The Way I See It

Wordless Wednesday

2012-02-01T00:27:00.001-05:00

Naughty

2012-01-28T14:48:00.003-05:00

You hear about the terrible twos and then you are warned that three is even worse. Colin was great up until about two and a half and then the terrible twos kicked in. He eventually calmed down, turned three in August, and now that he's three and a half...well this must be what those people were talking about! He's been whiny, and throwing fits, and demanding, and just not very nice. He refuses to nap at school and he also refuses to let anyone else nap at school. He's been in trouble there a lot lately because he likes to bother the other kids and not stay on his mat during nap. Then since he's up at 6 AM every day and refuses to nap, by the time the afternoon rolls around he's a beast. He doesn't listen, he melts down and he's tired. This means he gets in a lot of trouble. My child is as stubborn as his momma and he just does not let up. He's been making us and his teacher crazy lately. We started taking away things when he would get on orange (they start on green, move to yellow when they are not behaving, then to orange and lastly to red, which means they have to call mom and go home) because it was happening almost every day. First it was no tickle flops (a game Colin invented and loves) with Daddy and no playing with the boy next door. Then he started losing TV and iphone privileges too for being on orange. Nothing was working, so I came up with a modified behavior plan for home to supplement the one at school. If he gets on green or yellow (depending on what the move to yellow was for) he can get a stamp on his behavior chart. When he gets 4 stamps he gets to choose a small treat. Things like baking cupcakes with Mom, going to get ice cream from the shop, stuff like that. When he gets 8 stamps on his chart we'll take him to the toy store. No, I am not above bribery if it means he doesn't get kicked out of preschool! He finally had a decent week at school and managed to get four green and yellow days. One day he got moved to yellow because he was caught eating toothpaste from the tube in the bathroom. Smart, no. But I'll give the kid a stamp for that yellow day because we all have our weaknesses, lol. Today I asked him what he wanted to do for his treat and he said he wanted to go and get ice cream, so we did. He had chocolate and strawberry mixed with chocolate sprinkles and M&Ms on top...all his choosing.

Here's to hoping that next week we can manage four more good days and a trip to the toy store!

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-25T01:34:00.002-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-18T02:19:00.000-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-04T13:23:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T14:59:00.002-05:00

Sylvester

Sylvester (New Years Eve in Germany) is kind of a big deal. I know I say it every year, but I am totally amazed at the crazy explosives they sell to anyone over 18 that wants them, no experience or license required. To us it's just wierd because buying anything half that size would not even be close to legal in the US. I was talking with my neighbor about it and he thougt it was pretty bizarre/funny that in the States we cannot buy big fireworks to shoot off, but they will sell guns and pistols without hesitation. I guess he has a point, lol.
Anyway, we were prepared this year! We bought lots of stuff that was bigger than what we could buy in the US, but not so huge we were afraid we'd blow ourselves up with it. Colin was SO excited to be buying fireworks. He wanted to hold them in the car on the way home from the store and Shelby told him no, they were going in the back because they were for Sylvester. Bad move Daddy! Colin FREAKED OUT and started sobbing hysterically because he thought they were for him and he had no idea who this Sylvester character was, but he was pissed he had to give him his fireworks! LOL We had to explain to him that Sylvester was a holiday, not a person, it was like Christmas or Easter or Halloween. Then he calmed down, once we assured him that those were Colin's fireworks and we'd be shooting them off the next night.
We made plans to go next door to our neighbor's house and have dinner and celebrate with them. Colin could hardly wait to see his friend after being on vacation for almost 2 weeks. He asked all day long if it was time to go do fireworks at Christian's house yet. I really didn't expect Colin to make it to midnight, but both boys hung in there and were awake to see the countdown on the TV, and for the insanity that breaks loose here in Germany at the stroke of midnight. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, buys those big fireworks and they all shoot them off at 12:00. The whole sky lights up and you have fireworks going off as far as your eyes can see in every direction. The ground shakes and it sounds like a war zone from all the booming and bangs. It is totally awesome.
Here are two quick videos I took:

Colin wasn't a bit scared and was begging us to light the rockets faster. Christian has not been a fan of loud noises since he was a little baby, so it's a pretty scary time for him, but he did come out to see a few. We kept the fireworks show going for over a half hour and then went down the street so watch some of the neighbors that still had some going. About 1am it started winding down and we came inside for some more champagne and cake. Colin was still wide awake and he hung in there until I tucked him into bed at 1:45! Happy New Year!

Christmas all over again!

2011-12-31T02:18:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas (again!)

My child is going to be seriously confused if and when we ever start leading a normal life and stop traveling like nomads. Last year we had two or three different parts to Christmas where we opened gifts. Colin had three birthday's this year due to our month long August vacation, and today we find ourselves celebrating Christmas for a second time this season. We had Christmas on Christmas day and then after vacation we came home to more presents at the post office that arrived while we were gone. Colin has been one lucky (or spoiled, however you want to look at it) little boy this year! When Colin noticed I was bringing gifts into the living room his eyes lit up and of course "these presents are for Colin?!"
First thing he dug into were some race cars from Uncle Ryan. He was thoroughly delighted with more to add to his collection. Then he started opening Auntie Melissa's doctor kit, doctor book and real stethoscope, he immediately brought the syringe over and gave me a shot!

Next he opened a package from Auntie Doo Dah that didn't excite him too much. It was small and he didn't know what it was, so he flung it at Mommy to examine and when I read the label and told him it was a robot bug he couldn't snatch that thing back from my hands fast enough. He was excited to have a robot. He got walkie talkies for Christmas also and the first thing he did when he got a hold of them was ask for "Cookie Robots!" Shelby and I were totally confused until we remembered that in the movie Despicable Me (one of my favorite kid movies, if you have not seen it, you MUST...with or without the kids!) Gru uses what looks like a walkie talkie to request two dozen cookie robots for his next evil plan. How Colin remembered this of all things, I will never know, but for days on end we've been listening to him order cookie robots over those walkie talkies. So to get a real bug robot was pretty darn cool he thought. Then he opened a game from Auntie Doo Dah and a reindeer Webkinz from Cousin Charlotte. Cousin Charlotte also got him some super cool Rudolph slippers, he thought it was hilarious to walk around in them making the nose blink with each step he took. Another big hit was a Toy Story watch from Auntie Doo Dah. Once Colin got the watch on I asked him what time it was, he looked at his watch and said "20 hours until Christian's house!" (Christian is the little boy next door and Colin knew we were going to his house later that night to ring in the New Year. He'd been busting all day waiting for it to be time to go over there.) He was so cute the rest of the night telling us the time and the time was always however many hours to Christian's house. I mentioned to Colin that Christmas was officially over, no more presents would be coming, Santa and Tinsel were back at the North Pole and we'd be putting away our Christmas tree and decorations soon. He was not too thrilled about that idea and told me that we need to leave the tree up a little longer and get it ready for next Christmas. It's going to be a looooong year wait! LOL

Austria & Liechtenstein

2011-12-30T14:41:00.002-05:00

A/CH/FL

Thursday morning we woke up to pretty snow falling in Garmisch and we did not want to leave. Much to our dismay the hotel was booked solid that night and couldn't extend us another night, so we had no choice but to pack up and move along. We tossed around a few ideas and then decided on driving south into the Austrian Alps a bit and then heading west towards Switzerland. Switzerland is crazy expensive (we know from experience) and they don't use Euro, they use Swiss Francs, so we wanted to avoid staying there. We found a hotel in Feldkirch, Austria, which is right on the border of Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It was a perfect spot because it allowed us to get a fabulous scenic drive through the Alps, and let us hop over into Liechtenstein, which has been on our list of places to see for a while. The drive was amazing, breathtaking beauty. After checking into our hotel and dropping off out bag we got back into the car to go to Liechtenstein. It is the 6th smallest country in the world, and the 4th smallest country in Europe. We've now been to three of smallest countries in the world: Monaco, Vatican City & Liechtenstein. We accidentally discovered a winery there and of course we had to go in so I could sample and buy some Liechtenstein wine. They make a pinot noir right there using the royal family's vineyards, so I had to buy a bottle of that! We got to Liechtenstein late in the afternoon, with just a tiny bit of daylight left. We quickly snapped a few pictures of some sights around Vaduz, the capital city, and then headed south so we could say we drove through the entire country from top to bottom. After exiting we crossed the border into Switzerland and took the autobahn back up to the top of Liechtenstein and crossed back in. We wanted to find a place to eat dinner and have local, traditional food. That proved harder than expected! The GPS didn't like Liechtenstein and refused to pull up several addresses for places we'd picked out of a guide we'd grabbed in the tourism office. Then when we would find a place that the GPS liked, we'd drive there only to discover they were closed for the holiday season. I'm not kidding, we tried at least 10 different places before we finally stumbled across one that was actually open! The food was absolutely delicious, but the prices were outrageous and it wasn't exactly our kind of place. We spent twice as much on dinner as we had really wanted to, but it happens...when you are exploring new places sometimes you don't always get lucky or find exactly what you are looking for. At least the food was delicious considering what we had to pay! After dinner we were beat, and Colin was WOUND, a full day in the car had done him NO good at all! We made our way back to the hotel to unwind a little and relax. We woke up Friday morning, had breakfast at the hotel and then reluctantly started the journey home. Shelby has to work on the 31st, so there was absolutely no more stalling, we had to go home! The drive felt like it took forever thanks to some snow and traffic jams. We finally did make it home though and sadly, the snow didn't follow us home.

Scenic Route

2011-12-27T10:44:00.001-05:00

Drive to Italy

Today we got up and drove through the Alps to check out the scenery. Shelby, Colin and I made the drive south from Garmisch, through Innsbruck, Austria and on down into Italy through the Alps and Dolomites this summer on our vacation. The drive was gorgeous then and we knew it would be beautiful in the winter too. We thought Shelby's parents would enjoy the drive straight through the Alps and a visit to Italy since we were here and so close. We went to Bolzano, Italy which is a mountain town in northern Italy that is kind of a combination of the German/Austrian/Tirol/Italian cultures. It's a pretty little place and we checked out an old monastery from the 1200's, the big Dom Cathedral and some of the markets and village sites. We ate at an Italian/German restaurant that was decent, but wasn't quite like the Italian food Shelby and I became accustomed to our on summer vacation this year. After a little eating and sightseeing it was time to head back to the hotel so we could start packing up and preparing to take Shelby's parents to the airport the following morning.

Ski Day

2011-12-26T14:34:00.003-05:00

Skiing Hausberg

Today Shelby and I took advantage of having Grandma and Grandpa in town to babysit for us, and let them watch Colin while we took ski lessons all day. I was not so sure how well this was going to go over, and in my opinion, snowboarding looks much easier. According to everyone I talk to it is much more difficult to snowboard than to ski, so we decided to ski instead. It just seems more logical that controlling both feet strapped to one board would be easier than controlling separate feet strapped to separate boards....but what do I know?
We got up there and learned how to put our skis on and how to maneuver around some. I felt pretty confident in my ability on flat ground and when the instructor thought we were good there he moved us up to the kiddie learning slope. I was one of the first people down the big (big to us, barely a hill in reality) hill and still feeling confident, I overestimated my skills a tad and went sailing down the slope. I learned that skiing is a lot like driving on ice, once you realize you are going too fast, it's probably too late to try to slow down and stop. I went from "I like this speed, I'm doing great, I can handle this speed" to "OH. SHIT. STOP. NOW!" pretty quickly and then I panicked just a little. All my training went right out the window and instead of attempting a wedge to slow down I stuck my poles in the ground to try to slow me down. Big mistake. Poles are NOT for stopping in case you didn't know. That just made a bad situation worse and I don't remember too much after that because I lost all control, feet in the air and flat on my back. I laughed the entire time (as did the rest of the class I am sure...many of them had already had their spill). I was seriously disappointed that I was the first to fall between Shelby and I, I was really hoping to beat him in that contest. So my first run down the bunny slope I ate it, but I learned from my mistakes and managed not to fall again on that hill. I got pretty comfy with myself and was anxious to move to the next area. After lunch we headed up to a steeper, bigger hill to practice. I did very well on my first run down that hill and got to the bottom just in time to turn around and see Shelby eat it. YES! Now we were even on the fall count! He had a good fall on that hill, and then another, and possibly even a third fall on that hill...I can't remember exactly. We had fun practicing controlling our speed and making turns and a little while after that the lesson was over.
Shelby was determined to get on a big slope and do more than just the beginner slopes, so when our lessons were over we drug our tired, beat up bodies to the next set of tow bars to go up a little higher. The hill looked semi intimidating from the bottom, the view from the top looked like a disaster waiting to happen! I got up there and asked myself what in the heck had I gotten myself into. Shelby, ever confident in his skills, started down first. He got a small part of the way down before deciding perhaps this was in fact NOT a good idea after all. Lucky for us, we are apparently not the only overachievers to climb this hill and then realize our mistakes. There was a nice path off to the side of the nightmare hill that was a much easier grade and it cut over to another hill which was slightly less intimidating. Shelby started down first and it didn't take him long to wind up on his butt. I attempted down, being cautious of my speed, and got another lesson not taught by the instructor. He taught us how to wedge our skis to stop, but he failed to mention that on some slopes that technique just doesn't work. I got going and calmly tried to wedge my skis. Not stopping. I dug in a little deeper on my wedge. Not stopping. Dug in deeper still. Ah screw it I'm going to fall soon enough, I may as well head over to the fluffy snow bank on the side instead of the hard packed stuff in the middle. I was proud of my turning skills and I did in fact make it to the deep soft snow before crashing. I failed to think about climbing out of deep snow with skis on, but I managed. Shelby and I made it to the bottom of that hill and then worked our way back down the smaller slopes to the lift that took us down to the very bottom. We called the day a success considering neither one of us was injured and we'd managed to ski more than the bunny slope. I'll need a day or two to recover from the pains of today, but I think I'd like to ski again someday.

Santa Claus Has Come to Town!

2011-12-25T11:49:00.002-05:00

Christmas Day 2011

Colin woke up this morning and didn't remember it was Christmas right away. He layed in his bed chatting to us across the room in our bed for a bit. Then he asked me to turn on The Polar Express movie for him and I told him to wait a couple minutes so that maybe he would remember it was Christmas. A few more minutes went by before he looked over at the desk and realized that the cookies for Santa were half eaten. He sat up in bed and said "Hey Santa didn't finish the cookies!" Then it was like the lightbulb went off in his head and you could see it just clicked and he said "Santa came, Santa came!" Then he flew to the end of his bed to peek over the edge by the tree and see what Santa brought him. He was so cute opening all his stuff and he was delighted to see Santa fulfilled his request for race cars and fighter jets.
After opening gifts we went down to breakfast and then suited up to head over to the ski slopes for some sledding. We've had some warmer temps and a little rain/snow mix the last couple of days, so the 16" of snow we got our first day here had dwindled down to just a thin layer outside. It looked like the ski lodge had blown some snow last night though so we got some good sled runs in. After sledding we headed back to the hotel and ate lunch, and hung around. Colin played with his new toys, rested some and then we hit the pool. It's funny to be suited up for sledding and snow play and then a few hours later walking around the hotel in a bathing suit and swimming in the pool. Frohe Weihnachten!

Merry Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T15:52:00.006-05:00

We took some pictures today after Colin sat with Santa. He was actually great this year, not scared at all and went right to Santa and sat on his lap. He asked Santa for fighter jets and racecars and then asked Santa what kind of cookies he wanted tonight. So cute!

Salzburg, Austria

2011-12-23T15:48:00.000-05:00

Salzburg Christmas Market

This morning we woke up early and headed out to Salzburg, Austria for their Christmas market and to take in some sights. It is a beautiful place that really needs a long weekend to explore. We got the short tour though and enjoyed it a lot. The market was lovely with lots of fun stuff to see and good food. After strolling the market for a bit we took a horse and carriage ride around the old town and it was the highlight of the day for Colin. Very pretty place but we were in a hurry to get back because Shelby's parents had to be back in time to go on a night time gorge tour. Shelby and I were also supposed to go but we couldn't get a babysitter at all. We tried for 2 days and even had hotel staff going above and beyond to help find us one so we could go too, no luck though. The hotel is super busy right now and then some of the staff has family in town and stuff so sitters were in very short supply this time.

Snow Fun!

2011-12-22T12:55:00.001-05:00

Snow Fun

Lots of fresh snow calls for lots of fun playing in it. We went out in it Wednesday night and built a snowman (there were an army of snowmen outside our room in the open area, kids had been out there all day!), rolled around and threw snowballs at each other. Colin was in heaven! Thursday after breakfast we bundled up and headed over to the ski slopes to sled. Colin has been talking about sledding pretty much since the snow melted off last spring. Today when we got to the hill to sled all Colin wanted to do was make and throw snowballs. Of course. We were there for over and hour and everyone was sledding but Colin. We played in the snow, tossed Colin in and watched him sink. Then as we all went down the hill one last time and started walking to leave guess who wanted to sled? Yep. Lucky for Colin Grandma was here to spoil him and put up with his games. She took him down on the sled twice more before we ended up leaving.

After sledding we drove over to the ice rink in Garmisch for public skating time to take Colin skating. He has been DYING to go ice skating every market we go to and he sees people ice skating. At the markets the rink is usually small and super crowded and sometimes a little wet. Not good for Colin trying to learn on, so we'd been promising him when we went on vacation he would get to ice skate. He was super excited and I was super nervous. I haven't ice skated in a good while and I've only done it a handful of times anyway. It was much harder than he thought and he got quite the surprise when he stepped onto the ice and realized you couldn't just jump on and go. He got scared then and didn't want to go, wanted to hold our hands and refused to push the little learner bear thing on his own. Once Shelby and I got the hang of skating again pulling Colin around was not so bad. He learned how to keep his balance and at least stand upright while Shelby had one hand and I had the other. We got to going at a pretty decent speed around the rink and he thought that was a blast. When we were all done he said he liked it and would want to come again...we'll see what happens with that!

Getting Grandma & Grandpa

2011-12-21T10:30:00.002-05:00

Getting Grandma & Grandpa

We arrived in Garmisch on Tuesday and got all checked in. After unpacking some Shelby took us out and we found a Christmas tree stand and picked out a tree for our room. I was thinking small, table top Charlie Brown type thing. Shelby had other plans! LOL He chose a 5' tree that we had no stand for, but man was it pretty! We hauled it to our room and discovered that if we turned the patio table upside down it made a perfect tree stand. Then I was able to MacGyver the small little coffee pot carafe in the room underneath the trunk so it can have water. (Shelby insisted we bring our big coffee pot because the little 4 cup one in the room just doesn't get the job done for him, talk about high maintenance!) So we have a beautiful tree in our room now and Colin loves it. The maids probably think we are nuts! (Would they be wrong?! LOL)

Garmisch had snow all day and ended up getting 12-18"! It was truely a winter wonderland when we woke up Wednesday morning. We were up bright and early to head up to Munich to pick up Shelby's parents and Colin was super excited. All he talked about was going to get them and going back to the hotel so they could swim with him. Crazy kid. We found them with no troubles and then wasted no time bundling them up in winter gear and dragging them to Munich city center for the Christmas market. Yes, I was enjoying glühwein at 10 in the morning, I'm on vacation! After the market and some sightseeing we headed back to the hotel to get them settled in. Colin insisted Dad take him straight to the pool while Grandma and Grandpa got settled in their room and Mommy decorated the Christmas tree a little bit. We'll all sleep good tonight!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-12-21T10:27:00.003-05:00

Rothenburg ob Der Tauber Christmas Market

2011-12-19T10:16:00.001-05:00

Rothenburg ob Der Tauber Christmas Market

Today’s stop was a place I’ve wanted to go for years, the medieval town of Rothenburg Ob der Tauber. It is an ancient city that has fought very hard to keep the old town inside the city walls as preserved as possible. Beautiful cobble stone streets are lined with half timbered houses and the quiet, rustic town is just breathtaking. Rothenburg is well known for its Christmas market too and many people will tell you it’s their favorite market of all the ones they’ve been to. I have to agree, it is quite charming. Driving in to our hotel was interested since it was inside the city wall. You enter the wall through a large gate that is just big enough for a single car to pass at a time and the tiny roads make driving my big SUV interesting. It was much colder in Rothenburg than it was the night before in Köln and we had to layer up a little more. There are several Christmas shops in the town with decorations and ornaments for your home. I could have browsed those all night, but Colin had other ideas. After touring the town and the Christmas market we grabbed some brats and a couple different kinds of crêpes and walked a few blocks to our hotel. Tonight we got pflaumenmus (plum sauce) in one crêpe and I got honey and almonds in the other one. Both were delicious. I also got a jug of homemade plum wine from a booth at the Christmas market. When we got back to the hotel we starting peeling off the layers and Shelby commented to Colin that his feet were freezing. Colin dropped everything and ran to the bathroom for some toilet paper, which he brought out and tore off a couple strips. The whole time he was chattering on about warming up Daddy to himself. He placed strips of toilet paper over Shelby’s feet to keep them warm and told Daddy it would make them better. We tried our best not to fall out laughing at him but we failed miserable. Then I said my feet were cold too and he came to my rescue with more strips of toilet paper. By this time I was down to my sweater and underwear attempting to put on my PJ pants when, without thinking, I commented to Shelby that my butt was frozen numb. Colin didn’t miss that comment and began tearing off strips of paper to tuck into my underwear and soon I was wearing a full on toilet paper hula skirt. Shelby and I were dying laughing and Colin was so proud of himself. The next morning we woke up and did a little wandering around in the falling snow before leaving. I had to hit a shop or two to find a magnet from Rothenburg and I also wanted a Christmas ornament. I fell in love with this little romantic town and would love to come back and explore some more. Once the shopping was taken care of we got back on the road to head to the Alps and Garmisch. The forecast is calling for 4-5” of snow there Tuesday and another 4-5” Wednesday, I can’t wait!!

Köln Christmas Market

2011-12-18T09:53:00.002-05:00

Köln Christmas Market

We woke up Sunday morning, finished loading the last bag or two and headed off to Köln. We arrived in the afternoon, got a map and started wandering. Köln is a big city with lots to see and seven different Christmas markets scattered around the city. Each one has its own theme and the first one we came to was an Angel Market. It was very pretty and rustic with lots of white lights and a hand carved Christmas crib (nativity scene). Colin found a carousel to ride and we got a smoked salmon sandwich from a booth there that was delicious. The salmon was smoked on planks right up next to an open fire and you could watch it being cooked. We all three ate it up pretty fast and I couldn’t shovel it into Colin’s mouth fast enough! Every Christmas market you go to has its own ceramic mug with a unique design and the name of the town. Whenever you buy a glass of glühwein (hot mulled wine) it always comes in the mug and you can either keep the mug, or return it for the deposit you paid on it when you got it. We have a tradition of collecting these mugs from each market that we go to, but I discovered that each of the seven markets in Köln has its own mug design. I didn’t need to get seven mugs, so I had to decide which market’s mugs were the best and I ended up with just two. It started snowing while we were there, which made it even more beautiful. There is just something magical about strolling through a Christmas market, booths all decorated with evergreen branches and lights, musicians playing carols, and snow falling. One of the markets was right on the Rhine and had a nautical theme. Docked there in the water was a giant ark and you could pay to go inside and tour the art exhibit on the ship which housed thousands of wood carved animals. We decided not to go in but it sure looked awesome.

Colin decided to start singing Christmas carols on Shelby's shoulders as we were walking around. His movie of choice lately has been How the Grinch Stole Christmas and as Colin would say "the nice Grinch, not the scary Grinch" (meaning the cartoon, not the Jim Carey version). He started singing "welcome welcome Christmas is here" over and over (from the cartoon Grinch movie) and I had to take video. He was doing it much better until I whipped out the camera, of course, but you get the idea.

After closing down the markets and a stop at Starbucks we walked back to our hotel to relax and get some rest. About 1:45am Colin decided to get out of bed and walk around in the dark. Shelby heard him and was just about to tell him to get back in bed when we heard a “thump” and then cries. I flew out of bed to check him over and he had fallen into an end table/nightstand and taken it right to his eye. The skin was not broken and his eyesight appeared to be ok, so after some cuddling he went back to bed. Momma however was too worried to sleep and spent the next two hours lying in bed listening to him breathing to make sure there was no concussion or injury. The next morning poor kiddo awoke with a nice black eye, just as I expected. We ate breakfast at the hotel, stopped in for one last cup of Starbucks and then hit the road for our next stop.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-12-14T01:26:00.000-05:00

Awesome Day!

2011-12-11T15:05:00.007-05:00

We got word Saturday evening that on Sunday at 10am Tom Cruise would be flying in and possibly coming by the tower. We didn't know what he was coming for, just that he would be in. I went to the BX to see if they had any of his movies on DVD and of course...nothing. We have some of his movies, but none of our movies have the case for him to sign. So I got some postcards from Germany instead and had to settle for that. Colin and I got to the tower just as he got in and made it off his plane.
When his plane was coming in they called the tower for weather and Shelby gave it to them, then they replied thanks and they were about 17 minutes out and Shelby came back with "Roger, you've got the ball." (movie quote) A bit later Tom himself called up to the tower and talked to Shel on the frequency (copy of the audio from the tower tapes coming soon!).

There were a handful of Shelby's coworkers up there on the catwalk with binoculars stalking the building that Tom had gone into, watching and waiting for him to come out so they could see if he would be heading over to the tower or not. He did come out, and when he did they all started whistling and hollering and Tom looked up and gave us a wave and hopped in his DV bus and it pulled away. Poop!

Not too long after he left we got a call that four members of his flight crew wanted to come up for a tower tour. It was the pilot (and longtime personal friend of Tom's), the co pilot, Tom's personal assistant and the flight stewardess. They were excited to come up to the tower and see the stuff and brought some food and goodies from the plane up to us. We talked to them for a bit and the pilot took some stuff to be signed for us just in case Tom didn't get a chance to come back to the tower before flying out. He had to meet some wounded troops and he was also here for a special premiere screening of his new Mission Impossible movie on base.

We knew his plane was scheduled to leave out at 5pm so we were back up at the tower and hopeful by 4ish. We saw his bus pull back up and he got out and went into the building for his debrief. When it looked like he might be coming back out soon we all went back out on the catwalk to watch and whistle in case he didn't make it over. The pilot, who was in the plane, saw us and called up the tower and told us to just come on over to the plane! We all ran over there and hung out and waited for him to come to the plane. While we were waiting we got to talk to the pilot and copilot again for a while, so super nice and they totally hooked us up!

They took Colin on the plane and gave him a Pez candy dispenser and showed him the cockpit. Colin was in heaven! When Tom came out he stopped and signed a bunch of stuff for us and posed for pictures.

When his plane left he got back on the frequency again and talked to the tower and said thanks and Merry Christmas. We made sure to key up and play some of the Top Gun music for the plane as they rolled out and took off. I'm sure they get so tired of that! LOL

Strasbourg Christmas Market

2011-12-10T14:57:00.001-05:00

Strasbourg/Karlsruhe Christmas Markets

Shelby had the day off so we headed over to Strasbourg, France which is supposed to be one of the biggest Christmas markets in the country. It was huge with several small market areas spread out all over the city. It was beautifully lit but very, very crowded. We thought there would be more rides for the kids, but poor Colin didn't get to ride anything. There was one carousel there and we passed it up thinking there would be a lot more in the kids Christmas village area. Turns out there was just toys and crafts and things for the kids to do in that area, so poor guy didn't get to ride anything at all at the market. It is definitely a market to hit during the week so you can enjoy the booths and food, Saturday was just a little too crazy. After Strasbourg we decided we had time to hit another market up and try to get Colin a ride or two, so we drove back into Germany and went to Karlsruhe. We stuck out again there as they had no rides for the kiddos either. Colin did enjoy watching the ice skaters and checking out the huge Christmas pyramid there.

Boys boys boys!

2011-12-08T13:50:00.006-05:00

Tonight at dinner Shelby finished a can of Heineken and opened up another. The empty can was still on the dining table and Colin insisted he pour his juice from his cup into the empty can so he could drink like Daddy. He wouldn't give up so we gave in and he was SO proud of that can of "Heineken." As soon as we poured it in he giggled uncontrollably because he knew it was wrong for him to have the can. He laughed and said "that's not funny" in a sarcastic tone and then cracked up laughing at himself again.

He and Daddy made a few "prosts" and then drank and Colin was just as pleased as could be with his new cup.

Crafty

2011-12-07T14:11:00.003-05:00

A little fun craft time this evening. Half glue, half shaving cream, a few shakes of glitter = puffy, 3D snow that dries solid. We painted a Christmas tree and then decorated it with foam stickers and then used our cream/glue concoction to make snow. So cute!!! If I haven't mentioned it before, I love pinterest!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-12-07T03:41:00.000-05:00

Nikolaustag

2011-12-06T14:40:00.010-05:00

Today was Nikolaustag (St. Nick's day) here in Germany. German children place a boot on their doorstep before going to bed on December 5th. As soon as the clock strikes midnight on December 6th St. Nikolaus begins visiting the homes of little boys and girls and filling their boots with goodies if they have been good, or with birch switches if they have been bad. Colin found his boot full of chocolate coins, a tangerine and some gummi bears. He was quite excited this morning.
I tried telling him he didn't need shoes on, but he insisted on carrying them to the door.

Still concerned about putting his own shoes on, but the treats in the boot are starting to tempt him.

Notice we only got one shoe on before digging into the treats!

"oooooh chocolate!"

Hmmm, what else is in here?

"Mmmmm orangen!"

The 12 days of Christmas

2011-12-05T14:20:00.002-05:00

Weekend car trips = time on hands and silliness.

My 12 days of Christmas.

On the first day of Christmas my family gave to me, a mind that has gone crazy.
On the second day of Christmas my family gave to me, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
One the third day of Christmas my family gave to me, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the fourth day of Christmas my family gave to me, four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the fifth day of Christmas my family gave to me, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the sixth day of Christmas my family gave to me, six goodies baking, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the seventh day of Christmas my family gave to me, seven bottles of wine, six goodies baking, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the eighth day of Christmas my family gave to me, eight "are we there yets," seven bottles of wine, six goodies baking, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the ninth day of Christmas my family gave to me, nine dogs a barking, eight "are we there yets," seven bottles of wine, six goodies baking, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the tenth day of Christmas my family gave to me, ten loads of laundry, nine dogs a barking, eight "are we there yets," seven bottles of wine, six goodies baking, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the eleventh day of Christmas my family gave to me, eleven early mornings, ten loads of laundry, nine dogs a barking, eight "are we there yets," seven bottles of wine, six goodies baking, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my family gave to me, twelve "please stop talkings," eleven early mornings, ten loads of laundry, nine dogs a barking, eight "are we there yets," seven bottles of wine, six goodies baking, five graying hairs! Four potty breaks, three time outs, two muddy shoes and a mind that has gone crazy.

Brussels & Maastricht Christmas Markets

2011-12-04T02:00:00.000-05:00

Brussels/Maastricht Xmas Markets

This weekend we headed to Belgium to visit the market in Brussels. We've never been to Belgium before so it was fun to check another country off our list of places visited. Belgium is very pretty and the houses are nice, different looking from German homes. They have three official languages: Dutch, French and German...but I found that German is not nearly as prevalent and English seemed to be more common than German there. It was mostly Dutch, which I know nothing of, and French, which I hate! LOL Driving up there I was concerned about how the weather would treat us because most of Saturday it was VERY windy, like tropical storm kind of winds, rainy and cold. By the time we got to the market though the rain had blown through and all that was left was wind and cold, which was totally doable.

The market was huge and there was a giant ferris wheel, lots of booths and a big ice skating rink. It wasn't really cold enough for the ice to stay solid, so it was pretty wet on top of the ice and when people fell they got soaked. It made for some good laughs though! We ate Belgian waffles and a variety of other goodies purchased from booths at the market. They had two of the coolest carousel rides I've ever seen there. Hand carved from wood and made of metals and leather, old timey but whimsical at the same time...just amazing! I found the website for the two carousels, designed by the same people. It has some other photos of the carousels on it. That night after we were all marketed out we headed to the hotel. Colin went to bed late and woke up early the next morning and started talking immediately upon opening his eyes. We decided to head over to Holland and visit Maastricht. It is close by and somewhat on our way home, so we decided to go ahead and add another country to the list this weekend. We haven't been to the Netherlands before either, so it was fun to check out a new place. The market was much smaller but still beautiful. Another fun weekend down!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-30T01:56:00.001-05:00

Luxembourg/Saarbrücken Weihnachtsmarkt

2011-11-27T14:00:00.003-05:00

Luxembourg/Saarbrücken Xmas Markets

(In my best Andy Williams voice of course) It's the most wonderful tiiiiime of the year! This weekend started the Advent season and that means Christmas market season is now in full swing. We kicked it off with a weekend in Luxembourg, one of our favorite cities. Friends of ours that have a 10 month old baby girl went with us and Colin loved visiting with Baby Addison. At the expo center in Luxembourg is a large international bazaar and we didn't want to miss that this year. It's a fun place where you eat and drink your way around the world. Belgian beer in Belgium, amazing food in Greece, Korean bulgogi, sangria and paella from Spain, maple desserts from Canada, Thai noodles and beef from Thailand, the list goes on and on. After we were done there we headed over to our hotel to check in and get bundled up for the cold outdoor Christmas market. Colin had a blast riding the rides, we wandered and warmed up with some glühwein. Last year it snowed on us at this market and it was absolutely beautiful. This year we were not lucky enough to get snow, but it was still very pretty. At the end of the night we walked back to the hotel to warm up and rest. Sunday morning we had breakfast with our friends and then got back on the road to head out. We decided to stop in Saarbrücken to visit their market on the way home. We had not been to this one before even though it is only 40 minutes or so from our house. It was a nice, decent size market with lots of food and rides for Colin. It was pretty cold and windy, but the rain held off long enough for us to make it through the market and have a nice afternoon. It was a fun weekend and I can't wait for this week to fly by so we can do it all again next weekend!

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-24T17:13:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving 2011

This year Shelby had to work on Thanksgiving. He claims this is the first Thanksgiving he's had to work in all 12 years in the Air Force...how he managed that one I have no idea. I was all set to send him off to work and then head over to a friend's house for dinner so I didn't have to cook or clean anything. Shelby decided it would be nice if we did Thanksgiving in the tower and Colin and I came up and we are there together. Colin was over the moon excited to be going to work with Daddy and the thought of eating Thanksgiving there and watching movies had him so wound up he could hardly be contained this morning. I cooked all morning and had a big cooler ready to put all the hot food in to keep it warm when I took it to the tower. Colin asked me what it was for and I told him to take food to the tower and he wasted no time gathering food like a squirrel. He filled it full of Thanksgiving necessities like Goldfish crackers, string cheese, Girl Scout cookies and God knows what else. Then he packed some clementines and a plum in his lunchbox and said the picnic was ready to go.

We got to the tower and he was thrilled to be there and into everything. He had a blast though and it was probably the highlight of his week to go and hang out at work with Dad all day. We did watch movies and hung out and ate a lot. Colin had a hold of my camera several times throughout the day, so I figured I'd just let him document our Thanksgiving at the tower this year. Enjoy!

Colin and the camera

2011-11-23T17:03:00.000-05:00

Colin LOVES taking pictures of things lately. He's always asking for my camera and I cringe as I hand it over and then hover nervously as he snaps a few pictures. Yesterday when we came home from work/school he was very excited to see Tinsel, our Elf On the Shelf, had returned from the North Pole and chosen a spot in the Christmas tree to settle on. He laughed and laughed about Tinsel in the tree and then asked for my camera right away because he wanted to "cheese Tinsel". I gave it to him and here are the pictures from his photo shoot. LOL

Colin's pictures

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-23T01:38:00.004-05:00

Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-16T02:14:00.000-05:00

Dinosaur Museum Fun

2011-11-12T13:50:00.002-05:00

Today we took Colin back to the dinosaur museum. The first time he went he was a little scared but very interested in all the dinosaurs. The second time I took him, about 6 months ago, he remembered it from the first time, ran through the entire thing and was nervous about the dinosaurs. It has several rooms that you move through and they all have very life like, animatronic dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures. This time we talked to him about it being pretend and not to be scared. He did okay until we got to the part where the thunder and lightning starts and then a big flood of water comes rushing down some rocks. Then he cried a little.

He did better this time than last time, but was still nervous through some of it. He still had fun though and they've added a big indoor play place so he spent a while playing in there.

Gondwana

Leaf Fun

2011-11-11T14:17:00.004-05:00

Today Colin and I raked leaves into a pile and jumped into them. He thought this was hilarious and great fun. He'd run and take a flying leap into the pile, then roll around some. I'd pick him up and throw him into the pile and then he'd charge me with a handful of leaves and we'd have a leaf fight. We had a blast.

A little whine with my wine.

2011-11-09T15:27:00.002-05:00

Yesterday and today were pretty lousy days. Saturday I did a home test and it was negative, I was a little bummed because I should have been able to turn a home test positive by then, but I was holding out hope. Then came yesterday, bleeding, a lot of bleeding. Not a good sign. Devestated, I went to work and hoped it would stop and all was not lost this time around. I think work helped a little, I had to keep it together around the kids. Shelby sent me flowers and balloons at work to cheer me up. It did cheer me up and it also made me cry. Today I went to the doctor and he confirmed what I already knew, no pregnancy this time around. How you can put three growing little embryos in there and have NOTHING happen is beyond me, but it's not for me to know I guess. He said we could try again with the frozen embryos in December, but the timing was not right. I would need to be there for transfer about the 22nd and we are scheduled to leave for Christmas vacation on December 19th. We are heading over to spend Christmas in the Alps again this year. Shelby's parents are flying in to meet us over there for the holiday, so cancelling the trip to cycle wasn't an option. That puts us into January before we can try again. Frustrating, but what can you do?

The bruises on my stomach have almost healed and the cysts on my ovaries are gone. Now if only I wasn't carting around an extra 15 pounds from the drugs. The negative test hurts. The obscene amount of money out the window hurts a little more. The fact that the only pants in my closet I fit into are damn maternity pants and I'm not even pregnant...yea that sucks.

So, I've been trying to focus on the positive side of the negative results today. Not being pregnant means I'm finally off "pelvic rest" and can get back to business with my man. It's just downright mean to pump a woman full of hormones and then insist she remain abstinent! The second good thing about not being pregnant....wine. Oh how I've missed my dear friend and we've been getting reacquainted all evening. :) Shel and I have already planned every weekend between Thanksgiving and New Years at various Christmas markets around Europe; Belgium, Luxembourg, and several in Germany. A Christmas market just isn't a Christmas market if you aren't out in the freezing cold trying to get warm by drinking God awful tasting hot wine! I won't have to miss out on that now. Another perk to not being knocked up right now, skiing in the Alps this winter. I'm sure I could come up with a few more positives if I'd put down my wine glass long enough to be able to really concentrate, but where's the fun in that?

"Mommy, my tummy hurts!"

2011-11-07T12:52:00.002-05:00

I had been upstairs putting some laundry away and Colin was downstairs watching TV. I finish up, come downstairs and he's still on the couch, so I head to the kitchen to start setting up the ingredients for us to bake pumpkin pies. Shortly after that Colin comes into the kitchen and says "Mommy my tummy hurts." I replied, "why does your tummy hurt?" He tells me, "the gummies make my stomach hurt." I said "WHAT gummies?" He answers, "the gummies in the couch." I go to the couch to investigate and discover that he had stolen the bag of gummi bears we keep around as treats for him and helped himself. It was a quart sized ziplock bag that was half full of gummi bears, and now there were maybe 20 bears left in the bottom of the bag. I hold up the bag and say "Oh my God did you eat ALL these gummi bears???" He, knowing he's in trouble, says "the gummi bears hurt my tummy." I told him yep, I bet they were hurting his tummy, and they were probably going to hurt it worse and maybe even make him throw up. I can't believe he didn't get sick, I don't know where in the world the kid even put all those bears in his belly. Note to self...put gummi bears up higher!

Bungee fun

2011-11-05T11:59:00.000-04:00

One of the girls from Colin's preschool class had a birthday party at an indoor playground this weekend. Colin has never been big enough to do the bungee jumping trampoline, but finally weighed enough to get on it this time. He was so excited and he's pretty lucky his daddy waited almost an hour in the line for him to jump! Here are some pictures of him having a blast.

Bungee Jumping

And of course some video too :)

Trick or Treat!

2011-10-29T16:06:00.005-04:00

Tonight was trick or treat night on base and it was PACKED out. Seriously, I've seen fewer people at Disney World in the summertime. There were LINES of people waiting to get candy at some houses. LINES. What are they giving away money at those houses? Waiting in line for a Blow Pop or a Snickers? Come on folks! We bypassed all that nonsense and went to a less crowded area in the back of housing. Colin was more concerned with eating his candy than collecting it. At the end of the night it looked like he only had a few pieces in the bottom of his bucket. That's because he ate three times that amount already and cleaned the bucket out! We brought along the neighbor family and Colin's best buddy. Here are the few pictures I took...

Colin and Baby Addison

Isn't she stinkin adorable?

Colin & Christian

Christian's baby brother, Sebastian. Isn't his costume hilarious?

Halloween Party

2011-10-28T14:31:00.008-04:00

Colin's Preschool had a little party this afternoon for Halloween. The kids all got to dress up in their costumes and parents were invited to join the fun. This week the kids put together and decorated a haunted gingerbread house that was served at the party. They also painted pumpkins and made spooky candy necklaces. Colin had a blast and pigged out on all the candy, cookies and cupcakes. Here are some pictures from the party.
Here are most of the kiddos. The two older boys are after school care kids, one is the teacher's son. There is another little girl that is full time but she was camera shy and not wanting to get in the picture.

Pigging out!

Making candy a necklace

Painting his pumpkin.

Pumpkin Farm Field Trip

2011-10-26T13:17:00.004-04:00

Field trip to punpkin patch

Today Colin's preschool had a field trip to a family farm and pumpkin patch. I got to go along too and all the kiddos had a blast. Colin loved feeding the cows and petting the pigs. I think the highlight of the trip for him was the chickens. The kids got to chase them and they were able to pick them up. Most of the kids were afraid to pick them up, even the older kids. Not my kid. Once he saw that you could pick them up he was all over it. He had himself a chicken in no time. And another. And another. I had to run him out of the hen house more than once! It was really amusing to me considering that when we visit the zoo here in Kaiserslautern Colin is terrified of the chickens. Remember this? Well today his fear of chickens was nowhere to be found. After the chickens it was time to load up on the tractor for a ride down to the pumpkin field and pick our pumpkins. Our pumpkins were actually already picked for us, we just had to choose them from the big pile. It's been freezing here at night already, I'm talking 25 degrees when I wake up/ice on everything kind of cold. That makes pumpkins crumble and explode. So the farm owners had picked them all before the frost started about a week ago and has kept them safe so you can still go "pick" a pumpkin from the patch. So we chose our pumpkins and the headed back to the farm to load up and head home. Colin had a blast and when we got home we carved two smaller pumpkins I have had at the house for a few days.

We'll wait to do the real carving until Shelby is home. After carving I made us jack-o-lantern face grilled cheese and worm (chicken noodle) soup...Colin loved it!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-26T03:30:00.000-04:00

Take that shot and stick it

2011-10-22T16:00:00.004-04:00

Tonight is my LAST shot for a while and I couldn't be happier! It's no secret we've started the IVF process again, the second time around I'm a lot less nervous and more comfortable sharing the process and journey than I was the first time. Things in Germany are a bit different from cycling in the States, but overall I'm liking the German approach to treatment better (much less invasive and not nearly as many shots). The hormones (aka ass fattening drugs) haven't been too horrible this time around. One of my shot meds my body really hates though and it burns like acid everytime Shel shoots it into my stomach. That one sucks.

I have had headaches a lot and the other day I had the worst headache I've ever had in my entire life. I don't really get migraine headaches and thank God for that, because what I suffered through that day with one was enough to make me never want to deal with that again. Of course I was working. I no more ran back to my classroom after dropping my class off at lunch before the pain made me nauseous and I puked. I threw up a few more times before the class came back and thankfully one of my friends came upstairs to get a jacket for her son (who is in my class) and saw I was dying. She volunteered to take my kids in her PE class for the rest of the day since all our substitute teachers were booked that day so I could go home. I am not sure how I made it home, I didn't even make it off base before I was puking into plastic bags in my car. I spent the rest of the day in bed and I have a whole new respect for people who suffer from regular migraines....that crap sucks!!

I'm SO glad to be done playing pin cushion. I have pictures of the bruises on my stomach from all the injections...my battle scars...but I'll spare you that lovely sight. :) Monday morning I go in for surgery so they can harvest my eggs and then later in the week I'll go back and have embryos transferred back to me. Sounds a little more like Farmville than real life; currently I have to have my eggs harvested, then I'll become an incubator and later on turn into a milk cow (hopefully!) Since we had success the first time around last IVF, I'm overly optimistic about this cycle and I'm not really prepared for anything other than two pink lines in two weeks. Right now I'm just glad to have this first (painful) step behind us and we are looking forward to moving on in the process. Cross your fingers for us :)

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-19T09:45:00.003-04:00

Family Fun

2011-10-16T13:50:00.003-04:00

Kürbisfest 2011

The rain has finally left us and the last few days have been sunny, cold and absolutely perfect fall weather. Today we went to the Gartenschau park because all month long they have their awesome Kürbisfest where they decorate with pumpkins. The theme this year was fairy tales and all the pumpkin art had to do with that, mostly Grimm Brothers tales since they are very popular here (they are German after all!). Colin also thoroughly enjoyed the dinosaurs and pointed out the stegosaurus, brachiosaurus and triceratops...he knows those well. We played at the park too.

After the Gartenschau we headed over to the base bowling alley for some lunch and to bowl two games. Colin loves to bowl but he doesn't like taking turns or waiting. He had a great time and the bumpers made sure he knocked over a few pins. So long Sunday...tomorrow it's back to the grind for everyone. Work for Shelby and I and preschool for Colin. He's totally better by the way. We know because yesterday and today he hasn't stopped talking. We had to drive to France yesterday to buy some medications and the entire hour long drive there and then back again he did not stop talking once. He talked to Frankie (who went with us), he talked to us, he sang, he did everything in his power to prevent any form of peace and quiet on the car ride. Yep...he's well again for sure!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-12T02:41:00.004-04:00

In the doghouse

2011-10-06T02:21:00.000-04:00

Shelby has been busting my chops to get another dog. I'm not going to lie, I was not thrilled by the idea at all. I have enough to feed/clean/care for and I'm really not down for taking on any more mess. But, we all know I'm a total sucker when it comes to animals and protesting was pretty much futile. So Shelby stalked the yard sale site for some time trying to find a small dog that would be just right. We didn't want a puppy (I'm done potty training for a while!) and needed something small and less maniac than boxers. (Don't get me wrong, I ADORE boxers and we'll own them again, but right now we don't have enough hours in a day to wear out a boxer.) Shelby found a diamond in the rough with Frankie. He came from a family that had recently moved to Germany and is living on the fourth floor of stairwell housing on base. That means no elevator, lots of stairs, pain in the butt. The couple had two dachshunds, one older and one younger, and the older one was ok with a walk to potty and no yard. Frankie, the younger one, was not taking well to no yard. Base rules also say your dog must be on the least at all times and there is no where on base for the dogs to run off leash. So poor Frankie was just not getting his exercise and wasn't loving it here.

We found Frankie while Colin was in the hospital recovering from surgery. When we were discharged we drove up to visit with Frankie and see if he was a good fit. When we met Frankie he was super sweet and he and Colin hit it right off. Frankie is so calm and gentle and loves playing with Colin. He's well behaved and house trained, he worked out perfectly. He's an Isabella Dapple Dachshund, he has a very pretty greyish spotty coat and he doesn't shed much at all. He's a little snuggler and each night he takes his blanket to his bed and rolls himself up like a burrito.

So long tonsils!

2011-10-05T02:44:00.014-04:00

Today was surgery day! Colin was very excited because at his pre-op appointments yesterday we showed him the very cool "special bed" he'd get to sleep and ride around in. I was doing just fine until the pre-op stuff when I had to sign the consent forms and all the horrible "what if" scenarios are listed on there. Then I started getting nervous about him and seeing him in pain and all that. My back and neck were in knots and I barely slept. I was almost relieved when the alarm went off at 4:45 so we could get up and get this show on the road.

We were given a report time of 6:15 AM and told they took kids back by age with the youngest first. I was also told that Colin was second in the line. Clearly they were mistaken or plans changed between yesterday and today, because we got there and waited, and waited, and waited. Patient after patient was rolled on down to the OR and we sat. Thankfully Colin was not grumpy about no food or drink, or I would have had to turn on mean mama bear mode and start growling. They finally came in and gave some Versed to relax him. (I was wondering where mine was!) He quickly started acting like a drunk and was stumbling around, slurring speech, and laughing at nothing at all. He even had the hiccups, it was pretty funny. Just about 9 they finally came to take him to the OR and with that they took my baby and told me they'd take good care of him.

About an hour later they came to get us from the waiting area and told us that he was not yet awake, but he did great and the tonsils and adenoids are gone. He took a little bit to wake up, and was a tiny bit grumpy when he did come out of it. He was highly pissed off about the pulse ox monitor on his finger and the IV in his arm. He wanted both out NOW. We soon distracted him with a popsicle, which he killed in record time and asked for another. After he ate his popsicle and kept it down they transferred him from the recovery area to the pediatric unit. Right before he was about to get his big ride in the special bed he fell asleep again! LOL Poor kiddo waited all that time and went though surgery to ride in the bed and then missed the ride! He woke up after arriving in the peds unit and ate another popsicle. After keeping down three popsicles we moved on to jello and he ate a few of those. Clearly the child is feeling just fine! Now with his belly full he got some pain medication, took a little nap and rested up.

When he woke up about 2:30ish and was WIDE awake. He played games on the computer, played dinosaurs in the bed, beat Mommy in Memory a time or two and then wanted to walk the hallway. He visited the nurses station and stole a stethoscope to bring back to the the room and play doctor on Mommy and Daddy. Then he discovered that race cars can fly really far and fast down the slick hospital hallway. I'm sure the other patients really appreciated Nascar outside their rooms. He was bored with TV pretty quick and wanted out of his room and was asking to go to the playground. Yep, the kiddo is just fine.

Here he is after far too many popsicles, jello and juice, his teeth and mouth might be stained for more than a few days!

He tye dyed his own shirt with popsicle drippings

More Jello with Mommy!

He had some pain medication at 4:30 PM, Tylenol with codiene, and I thought maybe we'd get another nap and a little break. Ha! Who was I kidding?! The medication did not make him tired one bit and he was awake and ready to go until 9 PM when he finally crashed for the night. He refused to take the pain meds just before 9, and again at 11, and 1 AM and slept like a log all night long. So apparently he wasn't too uncomfortable. He did take the meds at 5 AM and then was up and at em again and asking for breakfast. Mommy was not so much up and at em and was very ready for Daddy to get back to the hospital (lucky Daddy went home and got some real sleep!) with my coffee. Now we wait for the doc to make rounds so that we can hopefully get Colin discharged (I can't imagine them keeping him, he seems fine!) and get out of here. My little man is such a trooper! Love that kid!

Flying

2011-10-02T14:45:00.007-04:00

Shelby dug out his remote control plane and has been getting it ready so he could fly it again. It's been a really long time since he's used it and Colin has never seen it before. Today we got it ready to go and loaded it in the baby trailer for the bike (Colin can now ride his own bike!) and we all rode out to a big open field to give it a try. Colin was beside himself with excitement and ran all over the field chasing the plane in the air. He was ready to go retrieve it when Shelby would land (or crash) it and get it set up to go again.
His expression when it took off for the first time..."whoa!"

Helping Daddy pick up the plane...

It was all fun until Shelby flew the plane into a tree. Then he had to climb the trees to get it out. Then he got stuck in the tree. LOL

Ramstein Fall Farmer Fest

2011-10-02T14:36:00.007-04:00

Shelby had to work today so Colin and I headed up to a fall farmers fest in a nearby town to check it out. They had ponies, baby cows, sheep, rabbits and chickens to pet and visit. There was plenty of delicious food and lots of good stuff to buy. Colin rode a pony and became the proud owner of a new wooden sword that will go perfect with his knight costume for Halloween.

Hoffest 2011

2011-09-24T14:29:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite festivals here in Germany, and it's literally right up the street from us! Amazing food, fun crafts, a corn maze, pumpkins everywhere and neuer wine. Some pics from this year...
Spider made of pumpkins

Gymnastics

2011-09-22T16:00:00.000-04:00

I was able to make it to Colin's last gymnastics class and got some video. He does ok...he's learning to wait his turn and follow directions. Here are some pictures and video of him.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-21T02:05:00.000-04:00

Colin's third 3rd birthday celebration

2011-09-18T14:00:00.002-04:00

Colin's B-day Pt2

Yes you read that right, this kid had not one, not two, but THREE third birthday celebrations. One with a bunch of presents before we left for vacation, since it was impossible to take all his presents along with us. Then he had a birthday celebration on the boat for his actual birthday. And finally after we returned home there were more goodies waiting in the mail for him and so Colin got to have round three of birthday fun. He's going to be seriously pissed off next year when his birthday rolls around and he only gets one day of celebrating. At any rate, here are some very long overdue pictures of Colin opening gifts from Auntie Doo Dah and Cousin Charlotte, Grandma & Grandpa Harsch, and Auntie Melissa. :)

Hallelujah!

2011-09-18T13:58:00.001-04:00

THE VACATION BLOGS ARE ALL DONE AND POSTED. Nothing short of a miracle! You have no idea how much work it is to organize, upload and caption all those damn photos, then to write the blog post too. I know I will be so glad to have the blog posts to look back on, but boy am I relieved to have that task done and over with and off my back! Go read!!! :)

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-14T11:17:00.004-04:00

LOTS of new posts :)

2011-09-11T05:53:00.003-04:00

Scroll down or go over to the right in the blog archive and open up August to see the latest trip posts. I put up 6 new posts this morning (Days 18-24) and I'm working on more. Gotta get this done!! It takes forever though...

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-07T02:42:00.000-04:00

Little Gymnast

2011-09-06T15:14:00.002-04:00

First day of Gymnastics

Today was also Colin's first day in gymnastics class. His preschool group all attends a class on Tuesdays and the first class was last week. We were still on vacation so Colin missed the first week, and today was his first class. Since Shelby and I both had the day off we dropped in on the class to see how it was going and watch. Colin had a BLAST. He is one of two boys currently in the class. He definitely was the most "active" (to put it nicely) in the class. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was just super excited with it being is first class and all the equipment was just too tempting. The teachers definitely had to do a lot of reminding him of the rules, lol! Hopefully he does a better job next week and still has as much fun.

First day of PRESCHOOL!

2011-09-06T15:02:00.004-04:00

When did this happen? When did my baby turn into this opinionated, smart as a whip, nonstop chatterbox THREE year old that attends preschool?! Today was his first real day of preschool. We eased him back into care with just a few hours there since he's been with us exclusively since July he's a bit clingy. He was excited about his new Lightning McQueen backpack I gave him this morning. He saw his old Chuggington one in the car as we loaded up to go to preschool and told me "Not this one Mommy, I need my new preschool pack!" So cute!

Video Overload!

2011-09-04T13:32:00.004-04:00

We are finally home from vacation and I've had time to upload some videos to go along with the vacation posts you already have on here. I'm working on the pics and posts for everything from Garmisch on (which is pretty much two thirds of our trip) and doing my best to get it up on here. Patience please :) ***REMINDER vacation blog posts will be posted with the actual date we toured each place, so scroll down to be sure you are seeing new posts. They won't be at the top up here! :)

Sooo on to the videos. Here is Colin playing in puddles in Prague after dinner one night:

Here he is chasing birds at a park in Prague and getting the other kids on the playground to join in the chase:

Here is some of the model train restaurant Vytopna in Prague where the trains deliver your drinks:

And here we are feeding the ducks at Eibsee in Garmisch:

Now that should keep you busy for a while so I can go upload pictures and try to get more posts up :)

Day 33 Heading Home

2011-09-02T04:07:00.004-04:00

This morning we woke up to rain again, welcome to Germany! After so long with no rain and seeing how dry and burned up Italy looked I don’t mind the rain at all. Give me a week or two of solid rain every day and I might tell you differently though, lol! We packed up, headed down to the breakfast area and ate a typical German breakfast of sliced meat, cheese and bread. I do slightly miss the honey filled croissants from Italy. Shelby was smart enough to check and see if Freiburg had a Starbucks, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me because I didn’t think it was that big of a place, and sure enough…score! Not only were we disappointed that we paid 16 CHF (about 20 USD) for two coffees yesterday in Switzerland, we were bummed we could have had Starbucks twice yesterday and gone to the one in Freiburg that evening when we arrived! Oh well. The GPS decided to take us the very scenic route for some reason today and we ended up driving out of Germany, through France a ways and then back into Germany. It wasn’t that far out of the way, since our house is very close to France anyway, but it was not the way either of us were expecting to go. It was pretty and scenic though. Coming home was actually nice! Usually you go on vacation for a week or so and you aren't ready to come home and go back to work when the week is over. When you go on vacation for a whole month though you are a little eager to get back to a regular routine, sleep in your own bed, and be in your house. I was actually a little excited about cleaning up my kitchen that afternoon when I got home! LOL That won't last long!

Day 32 Freiburg

2011-09-01T04:04:00.006-04:00

We awoke this morning to a strange and foreign sound, the sound of thunder and rain. It was the first rain we’d seen in almost three weeks! It was quite peaceful laying in bed listening to the thunder echo off the mountains surrounding us. After getting up and around we hit the road and very soon after that we said "arrivedirce" to Italy and entered Switzerland. Huge mountains and turquoise lakes make for gorgeous scenery on the autobahn. We stopped in the beautiful town of Luzern for Starbucks and lunch. We’d visited Luzern last year and it is absolutely gorgeous. Compared to Italy the weather was so nice too, finally not so hot and humid. The city is very clean and there are no street vendors harassing you and following you trying to get you to buy their junk. It’s funny how two countries right next to one another can be so totally different. Switzerland is very expensive though, we knew that from the last time we visited. We ended up eating lunch at McDonald’s (oh how life changes once you have kids!) so Colin could run and play on the playground while we ate. It was the most expensive meal I’ve ever had at McD’s for sure. Two value meals and a happy meal cost us 34 Swiss Francs, roughly FORTY USD!! Yep we spent $40 on lunch at McDonald’s! I guess it’s a good thing we had Colin with us to keep us from going to a nicer place that would have cost a small fortune for lunch. We arrived in Freiburg, about 5pm and got checked into our gästehaus/hotel. It was a nice little family run place and we were greeted by the owner and given our room key. The hotel had a little grassy area for Colin to play and a few little bikes and scooter toys for visiting kids to ride out front. At the restaurant near the garden tables there was a big sand box full of toys for the kids too. The hospitality in Germany is much different than Italy, it’s so nice to be back in familiar territory…and I can understand and talk to people here, yay! Once we brought our things in we went for a walk and Colin got to ride his bike. We walked to the bike path nearby and it went along a nice little river that was crystal clear and flowing over big river rocks.

(Yes he is pretending to be a dog and drink the water, sigh.)
Colin couldn’t wait to get into the river and throw rocks. It was cold but he and Shelby stood in just by the bank and gathered rocks up to throw and then they built a dam out of rocks while I soaked my feet and watched. A little later we walked back to the gästehaus and ate at the restaurant there and relaxed before heading up to bed.

Day 31 Lake Como

2011-08-31T04:01:00.002-04:00

Lake Como

We packed up the car and hit the road again to head to Como, Italy. It’s near the southern end of Lake Como, one of the most beautiful lakes in Italy. We had to take the highway through the central mountains again that were a traffic mess coming down to Pisa the first time to get back up to Como. I hate Italian drivers and roads. Like most everything else in Italian culture it’s kind of a free for all. I think I mentioned before that the lane lines on the road are merely a suggestion in Italy and people drive where ever the hell they want to mainly. They weave, they’re jumpy, the truckers are just as bad, and I hate it. While stuck in traffic we saw a cat in the window of a car next to us and Colin was saying “That’s a nice kitty, I like kitties.” Then he says “Mommy you like doggies, Daddy you like goats.” LOL I don’t know where he got that from, but apparently Shelby is fond of goats! After what felt like the longest three and half hours in the car ever we finally arrived in Como. Our hotel was very nice, we always seem to find the nicest hotels when we only have one night to stay there instead of at the places where we stay for a few nights. After bringing some stuff inside and taking a little break in the room we headed out to explore. We went to the lake where Colin was thrilled to gather rocks to throw them in. We fed ducks and found a little playground and park area with a train for kids and another carnival type ride. Colin loved that. We also did some people watching and saw some VERY interesting outfits. You have to wonder if these people have mirrors in their house. One girl was skinny as a rail and wearing a fluorescent pink mini dress with these horrible high top sneaker turned high heel lace up shoe things in the same horrible shade of pink. It was hilarious to walk behind her and watch the faces of people as they noticed her. She’d catch their eye and you’d see them do a double take, then look her up and down and then attempt to stifle the laughter. After walking around some we had to go back to the car to feed the meter and then we sat on a bench and watched the sun go down behind the mountains and the lake. We ate dinner at a place right next to the lake and enjoyed our last bit of Italian seafood. I’m very glad we went to Italy and saw the sights and experienced it once, but I think Shelby and I both agree that once was enough for us. There are only a few things I will miss about Italy, the food is definitely at the top of that short list.

Day 30 Livorno

2011-08-30T03:59:00.002-04:00

Livorno

We all slept in until after 8 and Colin until after 9:30! Colin woke up sounding HORRIBLE. He’s very congested and hardly any voice, so we took advantage of being on a base and took him to the peds clinic for a check. Sure enough, upper respiratory infection and an ear infection. I can’t wait for the ENT consult to get this sorted out and hopefully he can stay well for longer than a month. He wasn’t letting the sickness slow him down any though and aside from sounding like a dog toy with a broken squeaker, he was ready to go. After the doctor we grabbed some lunch and then headed to the beach in the afternoon for a bit. The water was much colder than in southern Italy and wind made for some waves, so we didn’t get the water a whole lot. Colin and Daddy did a lot of digging in the sand and we buried Colin, which he thought was hilarious. A little relaxation and rest for all of us was a good thing. The sun was out but the breeze and scattered clouds made it a great beach day and not too hot. After the beach we hit the grocery for a few pickups to keep us snacking on the road and got some dinner. We ate outside on the porch of our cabin which was nice and peaceful. After eating Colin threw more rocks around and then he and Shelby went off watching ants. Shelby showed him all about the ant eater bugs down in the holes and they collected ants to go feed the anteaters with. Colin thought this was great fun. Later on it was popcorn and movies and another early bedtime. I’m going to miss vacation!

Day 29 Livorno

2011-08-29T03:56:00.002-04:00

Today we got up very early to beat the heat as we trekked back to the train station for our three hour train ride back to Livorno to get my car from the Army base, Camp Darby, where it has been parked while we were on the cruise and in Rome. To the grandparents and family who complain about us not visiting the States in the last two years; I encourage you to spend three hours on a train with my child, keeping in mind there is much more room and many more interesting things to see on a train than there are on a plane. When we arrived in Livorno I was more than ready to be off the train, but then it was time to hop a taxi to the base, so more riding. My car never looked so good after having not seen it for so long and relying on public transportation. We got checked into a cabin at the “resort” (so they call it) on Camp Darby to just relax and reorganize for the day. There was a lot of laundry to do and repacking to be done. Colin and Daddy went to the pool to play but the water was pretty cold and Colin seemed worse today in terms of sickness, so they didn’t stay out too long. When I came home from doing laundry Colin was happily playing with bugs and throwing rocks around outside and I could see he was pretty happy with our cabin. So we decided to take another day and stay here since the price is decent, Colin loves the place and the beach is nearby. With that decision made I didn’t have to spend half the night reorganizing and packing so we went out for dinner on the beach and came back to head to bed early. We were in bed before ten and for the first time in over a week I didn’t have to get up early for something the next morning. Aaaaah!

Day 28 Rome Day 3

2011-08-28T03:51:00.001-04:00

Rome Day 3

Today was another early morning to be up as we had to be ready for our tour of the Colosseum. It was HOT again today in Rome. You really can’t appreciate the Colosseum until you’ve seen it in person and you know some background on it. To realize that it was built almost 2,000 years ago and the extensive lengths that Romans went to to build it. Nero had been an unpopular leader and Vespasian had taken over the role of emperor and had to win back the favor of the public after Nero’s damage. So he got the idea to build the greatest amphitheater ever where all Romans could come together and enjoy sporting events. The whole idea was to keep the people happy and control them by giving them something to do. Vespasian’s arena plan was so grand there was no flat land area large enough to build on, so they got creative. Near the forum was a large lake that belonged to Nero as part of his personal palace grounds. Vespasian decided to drain the lake and use the flat lake bed to build his Colosseum on. So they built an elaborate system to drain the lake, then poured layers of concrete (which the Romans invented) to support the weight of the structure. Building something of this magnitude required great engineering skills to ensure the structure could support its weight. The arch played an important role here because by design it is strong and distributes weight evenly, yet remains open in the middle to make it lighter. The bottom row of arches around the Coliseum is made of marble, then, each layer above that gets lighter by using different building materials such as cement and bricks. When you consider the massive amount of marble needed, and that the marble came from a quarry in northern Italy and had to be transported to Rome, this alone makes the building an incredible feat. After the Coliseum we went to tour the Roman Forum ruins. It’s incredible to see what is there and has been standing since before Christ. For me to walk on original marble stones that ancient Romans and rulers walked across is insane! The tour was quite interesting despite the heat and after it was over we found a restaurant to get some pizza for lunch.

We were so hot and tired after lunch we decided to walk back to the hotel and take a little nap. Colin seems to be getting sick again, he has stopped eating and been fighting a fever since last night, so a nap would do us all good. I didn’t expect to sleep so long but felt great when we woke up two and a half hours later! We got up and decided to head over to the delicious restaurant from last night and eat there again. After dinner we went walking to see Rome at night all lit up. We hit the Trevi Fountain, which is equally impressive at night. Then the Pantheon, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier building, the Pallazo Nuova, and lastly the Colosseum. It was a late night for us but the sights at night were worth it.

Day 27 Rome

2011-08-27T03:46:00.001-04:00

Rome Day 2

We had to be up early this morning to be at the Vatican by 9 to start our guided tour. During tourist season the lines to get into the Vatican, St Peters Basilica and The Coliseum can be HOURS long, so it is best to book a group tour with a guide in advance so you can get there and go in without waiting in the lines. The Vatican is RIDICULOUS. The artwork in there is incredible. Anywhere you see the color gold in the building you can rest assured you are looking at pure 24 karat gold. Gold is everywhere. As is marble. Much of the marble used in the Vatican was recycled from The Coliseum and other monuments and things in Rome. Once the Roman empire fell many of the temples and political buildings were stripped of their bronze and marble and no one really cared. After the Vatican tour we walked around and did some more sightseeing. We found a large park to let Colin run around in. We fed pigeons and then he chased them around the grassy area for a while to burn off some energy. I have no idea what the fascination with birds is, but Rio has become his favorite movie and he’s in love with birds. Chasing birds is one of the best things ever apparently. After the park we headed back towards our hotel to find a place to eat. It was only 5:00 which is super, super early for dinner by Italian standards. Many restaurants don’t even open until 7 PM, Italians and a lot of other Europeans don’t eat until 8 or later. In touristy areas the restaurants open earlier because they know not everyone eats that late. We finally found a place that had just opened and it was excellent. Small little family place and you could tell they were proud of their restaurant. We had spinach ravioli for the first course and mussels for the second. For dessert we had homemade Italian lemon cake and tiramisu, yum!

Day 26 Civitiveccia & Rome

2011-08-26T03:40:00.003-04:00

Rome Day 1

We had to be up crazy early to be packed and ready to get off the boat by 7:15 AM. We chose that time, but either way we would have been kicked out by 9:30 anyway. If we were the first ones to get off we got to carry our own luggage off the boat and not deal with the madness of baggage claim and all, much easier. After getting off the boat we walked to the train station to get on a train to Rome for our next adventure. For being Rome’s port, Civitivecchia is not very close via train. On the slow regional train it took us almost 2 hours to get there. By the time it arrived we were tired and ready to get off the train. Then we had to walk through the train station to the opposite end where the metro boards so we could get on the metro to our hotel stop. Travel by train is fairly easy if you are familiar with the system and travel lightly. When there is a kid involved there is no such thing as traveling lightly. We got more than a few funny looks as we trudged through the station and streets with our bags. In our defense we had been on a cruise for the last ten days and it had been 12 since we’d last had access to our car and wash facilities. Two large rolling suitcases connected to one another, each of us with a backpack on, a small duffle bag and a stroller is no fun to lug up and down stairs in train and metro stations. If you are thinking why didn’t you just take the elevator dumb dumb? I should remind you we are not in the USA, ADA does not exist, and accessibility for handicapped people in wheelchairs is nothing short of a miracle.

Anyway…we finally made it to the hotel hot and tired. The room was like a sauna, no air conditioning, but at least they were kind enough to provide us a fan, which at this point I was totally thrilled with. We’ve learned things in Italy are never what they appear to be. We use booking.com to book hotels every time we travel and we usually find the hotel descriptions, reviews, and photos on that site to be very accurate when we arrive at the hotel we have chosen. In Italy, this does not hold true. Most of the hotels we’ve seen pictures of do not look anything like the hotel you actually get. They advertise air conditioning and there is A/C, in the lobby area and not in the rooms. Or there is AC in the rooms, but they do not actually turn it on. Same with internet, they advertise WIFI, but when you get there it is always down, or if by chance it is working it will only work in the lobby or common area, never in your room. So frustrating. Shelby was not thrilled with no air so he asked at the desk and they girl said she didn’t realize we had booked an air conditioned room and gave us a new room that did have air. We had to move but it was worth it, because it felt like Rome was going to burn again at any moment it was so hot. After moving rooms and unpacking a little bit we went to grab some pizza for lunch and found a shady spot under a tree to eat in and then we started walking.

We walked ALL OVER ROME and saw many of the sights you must see while visiting Rome. We hit up the Trevi fountain, saw a lot of ancient buildings, a lot of ruins, some amazing sights, The Forum ruins, the outside of The Colloseum and many other sights. We learned you could probably die rich selling drinks on the street in Rome. A bottle of water is 1 – 1.50 Euro, oh wait you want cold water? That is 2 Euro. Bastards! Can of coke, 4 Euro (roughly 6 USD!) Bottle of Powerade will cost you 4-5 Euro. Seriously, if I actually liked Italy I would retire here and sell water on the street and become a millionaire. The first grocery store we came to we went in and bought a 6 pack of bottled water for less than 2 Euro. Not cold, but who cares!

Day 25 - Naples

2011-08-25T03:32:00.000-04:00

Naples/Pompeii

Due to paperwork issues with the government (stupid Italy!) we left Sicily late yesterday evening and we made up time at sea so that we should have arrived in port on time in Naples. Except that there were more clearance and paperwork issues at the Naples port courtesy of Italian officials that prevented us from docking for over an hour. We had booked a private tour through a company to take us on a full day tour of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius that was supposed to meet at the train station at 8 AM. At 7 when the boat was not even docked I knew we weren’t going to make the 8 AM meeting time. I called the emergency contact number on the tour confirmation and told the man that our boat was arriving later than scheduled and we would not be at the station at 8. He told us no problem, to just call him back when our boat was docked and we would see if it was possible to still take the tour or not. The boat docked and I called a couple times and got no answer. We got off the boat and I continued calling (paying a small fortune to use my cell phone in Italy no less) a few more times and got no answer so we just started walking to the train station. About halfway to the train station the tour company finally answered the phone and they told me that there was a grey bus at the boat. WHAT? You want me to go back to the boat?! I tried to pre-coordinate for pick up at our ship twice and was told both times it was not possible to be picked up at our boat and now you are telling me there is a bus waiting at the ship. NOT AMUSED. OK fine. We walk back to the boat and look for the grey van/bus they told us to look for and see nothing. By this time most of the cars waiting to pick up people from our ship had cleared out and there were only a few people left. I called the tour company back and told them I was at my boat, and which boat that was, and there was no one waiting for us that I could see, so could they please contact the driver and ask him to hold a sign or get a better description of his location for us. We were told they would call back. At least 15 minutes or more had passed and still no call back so I had to call them again and try to find out. No answer. Finally at about 9:30, an hour after getting off my boat, the tour company called back and said the van was waiting at the “picnic bar” which is right across from the boat. I told them I didn’t see any picnic bar near our boat but I was ask a taxi driver and find it. I ask a cab driver and he says that bar is about a kilometer and a half down at the other end of the port. Not anywhere near our boat and I told them at least a dozen times which ship I was on. URGH! So we start walking. Shortly after we start walking the actual tour guide calls me and starts yelling at me in Italian wanting to know where we are and why are we not at the picnic bar. I explained to her I am trying to find the picnic bar, that I was told there was someone at my ship and to wait there, which I did for an HOUR before I was told now I needed to be at the picnic bar. She was not pleased and asked me how long until we got to the bus. I told her I have no clue, I’m not familiar with the area and then she demanded I stop a local on the street to ask how far away from the bar we were. When they said probably 5-10 minutes walking so was frustrated and started yelling about how she’d been waiting for us for almost two hours and the people on the bus were all mad they had to sit so long. I told her at that point to forget it and go without us. We didn’t want to go on a tour with a bunch of people all pissed off at us for being late when it was totally not our fault and we did everything the tour company asked of us. We were also getting a little concerned about making it back to our boat in time to set sail now that we were starting out two hours late on a full day tour that was supposed to be 6-8 hours. We said forget it and went back to the boat to decide what to do.
We decided we only had time at this point to do either Pompeii OR Mt Vesuvius, but probably not both. So we chose Pompeii because it was already dreadfully hot out and climbing a volcano in that heat would have been tough. We negotiated a cab far to take us to Pompeii, wait for us for a few hours and then drive us back to the boat. It cost a small fortune but what can you do? Pompeii was interesting, and we had watched a video the night before about it which was helpful. We bought the audio tour headphones but they weren’t very helpful and a tour guide (like we had planned to do!) would have been a lot better. It was so so so hot and it was not stroller friendly AT ALL. Colin refused to walk because he was hot and pushing the stroller was a nightmare. The day was just not what it was supposed to be. At least we were there and we saw it. We were back on the boat in time for a late lunch and then we went and played some bingo, which was a bust, again. Shelby took Colin to the pool while I packed our stuff up to leave the boat the next day. Boy does that job stink! That night Colin went to the final party at the kids club for PJ and pillow fight night. Shelby and I went to the piano bar one last time. Many people were staying on the boat for another ten days of cruising around the Eastern Mediterranean, oh how I wish that was us! The last day on the boat was partially a bust, but the cruise was still amazing and we can’t wait to do it again.

Day 24 - Sicily

2011-08-24T05:57:00.001-04:00

Sicily

Today we woke up in Sicily. I had a massage and a facial scheduled for the morning, I’m really getting used to this pampering first thing in the morning! When I was done we decided to do just stroll around Palermo. Once the boat was docked and we were cleared to go ashore we got a city map and just wandered. Colin has been doing great on the potty training, hardly any accidents since the first week of vacation, though getting him to take advantage of the opportunity to use a bathroom when one is available can be challenging. He prefers going with Shelby because they will race each other. Shelby will tell him they are going to have a pee pee race and he’s going to finish making pee faster than Colin. This gets Colin going and he eagerly rushes to the bathroom to go race Daddy and win the pee pee race. Today while they were in the potty Shelby started singing a song about “Colin’s going pee pee in Sicily, pee pee in Sicily!” and Colin thought this was hilarious. The rest of the day he would sing “making pee pee in Sicily” anytime they went to the bathroom. After some sightseeing we headed back to the boat to get cleaned up for dinner. Colin was very excited about dinosaur night at Club HAL and wore his dinosaur shirt to club that night. They made dino eggs out of clay and set off a volcano they had built.

Day 23 - Tunisia

2011-08-23T05:44:00.000-04:00

Tunisia

This morning we woke up in Africa! Tunisia borders Libya so it was a tad bit interesting given the current status of affairs in Libya at the moment. People on the ship suggested only going out of port on one of the cruise sponsored trips or excursions. We had just planned to go to the beach here but were warned cabs were pretty expensive, so we decided to book an excursion to the beach through the cruise line. The bus took us from the ship to a resort on the beach in Tunisia and then we spent a few hours at the resort and had access to their beach and pool. When we got off the ship there were people dressed up playing music and there were camels sitting outside waiting for people to have their picture taken riding them! We made sure they would still be there when we got back from our beach trip and were assured the camels would be there all day, they were full time workers. I’m really glad we waited because it turns out there were camels and horses on the beach to ride! Driving through Tunisia you can see it is a MUCH different place than the US and where we’ve traveled in Europe. It’s definitely a third world/developing country with a lot of interesting living quarters and dwellings and also a lot of trash around. It is very hot and humid, you see people parked or standing in just about any patch of shade you can find. Shelby said it was very comparable to when he was in Qatar or Bahrain. The people are Arabs but it was also has a strong French influence as the French were in control there at one time, so the people all speak French and Arabic. The resort we arrived at was very nice and there didn’t appear to be many people there and the ones that were there didn’t appear to be locals. We’d been warned about the culture here and the haggling and bargaining you must do for anything you buy. So when we got down to the beach there were several camels and horses waiting and the people were ready to deal. At first they told me 10 Euro for Colin to ride the pony. I said 5 Euro and the guy said OK. I went to get my wallet and realized I only had a 100 Euro and a 50 Euro bill and 4 Euro in coins, so I gave him the 4 Euro when I went for the ride. He tried to tell me it was 10 Euro to ride and I said ok then and took my 4 Euro back and told him they had camels right next to our boat for 5 Euro so we’d just ride there. He let me walk away and then a few minutes later he was over at our beach chairs telling me to put Colin on the horse for 4 Euro. Yay! Then before Colin was even off the pony he was trying to strike a deal with me to ride the camel. He said 2 people for 10 Euros on the camel. I told him OK because Shelby thought he had a 10 in his wallet and since I got the pony ride for a steal I figured whatever. Well Shelby did not have a 10 Euro in his wallet, so all I had left was the 100 and the 50 and I didn’t want to show him those. I took a US $10 bill out of my wallet and gave that to him and told him $10 to ride the camel. He said $15 or 10 Euro to ride the camel. So I then pulled out my 50 Euro bill and told him IF he could give me back 40 Euro in change I would pay 10 Euro for the camel ride. He called all his buddies together and they all attempted to scrape together 40 Euro but couldn’t do it, so then he told me $10 was ok and he took my US dollars to ride the camel. Deal! LOL It was quite interesting. Fun to bargain and haggle once or twice on vacation, but I wouldn’t want to live in a society where I had to argue over prices every time I went to the market or something. After we got our camel and horse rides out of the way we played in the water for a while. The water was crystal clear and turquoise with powdery fine sand on the beach. Lots of seashells and crabs were on the shore and there were fish in the water. We swam and cooled off before heading up to the beach to build a sand castle sea turtle and Shelby went out to catch some fish in Colin’s net for him to watch swim in the pail. He came back with a couple crabs and Colin was thrilled. We enjoyed our time on the beach and then it was time to head back to the bus to ride back to port. Once back on the ship we ate lunch and then headed down to the pool for a while. Colin met up with some of his friends from the kids’ club and had fun swimming with them and his Daddy. After that it was dinner time and then Colin went off to the kids club for pirate night. Arrrgh!

Day 22 - Sea Day

2011-08-22T05:35:00.000-04:00

Today we got to sleep in as it was a sea day and we had nothing to do but relax on the boat. We woke up late, had breakfast delivered to the room and then went down to play bingo for the $50,000 grand prize. Neither one of us hit bingo and we didn’t win any money. We had some lunch and then met up at the kid’s club for a family scavenger hunt. Colin helped name our team, “The Hairy Dinosaurs,” and we set off to find the things on our list. We had some interesting things to collect and got lucky to meet a Canadian that had a Loonie on her so we could check that one off the list. When it was all over our team won with 21 items collected and then there was a 5 way tie for second place with 20 items. Colin won a Holland America rubik’s cube and magic 8 ball and he got a magnet and a mood ring thing.
Here are Colin and I with once of his club HAL counselors, Adrienne

After the scavenger hunt I snuck off to my pedicure appointment and spent some time in the spa and I don’t know what the boys were doing. When I was done it was close to dinner time so we got ready and headed over to eat and then Colin went to kids club for camping night. Shelby and I went down to the casino and played roulette and came out ahead $36 in the end. Not too bad and we were just glad we didn’t lose any money. When the piano bar opened we went over there to hang out until it was time to get Colin from kids club.

Day 21 - Mallorca

2011-08-21T05:29:00.000-04:00

Mallorca

I’ve been dying to go to Mallorca since we moved to Germany and learned it was the European island of choice for beach getaways. It looked beautiful from the port and we had just planned to grab a taxi and head to the beach for the day. For a reasonable price we went to a beach a little ways away from the port that was not as touristy as some of the others, but still pretty busy and full. Like most European beaches this one was clothing semi optional. Europeans have this laid back, individual, whatever goes kind of attitude towards fashion and beach apparel is no different. Most of the men wear speedos, as do boys. Little girls wear only bikini bottoms up until about age 12/13, or when they start to get boobs. Teens typically wear bikinis and adult women have a choice to wear a top or not. Pretty much everyone wears a two piece bathing suit regardless of age, shape or size, and age and shape play no part in the choice to go topless either. You see many little old ladies out there with their boobs covering their belly buttons and people really don’t think much of it. It’s strange to us as Americans, but perfectly normal here in Europe. The beach in Mallorca was beautiful, you could see the to the bottom of the crystal clear water and fish swim around. There was a small amount of trash in the water that was disappointing, but otherwise it was very pretty. We built sand castles, played in the water, Colin loved swimming in the ocean and wasn’t scared at all. After a few hours at the beach we were ready to head back to the boat and get ready for some dinner and the evening events. Colin went to club again and got his fill of kids his own age for a while.

Day 20 - HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY COLIN!!!

2011-08-20T04:18:00.003-04:00

Barcelona II

Shelby was so excited about it being Colin’s birthday he was up at 4:30 this morning. He woke me up about 5:30 and just after that decided to wake Colin up too. He put three candles in a blueberry muffin he got from the buffet while walking around the ship at 5am, lit them and woke Colin up with the birthday songs. This song, and this one, are family traditions in our house. You always get woke up on your birthday by these songs playing and you are then stuck with the goofy melodies in your head for the rest of the day (and likely the next few days…just listen and see, lol!). Colin was only slightly amused, totally confused and tired. We all got up and got ready and wanted to get an early start in Barcelona because there were a record twelve cruise ships docked at port today and it was going to be packed. First thing we did was hit up Starbucks, and then went over to the big market, La Boqueria to wander. Amazing fruits and veggies piled up, candies and goodies too. Meat and cheeses, including whole skinned rabbits for sale in the meat case, as well as every kind of seafood you can imagine. It’s so colorful and interesting to walk through, I LOVE markets in Europe. The flowers were incredible. Every kind you could think of and CHEAP! There were huge arranged bouquets with lilies, roses, and a variety of other flowers that would have been well over a $200 arrangement in the US and I had to ask the price just to satisfy my curiosity. I about fell over dead when the guy told me THIRTY EURO! If I had room in my suite for that thing on the boat I would have been carrying it on board for sure! I couldn’t believe it. It would have been at least 80 Euro in Germany for that kind of thing, and probably about $225+ in the States. Crazy! After the market we got on the bus to take us back over to La Familia Segrada so we could tour the inside. It opened at 9 AM and we got there about 9:30 and couldn’t believe the line to buy tickets was already wrapped around the block! I didn’t think waiting in it was going to be possible, but Shelby and Colin jumped in line to wait while I walked around the outside of the building to take the pictures I wanted to get. The line turned out to be moving pretty quickly for as long as it was and within an hour we had made it up to the booth to buy our tickets. It was totally worth it, the interior is amazing! The church became Antoni Gaudi’s passion and life’s work but it has been left incomplete since 1926 when Gaudi was run over by a tram and killed. In recent years a private organization has taken over the goal of completing it and it is being funded solely by anonymous donations and admissions to the church paid by tourists. Inside is truly a masterpiece, amazing and whimsical, very Gaudi-esque. After that we got some lunch and then headed to the aquarium there for Colin’s birthday. Colin slept through lunch (yay for tiny blessings!) and we woke him up once we were inside the aquarium standing in front of a tank with large fish in it. He opened his eyes a crack, saw the fish and shot up wide awake saying “Look, fish! I love fish!” We laughed hysterically. He enjoyed the aquarium but rushed through most of the tanks in search of the sharks. Having been at the beach and on the boat we’ve been talking a lot about sharks and he was more than ready to see some. He was very interested in them and didn’t care a whole lot about much else. After the aquarium we took a cab back to the boat and boarded a little bit early so that we could relax some and clean up for dinner. For dinner we went to one of the fancier special restaurants instead of the buffet since it was Colin’s birthday dinner. The stewards there were amazing and entertained Colin the whole time. They kept coming over with origami paper animals and making stuff for him, birds that really flapped their wings and frogs that really jumped. The majority of the dining room staff were from Indonesia and the Philippines and all had family and children back home. They sail 9 months out of the year so they really miss their families and loved seeing little kids on the boat. I imagine the money they make on the boat allows them to provide a pretty good life for their families back home. Colin wanted a chicken quesadilla, Shelby had an amazing filet and I savored every bite of my king crab legs. For dessert Colin got his own chocolate birthday cake brought to the table with candles and singing staff. After dinner he was able to go to the kids club, Club HAL, since he was officially three now. He was super excited to play with other kids and was known as “the birthday boy” all night. He got another birthday cake there too, spoiled boy! Shelby and I enjoyed some kid free time and went to the piano bar and had a few drinks. When we picked Colin up at 10 he was good and tired and so were we!

Days 19 - Barcelona

2011-08-19T03:31:00.001-04:00

Barcelona I

This morning I had to wake up early so I could be down at the spa on board by 8 AM. I started my day off with a nice deep tissue massage and then followed that up with a long overdue manicure courtesy of Shelby. He booked my “surprises” a while back when he was planning the trip. So sweet! After my pampering I met back up with the guys and we had lunch while the ship docked in Barcelona. What an incredible city, the architecture and buildings are amazing! No wonder so many famous artists made this their home or were inspired while visiting here. We wandered down La Rambla doing a little people watching and checking out some of the wild street performers. The streets were packed and because we got in to port midday and it was already afternoon a lot of the museums, markets and things already had very long lines or were super crowded. We walked along and got some nice views of La Pedrera and Casa Batlló, two of Antoni Gaudí’s masterpieces. We accidentally discovered a Starbucks and it felt like we had won the lottery. Since Italy does not believe in Starbucks we had somewhat forgotten about them while we were there. Two iced white mochas later we were on our way to the Cathedral. We bought tickets for a hop on hop off bus so we could get around a little faster and get to some of the farther out places. We drove by La Sagrada Familia, a huge church that was started in 1882 and still to this day remains unfinished. The line to get in was insanely long so we decided to stay on the bus and come back to that one earlier in the morning tomorrow. We took the bus to Park Güell, a park designed by Gaudí back in 1900-1914, and walked around there for a bit. I LOVE the architectural style of Gaudí. It’s so whimsical and fun to look at, then when you remember that he lived in the late 1800’s and designed all his masterpieces before his death in 1926…WOW. So ahead of his time!
Next we headed over to the Barcelona Futból Club stadium to check it out. Shelby has a friend in Iraq who is a big Barcelona fan so we got some pictures for him and then boarded the bus again. About that time were hungry and ready for tapas so we found a restaurant in the Gothic Quarter and ordered about 5 different plates of tapas, paella, and a big pitcher of sangria…yum! Another stop at Starbucks on the way to catch a cab back to the port and it was good night Barcelona. The ship is docked here all day tomorrow as well, so we’ll have another full day to get out and explore.

Day 18 Monte Carlo

2011-08-18T03:14:00.000-04:00

Monaco Port

Waking up in Monte Carlo was like waking up in a dream. Some ports you can’t dock in and the ships have to anchor just outside of port and you take a small boat, or tender, from your ship to the dock. That is how it works in Monte Carlo, so we were out in the bay a little bit rather than being right up next to the land, which makes the view that much prettier from the boat. Monaco is the second smallest country in the world, behind the Vatican (which we’ll visit later!), but has a high population and tons of money. First thing we noticed about Monte Carlo was the H.E.A.T. It was HOT, I think perhaps unusually hot when we were there. Today we had booked a tour through the cruise that took us to the French cities of Nice and Eze. We got on the bus and right away the tour guide started annoying us (and most of the people on the bus). She went on and on about stuff that didn’t really matter and then told the same dumb stories at least three times each. She did not work for the cruise line, she is a private tour guide that just does the tours they set up, and trust me when I say, she was awful. Other people on the tour were thoroughly irritated with her too. Regardless we were stuck on the tour, so, on we went. First stop was Nice (pronounced like niece) and after the stupid tour guide finally stopped flapping her jaws and wasting our time telling us where the toilet was at least a half dozen times, we set off to walk through a market and walk down the beach on the French Riviera. We had to be fairly fast since time was limited. Even though it was hot as heck out there we stopped for a quick cappuccino at a café and then it was back to the bus. There were a ridiculous amount of tour busses in the area today creating a nice traffic jam that took us some time to get through when we came into and left the parking lot in Nice. We got on the bus at 11 to head over to the next stop on the tour for the day, Eze. We were almost there when traffic came to a standstill just short of the parking lot where the busses park and then the tours walk the rest of the way up the hill to Eze. We sat on the bus for a while and then the tour guide got off to run up ahead and see what was going on. We could see lots of black smoke coming from just up the hill and it turns out the fire was actually a bus that caught fire right in the parking lot where our bus had to park. We didn’t have any details but the tour guide called the ship who told her to return to the boat and there was no way we would be completing the stop in Eze. After our amazing bus driver did a three point turn in the middle of a small two lane highway that was literally on the side of a mountain we were on our way. I can’t believe he did it in only three points…I seriously thought it would be 5 or more! The entire bus applauded when he finished making the turn, lol. While Shel and I were disappointed we weren’t getting to see Eze, we were happy to be off the bus with annoying tour guide sooner. Then it happened. She said that instead of heading back to the port she could drive us around Monte Carlo on the bus and point out some things and have us back to the port at our regularly scheduled return time of 2 PM. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! A few people, including us, promptly asked if we could just get off the bus in Monte Carlo, do our own walking tour and then walk back to the place where you take the tender back to our ship. She gave some ridiculous answer about it being a legal thing and she has to return us to where she picked us up and such, so no, we couldn’t just get off. So we’d been on the bus since 11 and we were supposed to get off and have time to eat and walk around in Eze, but since we never made it to Eze we were held captive on the bus three hours driving around looking at crap we didn’t care about and listening to the stupid tour guide tell us the same stories three times apiece. Shoot. Me. NOW! Thank God Colin had fallen asleep in my lap shortly after getting back on the bus at 11, because trying to contain a three year old on your lap for three hours with no food or toys would have been a nightmare. As soon as we got back to the boat we made sure to go to the excursion desk and complain about the terrible tour guide, and the fact that our tour was NOT what we had signed up for. I understand the bus catching fire and us not being able to make it into Eze was out of their control, but at that point they should have returned us to the port and let us do what we wanted. Not force us to stay on the bus starving and bored as we drive around in circles in Monte Carlo when that was never part of the tour itinerary we signed up for. The ship looked into it and refunded us 75% of what we paid to take that excursion. So I guess it was ok. We later found out that the bus that caught fire was a tour from our boat. I think they were doing the same tour we were, thank goodness that wasn’t us! Apparently the bus had just parked when it just burst into flames and the people on the bus barely had enough time to get off. No one was hurt, but I heard about a lady whose purse got stuck on the arm of the chair and she couldn’t fiddle with it to get it loose in time so she had to leave it behind and all her ID, passports, money, bank cards, etc… were inside. Oh man talk about nightmare! I was overjoyed to be back on the air conditioned ship after literally sweating off 10 lbs walking around Monte Carlo (and I don’t sweat…it takes a lot of hot to make me sweat!) We were happy to relax on the boat and enjoy dinner and drinks that night.

Day 17 Livorno Port

2011-08-17T05:41:00.002-04:00

Livorno Port

Today was our first real day on the cruise and our first stop was Livorno. If that name sounds familiar it’s because we were just here a few days ago! LOL The Army base where we left my car parked is in Livorno and it’s right next to Pisa, which we had already seen. Because we had already done the Pisa thing we booked an excursion through the cruise that took us on a wine tasting in the Tuscan countryside. Perfect! We got on a bus and went to a small village called Lucca where we walked around and visited some shops. We bought some handmade Italian pasta made right there in town to bring home. We also visited the butcher and bought some Tuscan style salami and some marinated olives. We had a nice cappuccino and then it was time to get back on the bus to head to the winery. Torre a Cenaia Winery has been around for many years and they make several different varieties of wine. We learned about how they process it, how the type of wood the barrel it is stored in affects the flavor, and how the type of cork used makes a difference too. Then we got to go inside and sit down for a proper wine tasting. We sampled five different wines and they were all paired with the right foods to compliment them. There was salami, bread, Tuscan bruschetta (olives, anchovies and chicken) and cheese. Then for the dessert wine we sampled we dipped our biscotti in it. OH MY! Yum!! After all the sampling we got to buy the wines and other stuff to go with it. I bought several bottles and of course some biscotti too for my dessert wine. It was a nice trip and Colin was very well behaved on it. Our tour guide was great too, she gave us lots of good information and was funny and personable.
When the tour returned back to the port in Livorno we ended up taking a taxi back to the Army base so that we could go to the US bank branch there on base. Stupid me put a bunch of money in an account we don’t use often and then forgot the pin number to my ATM card (because I never use that account!) and couldn’t get the damn money back out. Ugh! I tried calling the bank to change the pin over the phone but of course that would be too easy and they don’t do that…so I had to go in to the bank. Luckily I realized it where I did, but a few days earlier when we were already at the base to drop off my car would have been much better!
When we were done with that we boarded the boat and got some dinner and relaxed watching the sun set. When we returned to our room that night there was another sculpture and more chocolates waiting for us. The steward also makes up Colin’s bed in the pull out couch and gets it all ready for him. As soon as Colin entered the room he made a dash for the chocolates and snatched them up off the bed without me even noticing. Colin took the chocolates and then ran and hid underneath his bed. Shelby saw this happen and didn’t say anything to Colin. Immediately after hiding his chocolates Colin said he had to poop and he went into the bathroom. While he was in there Shelby took the chocolates from under the couch bed and put them up. When Colin was done in the bathroom Shelby told me to come out and watch and I didn’t know what I was watching for. When Colin came out of the bathroom he made a beeline for under the couch to go knock off his spoils. When he got under there he realized they were gone and was quite upset and came out asking who stole his chocolates! LOL He remembered they were left on the bed the first night and made sure he was getting them all to himself tonight by running into the room, stealing them, and hiding them. Little stinker!

Day 16 - Board cruise in Civitavecchia

2011-08-16T14:14:00.003-04:00

Finally it’s cruise day! We got up, got packed and then waited for noon when we were allowed to inprocess the ship. Our ship was Holland America’s Noordam. Getting on the boat was pretty easy and once on board we checked out our room first and then wandered around to see what all the ship had to offer. Originally we had a regular/small stateroom booked on the first level of the ship with just a small porthole window. About three weeks before the cruise Shelby got an email saying they were offering reduced rates to upgrade rooms and we ended up getting a verandah room that was much bigger and had a balcony for a lot less than it was originally supposed to be. It was much nicer to be up near the top of the boat and I think we’re spoiled now for all future cruises!
Here is when you enter our room, bathroom is immediate left and closets to the right.

Better shot of our room.

Shelby took Colin to the pool to swim off some energy while I unpacked our room and got our “home for the next ten days” set up. Later on it was dinner time. We opted for the buffet type thing since it’s just easier with Colin, and I was shocked at how good the buffet food was. It really was more like I had ordered from a nice restaurant than picked up seafood off a buffet line. I could get used to this! After dinner we tried to take Colin to the kids club on board and had to ask about when they would accept him because the age for care is 3-7 years old. Technically Colin is still 2 until he turns three in four days, so we didn’t know if they would allow him to start tonight since he turns three during the cruise, or if he would have to wait until his actual birthday. After some checking around it was decided that he had to officially be three before he could be left in the care of the club, so we’d have to wait a few more days. He was SO excited to see kids his age and play with other kids we couldn’t make him leave right after getting there, so we asked if it was ok if we stayed there and kept an eye while he played for a little bit. The staff was ok with that so he got to have a little bit of interaction with the kids and make a couple new friends. When we got back to our room our steward had turned down our bed, left us a nice towel sculpture of a penguin and some chocolates. Colin was excited to see chocolate when he realized what it was.

Day 15 - Civitavecchia

2011-08-15T14:13:00.001-04:00

Civitavecchia

This morning we woke up and drove the car over to Camp Darby where we would leave it while on the cruise. The hotel on base had no problem with us leaving it there and we knew it would be much safer there than in a garage at the port, and it was free! We parked the car and then got a cab to take us to the train station, where we got on a train to Civitavecchia, which I have no idea how to pronounce. This is the port near Rome where the cruises stop to access Rome. The train ride was about three hours and we got in first class, which gave us a little more room and comfort. Italian trains, at least not this one, are not nearly as nice as German or Korean trains. I was glad we did first class after seeing second class and how full it was. We made it to the train station and the hotel was less than 2 km from the train station so we decided just to walk there instead of getting a taxi at the station. We seriously underestimated the heat here and were hot and sweaty by the time we made it to the hotel. Thank God this room had AC, and it was turned on and functioning when we got there. This actually turned out to be the best hotel we’d come across in Italy yet. The room was very nice, desk clerk more than helpful and it actually matched the online description very well. After cooling down a bit and resting up we headed out for some lunch which was a huge adventure. Colin fell asleep in the stroller so we were happy to have a peaceful quiet lunch with him passed out. It is Assumption Day in Italy, a religious/national holiday and many of the restaurants were not open. The one we did find that was open turned out to be a gem. The waiter came over and seemed scared because he didn’t know much English. He explained in very few words that today was special set menu for the holiday. It was all fish only and 30 Euro per person. We said ok (we didn’t have a whole lot of other options) and waited to see what kind of stuff would show up. This turned out to be our best (and cheapest) meal in Italy so far! He started off bringing out two glasses of prosecco, then the antipasti of fried calamari, fried anchovies and some kind of fish and cheese pate that was fried. We devoured everything but the anchovies and eagerly awaited the next course. After that came some mussels and bread. Next was a salmon ravioli dish. At this point we were full but it was such an exciting adventure because we had no idea what was coming next or what the heck we were really eating, but everything was incredibly delicious. After the pasta came a broiled fish fillet that had some cheese and herbs layered in between the fillets. It was divine! Lastly came some dessert and espresso and the bill which amazingly was 60 Euro for the two meals and 13 Euro for the bottle of wine we ordered. No cover charge, or service charge or any other hidden charges that we’ve found Italy to be notorious for. Best meal yet and best deal for sure! After lunch we headed back to the hotel to change and head to the beach. The beach here was a pebble beach, very rocky and no real sand. Colin was ecstatic to throw rocks in the water and play in the shallow water. We could see from the beach that they were setting up fireworks for something that night and there would be some kind of street festival later too. When we finished at the beach we went back and changed clothes and wandered back to the beach area to where the festival was and had some pizzas for dinner. Later on we took Colin to ride the carnival rides set up for the festival and then watch the fireworks at 11:30. It was a late night but we figured we’d relax tomorrow on the boat. Excellent food, Italian beach and fireworks…I’d call that a good day!

Some vacation updates

2011-08-14T17:18:00.003-04:00

Several new blog posts from the trip are up. I have video of the lake, feeding the ducks and some from Prague too, but the lame-o internet here in Italy would never get it uploaded before I have to leave. Sorry...you'll have to wait for that! Tomorrow we head down to Rome to get ready to board the cruise on Tuesday, maybe I'll have time to keep updating tomorrow. Internet on the boat is likely to be scarce. We are having a FABULOUS time!

Day 13 & 14 - Pisa

2011-08-14T14:11:00.003-04:00

Pisa

Day 13, Aug 13.
Driving from Venice to Pisa was interesting. Italian drivers are not as courteous as German drivers and it’s a bit more of a free for all than we are used to. The traffic was pretty heavy too because it was a holiday weekend in Italy. We had to drive through the Appennino mountains that run down the middle of Italy to get to Pisa on the western coast from Venice. The drive felt like forever even though it was only a few hours. We arrived in Pisa in the late afternoon and it’s a funny little place. It is not a huge city, just a nice size town and really not too much there. The old town has several hotels mostly in a one block stretch and at the end of that stretch there are loads of souvenir shops and then the street dead ends smack into The Leaning Tower. It almost doesn’t look real because you have old, run down city and touristy hotels, then boom…green grass, large open protected area and massive marble structures come out of nowhere. Despite their age they look so clean and pretty compared to the city. Our hotel balcony had a view of the Tower from it and if I didn’t physically stand there and take the picture and see it with my own eyes I would believe it was a photoshop job, it doesn’t look real!

We got our stuff organized and headed down to the Tower and Duomo area for some pictures since it was a nice sunny afternoon. The funniest thing was seeing all the people posing for their silly Leaning Tower pictures. Some pretending to hold it up, some pretending to lean against it, some pretending to touch the top…you name it, people were trying it. It was hilarious just to lay in the grass and people watch at all the tourists attempting to get the perfect picture.
After getting our pictures out of the way and letting Colin run off some energy in the grass we headed to a restaurant that was recommended by one of our travel books for the Tuscany region. They were right, food and wine were excellent. Apparently many, many famous people have come to eat there as the owner is an older man, and pictures of him in his restaurant with celebrities line the walls. Most of them are Italian stars I didn’t recognize, but there were quite a few people I did know in the photos. We had an excellent meal with more fresh seafood and delicious dessert before walking back to the hotel to call it a night.

Day 14, Aug 14.
Today we took advantage of some down time and headed to Livorno, where the Army base Camp Darby is located. We forgot the GPS in the hotel room but Shelby said he thought he could remember how to get there from looking at Google maps earlier, it was a pretty straight and easy shot from Pisa. Wrong. We got lost, almost gave up, then finally got lucky. From what we were led to believe Camp Darby is a decent sized base, we were seriously misled! They didn’t have much of anything and most all of what they did have was closed on Sunday. Poop. We were not able to get some of the snacks and pick up items we had hoped from the base that day. There was no haircut for Colin as the barber shop is closed on Sundays and Mondays. We did get some useful information about where to leave our car tomorrow and catching a train to Rome for our cruise though, so it wasn’t a total wasted trip. We attempted to head down to “The American Beach” in Livorno, which is an American beach run by the military. We were a little put off that you had to pay to enter and pay to park at this military beach, but decided it would be worth it to take Colin to the beach. When we got there the man informed us the parking lot was full and there was nowhere to park so we would have to either wait for someone to leave (he then noted the lady over there had been waiting on someone to leave for over 20 minutes) or just go park on the street in the city and walk. There are not that many Americans on that base for the lot to be full, and ALL the cars and mopeds in the parking lot looked like they belonged to Italians. So my guess is “The American Beach” is not just for Americans. We decided to just head back to the hotel in Pisa after the beach was a bust because parking on the city street was a joke, it was bumper to bumper with no open spots and even if there was one it wouldn’t be Dodge sized anyway. We weren’t too disappointed about it. We found a nice place for dinner and then I had to take on the task of packing us for the cruise and determining what to bring on the boat and what to leave behind with the car. I hate packing!

Days 10, 11 & 12 - Venice

2011-08-12T13:55:00.003-04:00

Venice

Day 10, Aug 10, Drive to Venice.
Colin woke us up at 0430 this morning with a fever and having to pee. Another 24 hours on meds and we should be fever free (I would hope) and he’ll be doing better. We tried to put him back to bed, he told us the sun was up. Shelby said “Are you sure? Go look outside.” So Colin went to the window and opened the curtains and said “Uh oh. Where’s the sun?” LOL “See Colin, we told you it was ridiculously early, now go back to bed!” Nope. He was up and so were we. So we packed up and loaded the car and hit the road. Just after crossing into Austria I asked Shelby where he put my down pillow that I had asked him to leave accessible in the car. He didn’t know where it was and didn’t remember loading it. Apparently it was left at the hotel. I called the hotel but they would not check, too busy said the lady at the desk. Management will be hearing about that later. I was told lost and found works off an email system and I needed to email them the information. Whatever. Driving through Austria and into Italy is BEE-U-TEE-FUL! I was snapping pictures left and right when MY BRAND NEW CAMERA decided to get something dirty inside the lenses and now has a giant blob in the middle of all my pictures. OMG today is NOT going well so far.
When we got closer to Venice we came across an Army post that had a BX so I took my camera in there and showed them the blob and explained I was on vacation and didn’t have the box or anything, but I did have my receipt and it was pretty much brand new. Thankfully they exchanged it for me so I was happy with that. New camera now and the day is getting better.

We finally arrived in Venezia and made our way to the airport so we could park our car. The islands of Venice are not accessible by any means other than boat. There are no cars, taxis or mopeds/bikes on the island at all. Everything from people to goods arrives via boat. When you get there and see how narrow the streets are, if you want to call them streets, you understand. Most streets are a narrow alley way that two people can barely walk side by side down. We parked our car at the airport, took only what we needed for a few days in Venice and then went to the “bus” station to catch a water bus to the island. The bus route is kind of indirect so we were on the boat for about an hour and a half before we got to our stop near Saint Mark’s Square. They have private taxi boats that are much faster and can get you there in 20 minutes, but they are 100 Euro for the ride versus about 15 Euro for the public water bus. We got some great views on the bus though and even got to see a few of the other outer islands like Murano on our way to St. Mark’s. There really are no words to describe Venice. Everywhere you look is a beautiful view. We got totally lost on the way to our hotel (very common and even easier to do) but didn’t mind wandering and checking out the sights. After we finally found our hotel and got settled into our room we went out to find a place for dinner. We soon learned that eating is an event in Italy, and it ain’t cheap either! Many people order appetizers, or antipasti, which of course we did because there were too many good things to pass up. Then comes the first course, or primo, is usually rice, pasta or risotto. When you’ve eaten your big plate of pasta then comes the second course, secondo, which is usually some kind of meat or fish. If you would like a salad that would come next, by that time I cannot imagine how you would have room for salad, or why you would want one for that matter considering skipping it means you are now on to cappuccino/espresso and dessert! By the time dinner was over we were stuffed full and exhausted.

Day 11, Aug 11, Venice.
We woke up pretty late and got ready, then headed out for some breakfast. Italians don’t really do fast food, nor do they do to go stuff. There is ONE McDonald’s (pretty much the only fast food/chain kind of place there) and even that doesn’t open until 10 and does not serve breakfast! Bars are open even in the morning and they all have espresso machines where the people come to get a croissant and a cappuccino for breakfast. They don’t take it to go, they stand around at small round tables (much like they do in Germany) and eat then move on. You can sit down in some places, but if you sit down you are going to pay a cover charge of 1-3 Euro per person for sitting. This is why locals don’t sit, they stand at the bar with their coffee. After our delicious cappuccino and filled croissants we went to St. Mark’s Basilica and waited in the entrance line. All the churches are Catholic and they all have rules to enter. You have to cover your knees and your shoulders, no photography, no noise. You cannot really describe the inside of the Basilica, it is breathtaking. The ceiling of the massive church is all mosaic tile and most are shiny gold, so with the morning light shining in the whole ceiling appeared to glisten and sparkle in the sunlight. I had to buy postcards to take pictures of so that I could post some to try to show you how pretty it is, though no photograph could capture all it’s beauty. It’s incredible to think about such a work of art being built in this day and age, let alone hundreds of years ago. After St. Mark’s Basilica we wandered around and got totally lost. It was nice to get out of the tourist packed streets and just take in the sights. Neither of us cared that we were lost (you can’t really get too far on the island anyway) and we saw other tourists who were also happily lost and not the least bit concerned either. We found a great place to eat lunch, still expensive, but the food…OMG! We didn’t even order off the menu really, we saw a plate of spaghetti with big shrimp/mini lobster looking things come out to the table of locals next to us and told the waiter we want that too. I’m certain we paid more for it than they did but it was worth it. Crazy delicious! We drank a big carafe of wine, ate til we were about to bust and then hit the streets to wander around some more. That afternoon we found a park for Colin to play in and burn off some energy before we ate dinner. Dinner was another amazing event full of wine, seafood, and dessert.

Day 12, Aug 12, Venice.
We got up a little earlier today and headed out to explore. Yesterday we stumbled across a huge fruit/veggie market and fish market that was all being cleaned up and done for the day, so we missed seeing all the goods. Today we started out earlier and headed that way to make sure we could see the market. The fish arrives at the dock fresh out of the water, many still breathing, and gets thrown on ice right there in the square for people to buy. Restaurant chefs and residents come down and buy their fill and couriers deliver the seafood to the restaurants in coolers on wheeled carts that barely fit down the narrow alleys. Delivery men in Venice are in seriously good shape! They have all kinds of shellfish, squid, octopus, fish, you name it. I wish we had a place to go buy seafood like that! After the market we wandered some more, bought some things, found a place for lunch, and wandered some more. We saw some gigantic private yachts docked and cruise ships coming in to port. We overhead someone saying the saw George Clooney on the island that day, so who knows who the boats belong to, but they aren’t residents I’m sure. We took Colin to the park again and snagged a great table on the waterfront at the mouth of the Grand Canal to eat dinner and watch the sun set. Colin was so good, we spent two and half hours at the restaurant eating and drinking! He played with cars and watched people and boats go by, ate his food and when he got bored with that we let him watch Rio (his newest movie obsession) on the iphone and he was happy as could be. It was a great last night in Venice with the food and the views.

Sorry!

2011-08-09T17:22:00.002-04:00

I'm working on it, I know we've been on vacation a week now and I'm just getting around to posting blog updates and pictures...it takes time to upload pictures and write these things. I'm too busy enjoying vacation!

Days 7, 8 & 9: Garmisch

2011-08-09T17:15:00.000-04:00

Garmisch

Aug 7: This morning we got up early and got on the road to head to Garmisch. It was a long drive with lots of potty stops along the way. It was raining and cold most of the way. Colin talked the entire way about going to throw rocks in the lake. When we got settled in the room Shelby took Colin to the pool to wear him out a little and I had to do laundry before dinner.

Aug 8: The weather was still not cooperating much for us today. Cool and raining. We did take advantage of a break in the rain to go for a walk and let Colin ride his bike. He loved riding through the puddles on the bike path and thought that was super cool. We needed a few things from the BX so we had to do a little shopping too. Later on Colin got to go swimming again and it was after the pool that he really seemed to be feeling miserable. He had been picking at food the last two days, one of the first signs of his routine sickness that he gets. Then this afternoon his neck starting to swell up over a matter of a few hours and a fever came on. Lovely…we knew where this was going. Just two weeks ago we went through this and had an ER visit and Colin was sick. It comes on every 4-5 weeks so when he had it last time I had hoped we’d be in the clear on vacation as far as sickness goes. Apparently not. So we called the insurance company and were told to take him to the German ER in Garmisch. They operate much differently than US ERs and we were in and out of there in under an hour! It was awesome! They don’t play around there. The doctor said she thought he had an upper respiratory infection and a throat infection, gave us antibiotics and we were on our way. Hopefully Colin will be feeling better soon and not be sick on the cruise.

Aug 9: We woke up to a brief moment of sunshine in the morning, but it didn’t take long for the clouds and cold to come back. We decided we had to go to the lake to throw rocks today rain or shine, so we packed up and went. The lake was chilly, but still beautiful. It’s a little crazy that it was much warmer in April when Colin and I were there for spring break than it was in August! Gotta love Germany’s crazy weather. At the lake we walked on the trail that goes around the lake to find a good beach spot to stop at and throw rocks. Colin had his little bike and was riding ahead of us. We came to a bridge in the middle of the trail and there were people around admiring the views and when Shelby and I turned to check on Colin we found him standing in the middle of the trail ahead. With his pants around his ankles and his bicycle helmet still on his head peeing like a garden hose! Right in front of everyone, no shame. Shelby and I both screeched at the same time “OMG Colin WHAT are you doing?!” To which he ever so casually and nonchalantly replied “I just peeing.” Oh boy we have got to teach this child the art of discretion. We soon found a beach and there were ducks there that were either starving or just very friendly. Maybe a little of both. They came right to us and literally sat in my lap. It was a mama and her babies and there was more than one family there. Whenever a baby duck from the other family came over to try to get some food the mama that was eating with us would grab hold and bite like hell on it and the duckling would squeal and swim away. It happened a couple times! They all looked the same to me but apparently that mama knew her babies and he was not one of them! After the lake we went back to the hotel so I could get stuff packed and reorganized for Venice and Shelby took Colin to the pool. Colin is feeling a little better, but when the fever pops back up he gets a little whiny. Packing for Venice was not fun. We are parking our car at the airport on the mainland of Italy and then taking a water taxi over to Venice. That means we need minimal bags which is a pain in the butt for us. We can only take in what we can reasonable carry with us on foot to the hotel and still wrangle Colin. Thankfully we are only there for 2 days!

Vacation Day 6: Praha

2011-08-06T17:09:00.000-04:00

Prague

Again the forecast called for 70% chance of rain and skies were pretty cloudy, so we spent a while in the morning contemplating what to do. I wanted to go to Sedlec Ossuary, aka the bone church, but it was about 2 hours by train from our location and not much else around the church to see. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere. Then we considered a trip to Karlstejn Hrad castle, but decided against that too. Instead we decided to walk around and take advantage of the little bit of sunshine gracing us. We discovered there was a Hooters in Praha so we had to stop in for lunch and get Colin’s picture taken with the Czech Hooters Girls. It’s tradition. After lunch we walked across the Charles Bridge and back up to the Prague Castle to get some better views of the city in the sunshine. On our way over the bridge Colin spotted a little park with a playground and there was no way we couldn’t stop once he’d seen it. He got some good run time in and made a few friends. The best toys on the playground were the pigeons. Colin went NUTS chasing after them and running from one end of the playground to the other. He even got a couple other little boys his age in on it and they were a sight all charging after the birds. By the time we got up to the castle the clouds were moving back in and it started to rain a little bit. The rain did not last long, thankfully and soon enough the sun was shining again. For dinner we went to a place called Vytopna. The restaurant has a giant model train railroad running all over it and the tracks are built onto every table. Anytime you order drinks your drinks are loaded onto a train car from the bar and the train drives them right on to your table for delivery. Needless to say we ordered a lot of drinks because Colin thought the train coming to his table was the coolest thing ever. We spent as much money on drinks as we did on food and we would later be up half the night to pee! LOL Colin also cracked us up asking our waitress if he could pet her lizard (she had a lizard tattoo on her calf).

Vacation Day 5: Praha

2011-08-05T17:07:00.001-04:00

Prague

We decided to do another tour thing to see the sights of Prague because many things are so spread out and it seemed like it would be best. We were picked up at our hotel and driven to the tour starting/meeting point. We got on a bus that drove us around and the guide pointed out some things. Again, it was hard to take pictures from inside the bus, and also a little difficult to listen to the man while trying to entertain and contain Colin. After driving for a bit then we stopped and it became a walking tour. We went to Prague Castle, the largest castle in the world, to see the palace. It is massive and composed of several buildings on the castle grounds. It is where the Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept and all the government happenings go on. It’s also the biggest castle in the world! Everything is so beautiful in Prague. The buildings and the architecture are amazing and things are so old! Many places we’ve seen in Germany are old as well but have had some restoration after damage during the war. Many things here in Prague have been untouched for the most part. The weather for today said 70% chance of rain, but we got very lucky and while it was very cloudy and overcast all day, we didn’t have any real rain drops fall while we were out and about during the day. Prague is huge and spread out with lots of things to see. At every corner and alley are incredible buildings that look like works of art.

Vacation Day 4: Drive from Berlin to Praha

2011-08-04T16:29:00.002-04:00

Prague

We didn’t bring a stroller because he hates to ride in them and ours is pretty big and bulky anyway. After two days of keeping him close by and Shelby carrying him on his shoulders when he got tired we decided we would have to purchase a stroller. First stop (after Starbucks of course) on the way out of Berlin was at Toys R Us to get a good, lightweight, travel stroller and Colin was just going to have to learn to like it. The rest of the day we drove to Prague and got settled in our hotel. Czech Republic was frustrating and reminded me of when we first moved to Germany. When in Korea it never really bothered me that I couldn’t read anything because the letters/characters were totally foreign to me and made no sense. When we got to Germany it drove me nuts that I could not read the signs because they were all the same letters in the English alphabet, so they LOOKED like they should spell something, but the words had no meaning to me. Frustrating, I eventually learned German and to read the signs and got over it. Being in Czech brought back the frustration as the letters are the same, but they make absolutely no sense at all. Our hotel was very helpful in making us reservations at a traditional Czech restaurant for dinner that included music. Dinner at Koliba was awesome! Inside was all dark wood and there were wooden carved stools with sheep skin blankets on them. In the middle of the room was a big coal grill where meat was cooked (it was hot as hell in there!) and there was a three man band playing traditional Czech music. Our waitress spoke English and when I ordered wine she asked me if I wanted a half liter or a liter! When our drinks came out they were served with some excellent bread and also a shot of cinnamon schnapps for both Shelby and I. Ick, but when in ~~Rome~~ Praha…. It was nice because the place was full of tourists and everyone was taking pictures of everything so I didn’t feel dumb photographing the band or the man cooking the meat and stuff. There was a large group of Chinese people visiting from Hong Kong for a convention and they were very nice and in love with Colin. In Korea Colin was very popular with his light hair and blue eyes, and apparently the Chinese are just as interested. The lady was taking pictures of him and telling us how handsome he was while Colin was hamming it up for her and telling her all about himself. “Name Colin, I three (holding up three fingers), I live Germany!” LOL We didn’t order anything besides drinks, all the rest was a preset menu thing as part of the deal we paid for when the hotel made our reservation. So it was a surprise to see what showed up at the table for us to eat. First came an appetizer that could have been a meal it was so big. It was two pieces of white bread toast with some kind of goulash on top. It had ground meat of some kind in it and I later decided it was probably deer because I saw a lot of deer goulash on the menu at traditional restaurants. It was topped with melted cheese and it was delicious. The main course came out as a mass of food all piled on a big wooden cutting board thing. There were grilled beef steaks, roasted ribs, grilled pork chunks, some eggplant stuff, potato fries, veggies and I forget what all else piled on. It was so big it caught the eye of the Chinese people near us who were also taking pictures of our food and asking how many people that was supposed to be for, lol. Everything I tried was excellent, though I’m still partial to Shelby’s BBQ ribs…they are definitely better. Dessert was a chocolate layered torte kind of thing, very good. I’m glad we found that place, lots of fun and good food.

Berlin

2011-08-03T17:10:00.001-04:00

Berlin

Day 1: Drive to Berlin (Aug 1)
Shelby started his day at 0430 this morning when he headed into work for a few hours. Colin and I finished packing and met him on base when he was done with work so we could hit the road. Finally after some errands and a few speed bumps we were on our way. According to Google Maps the drive from Ramstein to Berlin is about 5.5 hours. Clearly they are not referring to those travelling with a potty training, almost three year old. Our drive was more like 7 something hours and I was more than ready to get there and be out of the car when we finally arrived at our hotel around 11 PM that night.

Day 2: Berlin City Tour (Aug 2)
After waking up and getting around our first order of business was to hit Starbucks…always a priority when travelling in big cities! We decided to book tickets for a “hop on, hop off” type bus tour since there were so many things to see and we didn’t really have a “must see” list planned out yet. We figured it would take us to all the major important sites and we’d see a little bit of everything that way. We went to the stop to board the bus with our email confirmation/purchase receipt on the iphone (how did we live before this thing?) and the ~~stupid~~ not-so-nice woman at the desk said that the receipt had to be printed and was not valid on my phone. (Which it clearly said was acceptable right there on the phone but arguing with her wasn’t going to get me on the bus). We spent the next hour trying to find an internet café with a printer, no luck. Then we found another stop for the same bus tour and I decided to ask that guy, who barely glanced at my phone and told me to go to the bus stop and get on. So we went to where he said, showed another lady at that ticket booth the phone and she gladly handed over our tickets. I told her about our experience with the bitchy woman up the road and that we wasted an hour of our time trying to find a printer that we didn’t need. She apologized and FINALLY we boarded the bus.
Colin was super excited about riding the bus and at every stop he would tell us it was not time to get off yet. The only downside to a tour bus like that is that it is difficult to take good pictures from inside the bus, you just don’t get the photo ops you get while walking. Speaking of photos, I’ll apologize in advance for mine. A couple months back my Panasonic got a dirty spot on the lens and needed cleaning. Since it was 2 years old and a newer model was out I just decided to upgrade and buy the newer Panasonic Lumix because we’ve had previous models and the quality and capability for the money are outstanding. I bought it right before vacation and didn’t have a ton of time to play with it before leaving. Well the latest model does not stand up to the reputation and I do not care for it at all. Sadly I am stuck with it because I can’t return it to stupid Aafes after 30 days and we will be on vacation longer than that. I left my Canon at home so I am stuck with what I have for now. Hmph.
Back to the bus…we saw a lot of major points of interest on the tour. The tour bus had headphones that gave little tidbits about places, but trying to listen to an audio guide while keeping tabs on Colin does not work out so well. I don’t remember very much of what I “learned” on that tour. We also buy books from every city we visit to reference and read about the places we stop to see so we can get little factoids about the buildings and history. Again, reading while trying to keep Colin from running off/spitting on things/chasing pigeons/peeing in public/touching things and/or people/picking up trash/eating said trash (pick any of the aforementioned) is basically impossible. So again, I saw a lot of really cool stuff in Berlin…but I can’t tell you a whole lot about it. I’ll be visiting wiki pages for places when I caption photos for you, lol!
Potty training while on vacation is fun too, especially when public toilets are spread out and you have to pay to use them. Colin will tell you when he has to go to the bathroom, but you often don’t have a lot of time once he lets you know to get him there. Then if there is something he’d rather be doing, you can forget him telling you at all. For example on the way to Berlin we stopped at a McD’s to eat and let him play. While playing he pooped his pants, even though I asked him numerous times while playing and reminded him over and over that if he went in the toilet he could go back and play after. He was too excited to stop and pooped a horrible nasty poop all over himself. We had to strip him down in the parking lot in front of everyone and go through a case of wipes to clean him off. He really doesn’t care too much about going on himself, so we had to come up with a way to express to him how bad this was. He LOVES to stay in hotels, so we told him that we were not going to the hotel anymore, that we had to go home now because the hotel does not allow kids that potty in their pants to stay there. That got his attention! He cried and bawled and hysterically claimed he’d go in the potty from now on. He even told us that he didn’t poop his pants, the other kids on the playground pooped in them! LOL I don’t think so kiddo! We let him think we were driving home for a long time and he was beside himself upset. He didn’t have another accident that day though, lol. On our first day in Berlin he had two accidents first, in the Concert/Opera house. We had to pull him around the side of the building and duck into a corner to change his clothes and rinse out his shoes…thank God for Crocs! Then that night at dinner he drank a lot and had already been to the bathroom. Shelby took him before we were ready to leave and he screamed and protested and did not want to go (making him ”try” to potty is torture apparently). He sat on the toilet fussing but refused to go. He came back to the table and a two minutes later said he had to potty and so I got to take him this time. Well he didn’t make it to the bathroom before he peed all over my hip where I was carrying him! YOU WERE JUST ON THE DAMN TOILET AND WOULDN’T PEE AND THEN YOU PEE ON ME?!?! I now understand why some animals eat their young. Thankfully we were close to the hotel , which he cried all the way back to because we told him we were going to pack up and leave because they would kick us out when they saw the pee pee on his clothes. We pretended to have a little conversation with the reception about how he will not have any more accidents if he can stay at the hotel and not leave. He was quite relieved to be “allowed” to stay at the hotel.

Day 3: Colin fun day Berlin (Aug 3)
Today was Colin’s day. After the Starbucks stop we headed to the Berlin Zoo for the day. Colin’s favorite part of the zoo was the goats in the petting area. We wound up there first thing in the morning on a toilet hunt and he didn’t want to leave. It was great because no one else was really back there yet and the goats were hungry. Colin fed and loved on them and told me one in particular was “Colin’s goat” and we were taking him home. We eventually talked him into leaving the goats and got to see some other animals too. The other highlight of his day was getting to feed all the little begging birds on the terrace at the zoo restaurant. He was talking to them and making sure they each got some and would have fed them all day long if we’d have let him. After the zoo we hit up the aquarium next to the zoo, but by that time he was pretty tired and only half interested in the fish.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-03T11:57:00.005-04:00

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-27T15:21:00.001-04:00

Happy (Almost) Birthday!

2011-07-25T04:41:00.001-04:00

Pre Birthday Party

Colin turns three on August 20th. We'll be in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea celebrating in Barcelona Spain on that day, and since it's kinda hard to bring a bunch of presents on a cruise ship, we had to work out alternative plans. We are leaving August 1st for a month long European vacation that has us driving around Europe some before reaching our port of call in Rome to depart on the cruise. Having Colin's birthday so early didn't seem quite right, but making the poor kid wait weeks afterward until we are back home didn't seem quite right either. When we come back from the vacation both Shelby and I will jump right back into full time work and Colin will spend most of his days at preschool, so we figured giving him his presents now would give him some good quality time with them before we have to leave.

So on a whim we decided to grab a birthday cake and celebrate yesterday. Shelby took Colin to the park and I set to wrapping the things we had collected over the last month or so for Colin's birthday. I thought I had three rolls of good boy wrapping paper upstairs, but what I really had was three scraps of boyish wrapping paper hiding on three rolls. Each one barely enough to wrap anything, let alone the four giant boxes I had to wrap for him. I managed to piece together a few and for the others got creative with brown mailing paper and Sharpie markers! LOL Colin didn't seem to mind as it all tore off about the same in the opening frenzy. He had a good stash of loot from Mommy & Daddy, Grandma & Grandpa Goetzman and Aunt Shauna and Uncle Dave.

He'll have a nice supply of gifts from other family members awaiting him when we return from vacation, so in reality the kid gets to celebrate his birthday a total of three times this year. Not bad! Wonder if I can figure out a way to milk my next birthday for that long?

After opening presents and making Daddy put together a remote control race track, and a kitchen set while Mommy worked on building a Marble Race, we did birthday cake. I'm a sucker for Carvel cake and colin doesn't object to ice cream so we went that route again this year. Opening presents took a little longer than expected and we forgot about the cake thawing on the counter for while and it got a little soupy. So again with the creativity...Colin didn't get to blow out candles on an actual cake, he had to blow them out on a rapidly melting bowl of ice cream cake. I was thankful it remained solid enough to hold the three candles upright long enough to sing the birthday song and blow them out. Again, Colin didn't seem to mind one bit that it wasn't a whole fancy birthday cake presented to him. I'm so thankful for the ease of pleasing a soon-to-be-three year old, in a few years I'll have to be better prepared so I don't embarass him with homemade wrapping paper and melting birthday cake! LOL

I'd call birthday celebration number one a success, I hope the other two turn out to be as fun.

Ooops, apologies!

2011-07-24T03:54:00.002-04:00

I teased you with family pictures and accidentally had the settings on the album set to "only me" so no one else could see them. Woops. It's fixed now, go get your picture fix :)

Family Pics

2011-07-23T11:58:00.001-04:00

Lastest family pics for Colin's third birthday. :)

Pro Family Pics 7.2011

Helping Hands

2011-07-22T07:57:00.005-04:00

Since Shelby came home he has been working on a chore chart for Colin. Colin loves getting coin money and we started a little coin bank for him when he gets coins for things. Now he has a way to earn coins and help out. He can clean up his toys, help set the table/clear table, help with trash, help cleaning the house, and feed the rabbit (should Rabbit come home or we get a new one) and the fish. If he does a chore he gets a smiley stick in the pocket and if he does at least three chores a day he gets coins in his jar. So far he's been eager to help and earn sticks, lets hope he keeps it up!

Where oh where has our Rabbit gone?

2011-07-21T08:04:00.000-04:00

It happened again, Rabbit escaped the outdoor pen. He has a two story rabbit hutch outside with a little fence around it and somehow he managed to push the fence open and run away. Last time he did this it was because Colin had pulled a stake out to use as a sword and the fence was not secure. This time (I always check all the stakes now before leaving the rabbit in there) the stakes were all in and I have no idea how Super Bunny managed to push it open enough to squeeze through. But he did. And he is no where to be found (gulp). We hunted all over the yard, left food out over night...nothing. Colin wasn't too worried about it yesterday because his buddy Christian was here playing when we discovered he was loose and went hunting. This morning Colin was asking where Rabbit was though. I had to explain Rabbit ran away and we don't know where he is. Colin said he was in the yard and wanted his shoes on so he could go out and get him. Sigh, sad life lesson for the kiddo. I had hoped Rabbit would turn up, but I'm thinking he's gone. Poor bunny.

Disney Paris

2011-07-20T03:05:00.004-04:00

Paris Disney

On somewhat of a whim we decided to take Colin to Paris Disney. We went to Disney World in Orlando before we moved to Germany, but he was too young to really understand where he was at that time. This time he knew he was going to Mickey Mouse's house and to see Buzz & Woody and he was ecstatic. The plan was to drive to the hotel near Paris Disney (outskirts of Paris) on Sunday, go to Disney on Monday, run around Paris city on Tuesday, head home Wednesday. When we saw that online tickets to go up in the Eiffel Tower were already sold out for Tuesday we were a little bummed. We have yet to be able to do this....ugh. Then when I started looking at the maps for Disney Studios and discovered there was a good bit of fun stuff at that park for Colin too, the plans changed to just spend two days doing Disney and Disney Studios instead of Paris city.

The night before we left for Disney, Colin started having a fever and not wanting to eat, the usual symptoms for his monthly sickness that we deal with. We decided to go anyway since I've been to the ER every month for the last 6 months with these same symptoms and the doctors rarely do anything and always tell me it's a virus. We figured he could be sick and stuck at home, or sick and enjoying Disney...either way he was going to be sick right? He was a real trooper at Disney despite fevers flaring up every 4 hours when the Tylenol or Motrin wore off. He had a blast looking around at everything, riding the rides and meeting the characters. As soon as we came through the gate and hit Main Street USA we found Mickey posing for photos and joined the 300 other people in line waiting to meet him. Colin was all excited to meet Mickey, but 30 minutes later by the time we actually made it to Mickey he was less thrilled. He did not want to hug Mickey, and Daddy had to hold him the entire time. I got a picture with Colin & Mickey in it, not exactly the shot I was hoping for though. After meeting Mickey we hit up some rides and started wandering the park for a while. We stumbled across a restaurant that was serving lunch with characters inside and was not packed out and reserved, score! We walked in and found Woody, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Eeyore, and Tigger waiting to eat lunch with us! Colin of course did not eat, but we snacked on enough food to justify us taking up a table and Colin got to meet and greet everyone up close and personal. He got lots of pictures with all the characters and had a long conversation with Woody about where Buzz was. Apparently Colin favors Buzz, lol.

Now that we had dined with all the Disney pals there was no need to wait in line for pics with them anymore, yes!

We took in some more rides and playtime for a bit after our snacks. Colin's favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear laser blast ride. You sit in a little car and it moves through the ride and your job is to assist Buzz as a space ranger and shoot the aliens and Zurg with your little laser gun and beat the person in the seat next to you. Colin LOVED it. It was a ride, it involved Buzz/Toy Story, and he got to shoot a laser gun the entire time. He talked about the ride nonstop for the rest of the day and I'm pretty sure it was the highlight of his trip. Colin also really enjoyed the classic cars that you could drive on the race track, we rode those two times and Colin drove his Daddy around both times.

We paused for an early dinner at Rainforest Cafe. Colin didn't eat anything at all, not even ice cream, but he did seem to enjoy the animals and the fish in the tanks. Poor kiddo still was fighting the fever and now his glands in his neck were the size of golf balls. He looks like he has the mumps! After eating we went back to the park for some more fun. Colin was in heaven even though he didn't feel well. By about 9 we decided trying to make it to the parade and fireworks at 10pm was not going to happen with Colin being sick and he needed his rest anyway, so we got some to-go desserts and caught the train back to the hotel.

The next day we woke up to pouring rain. We checked the radar and it was UGLY. It literally looked like a hurricane covering France on the radar. Heavy rain, some wind, and it was just sitting and rotating over France and not moving. There was a 50% chance of rain in the forecast when we packed to drive over, so we had rain coats and boots with us. We bundled up and headed out figuring the rain would hopefully slack off some as the day went on. We also hoped there was a lot of indoor stuff at Disney Studios and that the rain would drive the crowds away. The rain did not stop the crowds...they were all just as crazy as we were. It was cold. I'm talking MAYBE 50 degrees, you could SEE YOUR BREATH. WTH this is JULY folks! For real!! Colin wore one outfit in the morning getting to the park and to the first show, then he was wet. So we had to change him and put two pair of pants on him to keep his legs dry, his rain boots, a shirt, a hoodie, and a raincoat over top. Again I remind you, IT'S JULY! He was dry though, and pretty much warm. Shelby and I....not so much.

The first thing we did was head over to a stunt show with cars and motorcycles and Lightning McQueen made a special appearance. Colin was really into it and loved watching the stunt men show off on their bikes and racecars. After that was over we ~~swam~~ walked around to try to check out some other stuff. We discovered that most of the rides were outside and we needed to get poor Colin out of the rain. We tried to take in a Playhouse Disney show but the next showing turned out to be in French and the English show wasn't for another 2 hours. Darn! So we made an executive decision to head back over to the Rainforest Cafe to eat, dry off and warm up some and then decide what to do from there. Poor Colin was really feeling like poop at this point and he fell asleep in Shelby's lap for most of the time we were eating. He woke up near the end of our lunch feeling a little warm so I tried to give him more Tylenol, which he is now totally sick of and gags at the thought of. He did not want it and refused. He didn’t eat a bite and even turned down ice cream! Then he puked all over Shelby's pants at the table. Check please!

The rain didn't let up at all and the streets of Disney Village were under water. We decided to go do some shopping. Colin racked up...having Daddy around again is not good for my bank account. Colin got more crap than any one kid needs from Disney Land and we headed to Starbucks for one last fix before heading to the train station and back to the hotel. At the train station we were hurrying down the escalator to catch the train and Shelby slipped. He had Colin on his shoulders and they both went down. Colin never left Shelby's shoulders and Shel managed to keep him upright through the fall. His foot slipped off the end of a step and the teeth on the step scratched the heck out of his leg. He had a huge knot on his lower leg and it was all torn open and bloody, he scraped his thigh and his arm too. The worst part was half the venti white mocha in his hand spilled all over him. In addition to the puke on his pants, he now had coffee and blood on them and only half a Starbucks drink left. What a day!

When we got back to the hotel we decided we could sit around all night waiting to check out in the morning, or just pack up and head home now instead of waiting. We packed up and hit the road. We got back home late Tuesday night and had Wednesday free to do whatever instead of driving. We took Colin to the doctor, who told us (again) nothing was wrong with him and it's normal to get sick once a month and have golf balls for glands. URGH I hate doctors sometimes! We had a great time at Disney and will definitely remember the trip, for both the fun times and the fun to laugh at times!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-20T02:31:00.000-04:00

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-13T07:22:00.000-04:00

OK so perhaps a few words so people don't accuse me of keeping my child in a cage.

I had the rabbit outside in his outdoor cage while I was cleaning the bottom of the indoor cage out. The top of the indoor cage was sitting on the floor in the living room. I came back from cleaning to find Colin inside the top of the cage and drinking from the rabbit's water bottle. So glad the camera was right there on the table!

This was all his idea and he thought it was great fun!

Bye Bye Baby

2011-07-09T04:06:00.001-04:00

Big Boy Bed

Shelby has been determined to get Colin a big boy bed for months and I'd managed to hold him off until he got home from deployment. Shelby was home all of two days before he was dragging us off to Ikea to get Colin's bed. Colin fell in love with the bed as soon as we saw it in the store, as we were looking at it and deciding if this was the one Colin was telling us to put it in the cart and buy it for him. He was so excited I thought he would bust, Colin too. ;) Of course you can't go to Ikea and get just what you came for, they really need to sell drugs there to numb the pain of going through the checkout.

We got home and unloaded all ~~our~~ Colin's loot and Colin immediately ran to his tool bench and gathered up his tools and headed upstairs to help Daddy build. Building with a soon to be three year old is a challenge to say the least. It's an absolute miracle that all the parts made it in the bed and where they go without being eaten (by Colin or his dinosaurs) or misplaced. The 45 minute job took double that but at least we had entertainment during the project.

Before the bed was done Colin was trying to throw us out of the room and go to sleep in it. He was so excited he couldn't stand it. He kept making up excuses why he needed to go to bed, it was too late, he was sick, he was real tired. Crazy kid!

We did make him come downstairs and eat dinner, he ate the fastest I've seen him eat in months! Then he wanted to go straight to bed, which is where we put him, and where he stayed until 8:30 the next morning!