Espanglish 3

Thanks to my lovely sister Benson is learning to read. Well, at least so far he's memorized about 40 sight words and "reads" them from a video or flashcards. So the other day the video showed the word "eyes" and Benson said "ojos". This means he read the word and translated it before he said anything. Either brillant or we're possibly really messing with his brain. I guess we'll see what happens in the long run:)

Christmas Markets & Stubaital

As I've mentioned in previous posts... Christmas in Germany is magical. We went to the Christmas market in Saarbrucken (only 30 mins away on the German/French boarder). Sadly, we don't have pictures (we got this one online and it simply doesn't to it justice), but the memory will last forever. They have a high-wire line that spans the entire Christmas market where Santa on his sleigh cruises across with his reindeer and tells the story of Rudolph (in German). Benson was in awe. I think this is when it fully clicked who and what Santa is. We'll go to this one every year!

Then there was the St Wendel Christmas market where everyday at 4pm the three wise men roam the market on their camels. We had read this story in his book, but seeing it made it real for our little guy. Sydney even enjoyed seeing all the animals and lights. They had a miniature petting zoo with reindeer, goats, and sheep. There is nothing like Christmas in Germany. Street performers. And Benson always enjoys the chocolate dipped strawberries that the street vendors sell. I'm a fan of their fried potato pancakes, but I can't remember what they are called. Peter likes the typical bratwurst and crepes. Then the weekend before Christmas we went with our friends, Stacy and Manny, to Stubaital, Austria for some snowboarding and sledding. It was cold, but really fun. I hadn't been on my board for two years and it felt really good to be out again. We did a boys day, a girls morning, and a couples afternoon (for them, while we took the kiddos sledding!). It was really a great time.

The Alpha Male

Benson has proven himself as the Alpha male in our home. Sorry Pete.

The Primitive Greet

Lately Benson has been greeting other children who are his size or smaller with a little (and sometimes not so little) push.

He goes to time-out and says he's sorry, but it's not sinking in. Any suggestions?

Thanksgiving with Grammy & Opa

As noted from earlier posts, Pete went to Ireland with a buddy. The only reason this was possible was because my mom came over and baby-sat me & my babies:)

Grammy did A LOT of reading while she was here. Benson couldn't get enough of her.

Then there was a lot of baking in our pjs.
Nice walks outside.
Then Peter got home and Opa arrived.

We tried to get the band together almost everynight and even occasionally during the kids' naps. Note: this was mostly my mom pushing for this to happen. It was such a stuggle to get her to first try it out and now she loves it.

Look at those concentration faces.

Thanksgiving day was wonderful. Lots of yummy food.

And family dinner photos.

Then there were the Christmas markets. Christmas is Germany is the most magical celebration. All big and big-ish cities have Christmas markets. They have even brought back the Christmas magic for me. Bright lights, cold weather, warm crepes, warm cider, hand-carved wooden ornaments and trinkets, Nativity scenes everywhere, church bells ringing constantly, and even rides for the little ones.

My parents went to the famous Rothenberg market while we spent some down time at home.

On there way back to our house we meet them at another Christmas market in Diedesheim. This is the one we tried to go to with my parents last year at Christmas time but it had already closed for the season.

It was cold but fun.

We also experienced a first with Sydney... her first fruit. Prunes. She wasn't thrilled.

And an Opa tradition...making home-made pico de gallo.

Matching girls. Where's your bow Mom?

We even tried a night of fine dining at our local Alt. Amazing German and French cuisine. Benson was extremely dapper and dignified while holding his glass.

They kind of look alike to me in the picture? Anyone else?

At the Kaiserslautern Christmas market they had this great ferris wheel. It was a sad moment when Benson had to stop riding.

The boys even got out for a man-ride.

Thanks for coming out Mom & Dad. We had a great time! Benson still says, "Grammy, Opa a mi casa." How can you deny him?

Random extra video:) It appears that Sydney, like her brother, is quite fond of Elmo.

Christmas Card Teaser

Yeah, they're going to be a little late this year. VistaPrint won't ship to APO's so my mom (thank you!) shipped them out here to us... we'll get them out to you as soon as we can.

PS Thanks Dad for taking the pictures. And thanks Mom for getting my babes to smile and look at the camera. You guys are the best!

PSS Happy Birthday Breann!

I Love You Mommy

This morning Benson and I were up making his oatmeal breakfast and he grabbed a book and went over to the coffee table (is there a better word for this... we don't drink coffee....) and started reading the tale of Punchinello, the Wemmick, to himself. He arrived at the page where Eli tells Punchinello that he is special to him because he made him. At this point Benson runs over to me in the kitchen and gives me a big bear hug (daddy just recently taught him what this is) and said "I love you Mommy." I melted. He's repeated those words before and I know he has felt them before, but this was the first time he has ever iniciated the expression of his feelings so perfectly. All I could to was hug and hug him while repeating over and over, "I love you too Benson." Rarely do I say something to him in English but I wanted him to know exactly what I felt and meant. Later that day as we said this back and forth we practiced "Yo te quiero." In either language, it was one of the best parenting moments I've had yet! Thank you Benson for making me the happiest mom on earth today. I love you!

House Lights

My favorite are the arched springing yard lights. Great timing!

Go to YouTube and search Christmas House Lights. These are amazing.

Germans don't put up exterior Christmas lights:( We'll have to wait until we get back to the states to see the amazing displays.

6 Months

(click on pic to enlarge...look at those eye-lashes)

I know... I'm thinking the same thing. How has it been six months already? Where has the time gone? Well, my baby girl is 6 months old. That's half a year. I already feel like she's going to leave me and go to prom with some chump. Well, at least for now she's still mine. Stats

Height- 26"- 70%

Weight- 16 1/2lbs- 75%

Head Circumference- 17 1/2"- 95%

(She, like Benson, has her father's head.)

We love you Sydney and we are so happy, grateful and blessed to have you!

The Land of Ire

It was about 10:00 pm when it first happened. I was finally getting to sleep after one of the most stressful drives of my driving career. We had just arrived in Dublin that afternoon, rented our "Celtic Campervan", and followed the NAV across the entire island to the open Atlantic coastline on the west side of Ireland. Driving on the right side of the RV on the left-hand side of the road, shifting gears with my non-right hand was already confusing enough. Add to it the impossibly narrow country roads that had no shoulder unless you gouged the rocks with your fender and an endless supply of detours. I'd be just as nervous driving a Mini Cooper out there. Needless to say, we didn't arrive when the GPS said we would and we didn't go the 100 kph that it recommended. In fact, three different times we smashed the campervan on either the left side or the right side. I nailed a curb on the left and Josh hit a tree on the left - and doing about 70 kph (+- 40 mph) smashed the right mirror (opposite side of the road, remember) on the roof of another passing car (click to enlarge the surf picture below to see the mirror damage and note that it didn't stick out too much further than the body of the RV). I'm still hoping to get some of my deposit back for that one. On the smallest roads, we braced for impact every time we passed a car. Needless to say, our 3.5 hour trip slowed down to about 5.5 hours. We arrived at a town called Doolin just south of Galway and north of Shannon. We got a bite to eat at a local Irish pub. One gets a quick feel for the fighting Irish spirit while watching an Ireland vs. France world cup qualifying match. I felt like I was at the game. --Dozens of drunk red-heads cheering and booing at every play. We had had our fill at 9pm and headed to our mobile home to get some shut-eye. My friend, Josh, was immediately out like a light, but after such an intense drive, my nerves wouldn't let me relax. It took about an hour until I finally nodded off. ... And then out of nowhere (this is where we started), WHACK!! I thought a car had run into us as we were parked on the side of the road. Josh didn't move and I was too tired to check things out after I didn't see anything out the side window. I crawled back in my sleeping bag and about 45 minutes later, again, WHACK! This time I could hear the kids run off after they smacked the side of our campervan right next to my sleepy head. Darn those Irish redheads! It was as if there was a tradition among the locals to welcome the sleepy out-of-towners who were so easily identified by their mode of transportation. Different groups of them leaving the bars continued with the run-by smackings until at 11:30 and I could take it no longer!! Delirious, I had to drop-kick Josh in the head to wake him up before we moved. And of course, on the way out, as sleepy as I was, I drove on the NORMAL side of the road and nearly bumped fenders head-on with an Irishman driving on the ABNORMAL and UNNATURAL side of the road. It even took a second for me to register. It seems that road rage hand signals are international. We had to audibly repeat the word "left" multiple times during the trip to remind ourselves we were in Ireland.



Anyway, on with the trip... This blog is already carrying on. We drove far outside the town and woke up to this breath of fresh air:

...A shot of Josh (good friend from work) inside the van eating what we ate for every meal of the trip: smoked salmon on cream cheese bagels. I could live on those things. -And we did for a week.

A view of one of the multi-lane interstates in Ireland and our double-wide RV.

We spent the first day at the Cliffs of Moher, a site you cannot miss if you travel to Ireland. They have day-trips from Dublin, but it's so far away that they only spend an hour or so at the site which isn't nearly enough to get off the marked path. We spent an entire day exploring the 700+ foot cliffs. There is a small path that is only feet from the edge most of the way down the length of the cliffs. If you look at the left side of the following picture you can see some people spotted at the top of the cliffs to give you perspective of how huge they really are. I cropped in to illustrate in the second photo...

With a tip from a best-friend-turned-brother-in-law, we looked into surfing the northwestern coast of Ireland and ended up in Bundoran for a day of rainy, cliff-side fun. The surf was chest-high to overhead, but was really messy and blown out by on-shore winds. After a while, we ditched our boards and explored some caves.
Day 3: Giant's Causeway. In northern Northern Ireland (UK = pounds sterling = $$$) there is an amazing coastline with rock formations like I've never seen before. I guess some basalt layer crystalized at the same time as a sediment core magma cooling updraft sediment geyser geology sedimentary happened. I made that up. Either way, these aren't man-made. It's a bunch of geometric rocks scattered across the seashore. It's great...

And lastly, we made it to the Crete-a-Rete rope bridge not too far from Giant's Causeway. Since before the Declaration of Independence, this bridge (okay, it's been replaced a few times) has aided fishermen to catch the salmon around these islands. They couldn't make it to the best fishing spot by boat because of the rough waters so they built and rebuilt this bridge. It's still used to this day.

Before I left on the trip, by dad sent me some names of ancestors who lived in Ireland. We even drove by some of the towns where they lived. I didn't meet any of my distant red-headed cousins, but I couldn't help but mention several times that it felt like a place I'd been before. -Like I was going home. I don't think I'll ever settle in the rolling sheep-covered hills with the fam, but for a cheap $30 flight from Germany, I can't resist going back to visit. And I'd be more than happy to do it again if anyone needs a weathered driver.

Thanks, Brooke and "Paddy" (heh, heh), for sending me. I'll make it up somehow. Maybe a foot rub. (that'd be for Brooke only).

Ireland Man-Trip Teaser

...More to come from Ye Ol' Emerald Isle. (Really, I posted this to show-and-tell at work tomorrow - AND because knowing me, I won't blog about it until next summer.)

My Girl

I fall more in love with this girl every day.