My birthday

May 8

Let's start there. My birthday was really good. Jonathan, of course, was here, so that was nice. The day before my birthday the family took me out to dinner. It's crazy how going anywhere with small children is such a process! We played Go Fish in English and German (difficult for Jonathan, since he doesn't speak German) while waiting for our food. I think Johanna won. After we'd eaten, Dominik threw a mini fit and ended up changing his entire outfit because of a tiny bit of tomato sauce spilled on his shirt. Once he'd calmed down, he decided he wanted to figure out how much the bill would be. He and Johanna went up to the waitress and asked for a pencil and paper (Johanna almost threw a tantrum over being allowed to walk the three feet with Dominik). Dominik then added up the entire bill, then when the real bill came, he discovered that they had accidentally not included the waters Jonathan and I had ordered, and wanted to rush up and tell them to add it in. Luckily every adult at the table stopped him.

The weather was sooo nice on my actual birthday. Jonathan and I walked around for a while after I was done working, and then after dinner Judith picked us up and we went into Heidenheim to meet up with some other people from Gegenwind. Ingrid, the nicest woman ever, had organized everything last-minute (I hadn't been sure if I'd have to work or not that night) and gotten together a good-sized group of people. We ate ice cream and then walked up to the castle. It made me really happy that all the Gegenwind people tried really hard not only to include Jonathan, but to speak English to him. I know that a lot of them don't speak it very well and have trouble understanding, but they all made the effort. All in all, a really good day.