Naughty

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

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Happy New Year!

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!

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

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

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

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!

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!