Week 39

We tried to get into the Christmas spirit this weekend. I know it's early... but to send presents back to the US you have to start early! We went to the Mannheim Holiday Bazaar with high expectations, I guess, because we were a little disappointed. Then we went to see A Christmas Carol and were disappointed again. It was WAY too scary and deep for the kids! It didn't help that at on a really scary part the movie died and then the theater went black. Kids were crying and had to leave. It was like that for almost 20 minutes!!
So... we decided to go to our first Weihnachsmarkt (Christmas Market) of the year. They all start sometime next week but a few started this weekend. We decided to go to the one in Colmar, France.
What a beautiful city!!

The streets are lined with charming cafe's and half-timbered houses, most of which are painted in bright colors instead of the usual white.

Small canals run through the town, which once were used by tanners. One area is called "Little Venice" because of the canals and the little bridges that cross them.



Again, however, we were somewhat disappointed though. We got there around 1pm and waited all day for the markets to open. Finally we decided to leave around 5pm and most things still hadn't opened. We still had a great time though. I know we'll be getting our fill of Christmas Markets before it's all said and done!!

One cool thing about Colmar is that it was the home of the great artist and sculptor Federic Auguste Bartholdi, born in 1834. Bartholdi is well known for being the world-renowned designer of the Statue of Liberty.


We walked around a little to get a bearings first. The city was so picturesque!


Everyone was hungry since it was past 1:00 already so we found a little boulangerie and got some Pannini's.

The crew waiting for me to come back with lunch


Mmmmm.....


Meeting some of the locals.

Exploring the city



Stopping for some chocolates


Waiting for the markets to open...


Still waiting...

Warming up with some hot chocolate

Making several trips back to van for potty!!
Whitney stayed dry all weekend and went potty in the potty chair every time we took her. She hasn't done #2 for 2 days though... :(

Jeremy had a hankering for some chestnuts roasted on an open fire to snack on for the ride home...

Overall we had a great day!
Now we know not to go to the markets during the day.
oh well... lesson learned. :)

I wouldn't trade a day like this for anything. I think one great advantage to living here in Europe, as opposed to visiting, is that you can take a short day trip to some small city off the beaten path that you would never have visited otherwise. They aren't main tourist attractions but so surprisingly interesting. These spontaneous little adventures are some of my most favorite and treasured memories.

Week 38

For those of you who follow my blog you will be shocked to hear that I didn't take very many pictures this week. Weird, I know! I guess I will have to blame it on Whitney....

Our lives pretty much revolve around peeing and pooping on the potty. She has done so good! She actually did her first #2 in the toilet this week and she's gone several days without accidents. But... we still can't let our guard down just yet.


The other MAJOR occasion this week was Elder Jenkins birthday party. The boys were soooo excited to celebrate. They decorated his cake all by themselves and made birthday cards and banners to put up all over the house. lol! It's going to be a sad day when he gets transferred. We had the Bishop of our ward and his wife over too for the party.



This weekend Connor was invited to the bowling alley for a birthday party. It's always tricky when one gets invited and the other one doesn't. We invited 2 of Aiden's best friends from school over to play while Connor was gone. That seemed to take his mind away from not being invited to the birthday party. His little friends are really cute and the 3 of them together are so funny.

The biggest event this weekend was the ward primary program. It was the best one I've ever been to and it was all in German!! About a month ago the primary teacher wrote a scripture in German on a peice of paper and asked us to help the kids memorize it for the program. It was hard because we didn't even know if we were telling the boys the right way to say things. The week before the program different people from church came over to practice saying it with the boys while I was at work. They were also asked to memorize the first verse of "I'm a Child of God" in English.
The day of the program the boys were so excited. There was so much hype and preparation for this program compared to any others in the past. Half of the time we forgot or didn't even know about the primary program until we got there! The beginning of the program all the kids and the leaders were on the stand. All of the sudden one of the leaders just stood up and sang the first first of "I'm a Child of God" in Greek (she went on her mission to Greece), then 2 girls stood up and sang the same verse in French, then the Bishop's wife stood up and sang it in Chinese, then all by themselves little Connor and Aiden stood up and sang it in English.. without music or anyone helping them, then the other 2 primary kids stood up and sang it in German. It was such a spiritual and powerful moment to hear that song in all the different languages and knowing that no matter who you are, how old you are, or what language you speak we really ARE all children of God!
Then it was time for them to say their verses in the microphone. Aiden needed a little help but everyone was very impressed with his pronunciation... they said he speaks better German than I do (which isn't too hard to do). Then Connor got up there and read the whole verse all by himself. I was so proud of them knowing how much work and effort they put into that. I wanted to record Connor reading his verse later that night but we couldn't find the paper. I was so sad! Then Connor said he didn't even need the paper and he remembered how to say it. And he did!! AMAZING!!!

Week 37

This week wasn't too eventful... it barely justifies a blog post, but I couldn't just skip a week!


I thought I would write about the traffic here... A Stau is a Traffic Jam on the Autobahn. One day this week I was driving to Stuttgart. I left my house at 6am to avoid traffic. At 7:20am, I was 3.5 miles from my exit into Stuttgart, when traffic completely stopped. 6 cars ahead of me a Semi-Truck over turned and was completely blocking the entire Autobahn. After an hour the firemen came around to each car and instructed everyone to turn their engines off and not to smoke. It was a really cold day and was raining hard all morning. Around 9am I finally found someone walking by that spoke English... he had talked to the firemen who said it would be a minimum of 3 more hours!!! Finally a little after 11am they realized that it was going to take longer than that so the firemen and policemen went to the very back of the line and directed each car, one by one, to back up and turn around going the opposite way on the autobahn. When they got to me I could barely drive because I was shivering so bad from freezing the last 5 hours and also because all the windows were fogged up so I couldn't see. There were 5 rows of cars on a 3-lane autobahn so we were all jammed in tight. Everyone was yelling at me in German and blowing their whistles. It was really scary! Finally 5 1/2 hours later I got to my office and could use the bathroom!!!! I spent 30 minutes there and then just had to turn around and drive back.


The boys were out of school half day on Thursday and all day Friday. It's been getting cold here too so they were all going crazy from being inside for so long. Friday night we decided to go out for pizza and some bowling. We had so much fun!!





Jeremy took his game very serious! ha ha!! He was even true to the Mavs and wore his Maverik shirt. :) As you can see he won:

Whitney has been so funny lately whenever we tell her not to smile. She will be busy doing something else and as soon as we don't "don't smile" she just gets the biggest smile ever! She'll look right at you smiling but acts like she thinks she's not smiling. It's too cute!


Like I said... it's been getting cold here. The highs have been in the low to mid 40's and rainy. So, we've been spending more time indoors. I caught the kids playing really cute this weekend.

Week 36

HALLOWEEN

Another great Halloween!! The day before we had a test run and went to a costume party at the library. The boys were a little too old... it was more for Whitney's age. All the girls were princesses, fairies, lady bugs, etc... Whitney was Elmo. She wore the same costume that Connor and Aiden both have worn before. She was definitely the most popular kid at the library. All the other kids were literally lining up to wait for their chance to hug Elmo. Whitney was a good sport about it. Some of the kids were scared of Elmo. So Whitney would just hold her arms out and say "Come On". Too cute!


FINALLY... the real thing!! Here are my scary little boys...

My little pirate actually fell asleep before we even started Trick or Treating!!

We went and picked up 2 little German kids from our church. They had never heard of Trick or Treating before so we definitely wanted to show them how fun it was!! The little girl speaks a little English but the boy doesn't speak any English at all! No one seemed to care.

It was my brilliant idea to kick off the night by watching Where The Wild Things Are...


I thought the movie was TERRIBLE!!! It was such a mistake to go there. The little German boy cried through half of it. It was NOT a kids movie. I was really embarrassed for taking them and could not wait to get out of there!

Finally it was over and on to Trick or Treating...

I was quite busy with all the kids so no pictures got taken. The Missionaries met up with us after the movie and went Trick or Treating with us. It was a great night! Afterwards we all went to the food court for a late dinner.

Week 35

This week was busy as we were trying to get back into the swing of things after our trip to Italy. We did manage to fit in a little fun though...

We started off the week with a Halloween package from my parents. The kids were so excited! We had been so busy getting ready for Italy that we hadn't thought much about Halloween yet. So the package was just what we needed to get us in the mood. Thanks Mom and Dad!!
( the boys... and I mean Jeremy too... especially enjoyed feeding Whitney the sour pop rocks!!)


They also sent a package of caramel apple candy corn... OMG! These things are SOOO good!

This weekend Jeremy and I were invited by the Garrison Commander of Baden-Wurtenberg to attend the German-American Friendship Concert at Schwetzingen Castle. This castle is most notable for its spacious and ornate gardens and also features one of the few surviving
theaters in the rococo style. It was not well-lit outside so I was sorry not to be able to see the impressive gardens. I could tell it was amazing even though it was dark. The theater however was quite impressive! The Army band and chorus played a great mix of songs from the William Tell Overature to a tribute to Michael Jackson. It gave me goosebumps when they played Mozart and knowing that Mozart played in the very theater 3 times! Another highlight of the night for me was when they played the German National Anthem and you could hear all the Germans in the audience singing. Then they played the American National Anthem and all the Americans were singing along. It was a great night. The pictures aren't great because it was dark. Sorry.

During intermission they provided free hor d'oeurves and drinks!


The Mayor of Schwetzingen and COL Butcher


Connor is in scouts now. He loves it! This weekend they did a walk covering the entire base. Jeremy, Aiden and Kayla went for support. :)


My friend from work invited us to their home for a halloween/pumpkin carving party.
We had a blast!!

Playing with the other boys


There was even a girl there Lauren's age who just bought this guitar that day! Lauren plays the guitar and actually brought it to Germany with her. They hit it off!!

Whitney liked hanging out with the "big girls" best!!
(she can barely see over the table! ha ha!)

Pumpkin Carving

(Of course Aiden is more interested in their dog... as usual!)

Connor was really into the carving this year!
Even after everyone else had their fill... Connor kept on going.

The masterpieces!!

Aiden refused to smile here because he didn't like how I did his pumpkin.
He said he wanted a fish!!!!! Geez!

Chili & Cornbread at the little kids table...

Decorating Sugar Cookies


Lighting the pumpkins

Aiden wanted one all by himself. He liked his pumpkin better after it was all lit up.


After church today we went went on a walk around the lake and had a picnic while Jeremy was in meetings.
It was such a beautiful day!


Kayla wanted to chase these ducks sooooo bad all day! lol!

Connor wanted to take pictures today.
I was actually impressed... he told us where to stand for the pictures and got a few really nice ones...

There's Kayla (in the back) staring at the ducks again!!



We were walking along the path and then these heads popped up out of the water and scared us! There were about 12 people in the lake scuba diving!!

Connor is scared to walk with Kayla right here because the ducks are close!!

Week 34

ITALY

I don't even know where to begin with this post!
We finally made it over to Italy. We only stayed 4 days but still managed to see quite a bit. I definitely want to go back when we have a week or two to do it right.
I will try to (briefly) highlight our trip.

Day 1

The first day we drove about 4 hours to Garmisch (on the German/Austrian border). We couldn't believe how much snow there was! We stayed at the Edelweiss Resort again... the boys LOVE it there. It is in the Bavarian Alps so it was pretty much winter there!

We took one of Lauren's friends with us. She is also an Au Pair here in Germany and just happen to have the whole week off! The kids loved her. Here they are standing in front of the famous Zugspitze Mountain (the tallest mountain in Germany) but you can't hardly see it for all the fog.

Whitney walked straight to her little rocking chair that she loved the last time we were here!

We had 7 people with us.. so we had to get the 2-story suite. The boys were freaking out that we had stairs in our hotel room. lol!

Running to the pool!!!

It was so nice to stop half way in Garmisch to relax and have some fun!

Day 2
We continued through the German and Austrian Alps. What a beautiful drive. We stopped in Innsbrook, Austria to use the WC. I can honestly say never before have I had a male bathroom attendant that actually held the stall door open for me AND pulled out an appropriate amount of toilet paper for me to use....

We didn't spend much time here but I had to get some pictures as we drove by. The scenery on this trip was awesome!


After about 5 hours we got to Vicenza. Our hotel called us before we left Garmicsh to let us know that they overbooked the hotel and we got bumped from our 4-quad suite and they tried to put us in a single room with 1 queen sized bed and a couch... FOR 7 PEOPLE!! We had to stay at a different hotel and pay for 2 rooms. Also, Whitney developed croup on our first night and had a fever. Those 2 things definitely put a damper on the trip.

Our first night in Vicenza I stayed at our hotel with Whitney, the girls went out on the town, and Jeremy and the boys went out on their own. They said it was the CDC club (cool dudes club). They started this "club" actually the last time we went to Edelweiss and Whitney was sick then too. They had to go to dinner without Whitney and me so Jeremy said it was the CDC club. The boys gave themselves names: Connor's name is 'Spike' and Aiden wanted to be 'Love Animal X'.

Whitney and I started the SPC club (special princess club) my name is Twinkle Toes and Whitney's name is Rainbow Cheeks.

Here are pics from the worst room of the entire trip and also the most expensive!

The boys were very curious about the "2 toilets". They thought the idea of a bide was hilarious!

I gave Connor the camera since I knew Jeremy wouldn't come back with any pictures. However, Connor wasn't much better. These are the pictures he came back with.

Day 3
Things were looking up. Whitney seemed to be feeling better and the fever finally broke. We drove 30 minutes to Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet.

Our first priority was lunch! The funnest part of traveling to new and exciting places is trying the local food. Jeremy found this cute little restaurant nestled in a small alley.

Mmmm... Pizza and Pasta! Yummy!

After lunch Gelato's in City Center

Beautiful city!!! The Arena in the middle of city center was quite impressive. It is actually the largest arena after Rome. It was amazing to see the condition of this arena after 2000+years!!

The view from the top of the arena

We were surprised at how low the ceilings were inside the arena.
People were really short back then!

Having fun down town

This is "supposedly" the entrance to the house of Juliet.

This is the balcony where Juliet would wait for Romeo. Beneath the balcony you can see a statue with people gathered around. The myth is that if you touch the breast of statue that you would be lucky with love. Everyone was lined up to cop a feel!

Of course the boys had to try their luck...

My romantic husband... he didn't even close his eyes!!!

That's ok.. I still love him!!

A wall of post-it notes where people have declared their love for their significant others

Driving through Verona was a little tight at times. You can't really tell here but if we wanted to open our doors, we couldn't. Our mini-van could barely fit through some of these alleys. We had to fold our side mirrors in just to get through!

That night we checked into a different hotel and had plenty of beds for everyone this time!

Whitney's bathtub..

That night Jeremy and I went out with my friend Megan. Her husband is in the States right now so she brought her kids over to hang out with the Au Pairs and our kids.

We went to this great restaurant in Vicenza that night. Galileo stayed there while he studied over 300 years ago. The restaurant was built on top of a cave below. We had several courses and WONDERFUL food! I had something called fagotinni. It's home-made pasta stuffed with pears with a cheesy/proscuitto sauce over the top. It was SO GOOD!

This is the ceiling in the room where Galileo sayed.

It was so great to see Megan again too!!

The kids were sound asleep when we got home. Aiden and Megan's little boy were so cute cuddling together.

Day 4
The next morning we woke up early and drove about 1 hour toward Venice. Jeremy's family had been on a week long cruise that just finished in Venice. They spent the day in Venice with us before catching their flight to go back to the US. The kids were SO excited to see Grandma and Grandpa!!

We hopped on a train from the hotel to go to Venice

Whitney was a very serious traveler!!

VENICE... AT LAST!!!

Waiting for our water taxi

St. Mark's Square

In front of the Basilica

These people were crazy about the pigeons... feeding them, putting food in their hair so the birds would climb on them. They gave food to the kids to feed the birds too... it was gross!

Souvenirs

The train ride home. Everyone was tired.

That night we stayed at the Sheridan... yes, another hotel!

We got to see Jeremy's Grandpa who celebrated his 90th birthday on the cruise!!

Day 5
Time to leave already. The drive home was interesting. We started in Italy and watched the sunrise over the hilltops covered in vinyards. We were wondering how the workers were able to work on the vinyard when they were on such steep hillsides. I would have taken pictures but my camera just couldn't do it justice. The view with the sun rising was breathtaking. A few hours later we were in the Alps of Austria again and in the dead of winter, so it seemed. Everything was covered in snow. A few hours later we were back in Germany with the beautiful trees and the changing colors of the leaves. 12 hours later we were finally home!

Week 33

"Massive" Leaf Party!!!

We went to a lake in Mannheim that has a beautiful walking path around it. The trees were magnificent with the leaves changing colors.

Before you knew it we were up to our eyeballs in a "massive leaf party" (as Connor called it!) So much fun!!

Oktober Fest

How do you celebrate Oktober Fest when you're in Germany???

You make German Pretzels, of course!! :)