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3/16/2001 9:45:00 PM
Boulder Creek, CA
In the Santa Cruz mountains and the redwood forrest

February 2001

Exactly a month after Sebastian Robert has birthday - many thanks to you who wrote, phoned or even just thought about him! (He will accept presents until Feb. 2, 2002..!)

Hallo everybody,

Again Robert is at a hockey match tonight and I get my act together to write to you - although the couch and my Harry Potter book are very tempting.... February is supposed the shortest month of the year but since we had a lot happening get prepared for a longer report ...

Exactly a month after Sebastian Robert has birthday - many thanks to you who wrote, phoned or even just thought about him! (He will accept presents until Feb. 2, 2002..!) We celebrated it rather quiet this year, since we had our weekend out the week before (at the company party in San Francisco, as per my January report), which basically was our date. On the 2nd Robert had a ice hockey match (and even scored!) and since the next day was a Saturday we then had a celebrations for him with the kids. We actually agreed on not getting presents for each other but when I told Sebastian on Thursday that Daddy had birthday next day he first asked:" How old is he going to be?" and when I told him "33" his only reaction was "WOW!" - so now everybody gets told how old he is, whether he (Robert) wants to hear it or not! Right afterwards he asked:" So what did Daddy want as a present?" Well that did not give me much of a choice and on Friday I went down to one of our antique stores and got lucky to find the perfect thing right away. An old film roll (approx. 50's) from Paramount Pictures, sent to a movie theater in Palo Alto - with the original shipping label from Greyhound! A nice decoration item for his home theater. Sebastian had made his first "real" picture that day at Pre-school: A house (with windows and door!), 4 "people" - in different heights certainly, since they represent daddy, mommy, Sebastian and Benjamin - as well as a sun! I was so touched, that he drew something that one could REALLY recognize, and specially all of us!!! We bought a nice frame and decorated it with things from the woods (that's were we live, right!) some acorns, moss, leaves - it got very pretty. He was very surprised and loved it all, on top of it Sebastian and I also baked him a specialty cake from back home (poppy seed - which he loves!). Saturday afternoon our friends Maria and Jeff with their kids Kimberly and Christopher came to visit. We went out for Mexican dinner (something I rarely cook and Roberts loves) and they all stayed over for a night. We had a good time playing games, the kids also do very well  together - Sebastian loves to play and be with Christopher (8) and Kimberly (10) gets to be a perfect "Benjaminsitter". Unfortunately we don't get to see each often enough, because we always have a great time.

The weekend after I was on "leave" for a moms weekend, that my friend Jennifer invited me to. It gets organized through a pre-school of a friend of hers, and every year there are more friends of friends coming along - just like me. So therefore I hardly knew anybody, which did not matter at all. It actually was quite nice to be around new faces for a change and sometimes just by myself. We were at a retreat in the middle of a Redwood forest close to Santa Cruz and even though it was raining almost the whole time we had lots of fun. We met on Saturday morning and after lunch there were already many different activities that we could choose from (wine tasting, body stretching, hike, massage etc.) I also enjoyed sitting in front of the fire in the afternoon and read a few chapters (uninterrupted!)! After dinner we had a fun game night and all went to bed at midnight with tummy aches from laughing (Jen, her friend Donna and I kept on chatting until 2am - just like "girl scout camp") In the morning I took a beach walk (the only time the sun was out for 1 hour!), Jen had her Creative Memory workshop and after lunch we went to the antique stores close by. We all met again around 4pm for a farewell. I really had a good time being out by myself for a night, I was able to just relax and let things go by without getting involved at them.

Robert took the kids to a "Arthur" live show on Saturday, and afterwards he went to Christoph and Hemma. He had a hockey game late that night, so he put the kids down at their place and they all spent Sunday together. In the afternoon/early evening he had a big family b-b-q with his hockey team in South San Francisco, but since I was in Santa Cruz he went "alone". He did not get home until late at night and that was quite pleasant for me, having the house all by myself for a few hours, a very rare occasion! It was nice just to sit down and read, without any noise around or things to do! In overall it was a perfect weekend, the boys also had a good time having daddy by themselves for a change and Benjamin has gotten very clingy with Robert since.

A few days later my cousin Tony and his wife Ruth came from England to visit us 2 days, as an over stop on their way to New Zealand. After my dads death in 1981  I spent 3 summers in a row with them when I was a teenager. Tony is the son of my fathers sister, and for those who do not know - but my father would have been 94 years old and his sister therefore around 80 - so that's why Tony and Ruth had already a family and kids my age (4 boys and 1 girl - being 2 years then). I had a wonderful time there and many great memories. So therefore I was specially happy that they had gone "out of their way" and stopped by our place. We enjoyed each others company a lot and were sad it was only for such a short time! Robert unfortunately had to go out of town unexpected for exactly those 2 days and was very upset that he did not get a chance to meet them both a bit closer. We hope that they will come back tough, and Tony: we'll keep the tree house going!!!!!

One day after they left we went off to Canada! Robert did have his championship game that night and therefore came by himself the next morning. It almost looked like we would not have made the flight either, since it was 20 people overbooked! With a few nice comments and a good heart of the Stewart for a mother traveling by herself with 2 small children we made it and even got the last 2 seats - in First-class! It would not have worked out if Robert had come with us. It is only a 2 hour flight to Vancouver and from there I had a limo service to get us to Whistler Mountain (again 2 hours). It all went very smooth and I was glad to arrive already on Saturday. We rented a house together with our friends from Seattle Danielle and Scott - their 10 months old daughter Abby - and their best friends Liz and Ed - and their children Max 2 years and Laey 10 month. It was a really nice and relaxed week, we all got together very well and didn't feel obligated one another but still did a lot of things together, as well as doing household chores very evenly and fair. We also had the "luxury" of 2 babysitters Monday to Friday from 9am - 4pm as well as 3 evenings! The house was located just a few yards away from the slopes, so everybody could do as he pleased and we were not depending on each other, a car ride, etc. Sebastian was supposed to go to ski school 5 days but unfortunately got sick Wednesday and Thursday. So I also took it a bit easier those days and spent half a day with him at home, I could need the rest, I cannot remember when I last skied that much! On Sunday we had a few inches of fresh snow that lasted us until Wednesday with beautiful blue skies and sunshine (not one cloud!). Robert first took out his snowboards but because of the snow conditions later on rented some skis as well and got into the feeling of skiing again after almost 10 years of snowboarding. He had a lot of fun, to say the least! Sebastian was fit enough to go back to ski school on Friday and since he had been one of the better ones the teacher took him back into her class and he had no problem to catch right up with the rest of the group. We were absolutely amazed when he went skiing with us in the afternoon and went down the hill 5 times  by himself, with quite some speed! He had great fun and was very proud of himself, and so were/are we! We all profited a lot from this skiing week and even I started to learn how to go down moguls - and I'll keep trying! Benjamin was not as thrilled with the "white stuff" and even the sled was not quite his thing, I am sure it'll take another year for him to have fun with it. He very much enjoyed playing with Max and the other kids as well as our horse sleigh ride through  the woods one afternoon! We had a great week and hope that we can continue doing this, a perfect vacation!

Well this week we took it really easy and did not move far away from the house, besides the usual things like pre-school, music class and gym. Sebastian had a play date every day and we took advantage of the nice weather and some nice walks with Maura and her dogs through the (to be spring) woods. Benjamin is also starting to hike by himself which makes it so much easier and nicer for me not to carry him in the back bag. He really does well and I can hardly keep up with him, watching out that he stays on the path and doesn't trip over  too many roots. He made quite a big change the last couple of weeks and had another growth spurt, specially his vocabulary extended to "heiss (hot), dar (car), mi (milk), Baba (for Sebastian), cocoa, dog. He still is quite a rascal and gets his "hitting attacks" were he has no fear of big, small, human, animal or toy... some challenge from me, since Sebastian never did this. On the other hand he also is a cute clown and has lots of crazy ideas, as well as a passion for big shoes to walk around in! Sebastian is getting the idea that "little" brother is going to be bigger and playing with more of "his" toys now too, he is actually pretty good at sharing (there are certainly exceptions) and teaching Benjamin. He is very happy at his school and now eager to learn about numbers and letters, in English and German!

The last couple of weeks we were also quite occupied and emotionally touched by the death of my (ex)brother in law in Munich. The end of January he was brought to the hospital with a ruptured aneurisms and without ever waking up he died 3 weeks later on February 16th. I had been in very close contact with my sister throughout the whole month and tried to help as much as possible over the phone and miles. Even though they were divorced in November I still felt like they were  a family and it was a very deep shock and constant thought for a long time. I was specially sorry for my two nephews (Alexander 15 and Dominik 12), because adolescence is hard enough but to cope with so many changes in live is 100 times harder. A friend of mine wrote me a very nice e-mail and also the following, which I could not say it any better:" One gets to be aware in such situations of our own eternity or the one of a loved one. For some time everything gets irrelevant and out of perspective, of what we want in live, why we get upset over little things,... but after a little while (and I am still not sure if that is good or not) things get back to "normal". It certainly depends on how close one was, but time really is the biggest "healer" and for us back here on earth live has to go on step by step. Sebastian also noticed that something was wrong with all the phone calls I had with my sister, so once he knew he was in the hospital we included a special prayer at night  that he would get better - a few days after Michaels death I felt I owed Sebastian the truth as well and he said:" So he is with Pia (my sisters family dog who died in fall) now as an angel, does Michael have wings now too?" ... what a wonderful thought!

So there was quite a bit to tell about the month of February and I hope I can also work on my personal mailbox and reply to a few of you who have been waiting for an answer for a long time. But please don't get discouraged and don't write at all, I'll get back to you for sure - promise! I hope you are doing all well and look forward to a few updates and news from your side! Lots of greetings and hugs from  The 4 Schmids - Niki, Robert, Sebastian and Benjamin - plus their zoo

PS: Short explanation about the pictures:        1. Mid February it had snowed again since  30 years, so for 2 days we had some (road) chaos and fun in the mountains here          2. and 3. nothing to explain        4. that is how Sebastian slept one night when we came in at midnight to bring him to his bed (he always falls asleep in our bed)....

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