Christmas

Every 2 years my family rents a few cabins and we head up to the Colorado Rockies for a few days. This year there were 23 of us up there celebrating together... we were missing a couple of people. Including my brother. :( Abbey did get to hang out with her 3 cousins, though. A is 6, E is 3-1/2 and S is 3+ months.  (Just a reminder, if you like a picture you can click on it to enlarge it, then do a right click and a "Save As" to your preferred folder).

Grandad is surrounded...

Abbey picked out an outfit at the store the other day... it just so happens that my mom has similar pajamas.

Abbey's introduction to Barbies...

The place where we stay arranges for Santa Claus to make a special appearance before he sets off to deliver his presents.  Abigail wasn't quite sure what to think about him.

Abigail got the "Say Please Tea Set" that I had been coveting from a friend of mine for quite some time.  She enjoyed sharing tea with everyone.

 

 A piece of cake for GG.

Elmo.  He was a hit.  This was one of those moments that I am kicking myself for not having the video camera ready.  When she opened the package she had the squeakiest and most excited, "ELMO!" that you have ever heard.  She was jumping up and down while we got him out of the box and and kept saying, "Elmo!  Elmo!"

Then E's batcave was discovered.  She is a girl after my own heart.  :)  Why would you play with girly toys when you can play with a batcave?!

I don't know if E was too excited about Abbey playing with his toy.  He was very patient with her, though.  I love Abbey and A's face.  You can probably hear the "Uh-oh" coming out of Abbey's mouth.  I'm still not sure if this was unintentional.

The older A was so sweet with her little cousin.  Abbey adored her.

  Merry Christmas!

Pisa, Italy

One of my friends e-mailed me in late October to tell me that she was a nanny in a town near to Pisa.  So I decided Abbey and I should have one last trip in Europe, so I booked a ticket for a 4-day trip to Pisa.  Bare in mind, this trip took place Monday, Nov. 29 through Thursday, Dec. 2.  Which was a week and a half before we were set to move.  It probably wasn't the best planning on my part, but you only live once, right?  Stu encouraged me to take advantage of this last chance, too. 

I have been assured by my friends that I have had horrible luck traveling in Europe.  I hate to use this blog as a place to complain about my experiences, but I feel that I must tell the complete story!  :)  I will not elaborate in great detail... it snowed the day we departed, so our first flight was delayed 2+ hours and we missed our connection.  As a result, we landed in Pisa at 10:30 pm instead of the planned 5:00 pm.  Mindy (my friend) was thinking in advance, though... she got to Pisa early and found a great hotel close to the airport so we could immediately collapse into bed.

There it is.  The tower is actually the cathedral's Campanile, or bell tower.  Most of the larger Italian cathedrals have a Campanile.

The gorgeous baptistry and Romanesque cathedral.  

These bronze doors to the cathedral were amazing.  Each panel depicted a scene from the Bible.

 The Abbey Picture Squat:

We bought our train tickets to the town where my friend lives, and this is what we encountered when we reached the tracks.  Not only were the train unions on strikes, but the students were as well.  It was clear we weren't going to be getting there by train!

 Yummmm... gelato!

 Drooling over Italian shoes.

We ordered some seafood and Abbey attacked it.  This is her eating an whole shrimp (eyes, shell and all).  Halfway through I panicked with worry over a shellfish allergy.  She doesn't have one.   Notice the pizza in the background that I ordered for Abbey?  The pieces that were eaten were consumed by Mindy and me.

This was a whole fish (I panicked again, worrying about the bones):

 Our hotel had a beautiful rooftop garden.

Our trip back wasn't great.  We were delayed even longer.  We were supposed to get back at 11:30 in the morning, and didn't arrive home until 8:30 pm.  Oh well.  The redeeming part was being able to see the sun set over the Alps as we flew over.   I of course also had a wonderful time hanging out with my friend.  We had such a great time talking and praying together.  Thanks for taking good care of us, Mindy!

Last Days on Rathenaustrasse

We are officially back in the Mountain Time Zone.  And feeling the effects, let me assure you.  The last two nights have included getting up for a 3:30 am snack for the little one.  Who can blame her... it's lunch time according to her body!

The last 14 days in Germany were very busy.  We got a call from someone on Thanksgiving saying that they wanted to buy our kitchen, but they had to pick it up on Sunday (as in 4 days later).  This is what a kitchen looks like after all the cabinets and appliances are sold (and after your neighbor loans you a big table and Rubbermaid containers).

Right after Thanksgiving Stu left for his annual trip to Chicago and on Monday Abbey and I went to visit a friend in Italy (blog on that will be coming at a later time).  My computer decided to stop working in the midst of our last few days, so it put a bit of a kink on communicating.  Sigh.  I seem to have a bad affect on laptops.

We got some snow, so Abbey and I took advantage of our remaining few pedestrian days to walk around.  We always have to stop to look at the bunnies.

She has since decided she doesn't really like the snow very much.  If it gets on her shoes, she reaches down and says, "Off.  Off.  Off."  Our very girly-girl.  There isn't any snow on the ground in CO right now, so I'm sure she is happy with that.

We were out on a walk one day and I saw a craft booth selling various items.  The proceeds benefited the hospital where Abigail was born, so I decided to buy a pillow.  It was a good choice... she loves it and has to have it to sleep with in her cot now.

Sometimes when it's very quiet, Abbey will be sitting on a pillow looking at a book.  From what I have observed with toddlers, when there is silence, quiet book-reading usually isn't the norm.  If you click on the picture to see it larger, you will notice that the q-tips have been happily released from their box.

Every week Abbey and I go next door for a playgroup.  There are several kids around her age that go (some not pictured).  Poor Abigail had just returned from the doctor, having been diagnosed with bronchitis and an ear infection. 

One of the benefits of being sick is that she gets to watch a little TV.

We had a Ladies Night and went to the Erlangen Weihnachtsmarket (Christmas Market).  The snow certainly gave it an ambiance. 

Warming up with some tasty Greek food.  Yum!

The ladies at my church had a very nice international brunch on the last Tuesday before we left.  Abbey and I got to enjoy some scones with jam and cream, quiche, Chinese fried noodles, sausage (of course) and a lot of other dishes from different areas of the world.  I think I speak for Abbey and Stu when I say how much we will miss Erlangen.  We had such an amazing exposure to so many different cultures.  Thank you all for impacting our lives.

Our short time here (ctd.)

Here is the next group!

1. Being seated at a communal table with several other families.
2. Ending a sentence with "oder..."
3. The historical architecture (of course!).
4. Rouladen window shades (google it if you don't know).
5. Shops being closed on Sunday (I know it sounds crazy, but I really do think I'll miss it!  For a short time, anyway).
6. Having all of our family and friends come visit.
7. My wonderful neighbor.
8. Mustard.
9. Nürnberger sandwiches.
10. Tasty bread.

Bring on the Cold!

Weather, that is.  We had our first snowflakes of the season in our town today. 

Abbey all dressed up and ready to go:

In other news, I have started letting Abs pick out her clothes for the day.  She tends to pick out the same things every time, but I was excited that she today chose her frilly pink skirt.  Yay!  Let it snow, let it snow!

Our short time here...

As I have been strolling around town these past few days I've been thinking about the many things I will miss when we move from our town (which is set to be around Dec. 11).  We have had such a lovely time here.  I feel so blessed by the opportunity to experience a different culture (albeit a somewhat minor change as there are so many ex-pats in our area!).  In our short time here (slightly less than 2 years), we have experienced the growth of our family from 2 to 3, two encounters with the German hospital system, traveled to many different countries, made many friends, and in the process made thousands of memories and taken a few thousand pictures.  

I am cataloging some of my favorite aspects of being here.  Sure there are things that I won't miss, but what is the fun in remembering the negative, right?!  I am planning on doing more than one post because I don't have the brain power to remember so many things at one time.  Plus, I really should be organizing and "packing" right now.  And you guys really might not be that interested anyway.  It's really for my sake than anyone elses, I'm sure.

In no particular order... 


1. My daily walks to the store or into town.
2. Biergartens.
3. The neighboring toddler's little handprints on my back door, inviting "Ab-eeeeeyyyy" to come play.
4. The chiming bells of our neighborhood church.
5. My lovely lady friends from IJG and playgroup.
6. At our church, hearing all of the lovely accents from people coming from every area of the world, all coming together in a town in Franconia, Germany.
7. The extremely charming "Hauptstrasses" in all of the cities and villages, that are only for pedestrians.
8. The pastries.  Oh, the pastries.
9. Speaking a different language (Well, trying to speak a different language.  Butchering might be a more appropriate term).
10. The nice check-out ladies at the stores I frequent, who always are patient with my poor German and are always sweet to little A.

Taken one of the first days we were here...

Help around the House

 I must do these things a lot...