I had written a big long entry earlier today and aol managed to get rid of that for me..."Thank YOU AOL" @@ Anyways...I had writen about Jordyn, but well honestly I'm too drained to go there. I'll just say that Monday marks 6 yrs since Jordyn went home to Heaven, she also died on a MONDAY in 2000. I'm not sure what next week has in store for me, but honestly I'm not looking forward to it very much. I know I'll get through it.

So what am I going to write about? It's going to be a vent. I have some ignorant people living in the apartment below me. You all by now know my feelings on smoking. I don't like it. It's a single mom, who's the soldier and she brought her aunt over here because she was supposed to leave today for Iraq. I don't know if she did or not...I saw her about 5 pm, getting out of her van with take out, as I was walking over to the park for Jacob's T Ball game. Ok...so both her and her aunt smoke, inside the apartment...there are 3 children in there breathing in this junk, one being a baby. ahhhh! Ok, so as if that's not bad enough..since we're having these truly wonderful and beautiful days all the windows are open and guess what blows up into my apartment...you guessed it...their 2nd hand smoking. I was venting to a friend of mine about this and to Chad...they both believe that it's against housing regulations to smoke inside the apartment. I'm going to call housing and find out, if so I'm going to have them address this issue, because if they don't, I will. I am not and I'm not going to allow my children to be exposed to 2nd hand smoke in our own home. I can't always control it when we're outside at the park (which drives me nuts too..it's a park for KIDS!) or just out in public. Smoking's widely accepted in Germany (well Europe in general)...but it's about everywhere. I really love living her, but that is my definately 1 complaint. Although for the most part we manage to stay away from it, and it's not allowed on public transportation or inside stores, well the majority anyways.

Ok...so seriously smoking is not my vent! My vent is.....:) it's coming really.

The Aunt likes bass! Oh yes, she turns that music up, turns that bass up and yesterday I could feel the vibration through the floors and could make out the music clearly. Now this is not some small feat. Our building, the walls, and under the hardwood floor...it's all cement! Yes, you read that right...cement! Yesterday it was in the middle of the afternoon. The boys were napping, but she didn't wake them up, so I let it go. Tonight though, totally different story. Germany has quiet hrs...they start at 8 pm-7 am (some places it's 8 am). Sunday's, you're not allowed to mow your lawns, wash your cars, etc....for the most part people respect the quiet hrs and no problems. Tonight at 9....my floors start vibrating, I can hear the music (same one from yesterday...), and my boys were in bed for the night. I went down and rang the doorbell a few times...finally the Aunt and the daughter who's prob oh I guess 9 come to the door...."CAN YOU TURN THE MUSIC DOWN"....(yes I was yelling, I had to, they couldn't hear me otherwise) the Aunt "Oh, you can Hear it?" "YES"....it took her until I was back up in my apt, went pee (I know you wanted to know that! LOL), and came back out to the living room for her to manage to turn it down.

This is so not going to happen again. I let it go yesterday, I asked her tonight, if it happens again, I'm just going to call the MP's. It's seriously about respect. We're not loud. I work hard to make sure the boys don't get too noisy. I've told the "soldier" that if she hears us, just to let me know and I'll make sure we're quieter. She said she never hears us. I don't blast my music, bass definately isn't an issue since I find it overwhelmingly annoying, and my tv stays at a decent volume. 

Lets say some prayers that this lady gets a clue. What really kills me about it the most, is that a noise is 10 times louder to a baby than it is to adults. I heard how loud it was in that apartment tonight, she's going to destroy his hearing, if she keeps that up. It just seems like common sense to me.

 

Well there's my post, see wasn't it worth waiting a week for! LOL

Tomorrow maybe I'll have a better one to share!

 

For now, I'll leave you with some pictures I recently took! :)

 

 

The 2nd picture, shows only one of the many garden rows full of various Tulips

This above was Jacob's favorite

This was my favorite one.

The yellow flower reminds of of the sun shining down! :)

I love this one of the boys, we were heading out of the Gardens....