Is it really 11 days till Christmas?

Somehow it does not feel like Christmas is around the corner...I have done my baking - though because of nausea I haven't been able to eat much of it (well, okay I couldn't eat cookies buuuut the chocolate cheesecake was another story!). The house is decorated, lights are out and presents are wrapped....but somehow it just doesn't feel like Christmas.

Maybe its the weather? While I am not a fan of snow (it can stay in the mountains as far as I am concerned) but I had not thought we'd have rain (RAIN!) and grass that is still green. It isn't warm outside, but it certainly isn't a white Christmas like I was expecting. This year has flown by!

I still have not found the camera cord to download pictures - that is still a work in progress lol I need to check the place top to bottom again - and if that fails I am going to start to follow Ty around on the floor and start checking nooks and crannies at her level :)

Ty is 15 months doing her own thing - which still does not include walking. Yep - she walks along furniture and will walk if she is holding just one of our fingers but other than that - NOPE! She is into everything and some of her current favourites are: cupboards and drawers -particularly pulling everything from bathroom cabinets and throwing it into the toilet while your back is turned. YEAAAA!

Another fav (and my heart attack moment) is her crawling up AND down our spiral wood and concrete staircase by herself. I mean she hits the top will crawl into a room and come back to the top of the stairs and turn around and come back down! How she has mastered the confidence to do this but won't let go of that last finger ?? lol Frankly while I am looking forward to not having to scrub out knee stains, for how fast Miss Curious already moves there is a part of me that is secretly grateful she is not walking on her own because I fully expect the following week she would be running!

Long enough post. We are off to find our Christmas tree. Yeah we are a little late. Its our last Christmas item...Sebastian was gone and while I checked out a few places I didn't find a tree I liked. So we are off to find a tree (& hopefully not a Charlie Brown one!)

Back Up and Mostly Running

YEAAAA!! We now have phone AND Internet - and at the same time no less!! Now if I could just find the camera cord to download the latest pictures we'd be set LOL I think it is in the suitcase that Sebastian took with him TDY. Sucks. He is back in a week (currently touring Corps sites in Germany with a VIP) so until I find another I am stuck with the pics I have already.

The one below is from when we took Sebastians parents to Gamisch...

...and yes - this is the FIRST shot of what Sebastian calls my 'soccer-Mom' hair. I took about 5 inches off! And I'll give you 2 guesses who is in the cap & glasses...Ty's really not sure about this 'new look' LOL

Proud Grandpa and Tyler about to start shopping in Garmisch!

Since their visit I have thankfully gotten through the worst of the morning sickness, etc. For Thanksgiving we braved the car ride to the Austrian Alps to ski. (We really need to find new toys/ways to keep Ty entertained on the road...any thoughts/suggestions? Shoot 'em over!)

Well, I did not ski (didn't want to chance someone running into me), but we stayed at this gorgeous hotel and Sebastian got to ski a bit while Ty and I hung out at the indoor pool :-) One definite note for future travel - when breakfast and a 4 course dinner are included it is better to bring a babysitter along! Dinners started at 6:30 and went for 1.5- 2 hours! Ty was a really good sport for most of it (ALWAYS get a corner booth seat - they can then play a bit)...but after a couple of days we were ready to hit a pizza joint ...(and yes a cheeseburger would be great too LOL) Sebastian didn't get to ski as much as he wanted. They closed the glacier down - winds were gusting up to 70km/hour - for a day and a half, but he was able to get a day and a half in. Plus that day gave us a chance to go to Innsbruck where they were putting out their Christmas Market so that was cool. Once I have those pic's I will put them up in a slideshow.

Below is what the town looks like. 2nd note to self: old churches are really beautiful and all that, but unless you want to wake up early to church bells best to stay at a hotel that is NOT so close to one!

We are not traveling much other than day trips for the next while with the exception of day trips. I have to admit I am rather happy about that - traveling is fun but tiring too (those with kids know what I am talking about). I am looking forward to checking out the Christmas markets here - the one in Nurnburg is supposed to be legendary! Decorating the house is going to be fun - sadly our PX here does not have a lot of basic stuff so we will be getting a lot from the economy. Normally we would be more than happy to do just that, but with how bad the exchange rate is lately sometimes shopping just sucks!

Long enough post for now. Provided that my modem does not burn out again I will be posting more this week :)