The Saga Continues...

A few months ago, Nathan found out about a German orthopedic surgeon here in Heidelberg who is world renown and works on the German national soccer team. Sounds pretty legit, huh? As in you probably wouldn't want anyone but him working on you, right? So, after receiving permission from TriCare to have his second surgery with this guy instead of at Landstuhl again, Nathan had a consultation appointment with him. The surgeon determined Nathan would need two surgeries, one minor and one major. The first, the minor one, would be in November or December and consist of them removing bone from his hip to fill the hole drilled in his knee for his last ACL surgery. The surgeon was pretty sure from looking at x-rays that the hole was slightly bigger than he normally drills, so he wanted to be able to start with a fresh canvas when redoing the ACL. This surgery was scheduled for December 10th. The second surgery, the major one, will be a repeat of the surgery done last January to repair Nathan's ACL with a graft from his hamstring, and will be 4-5 months after the bone graft. 

So, on December 10th, we went to the ATOS Klinik downtown. They took care of a little paperwork, which included Nathan selecting his meals from a fancy menu and his flavor of afternoon tea or coffee and cake. We waited maybe an hour in a small waiting room just outside the operating and recovery rooms. They called his name and took him back to get prepped for surgery quite unceremoniously, while I waited in the waiting room. Within a few hours, the nurse had called me back to see him post-op in the recovery room, and then they moved him to a regular room on the third floor, where he would stay the following 3 days. He shared a room with a young German guy named Konstantin, who had actually done an exchange program in high school in Austin, TX, at a school Nathan knew of. A lot of the procedures and instruments were exactly the same as those we had seen and experienced at Landstuhl, but the Germans preferred to do Nathan's blood pressure and pulse manually and his IV was a straight drip line instead of an automated pump. They also had no visiting hours, which wasn't all that different from when we were at Landstuhl because I ignored the ones they had : ) We watched Parks & Rec, our latest TV series obsession, and read Harry Potter. On the third day, they released him and we headed home, but not without a stop by the pet store first. Nathan had been authorized 3 weeks convalescent leave from work, but chose to return the following Monday, after only a week off. He really had very little complications with this surgery from the get-go and was off crutches completely within two weeks. He had stitches over his hip and a few places on his knee, and decided to remove those himself when they started irritating him ten days in. He's been doing physical therapy on his own and has a pretty regular ice routine to help with the swelling. So far, so good!

Now, we just have to brace ourselves for the big surgery in April or May.

Read the journey we've made with Nathan's knee to this point here, here and here.

Deck the Halls

 Our fall decorations, the meager lot of them, disappeared on December 1st, and our Christmas decorations replaced them.

I think I happened to put out our decorations the same day last year. Accidental tradition occurring? That morning we had gone to the Nuernberg Christmas market (and picked up Vulcan). The next day it snowed and we beefed up our Christmas music library through iTunes.

We displayed our mugs collected from the Christmas markets we've been to atop our fridge.

Nuernberg, Mannheim, Cologne, Heidelberg, Speyer

We've also been to the one in Strasbourg, but they served 

us (the best) gluhwein in small plastic cups. Boo.

our entry

left: Yankee Candle's Balsam & Cedar is quickly becoming a favorite tradition. It smells SO good!

right: I placed our ornaments in a hurricane glass this year, since we don't do a tree. 

Both are on the doilie-things I got at the Speyer Christmas market last year.

 left: our stockings
right: I stuck some leftover greenery from the Advent Wreath Workshop in a vase. Sort of a Christmas tree, yeah : )

This is my absolute favorite. Granted, we just bought it this year at the Speyer Christmas market, but I LOVE it. It's handcarved wood and the set is normally bought one piece at a time. We don't have time for that, and instead bought it all in one fell swoop. You can't see him very well, but the lady g.a.v.e us the sheep that is right next to Mary, grazing. She and her husband are fairly old and spoke only German. We had originally told her we wanted to buy that sheep too, but changed our minds in order to bring the price down a little. We thought at first that she didn't understand that we didn't want him anymore, but were shocked when we realized she was giving it to us for free. 

This vase is also a recent purchase. We got this little baby from a shop here in Nussloch, while waiting for a pizza one night. It says Merry Christmas in different languages around a cherub. And the wreath was made by yours truly. Because we had to leave the Advent Wreath Workshop early to go to Italy, we took our supplies home with us. By the time we got around to making it, I decided I didn't want any candles or decorations. Just a simple green wreath. Call it being irreverent, I don't care. 

It makes me smile : )

And it wouldn't be Christmas without delicious homemade treats, right?

Want to see our decoration post from last year? Read here.

Poseidon, Hydra & Vulcan

We have not become god and goddess worshipers. 
No, we have instead become owners of violent pets.

Nathan started watching videos of mantis shrimp back in the late summer. These shrimp, that look more like lobsters, have smashers instead of claws. They use them to strike prey, bust open shells to get to food, and defend themselves against predators. They hit extremely hard. Nathan eventually decided he would like to own one as a pet. We are not pet people. I was adamant about not having a slimy sea creature in my home. I ended up coming around to him at least keeping it in the guest room, in a corner where I couldn't see it in passing, on the condition that I would never have to look at it or take care of it in any way.

Nathan bought the tank and all the trappings before he left for his TDY in Vicenza, agreeing to wait to buy the mantis shrimp until after he returned so that I would not have to take care of it in his absence. So, the week he returned, we went to the pet store downtown and bought the mantis shrimp that would soon be named Poseidon. He was a small, dark green thing that busted the bag he was in while we were still at the pet store. And his first night in the tank, he smashed the thermometer, causing its kerosene contents to spew into the water. I discovered I was much less grossed out than I thought I would be, and found Poseidon to be almost as entertaining as Nathan. The "grumpy old man," as we fondly referred to him, would punch anything and everything that came near him. Even though he didn't eat the little feeder shrimp Nathan would dump in the tank, he would punch them when they approached the entrance to his cave and send them flying across the tank. So funny. He had such a violent reputation that my coworker/the Catholic Parish Coordinator jokingly suggested we bring Poseidon to the chapel the day Father Betz was going to be doing pet blessings, in hopes that Poseidon would have a little change of heart. haha. We still laugh about that.

In the early part of November, Nathan had a week-long TDY in Grafenwoehr and I had instructions on how to care for Poseidon. All I had to do was fill the tank with water each day. Unfortunately, Poseidon decided that the day before Nathan was returning home would be a good day to kick the bucket. I was horrified to find him lying outside his little cave that Thursday morning, not moving. I kept hoping I was wrong in my guess that he was no longer alive. Nathan took the news over the phone that night pretty well. He wanted me to scoop out Poseidon's lifeless little body and throw it away, but I didn't feel ok about that. Not since it was his pet and all. He assured me he wouldn't be holding a funeral or anything, but I put the little thing in a Ziploc bag anyway, for Nathan to deal with when he got home. It was sad saying goodbye to Poseidon.

Then, the night we returned home from our Thanksgiving trip to Naples & Rome, Nathan went to the pet store and bought a pistol shrimp, similar to the mantis shrimp. Instead of smashing things, they snap their claw shut fast so that it spews water so hard it will stun or kill their prey. He named her Hydra. He was hoping that his next mantis shrimp would have an epic fight with her. Finish reading this post and you will see why that hasn't happened. We don't have any pictures of her because she's remains in her home, inside a big piece of rock. Oh, and we were pretty sure she was pregnant when Nathan brought her home, but is not anymore. 

And, the last addition to our slew of vicious little pets, is Vulcan. Nathan ordered him through a pet store in Nuernberg and we picked him up on December 1st, before hitting up their Christmas market. He.is.huge. Especially compared to Poseidon. But much prettier. Nathan took my suggestion to name him Vulcan (god usually pictured with a hammer--like a smasher--and  a little reminder of our trip to Pompeii/Herculaneum, where they worshiped Vulcan), but we think he was named a little prematurely. I prefer to call him Mr. Wimpy Pants. Unlike Poseidon, Vulcan has been extremely docile. It's really rather boring. Nathan thinks he might have just been extremely stressed out and therefore just stayed holed up in his abode constructed of PVC pipes. Nathan's been doing little exercises with him, trying to get him to use his smashers more. He puts a little defrosted shrimp in a hollow shell, so Vulcan will smash it open to get to the food. The "training" seems to be helping. Because of this, I have also suggested we change his name to Rocky.