 3rd grade. And now she could go to Gymnasium (the highest level of German high school). I also had to repeat the 3rd grade. She is so amazing! What a brave and wonderful person she is!

Planting Heirloom tomatoes seeds today. God willing, we will have maybe 1000 plants to give away by April 19th. I would be happy to give a few 100 plants to your church or school, or even your friends, neighbors and family. If anyone wants to help us transplant seedlings, label plants, or help donate potting soil then let me know. We will most likely have one work day around April 12th. This year we are also planting sunflowers, lettuce, cucumbers, kale, peppers, squash, pumpkins, cabbages, and maybe another 20 other vegetables to be given away at the FEG Heidelberg on April 19th (both services). If you have friends that want to garden, bring them to church on April 19th. They will walk away with a garden worth of free plants. And even if you just have a balcony, you can grow a tomato plant, and a few heads of lettuce. We want to bless you and teach you to grow your own food.

It is snowing today. Sadly it's still too cold to garden. But Lidl has summer blubs on sale today, and Aldi has bulbs on Thursday. So I will buy my gladiolas and Dahlias today, and my Iris and Lilly’s Thursday. These are very good summer bulbs from Holland for only 1 Euro a package. But you must wait until it’s warmer to plant them. You can plant summer bulbs in a pot. They are a very good choice for a small garden, or balcony.

I just bought a pink carry on suitcase. It is the largest carryon you can have (the maximum size). It is also super light. So I can bring more stuff to America when I travel next month. I would not generally pick a pink suitcase, but it was on sale. It said buy me…and so I did!

For Valentine’s Day, Juergen is taking me to see the IMAX film Jerusalem, then out to Mexican food. I love Israel! This trailer makes my heart race. Maybe we should go to Israel for vacation this year?

I may have found a playhouse for my chicken coop. It is for sale in Heidelberg. It comes with a sandbox. The chickens can take a dust bath in the sand box. I hear they like that. We will put a window on it, and a nesting box, and place it on a shipping pallet. The entire thing will sit in a chicken run that will be made from my old tomato house/hoop house. The chicken run is 3 meters wide and 6 meters long. It will all come together in a few short months. Hope to have the chickens at the beginning of April.