Always on the move....

First day of Preschool

2011-11-01T09:49:00.000-10:00

Alex's first day of preschool was today! She will go 2 days a week which is perfect for both of us. She was excited to go....at first. Once in the classroom the realization that Mom was not staying hit & the crying began. No phone call yet so I assume all is well :-) How'd she get so big?!?!?

Happy on the way in!!

With a big cheesy smile ....BEFORE we got inside LOL

Halloween

2011-10-31T21:02:00.000-10:00

We ended up going out with some friends and I forgot to take the camera along - opps! Fortunately I had already taken some pictures before we left for the night. Here are Ariel and Daphne :)

Ty was all ready to go.....

Alex had just woken up from a late nap and this was as close to a smile as I could get LOL

The look says it all - we are DONE with pictures for the moment! She did perk up greatly once we got around friends and she could actually start trick or treating!!

Ko' Olina Lagoons

2011-10-15T21:03:00.002-10:00

Day at the beach with friends! Three moms and 7 kids between us hit the Ko Olina Lagoons for the morning. If you have heard of the new Disney Resort on Oahu then you have an idea of the location -lagoons are there as well (as is the Marriott)...It's on the west side of the island.

Alex still does not like the beach - or more specifically the waves/water. But given that there's grass and shade to play with, and others to keep her occupied, she was a happy camper this morning!

Ty & friends at the lagoons

Alexandra will finally play on the beach ;) but spent most her time on the grass picnic area.

Baby Q figuring out that sand really does not taste that good! The biggest, most squishable baby you'll ever meet! :)

Koko Head Crater Hike

2011-10-01T14:01:00.004-10:00

Another beautiful day and we decide to get the kids out for a hike....which turned into a climb haha The hike in queston is Koko Head (Crater) hike. It's on the southeast side of the island close to Hawaii Kai. But a trail hike this is NOT! As you can see from the pictures below.

The are the "steps" to the top....it starts out as a little incline and goes almost vertical at the top!

About 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up Alex had had enough! She did well to make it that far and I was under no illusions about her making the vertical part. Ty on the other hand wanted to keep going - so she kept going with Dad :-) She was amazing! Men who were taking rest breaks on the way up (particularly near the top) were asking Sebastian how old she was...When they learned she had just turned 5 some were saying "You go girl!!" and others were more "Stoooop!! You're making us look bad" LMAO

But up she went with enough energy at the end to pose for pictures :-D

Dirty & dusty but made it!

Hawaii Kai Hanauma Bay

Top of the world with attitude :-)

On the way back down......

Taking a well deserved break and enjoying the breeze!

Once we had re-grouped, cleaned off and gobbled down snacks it was off to the pool for a cool dip.....Needless to say the kids racked out for most of the afternoon once we go home!

Jane Sapper Day :-D

2011-09-18T14:20:00.004-10:00

It was soooooo much fun :-D The spouses of the 65th Engineer BN had the opportunity to do some of the stuff our soldiers do. We hit 3 stations - some on foot, others by truck.

Our first station was room clearing using M16's (& blanks of course!) Unfortunately there weren't any shots of our squad in the mix (we were just too fast for them hahaha)

The next was the machine gun range where each of us got a chance to shoot (and YES I actually did hit the target - multiple times :-)

The last station for us was the LRC (leadership reaction course) where you problem solve as a squad to get the 'mission' done. This followed by the modified physical training test - push ups, sit ups and box jumps (instead of the run).

Considering how many hours we had been out there already, I think we all wished we had done the PT test first!! The push-ups and sit ups I only got beat by a few (yes they were counting all of us)..But the box jumps??? Damn there are some box-jumping mama's in our group LOL I got smoked on that part! Had no idea it was such a great but hard workout - something to add to the routine :)

Bumps, bruises, dirty and one lil ammo burn later and it was all done. It was a blast!! For many of us the only question was, why can't we do this more than once a year?!?

1st Squad, 2nd Platoon!

Hawaiian Summer Fun Catch-Up!

2011-09-09T19:21:00.004-10:00

Beautiful Summer in Oahu!

The most recent long weekend we has no specific travel plans so hung out around the island....One favourite is the games place in Mililani Town Mall :) First hit is always the carousal ride LOL Both girls LOVE the ride!! After that Alex plays the toddler games (smack the gopher, etc) while Ty and Dad usually go play the Pirate-shoot-em-up game...

Rainbow over Waimea Beach (Seb the person between the tent & other person)

These are from back in July when Sebastian was in the midst of completing the North Shore swim series (4 ocean swims of different lengths). Despite the craaaazy early show up times the girls and I tried to make it to most of them :)

Waimea is one beach that Alex likes - as long as she is 1) occupied and 2) it's not too too hot since she still refuses to go into the water to cool off. This swims series was fun for the girls as their favourite babysitter, Sam, was also at the beach with her family.

Getting buried in the sand still always a fun thing to do LOL

Especially when you have friends to do it with!
(Sam & her brothers)

Race-ready!!!! :-D

And yes - this flat, calm water above IS the same Waimea that you hear about having 20+ foot waves in the winter time!

Now we start killing time till the race is over!

Do a little workout...some push-ups...

Tyler and Sam swimming.......

Everyone starting to close in on that section of the beach where the race will end (orange floating balls are the 'chute' that all racers will go through).

It might not look like much but there is a fairly large crowd - many are up on the grassy area where the stands are.

Haha Race results are posted on the board behind Ty - not that she cares of course, she's more interested in hanging out in the trees!!

Tyler's Birthday :-)

2011-09-04T12:00:00.002-10:00

Alexandra's Birthday

2011-05-24T06:10:00.000-10:00

We woke up in Banff on Alexandra's Birthday (see below) and went back to Calgary around lunchtime. It made for a busy long day as the people revolved in and out and Alex was being a bit under the weather with a cold. Her cousins joined the party late - after the cake was cut but she did not mind as that prolonged the present opening into the evening LOL I don't have pictures of all of it - as the night wore on trying to get the girls into a bath & bed became the challenge! Normally I'd let them stay up later but with so much travel, little sleep in Banff and a sick birthday girl decided better not :)

Overnight in Banff, AB

2011-05-24T05:20:00.000-10:00

Ahhh the mountains - I do so love being there!! And I soooooo did not want to leave :-) LOL

The only downside is the Alexandra came down with a cold - which from the timing of it means she picked it up in Edmonton right before we came to Calgary, poor thing :( But waking up in the Rockies on her birthday was a wonderful thing! The kids LOVED the trip - hotel, mountains and all. I took a lot of pictures but missed the waterslides, hot tub & kiddie pool in the hotel.

Now figuring out a way for another trip back LOL So much to do - esp biking & hiking!!

Easter Weekend

2011-04-24T15:23:00.001-10:00

It has been a busy couple of weeks. There seems to be events each week to go to LOL No pictures from last weekends Easter egg hunt on post followed by b-que at our house, but I do have pictures of this weekends activities....Well at least some of them :)

On Friday 'Earth Day" coincided with Good Friday which meant that it was a 3 day weekend for most and they could attend the Festival (?) I cannot remember exactly what they called it - it was a blend of Easter stuff and just fun stuff...This also meant the lines were kinda long in the lovely bright, shiny sun. Boy was I glad the tradewinds were back though Alex was still a hot, stick mess by the time all was said & done. But we had fun! Sebastian couldn't be with us as he had work-related stuff to take care of in the morning and by lunchtime we were done! Home & to the air conditioned movie theater to see African Cats (we've already seen Rio) in the afternoon......the girls didn't like African Cats as much as Rio, but we all enjoyed popcorn in the a/c!!

Pastor's Visit

2011-04-03T09:36:00.000-10:00

Here are a few pictures of our recent visit with Sebastian's parents ;)

Prepare for Pictures!

2011-04-03T09:00:00.000-10:00

Ahhh yes we slipped again...No blog for how many months?!? Holy crap! I really did have the best of intentions - really :) After this last post we got ready for Christmas and it took 5 days of trying but we made it out on a MAC flight to California :) (See pictures #1 below) We had an absolute blast spending most of our time down in Monterey!

Coming back I felt something was wrong with a tooth and, not wanting a repeat of problems past, I went in as soon as we got back. Yup so much for that idea. Another broken filling. According to the Dr. I just don't feel it (he said it was much older then the 10-14 days that I had noticed it)...so another root canal but a real pain in the ass infection in January that took a couple antibiotic rounds to make go away:( With that, kids, normal life, etc that pretty much took up Jan.

In February I continued treatment for my tooth and Sebastian FINALLY made it out of Ft Shafter and back up to Schofield! SWEEET! This did not mean, however, that he had more time at home. This job is keeping him away as much as the past one, but at least there is no awful commute along the way. He very much enjoys working in the 65 EN BN - and those that I have met from there these past 2 months have been great! We are lucky to be part of such a good group for the next year or two :-)

In early March Sebastian's parents came out to visit for a couple of weeks. Actually they just left this past week. See how fast the time flies?!?!???? Pictures are forthcoming!

Now to April and birthdays, Sebastian going to the field and me and the girls heading out to Canada in May!! YEAAAAAAA!!! It's been a year since we've been back and are soooo looking forward to it. Being in the field Sebastian won't be coming with us (again) but we are hoping for next time.....

Ok onto pictures again!

Christmas Pt 1

2011-04-03T08:20:00.001-10:00

Christmas #2

2011-04-03T08:00:00.002-10:00

Christmas is Coming!

2010-11-29T17:58:00.004-10:00

Well we are mostly done with decorating here.....still cannot believe we are about to enter December!! Then again, it took till into (late) September to get mostly settled in - add the permanent summer here and I guess that explains a lot of it :-P

Girls are liking Christmas. Ty is MUCH more into it this year than ever before and I am grateful that I have advent calendars that start tomorrow so that the question of how many more sleeps followed by my inadequate explanation of how many more than 5 is that? (I can show her how many but because the answer does not please her she tries to barter it back down lol) Alexandra is just going with the flow, waking up in the morning to the new Christmas tree with a big smile and an "OOOOOhhhhh pwetty chrismas tree!" Only one ornament broken in the last 24 hours so I figure we are off to a good start :)

Oddly most of our Christmas shopping is also done...with our shopping spree of late the Pastor family here are mostly taken care of :) We will of course get a few more small things for the girls for the morning of (ugh and I still have stockings to do), but other than that most of it is done. I have a couple packages to mail tomorrow and it will be a light load the next couple weeks! YEAA!!

Girls checking out the lights........

Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T16:12:00.005-10:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends!

In the midst of Thanksgiving weekend and I must say its nice to have a low key long weekend. We did our turkey dinner as a late lunch out yesterday (which was great!!) and did a tiny bit of shopping today LOL

Well we had said if we ever saw it come back in we'd buy it for the girls soooo they ended up getting an early Christmas present: their bouncer castle! Too big to hide coming out of the store they were ecstatic and wanted to come home asap. Friends have one and had told us it was a thing you found only periodically in the stores so we didn't want to wait.....

Definitely nice to not have any snow on the ground!!

Sets up in less than 2 minutes - sweet plug & play!

More fun when Dad is the 'monster' chasing you!

And Tyler practiced her 'karate' kicks LOL

The girls tired themselves out (yeaaa!) and had a blast...today the neighbour kids came over and plan on coming back tomorrow :) Darn rain just needs to stay away!

The rest of the weekend is going to be hanging out at the house, kids playing, Dad has his new favourite game and Mom trying to get back to work...yes I stubbornly refuse to accept defeat. The markets may open at 330am (pre-markets earlier than that) but I am resolved to find a way. How to fit that into the overall swing of things plus home preschooling with a 2 yr in tow remains to be figured out but I am sure there's a way......right? :-P

Wine makes me happppy :-D

2010-11-21T18:53:00.003-10:00

Last blog of the day - Whew, from zero in 10 months to 3 in one day LOL But I found the perfect way to end the day....

Not the most expensive Chateauneuf du Pape I have ever had but given that its been a couple of years since I have seen a bottle much less drank one, I'll giddily, happily take it!! :-D And yes, that's how the bottle looks...not some weird trick of the camera :)

Peace Out!

Kauai Part 2

2010-11-21T18:42:00.002-10:00

Here is the second set of pictures from Kauai along with some taken today.....I managed to scale it down a bit. We took a LOT of pictures :)

Except one day. The reason we do not have many pictures of the boat trip is that both girls, shortly after the family picture was taken, got seriously seasick. Poor kids they couldn't stop till everything was gone and then they both mercifully passed out, one on each of us on different parts of the boat. Ty woke up feeling better, Alex was dry heaving till we got into dock. Of course this couldn't be a 1-2 hour ride, ohhhh nooooooo. This was a sunset 5 HOUR excursion with dinner and drinks.....Want to guess how much dinner or drinks either of us had?!???? Fortunately they felt better almost as soon as they got onto dry land.

Kauai Part 1

2010-11-21T13:01:00.001-10:00

Argh! Ok this slideshow has been done 3 times so if there are misspellings, etc please excuse it! And if anyone knows of a better slideshow than slide.com please let me know!!

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More pictures to come in part two later tonight! :-D

Back again!!

2010-11-20T11:48:00.002-10:00

YES!!! THE BLOG IS BACK! :-D

Yes I am resuming the blog once more :) Since we are not on the mainland it seem the thing to do. Plus posting pictures here is just sooooo much easier!

Speaking of pictures I have a new slideshow below. No it is not of Kauai - that will come hopefully tomorrow. We have a new camera and software so I wanted to try it out first with a smaller number of pictures and work out any bugs....

Pictures!

2010-02-07T12:10:00.003-10:00

Wow it really has been a while. With using Facebook so much I have seriously let the blog go (guilty smile)...Here are some pictures from the past couple months.

For those not on FB the latest news is we think we know where we are headed next: Hawaii! It was quite the surprise - definitely not something we expected :-) But will happily take it! LOL

Halloween 2009

2009-11-01T15:38:00.002-10:00

Yes it has been forever since the last blog - sorry! Oddly it feels like finally we're settled in since we(yeaaa) got our last shipment of household goods during the 2nd week of OCTOBER!! (For those counting, yes, that means 4 months from packout)Sebastian's Mom came the following week which brings us to last week.

I will post more pic's and info over the next day or so but for the moment, enjoy Tyler, Alex and their friend Sierra trick or treating together. Tam and I took the girls while the Dads stayed at the house and handed out candy :) It was a pefect day/night for it and soooo many people got into it - it was great! We had people hanging out outside their homes with other families from the neighbourhood, some with little fire pits going...add the crunch of the leaves and the full moon (and the Starbucks compliments of Tam) and we were rockin' LOL

Tyler's 3rd Birthday

2009-08-30T18:21:00.000-10:00

No Plates, No Household Goods and 2 Hospital Stays

2009-08-09T11:59:00.009-10:00

They took over the office chair on more than one occasion -Grandpa did not mind :)

I had really thought I would blog before now. Really.

I mean everything seemed to be going well for an overseas move...

Bathed & chilling in AL with Dad & Grandma

.....that should have aroused suspicion LOL The flight was great and visiting family in Mobile for a couple weeks was fantastic. We almost melted in the heat (yes I appreciate the irony of leaving the Middle East only to arrive in a place with a 100 plus heat index) but other than that it was great. We got to relax, work out, eat, visit, travel....Even the dogs seemed to like their kennel stay.

Then the messages started...

X5?? Ummm opps seems we cannot ship it to New Orleans like we said....you'll have to find your way to St. Louis and pick it up there.....

License plates? What temporary plates? I guess they don't send vehicles with temporary plates from Israel (they do from Germany) but we still supposedly still had 30 days to register....Till we got to Ft Leavenworth and tried to get through the gate...Yup that resulted in a Military Police escort to the MP station to try to sort it out....went through the same thing the next day (both times with kids & dogs in the truck) because someone didn't like the solution from the day before. So now we have to park it and get a rental car till its sorted out with KS Vehicle Registration who, it turns out, have their own problems with overseas vehicles :-P

Household goods from Israel?? Hmmmm seems someone in Israel sat on 4 families shipments for about a month and one of them was, you guessed it, OURS!! You might get it sometime late August....Seriously, how does this happen to a family TWO PCS moves in a row??!?? Two shipments received, 2 more to go......

Arghh!! BUT we got a place on post that we like! It's old housing but we have lots of space, a playground and community pool in our backyard, and lots of mature trees to help shade from this heat. Its also close to everything which is a big plus too.

Hospitals have a way of putting it all in perspective:

The put-it-all-in-perspective moment came in the first week here when we noticed that Alexandra had a big lump on her neck right below her ear. (So all this is overlapping what I wrote above pretty much) I swear to god it just popped up in an afternoon! Needless to say we were off to the ER and came back with antibiotics later that night. Within a couple of days we could tell it was not getting better so we went to the base Hospital and they immediately referred us to the ER at Mercy Children's Hospital in Kansas City. We were admitted (I stayed with her) and she was on IV antibiotics for 4 days before they released us with more to take at home...She was a real trooper through all of it and they nurses and Dr's loved her; she always had a smile and wave for them when they came - even if it was to poke and prod her LOL Ty was happy to have some Daddy time but definitely wanted Mom & lil sis home after a couple days.

We then went for a follow up visit at the hospital a couple days later and were re-admitted. It had gotten smaller but was not gone. They did an ultrasound and thought there was an infected pocket and wanted to surgically drain it. So we were there another couple nights. Turns out they did not get as much out as they'd hoped but what they did was sent off for testing. They are still thinking a staph infection in her lymph node compounded by it abscessing and infecting some of the surrounding tissue. That's the best guess at the moment because they have had no luck developing cultures - most likely because of all the antibiotics she has been on. If the current med's don't completely take care of it then there is one other possibility; another bacteria that would require different med's. The culture/test should be ready this week. No idea where or how she picked this up - Dr's said it could have been anywhere at any time. Fortunately she has not been sick outside of the lump; no fevers or anything like that...she just lost her appetite (& if you know Alex that is a HUGE warning sign LOL) when the first round of med's weren't working. She is, thankfully, still a happy, walking, babbling, playing 14 month old who can drive her sister crazy sometimes :-D

So that in a nutshell has been our move over the last couple of weeks. I will try to blog a bit more often, but no promises LOL We still have quite a bit of settling in to do - more appointments, 2 more HHG shipments, getting Ty enrolled in activities, catching up on work, etc. But I will try to at least get some pictures up.....OH!! We also lost our camera somewhere along the way so I don't have many pictures yet!! But I will get some up of our time in AL soon.

Made it to Ft. Leavenworth :)

2009-07-19T05:31:00.002-10:00

Just a very quick note to say Hi!! from Ft. Leavenworth :) Its been quite a ride from Israel but that will have to wait till the next posting...I am writing this from the base library as we do not have Internet just quite yet. Hopefully we will have that this Tuesday.

Hope this finds everyone well and if you are in the middle of move as well I hope it is going smoothly :-P

Take care & Will update soon!

Its Done!

2009-06-16T01:13:00.003-10:00

Just a quick post - and probably the last for a bit! :)

We are 3 days out from flying back to the USA ! in the past 3 days we have had the movers pick up our household goods, the dogs get their vet certificates, and today, the walk throughs by 4 different people to complete our exit from this housing (though we are staying here till Friday).

Whew! I think with all the things still on our "to do' list just how short a time we have left here was not really sinking in.....till now :-) This has definitely been one of the most different places we have lived - both good and bad - and we are happy to have experienced it, but we are very much also looking forward to getting back to the States.

Look out Ben Gurion airport - the circus (aka 2 adults, 2 kids under 3, and two 70lb dogs - one of which will be howling) is about to arrive!....

13 Days and Counting...

2009-06-05T18:44:00.005-10:00

We are finally under the 2 week mark! Given that we have not had the movers come and pick up our house stuff it kinda does not seem real ;) (Most of our stuff is already stateside in storage). But this week and next I know will be busy enough - it will be appt time: Alex 1 yr vacc's, the dogs going to the Vet for health certificates, housing walk-throughs, etc.

Meantime we found out we got housing on-post. The worst housing they have, but we have it (crappy tiny row housing with flooding basements). Friends there now refers to it as the 'crack houses'...yeaaaa babay!! I am trying to stay positive that we will get switched out of it (ie something else will open up on base) OR that we will find something off post. I actually found 2 off-post but they were scooped up by the time I got a hold of the property manager. Being overseas right now really sucks LOL

Other than that we are enjoying the sunshine by the pool these days :) Weather here: hot and sunny. Not sure Max & Riley like it so much but the rest of us do!

I can stand by myself now....as long as I don't realize it! Which usually means.....

...I am watching my sister be a ham!! ;-)

Alexandra's 1st Birthday!

2009-05-23T21:43:00.013-10:00

Birthday girl - rested and clean (...does not last long LOL)

Alex's birthday was low-key but fun :-) A day of sunshine, picnics, swimming pools, naps and chocolate cake with ice cream!!!

At the baby pool

Inflatable ring is Ty's - she has a Spiderman thing going on right now :)

Daddy giving rides in the kiddy pool

Tyler & Naomi hanging out

Back at home - chocolate cake, strawberries & ice cream.....

and the same "1" candle that we used for Tyler :)

Liking the candle as much as the cake (it now has bite marks on it)

Hey!! Where's more cake????

Post bath!

More Pictures

2009-05-19T02:21:00.008-10:00

Some pictures from playtime today...

Big sister helping with the scooter

Extra push never hurt LOL

GOTCHA !!!

Alex is after me!

RUN RUN RUN!

All tired after play!

Planning away....

2009-05-19T00:50:00.006-10:00

Well it all seems to finally be coming together. We have a confirmed flight date - 19 June - and the truck has been dropped off and will go on a boat as of Monday (yeaaaaaa!) Hopefully it will only take 4-5 weeks they said to get there.

Flight confirmed was a relief - because S's head office is in Germany there was some confusion as to why we were flying out of Israel LOL Its taken a couple weeks but finally it's done. Now if Delta will just let me upgrade our seats using Skymiles we'd be set!! (At the moment they keep telling me none are available for miles upgrades, only if I want to pay an additional $2000 plus per ticket!) Dogs have been to one vet and now just need to go to one more the week before we fly...even the moving company is coming this week to check out what we are shipping out! (We don't pack out till a week before we leave).

Oddly I am not going to miss the car much. We walk to most places the girls and I - though admittedly it is getting HOT outside. Sebastian can still get a car for any work stuff he needs to do.....If we can get assigned a house (we are on the waitlist) that would be better!

Now its just biding time. I feel more like lets hurry up and go already LOL Really I just want the airport/flight part over with. Its never fun. Kids, dogs, kennels, car seats, looooong overnight flight (please please let my kids actually SLEEP on the plane)....we will both be much happier when we are on the ground driving away from the airport in Atlanta :)

The girls are doing well - potty training is great. Ty has decided its time :) Well, for most things LOL Lets just say we are halfway there! Alex is sporting a nice bruise on her temple from slipping while climbing the stairs yesterday. She is still cruising but not walking and (finally) has the front teeth in....I say finally because the teething was getting crazy. She still has 2 more lumps on her mouth that juds have not broken through yet!

Alex getting busted :)

Hiding under the hat...big hats needed here!

This post will get completed.....lol

2009-05-06T18:25:00.002-10:00

I do not know how many times I started a posting only to have the kids or something else interrupt me....at least 4 or 5 LOL So this morning I am determined to get something up! Even if most of it is just pictures :)

We have been busy getting ready for the upcoming move and for the past 2 weeks my Dad and stepmom have been here visiting. We have been traveling all over and it's been great. The girls were wonderful travellers (always a key factor in if the trip ends well or badly lol) and the weather was beautiful.

We went to a couple of places we had been to before but were well worth going to again: Bet She'an, Dead Sea, Caesarea, etc. and two we had not: Petra and Eilat/Red Sea. They were fantastic!! Wish we could do them again - we meant to snorkle and got to the end of the dock where you get in to see the reef and heard the announcement that a storm was hitting and we would not be allowed in and that everyone currently in had to come out. Bummer!! But we hit a sea park that had an underwater observatory so got to see some of it anyways.

Petra was amazing - more than pictures can show. Our first time to Jordan as well. Took a while to get across the border but it was worth the hassle (we did a tour bus for this trip). Our tour guide and most in Jordan loved the girls - especially Ty. She had more hellos and handshakes, etc than she knew what to do with LOL It was a one day trip - go in the morning and come back in the evening - not enough time to really explore the site in my opinion but still most worthwhile!

And now, since Alex is climbing my leg, here is one of my longest slideshows:

Never a dull moment...

2009-03-30T19:22:00.010-10:00

Wow has it really been that long since my last post?? LOL Yeah I can see it!

We had a wonderful time in Germany! It was soooo good to be back for a visit. The kids and I stayed in Grafenwohr at a friends house (THANK YOU Becky & Trevor and Lori & John!!) while Sebastian was in his course...once it was done he joined us in Graf and we went skiing in Garmisch with friends, hung out in Nurnberg, and just hung out in general. A very welcome relaxing vacation!! Thats the thing about vacations - they can be exciting, entertaining, an adventure - but too often they are NOT relaxing LOL This one was. The best part was getting to visit with good friends and see the kids all together again :-)

Tyler and her friends (P. & D.) got back together like they had not been seperated since last summer...doing loops, playing at Megaplay, hanging out together in the lil rocking chairs in front of the fireplace at the Garmisch resort.... She had soooo much fun. Alex, of course, just tried to follow what all the other kids were doing :)

It was a loooong flight home (stopover in Vienna) and by the time we made it home it was an 18 hour day...and 12 hours after landing Tyler got very very sick. Turned out to be a virus but for a while no one was certain. I think it was complicated by the extra-long travel day. Ahh our first visit via ambulance to an ER with one of the kids. They do have a great Childrens Hospital here but the way :) She is okay now - still coughing but much better. Alex and I both have it as well though without the high fever that Ty was hit with. (This would also be the reason for not posting here sooner!)

While in Germany we got our paperwork (RFO) for leaving this June. So now, back in Israel, we are doing the countdown! We have family visiting in April and between that and some doggie surgery (Riley has lumps that need to be removed) the time is going to fly!! I am looking forward to my Dad & Stepmom coming out - I think they are going to have a great time here :-)

There is more that I could write about our trip but the kids are calling LOL So I will post some pictures here for now....

3 muskateers doing loops

Ty hanging with her peeps D

Alex caught trying to toilet paper the bathroom!

Sitting around the fire (wish I could find those rocking chairs somewhere!)

Ty and P hanging out

Germany here we come :-D

2009-03-05T20:07:00.003-10:00

Time flies - even when you are not having that much fun LOL The past couple weeks have been filled with same old-same old with a few exceptions. There is a "recreation center" here that is owned and run by the American Embassy that we used a great deal when we got here last year. Most times we just called it the pool as there is a larger one for adults & big kids and another little pool that is tarped off from the sun. With the summer and fall heat we made great use of it stopping only when the weather got a bit colder (the pools are not heated).

Well I had spoken with our community office about creating an open-ended playdate each week for people who have small kids that are not going to 'gan'. Gan is the pre-pre-school LOL for 2 year olds. Yes I said 2 year olds. Its not daycare, though it can substitute for it to a point. The upshot is that you do not run into many toddlers at the parks, etc - at least not during the day. I knew I was not the only one with kids not in gan and suggested this as a way for people old and new (esp new) to get to know some of the other Moms around and get hooked into some of their networks...After many months it has finally started :-) Luckily one of the other American moms is willing to come and cover me while we are in Germany (THANKS Justina!!) so we can finally say it's on each week and not confuse people with dates. So far its been great. Moms I met through other ways are coming and it has a great international flavour :)

Sebastian spent last week to Germany, the first week for the Rec Center playgroup, which is probably why I was clenching my jaw a bit...by the time he came home I had full-on skull pounding pain UGHHH and with nursing cannot take anything by Tylenol and Motrin :( Which, of course, timed perfectly for the German virus accompanied Sebastian back with him creating 103 fevers in him and the girls for the weekend and beginning of this week!!! This is why I am posting stuff from last weeks opening playdate now!

In fact I am typing this as quickly as I can (pls excuse typo's :) as I have to coughing and sometimes feverish kids beside me at the moment! But I knew if I did not get this up this morning it would not get up before we leave, much less after.

Oh yeah. There is a picture or two of Sebastian skiing at Mt Hermon this week. Where are the girls and I? At home. Taking care of 2 little ones with fevers. DON'T ask....

I am SOOOOO looking forward to Germany tomorrow :-D Tchuss for now!!

This is soooooo Alex!!

2009-02-22T07:28:00.002-10:00

Normally the girls get along great but Alexandra and Tyler had their first pushing & yelling match on the floor today and Alex was not giving up. LOL Surprise surprise it over NOT a toy...it was over food! Whole grain CHEERIOS!!

The girl likes her food and Ty was not in the sharing mood :) Brought out the reserves and the crisis was averted...for now...hate to see what happens when she can fight for sweets :-P

Sooooo what I did NOT want to see!

2009-02-17T18:50:00.003-10:00

(sigh) Starting to chase each other already! UGH!!

Notice the stairs don't stop where Ty is standing egging her sister on - there is another set going up beside her...AND another set (just as big) at the other end of the downstairs landing.

This is going to be an interesting couple of months!

Mitzpe Ramon

2009-02-16T09:13:00.005-10:00

Well first off, I admit should have brought a second camera with us!! I missed out on taking soooo many pic - esp of the girls. We have a second camera - its tempermental about working LOL but it would have been better than nothing...

We took a trip south into the Negev desert. The trip was planned as a group mountain bike trip to go through the Mitzpe Ramon crater and hit a couple other sites along the way. WOW It was amazing :-) Beautiful countryside and, in Sebastian's words the ride was "epic" on Sunday LOL I did not ride since we had the kids with us and the terrain is definitely NOT charriot-friendly for riding. But we had a great time too. Pretty much everyone how came down did so as a family so there were a lot of other people and kids around :) We ended up going to the Ein Avdat National Park on Saturday which is an oasis at the bottom of a canyon. You can walk the 200 or so meters to the end of it fairly easily. The kids did great!! Ty stayed out of the water (mostly lol) and carried Alex in the bjorn..yeah I got my workout in!

After a sleepless night (thanks Alexandra!)the next day was the Ramon crater. A huge crater created by water. Yup, water. It is amazing. If I recall it is 40 kms long, from 2 to 10 wide and 500 meters deep. Not the Sahara sand like desert - more interesting I think with different kinds of rocks, sands, etc. we dropped off some of the bikers at the bottom in a campground that also had a large Bedouin tent so 6 moms and 11 kids descended on the 2 guys at the tent for tea :-) DELICIOUS!!!

We then walked part of the crater rim by the visitors center where the views are spectacular. The kids were more interested in the rocks on the ground beside us lol ..and decidedly more interested in the playground that we had parked our cars beside :) they played a bit and after grabbign a bite to eat at the center half of us went to the Alpaca farm. Yes you read correctly (yet another example of needing the camera!!!!!) It was an alpaca farm that also had llamas, goats, chickens, donkeys, horses and one camel. Oh and black & white sheepherding dogs that
were earning their keep as llamas would follow us looking for the little bags of food they knew we had :-P Ahhh it was fun. By the time we were done the riders were back at the hotel and we it was hometime. Great weekend!

Have you seen Benjamin Button yet??

2009-02-08T06:48:00.005-10:00

MUCH cuter than Benjamin Button!!

If you have not check it out - its great! Long, but great:)

We have been enjoying the sunshine here lately. I keep hearing from those who have been here longer than us that we have not had a winter here this year. Usually its colder with more wind & rain. Suits me just fine! Due to the lack of rain they have implemented water restrictions which suc ks and hopefully will not kill our lawn! But its been in the 60's and 70's with the occasional chilly wind so we have been taking advantage of it as much as possible. The sun still sets too early but during the day hitting the parks and pier are fun and (no selfish motivation here) it seems to tired Ty and Alex out as well LOL

Lucky me I found out that I seem to have low blood pressure. According to my health practioner my caffine addiction and love of salty foods (popcorn & pretzels anyone?) are my friends :) Yeaaaaaa!! Gotta love that! I had been getting really dizzy - the I-feel-drunk-room-moving kind that everyone gets once in a while when you move too quickly. For me it was happening a lot and, so far, thats been the answer. They did a panel of tests and I will know if there is anything else in a week or two. In the meantime I am enjoying my guilt-free coffee as I type this to you!

Cannot believe it is February already. I am not complaining - I am looking forward to Germany in March but there are times when it seems like time is as slow as molassas and other times I realize how fast it goes by. As Lennon says "Life is what happens while you are making other plans." How true.

Speaking of time flying: The girls are growing like crazy. Alex is a bottomless pit with 2 hollow legs. The girl can EAT and so far likes everyyything! Kinda scary since at the 6 month visit she was 50-60 percentile for height and 90 for weight. The medical staff loved it. Sebastian and I joke that we need to get them into sports at a young age LOL This makes up for Ty who has is not terribly interested in eating. Something I think all 2-3 year olds get into at some point of another. She actually eats pretty healthy and would rather eat more small meals on the fly than sitdown dinners.

Alexandra watches Ty like a hawk, wanting to do whatever she does. I knew that was going to happen, just never thought it would happen so soon! Heaven help me Alex has also figured out how to climb the 2 stairs out of the sunken family room...Yeah so much for keeping her contained (sigh) 8 months....I thought I had more time! Ty's favourite saying currently is "sorry dude" which comes out 'Shorry-dude' (its the Cali in her) and I-checkin-da-baby" like its all one word...and a new facination with "pooh-bears" and Dora (thanks Dad/Di:-P)...actually I think she likes the sidekick monkey, Boots, most. She got a new nightlight for Christmas - and it cannot have the red, pink or blue light on it must be GREEN to go to sleep with LOL Ahhh you wonder what goes on in their little heads with no-so-little memories and requests (she somehow remembers that it was Dad who taught her to 'swim' in the pool last summer..not Mom. Informed me of this tonight she did and nothing I said changed her mind. Funny thing is, she is right!)

Tomorrow is election day here and thus a holiday for Israeli's. It will be interesting to see who end up winning. Still no truce signed and there are still the occasional rockets launched into Israel & the IDF response back at them..it will be interesting to see what happens after tomorrow. Will keep ya posted!

C'est Moi!

2009-01-25T09:51:00.010-10:00

Oui, c'est MOI! I am, how you say? Tres coool :-)

Sooooo we were wondering how long Tyler's hair was if it was straight. So I straightened it one day (couldn't believe she sat for it) and, well, we are not doing that again LOL She looks waaaay too much older this way!

She was getting tired of Mom taking pictures :-P

Pretty in pink :-)

So Sebastian is over his latest bout of food poisoning and there is not much new on this end. OH! Except we have booked a trip for Germany in March. Sebastian has a course he is going to so we are piggy backing onto that for an extra week. Looking forward to getting to see the Harrell's and Germany one last time...given that we are still set to leave this June, I am pretty sure it will be the last time! (Hey Kelly R. if you're reading this let me know if you are still going to be around as well ;-D....)

Other than that it's been pretty much the same. One sucky thing - I had been doing a Mommy & Me playgroup with the girls. It was mostly for Ty but since I don't have anyone to watch Alex during the day I was taking her too (something I had cleared with them prior to ever going). That had worked since December but apparently no more. While Alex is getting bigger & moving more it has been manageable. I guess the school people had a change of heart. They, of course, try to make it sounds like its a concern for Ty's benefit but its oddly coincidental that once the room is packed and there are a couple kids on the wait list, this suddenly becomes an issue. Not impressed but what are you going to do, eh? Soooo now to find another outlet.

I may be volunteering to host a weekly playgroup group LOL but I'll let you know how that pans out. I have a location, now its just seeing who wants to/is available, days times...ahhh yes. This should be interesting! What's the saying about one door closes another one opens? ;-) Or should I be thinking about Pandora's Box?!?

Food poisoning & Pizza

2009-01-16T03:30:00.003-10:00

Well Sebastian has another case of food poisoning. This is the 3rd time while here (I have had it once); and it is definitely the worst of the three. I keep telling him to keep drinking water and to stick to broth/clear soups till it's over.

Apparently he is at the point of feeling hungry occassionally but is not over the hill yet (I can relate, it really suucks to be at that point)...but will my darling husband listen to me? No. What does he crave? His ever-loving PIZZA. With anchovies. UGHHHHHHH! For all that is holy that is just not natural. He just laughs and says something about eating pizza on his deathbed...

I'm telling ya it's....just....not...normal LOL :)

Makes sense - but toooo surreal

2009-01-13T20:09:00.002-10:00

Okay I was emailed a link to an Israeli website that gives you pointers on what to do if you are in rocket/mortar attack, a missle attack, a terrorist attack... WOW Yeah no one linked us up with this site when we were making our decision to come here :)

Think about it. A population who has been undergoing this for so long that they have a website with instructions on what to do "if"....Meanwhile our (north american) sites tell you what to do if you get a flat!

You have to see this yourselves

http://www.oref.org.il/315-en/PAKAR.aspx

Alex and Tyler.....

2009-01-05T06:58:00.005-10:00

Ahhhh it's the little things that makes life interesting, isn't it?

When Ty wants Dad's attention when he's busy (or to call him to dinner) he is "Sass-chen"

Alex has been nicknamed "Baby Terminator" because

1) she commando crawls dragging herself along like one did in the movies and,

2) as the movie says, "(s)he will NOT stop...they never stop!!!" LMAO Off after whatever Tyler currently has in her hands or any visable electrical cords. I took her away from the Wii the other day, placed her 6 feet away and put Ty's purple couch in front of it to hide it.....she immediately turned around and dragged herself across the carpet, AROUND the couch and back to the Wii. (sighs) Yeah and she only 7 months old. Her alternate nicknames? Pudge and Stickyfingers

Max will howl when either child is crying...and will NOT stop until the crying stops....and yes he will do it from OUTSIDE the front door too.

Ty has reached the stubborn independent stage: if she wants to do it herself and you do it for her she will undo it just so she can do it herself....its alllllways "Ty's turn"

Little girls like the rain and mud....until their feet sink and they cannot lift their shoes out! Then Mom's help is okay :-P

Two and a half year olds can suddenly become allergic to bathtime....

When things go well Tyler likes to give 'knuckles'...when they don't she'll lift her hands up and say 'oh gawd dude'...LOL those words have come from our mouths, but never in that phrase/order!

What's yours is mine sister!!

Update post-Gaza invasion

2009-01-05T01:29:00.004-10:00

Ok so the pictures are up and onto the next question I get emails on: how is the war affecting us. So far, believe it or not, IF you did not watch the news you wouldn't know there's a war an hour away from here. (Ok or listen to people around you talking) Yes, they have been launching shells/rockets up north and they are reaching further than they ever have before - but still not enough to reach Tel Aviv much less us. They seem to have been much more focused on hitting another city, Be'er Sheva, now that they can.

That said it did impact our travels with Sebastian's parents. We'd thought about going south and were not as concerned about rockets as much as sympathizers who may resort to physical attacks (stabbings, rocks thrown thru car windows for example) or, worse, suicide bombers. While there have been no suicide bombings yet there have been some incidents here and there so we are just trying to be careful. If it were just Sebastian and I it would be one thing but with little ones it becomes a different matter. Some shit you just never want yout kids to experience/see. So we have done more day outings & are staying north at the moment.

We have a variety of news sources on satellite and online and its been interesting following who shows what and interviews who. At first we wondered if this would be over quickly once the air strikes had hit their targets but with the ground invasion kicking off methinks this will be going on for a while. There is talk about the Israelis getting in and out on the ground as quickly as possible but to accomplish their end goal - taking out Hamas' infrastructure so they cannot launch rockets & shells (if not Hamas themselves) - well no one I have heard has suggested a quick means to do that soooooo I think this will be going of for a while. If other Middle Eastern players get involved then who knows.... Evacuation is a possibility (happened in the 2006 war with Lebanon) but how that would be decided I do not know. It isn't happening right now so we just go about our day and keep an eye on whats happening south of us here.

Ok - 'nuff for now. For anyone on the other side of the pond interested in online news sources you may want to check out these too:

http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.jpost.com/
www.bbc.co.uk/

The first 2 are Israeli and are in English (as is Aljazeera - interesting to see what they are saying; just google them)....BBC has more indepth coverage typically than CNN or Fox.

hugs to all!!

Past month in pictures

2009-01-04T19:25:00.009-10:00

Hi All!

I have some pictures that never made it up so I figured while I was trying to update the blog I'd put them up here.....somehow the setting ended up on 'big' pictures but there are enough of them that I am not re-uploading them LOL Enjoy!

Picture below is from Christmas party at ambassador's house....

Girls hanging out together

I have TOES!

Soooo tired!

YAHH! We like this one!!

More to come another time ...... have a great day!

Merry Christmas!!

2008-12-24T05:15:00.003-10:00

Wow it is amazing that it is Christmas eve already.. This year flew by! With a new baby and a big move I think made it seem to go by even faster :-) Still mindboggling that we are this close to 2009

This will be short blog today. I have been lax - sorry! But it has been busy. We had Sebastian's offcie Christmas/Hanukkah party here the day after his parents arrived (last week) which is when we took the picture above. Ty was not real thrilled to sit for a picture which is unlike her...but with so many people around and so many things going on - well lets just say it was the end of the day and she was DONE :-)

We have not done a whole lot of travelling so far. We squeezed in going to Caesarea two days ago when the wind literally almost blew us over!! Casaerea is an old roman port by the sea and we were covered with salt & sand by the time things were done. It was a sign of things to come. The weather has not been great - windy, storming and rainy the last couple days (we found Alex does NOT like thunderstorms at night). So we are looking forward to the sun returning to do some day trips..

Making things more interesting, Sebastian and Ty have caught a cold/flu bug and I am not sure if I have that or an allergic reaction. For those that know me well, the 'godfather' voice is back and I feel like I swallowed razor blades! Ugh! Not quite what we wanted right before Christmas but what can you do? LOL Here's hoping the sore throats, etc disappear asap! (& that Alex and the in-laws do not get sick!!)

On that note I am off to start Christmas eve dinner.....tomorrow, weather (and health)permitting, we are off to have Christmas lunch at the Sea of Galilee so I will not be on for a couple days.....

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!

When the Cats Away the Mice.....

2008-12-08T02:51:00.004-10:00

....find the diaper creme and think it's skin lotion!!! LOL I was upstairs nursing Alex thinking Ty was still asleep in bed..I came downstairs and found that she was definitely NOT asleep anymore!! And quite proud of herself as well! Ahhhh well -she will have very moisturized skin, right?! :-)

Guess who likes to stand??

2008-12-07T03:55:00.000-10:00

Sighs...Yes that is our 6 1/2 month old little chub legs standing already......Actually from this angle you cannot appreciate HOW chubby her lil thighs are :-) Skype me and I'll show ya!

Unlike her sister, Alex decided the 6th month would be a good time to become proficient at commando crawling and standing! Not quite what Mom wanted but as long as she cannot get past the stairs in the family room I am safe (not sure how long that is going to last).....

Missed the shot of her hands grabbing that bottom stair :) This is what happens when we leave the room for a moment and don't take her with us. Stubborn!!! Where in the world does she get that?!?! hahaha And yes that is marble tiled floors - one reason I was wishing she would take the slow route to crawling/walking. The rosy cheeks are not from the sun - she is teething though none have popped through yet!

All this movement has changed things haha Tyler is interacting with her more -often to 'save' something that is hers. Not surprisingly sharing changes from day to day with what is 'Ty's" and what can be shared.

Looking so sweet - till she lets loose her "terradactyl" screech...the one she uses when she wants your attention. Trust me - it works!! Tyler does not appreciate it and sometimes it results in the scream wars.....I thought that wasn't to start till they hit their teens?? LOL

You know you are a Dad when....

2008-12-07T03:30:00.004-10:00

When your "Crackberry" - as your wife calls it - used to look all professional.........

...till your daughter gets a hold of it and now it looks like this......

Just so Daddy remembers her at work LMAO She did this to Sebastian's blackberry one night when we were out for dinner!

Dead Sea, En Gedi & Masada

2008-12-01T03:56:00.002-10:00

Well Sebastian took some time off this Thanksgiving week and we really packed it in!!! First we hit the Dead Sea where you will also find En Gedi - a desert oasis. We also went to the fortress Masada, high up on the cliffs facing the Sea and Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found...

The kids were troopers - especially Ty. She really enjoyed En Gedi (as did we all) and the animals. But the next day at Masada I think she'd hit her limit for walking and site-seeing :-) Wednesday we went back to the house to take a quick break and re-pack for the Galilee trip.

Masada was impressive. I ended up carrying Tyler quite a bit (she had exhaustion and mama-citis at the same time) so missed a chunk so I am looking forward to our next outing there where I may have another opportunity to see it. (We live close enough that we can, and have, done it as a day trip) Qumran was not quite what I was expecting. Seeing the cave from a distance was sort of anti-climatic...other sites on the trip more than make up for it though!!

Alex is doing the inchworm crawl and wanting big Sisters stuff which is making things interesting LOL We ended up staying at the Youth Hostel of all places. It was fantastic. If any of you make it here (or are here) and need hotels DO check these places out. They are not the small dorm-room crappy types of things. The ones we have seen and stayed at are newer and with kids it works out great!! A lot less expensive too!! Which is saying alot give what they charge in Israel for hotel rooms (bloody ridiculous and for not much). The only bad thing if you can call it that is I usually push the beds together & against a wall so me and the kids sleep in one bed and Daddy lucks out with a bed of his own! (Sigh) Not fair, but with Alex still wanting to eat at night its the easiest way!

Next blog is Galilee...

Sea of Galilee & Area

2008-11-30T19:40:00.002-10:00

On our way to the Sea of Galilee we stopped at a couple places. Mount of the Beatitudes was first. Also called the temple on the mount its known as the site where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven...."

The Catholic church there is run by Franciscan nuns - one of which came up to Ty as she ran to me in a shy moment. lol But she got a BIG smile from Alex! And slowly a little one from Ty!

Ty sees the nun coming and comes straight back!

"Megiddo is the jewel in the crown of biblical archaeology. Strategically perched above the most important land route in the ancient Near East, the city dominated international traffic for over 6,000 years — from ca. 7,000 B.C.E. through to biblical times. As civilizations came and went, succeeding settlements at ancient Megiddo were built on the ruins of their predecessors... Megiddo is the only site in Israel mentioned by every great power in the ancient Near East. In the New Testament it appears as Armageddon (a Greek corruption of the Hebrew Har [=Mount] Megiddo), location of the millennial battle between the forces of good and evil. "

http://megiddo.tau.ac.il/introduction.html

Then we made it to Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee. Neat little town - more of a destination because of whats around than the town itself. We stayed at a Youth Hostel again. Gorgeous location!! Up on the hillside the views were spectacular as you can see.

The next day we drove north intending to go to two nature preserves that are supposed to be spectacular but the rains set in so we ended up going to a town called Metulla - right on the border with Lebanon - and had the most fantastic meal :) While waiting for the restaurant to open we walked around and found, I kid you not, CANADA PLACE! LMAO Seriously!! In northern Israel, right beside Lebanon there is a town that has a huuuuge rec center called Canada Place. I just had to take a couple pictures of it! It has a pool, shooting range, play areas, etc.

After lunch we headed back to Galilee taking the scenic route going through the Golan Heights area.....OH!! and hit Bet She'an as well. I have not downloaded the pictures from that yet LOL so that will have to be another blog :) That place is amazing!

Bad part about all this? We have hit most places that are on our 'tourist' map LOL Fortunately many are ones you can go to again and again (esp if you have kids distracting you)....

Okay time to go - hope all had a great Thanksgiving! I will try to post more over the next couple days :)

Still here......lol

2008-11-30T19:23:00.002-10:00

Hello all! Its been a while and usually that means travel :-) This time is no exception! Sebastian took this week off and we travelled through the Dead Sea area and then the Sea of Galilee and any sites in and around them. Israel is not that big so to cover a lot is rather easy to do! In fact we did this while still coming home on Wednesday to repack lol.

I had a 30+ picture slideshow mostly done yesterday and Explorer crapped out on me so I am back to square one. We took lots of pictures so I will try to get at least the Dead Sea part up today!

Random moments....

2008-11-12T03:02:00.011-10:00

Ahhh being a Mom......pic above Sebastian took in one of my more faaaabulous moments LOL

Did ya know that peas are funny??

Tyler & Alex dressed up to go pick up Dad from the airport (coming back from Ramstein)

Awww sisterly love!

Mooooom!!! You weren't supposed to see that LOL

But who could resist this face?!?!

Helping Mom at the computer

Its been busy but not with anything terribly exciting. I am throwing this up quickly while waiting for the Domino's dude (lol yes we get Domino's) because my stove crapped out and I am waiting for them to come fix it tomorrow (keeping fingers crossed). Its gas stove and the ignitor would not turn off last night - just kept clinking and firing away so off went the gas and now we wait. Cannot say I am that upset that I can't cook tonight. Sebastian is out for dinner as his office has people in town so I figure its karma's way of evening it out :-) lol Now had I only thought to pick up coooold beer I'd be set!

Halloween!

2008-11-02T03:37:00.013-10:00

Hello all ! Sorry for the delay in getting these pictures up. I managed to contract food poisoning late last week and it pretty much took me out this weekend. Never even made it out Halloween night. Sebastian and one of his co-worker friends, Ken, took the girls out for the map-led halloween run. The community person at the Embassy arranged it. You paid in advance got a map of which houses you could go to, time to start/finish, and - with security patrols around - you went trick or treating :-) Definitely a different way of doing it. Tyler came home happily with a small bag of candy so it was a big success for her. Alex well she fell asleep and came home sleeping and warm in her costume...

With no further ado, here is more of the ladybug and the bumblebee

Our sweet lil Bumble Bee!!

Ty's wings were a bit more flexible than Alex's LOL but they still fit in the stroller (Ty is focusing on her candy bag)

Alex wasn't interested in sitting for long and Ken was happy to let the little bug out for a bit.. (Thanks Ken!!!)

Okay Dad - less camera and more candy!!! LETS ROLL! :-)

Neighborhood Part 2

2008-10-25T01:11:00.010-10:00

Ask and ye shall receive LOL Here is what the road/sidewalk looks like normally.....

The only gaps between the cars are driveways.. This picture makes it look like there is still pretty good space on the road to drive but in many spots you cannot get 2 cars to pass each other - sooooooo you hope for a driveway! haha

Below is how many cars are parked in this neighborhood LOL (And malls, movie theaters, parks, etc) Owning a truck here is handy!! Do people get ticked here? Not very often. The road that runs in front of Sebastian's office is crrraazzzy - double parked, triple parked, you name it - and no one does anything about it (other than honking and cursing lol). The only explanation that I have been given is that the police are more concerned with terrorism issues to be worried about parking....between that and the 'rules are just suggestions' part of this culture, well you get the idea.

The Neighborhood

2008-10-23T18:47:00.013-10:00

After trying to describe it I thought a few pictures would help....these ae taken during the day so there are fewer cars parked along the street (or should I say on the sidewalk lol seriously!)...and less, ahem, debris on the sidewalks. That debris can be landscaping garbage (grass, tree clippings, etc) that get thrown into piles (i.e. no bags) on the sidewalks for Friday pick up and dog poop. Yep sad to say but it seems no one cleans up after their dogs practically, even though there are bags at most green areas in the neighborhood. It can make walking with the girls difficult at times. I guess since they have street cleaners that come through every so often they figure they can.....

Walking along a street close to here this is what you see on the left & right. I took both to give an idea of the walls around the houses I have been talking about. The one on the right gives you an idea of how high most of them are...

And this is a picture of the construction across the street. It is taken from our second story and you can see the outer wall on the ground - gives you an idea of how big it is!! And yes, they start work early in the morning (and our bedroom faces into it).

We have a couple smaller parks around us as well. This is a one...There are a bigger ones but further away that we go to as well, especially now that the weather is cooling off a bit! This is one thing this area did well - there are quite a few parks around.

No that is not one of my dogs...don't know where it came from - the owner was not around. That happens frequently - you just hope they are friendly! I got chased coming back from a gym - thank goodness the girls weren't with me. I ignored it and luckily it finally stopped and took off. Another reason not to walk around with your IPOD on LOL - it will however get your heartrate up when you finally see it coming!

The following were taken 2 nights ago in 'downtown' Herzliya Pituah when we went to Moses restaurant for dinner and the Coffee Bean for frap's afterwards. These are 2 of our favourite places!!! Lucky for us they are side by side in an area big enough to keep Ty entertained as well LOL Actually there is a kick-ass coffee/frap/pastry place called Roladin that is even better than the Bean but thats another story. Nights are great here - cool & breezy.

Parting shot of Alex since she is not in any other photos :-)

Time to go make breakfast for Tyler. I have more pictures so will post another blog hopefully later today!

The Dead Sea

2008-10-12T02:57:00.005-10:00

Well we finally got our car and wasted no time getting out for a bit! We did a day trip to the Dead Sea on Saturday, which is Sabbath here, so there was next to no traffic which was great,.....We had never been there before and with the exception of a slight detour into the West Bank (opps!!) we made it there pretty quickly and spent the day there checking it out.

Weather was beautiful and the tour buses were plentiful LOL When you walk up to the sea you notice that the sand turns to white at the waterline...keeping your shoes on is a MUST as the hardened salt is not something you want to walk barefoot on. Just as bad is the taste! I was holding Tyler where she decided to splash some water and it got in my mouth. Let me tell you I have had salt water before but nothing as awful as this!! The salt concentration is insane!! It is also oily which I hadn't anticipated. Making sure there is a place to shower afterwards is also a MUST unless you bring water with you to douse yourself with :-)

Other than that we are still unpacking stuff but, thankfully, are almost done. We took most of Thursday off from unpacking as it was Yom Kippur here. That day no one drives (it's not allowed) which means everyone takes their bikes and strollers out. We did the same :) Packed the kids up into the Charriot and took off on our bikes riding all over Herzliya, hit the pool, then continued on riding to a couple parks and then home. It was great but eerily strange. We crossed the overpass and it felt like a scene from I Am Legend - looooong highway leading to Tel Aviv and not a soul on it! It was wonderful to explore by bike and not to have to deal with the traffic - we would love it if there were more "no drive" days!!

Here are some pic's

Ice cream stop once we get there.....

Continuing our drive around the sea you see the caves in the cliffs beside you. Hopefully one time we will be able to leave the kids with a sitter and get to explore them. We also drove past the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. There's a museum there that we didn't get to check out this time...hopefully next!

Then we found a nice quiet spot to try the water...yes its true you DO float :) ty wasn't so sure about it to start with but as long as she had one of us to hang onto it was okay. Balancing is easy as long as you don't try to stand! Just need to bob like a cork!!

Look Ma!! No hands or feet LOL

Ty checking herself out post-swim

Yup you've seen it here...golden arches at the Dead Sea! (The building/hotel in behind is a Crowne Plaza)

I picked up some of the famous black body/skin mud and brought it back to the house with me...I'll let you know how that goes LOL

HAPPY DAYS!!!!

2008-10-03T00:55:00.003-10:00

YEAAAAAAAAA !!!!! :-)

We have an appointment to get our household goods!! Next Tuesday morning to be exact!! FINALLY we will have the girls' toys, strollers, baby tub, high chair, plastic bowls, cups, plates....kitchen >>>OMG I will have my pots, pans and bakeware!!!LMAO Never did I ever think I would be so happy to see kitchen stuff :) Nevermind our TV, bikes, dog beds, etc.....

Yup next Tuesday will be a very happy but busy day!! Now if we can just find our SUV we will be set !

My days are still filled with the kids mostly (feeding, cleaning up after kids and dogs - gawd its groundhog day haha) The stock market as most of you know has been tanking and between that, the volatility, and the kids keeping me from watching it uninterrupted, I have not been doing much in it.

The yard is now done (was seriously overgrown when we got here and has not gotten better on its own!) which will be nice to enjoy now that the temp has dropped to the 70's & 80's. Just need some flowers which we have to wait for the truck to get...and Lisa..my dear sister...how I wish I could teleport her here so she could help with the landscaping! Or pot-scaping I guess I should call it as there are empty pots everywhere - its just a matter of figuring out what to plant in them! I know there must be some great smelling flowers for this area - just a matter of figuring out which!

Bathrooms....

2008-09-23T20:51:00.004-10:00

Ok - HOW can I live here a month and NOT know how many bathrooms we have?? (Yes one is in the basement and it never gets used...but sadly thats not the one I forgot about)

We have FIVE yes FIVE bathrooms!! Four of them with showers or tubs....gawd that is too many bathrooms!

I am looooosing my mind.....LOL

Moments in Israel....

2008-09-23T02:37:00.012-10:00

Checking out the flowers in the backyard in the morning....

Dang - she found the chocolate!

Playing with the hose takes care of the chocolate!

While Alex chills

Later that day when Dad makes it home we head to the beach...

and this is the view Ty has from her swing!

Sad thing is she won't remember this all so I am trying to

remember to bring the camera for lots of pictures!

Update!

2008-09-19T02:33:00.015-10:00

Were does one begin? This will be the shot-gun effect for blogging today :-)

We are still without our household goods and X5. We hear that the HHG should be here on/around the 24 (and still has customs after that I believe), and the X5? Your guess is as good as mine! But we have been making due. The kids have been keeping me busy..Someone said that having one child is having one...having two is like having 10LOL I now see their point!

Alex is now rolling both ways (back to front and front to back) and inching forward with her toes! In the house of stairs I was really hoping she was going to take a while for her to get moving. She also likes to be upright (here's wishing we had our stuff already) so i know she will enjoy her bumbo chair, etc once its here. Ty still like having a lilttle sister LOL and gives kisses, hugs and blankets to Alex...till I am feeding her and then Ty tells me "Baby sit" while patting her swing or a blanket on the ground. Tyler is talking quite a bit and has hit the independent 2's. (Well independent till someone else talks to her - then she is attached to my legs) Both are growing like crazy and keep me running!

August was hot but you can start to feel it cooling off a bit now, especially in the mornings and evenings..not cooling off like it does in Germany but it is cooler. Like 28 C instead of 34 C during the day. In other words thank god for air conditioning!

Sebastian seems to be settling into his new position and is enjoying it. It keeps him really busy, making the time fly by, and is quite interesting being in and working with people from such a different culture. He doesn't travel a great deal and his office is actually walking distance from him which is great.

Ahhh the culture :-) There are definitely differences here - some we read up on before we came and others we have been introduced to. Here are some interesting ones:

Overall rule: All laws and rules are, well, strong suggestions that don't really need to be followed, much less followed at all times :-)

Driving: This can make driving interesting to say the least. Watch out for people on scooters (who I swear have a death wish as they weave in and out of traffic) but also for those lovely souls who think one way street sign does not apply to them! Honking is normal so don't be shocked or offended, as is being cut off. Parking?? OMG! Parking in streets, parking on curbs (sometimes half the car sometimes the whole car), double parked, triple parked is not unusual...apparently the lines on the ground are, again, just suggestions. You know - guidelines to follow or not depending on ones mood (OK lot of that has to do with the sheer numbers of cars here too!)

Lines: Cutting into line is not a surprise...nor is getting pushy :-) Waiting patiently is for suckers apparently

Dress code is officially casual! They have the designer names here but you won't, for example, be out of place in khakis and a polo shirt at a 5 star restaurant.

Hebrew has to be the most different, and difficult, language I have heard! Unlike being in Europe, nothing about it sounds or looks familiar.....makes grocery shopping an interesting experience LOL I will take some pictures and post them soon. Still it is kind of cool when you realize you are listening to a language that is over 2000 years old! Most people in this part of Israel do speak English too.

Our house is made of concrete and is walled around the yard. This is true of all the houses in this area. There are lots of mature trees which softens things a bit but I do miss seeing people in their yards - makes it a bit harder to meet the neighbors LOL But we are not far from things - the beach, shopping and parks are walking distance so I think the location is fantastic!! I'd much rather live here than in Tel Aviv proper...if we did not have dogs and kids I might feel differently but since we do this works out much better!

Ok -'nuff for now. Here are some pictures!

Let the education begin LOL

Ty at the park - it is a beautiful park thats not too far away. Wish I had more pictures of it but my memory card was full!

Gecko's are NOT cute

2008-09-19T02:33:00.003-10:00

Okay - the only Gecko I ever wanted in my home (maybe) was from Geico.....this unwelcome critter decided to park itself at our ceiling!!! It was small - 4 inches from tip to tail - which just made it that much faster - UGHHHHHHHH!!

It has been re-assigned to outdoor quarters where it can eat bugs to its hearts content!! I'll take spiders anyday!!

Greetings from Herzliya!

2008-09-04T20:01:00.010-10:00

Well after about 3 weeks we finally are mostly settled in!! We are living in a smaller suburb just north of Tel Aviv called Herzliya Pituah. Its definitely been a bit of a haul :-)

It took till two days ago before we had Internet of our own and cable too so sorry for the posting delays! The flight in went smoothly which was greatly appreciated by Sebastian and I given the day before was spent fighting with the contractor transportation company about sending out X5 to Israel. Moving to new lands is always interesting.....

* telephone didn't work in the house and we think it is the line...turns out to be the phone! (this takes 10 days as you cannot simply call up the phone company - the listings are all in Hebrew :-)

* smaller express shipment comes just fine but the household goods (HHG)is still in Grafenwohr a MONTH later; they claim they didn't know where to ship it. Funny the same moving company picked up both shipments on the same day! Gotta luv those contractors!

* HHG is now being expedited and is expected at the end of this month - now we need the port workers to stop their strike!

* stuff that was supposed to be in the express shipment for the kids, is somehow, hopefully, sitting in the HHG for Israel

* still don't have the X5 yet. Not sure where it is really...Know others for whom, once it got here, it sat in customs for up to a month. Better than Jerusalem though - one person I know waited 2.5 months!

* food costs about double here for most items that are not produce (which are still more expensive)..for example; Pedigree dog food 9 lb bag is now $19; what we would call mac & cheese is $2.50, and regular dried pasta can range up to $4 a box! We will be losing weight here and Ty can not longer share with Max & Riley LOL

Lots of other little quirky things that I am sure will come out in future posts! For the time being I just wanted to say Hi to all and get some photos up. OH! And Ty celebrated her 2nd birthday here - not many pics I am ashamed to say but it was fun. We hit Tel Aviv, Jaffa and a great mall close by where she picked out her elephant couch. The next day we took her to the beach :-)

Okay gotta run..here are some pictures for now! Miss you all!!

Ty's first archaeological site

Hey what do you expect - we just moved (and it IS a food group for my Daddy!)

Ty at the beach

The girls on Ty's new elephant couch

But Alex prefers her swing - something that did make it here!!

Grafenwohr Volksfest!

2008-08-13T09:17:00.000-10:00

Closer to flight day....

2008-08-01T22:07:00.007-10:00

At Garmisch

Hi All!

Well we are that much closer to flying out. Out flight date has changed a couple of times but it is currently August 15th. We'll see if that changes. We have not only Alex regular passport but all of our diplomatic passports as well now so with the exception of a bit more paperwork (aka visas), and other errands (ship car, dogs paperwork, etc) we are pretty much set. Movers came 2 days ago for the Israel stuff and this coming Thursday for the stuff that is going into storage (which is the rest of the house LOL).

As if there was not enogh things to do we also bought an SUV :-) It was something we had been considering for a long time but thought we'd hold out till we got to the USA. funny how when you are not looking for something is when you find it! It was a great deal and after our last trip to Garmisch , well Ty's legs were almost resting on the shoulders of Sebastian's seat - it was time for a change!! LOL Now we can get kids, car seats and dogs, bikes, etc into the car.

Our 2004 BMW X5

Nice clean roomy and Ty likes the panaramic roof window too...nevermind sitting so high that she can see better out the side window and, best of all, LEG ROOM!

Tyler and Alex are doing great given the chaos. Lots of appointments and the house gradually keeps disapppearing - Alex had a case of overload when then movers ame. Too much noise and action. Ty was over at a friends house and didn't seem to mind when she came back and so much was gone. Hopefully she will be okay with it when the rest goes next week!

She is soooooooo looking like a little girl these days!

Alexandra had her 2 month visit - all went well and she is an alert, happy 13.5 pounder :-)

Thats all for now - still need to hit the mail room and send more stuff off. I will try to get at least another post in before we go. Hugs to all!

Update

2008-07-17T05:29:00.002-10:00

Well it has been a busy couple of weeks! Sebastian has been in Tel Aviv for the past couple of weeks shadowing the guy he is replacing and getting some other things done on his end...We finalllly got the orders late last week so I have been running around making arrangements on this end. Originally we thought we would be there by the end of this month but that is not going to happen LOL so it is looking like the 2nd week of August.

Aside from orders I was relieved to find out that Alex's passport is finally in and we should get it next week hopefully here in Graf. I don't have any new pictures of the pudgling since Sebastian took the camera with him!!! I will take some pictures once he is back of the kids - I cannot beleive how Alex has grown. When she was 6 weeks she weighed 12 POUNDS..yes I said 12 - thats not a typo!!! I weighed her last night again (now about 7 weeks) and we are at 13 pounds...the girl does not miss any of her 15 meals a day LOL but I am still surprised. Tyler was a big girl too, but I don't remember her growing out of so many outfits by 6/7 weeks!

That pretty much has been it for the past couple weeks - PCS'ing with 2 kids and 2 dogs takes over your life :-) Will try to update again soon!

BED HEAD!

2008-06-23T10:18:00.003-10:00

We took this picture last week and I just had to put it up...Tyler was born with a lot of hair - but Alex has her beat! I don't recall Ty having bed head at 4 weeks old LOL

June Pictures!

2008-06-18T22:23:00.001-10:00

June Countdown to Israel

2008-06-18T20:18:00.004-10:00

Well its been a while since my last blog. Aside from some post-op complications (infection, etc) and taking care of a toddler and newborn we had one last factor come in and create more work for us: PCS Move this July!! LOL

Okay - this is not a complete surprise for us. We knew it was supposed to be happening but it wasn't till right before Alex was born that we were more certain that the plans for us were not going to change...now we have an RFO so I can finally say with certainty that we are moving this summer to Israel for a year. Yup, you read that correctly we are moving to Israel :-) Tel Aviv to be more specific. We are looking forward to it - there is so much there to see/experience even though there are places you obviously still cannot go to. Supposedly we will be living close to a beach and I can handle that NO PROBLEM!! haha

It does however make for interesting times now...All the joys of a PCS move to a foreign country AND we need the passport Alex, certificates for the dogs, car shipping (we have already sold the other car and are now down to one), etc. Given that the housing is or can be furnished we are figuring out what is coming and what is staying in storage, etc.

Sebastian will be headed there at the beginning of July for a couple of weeks while we wait on the passport and actual orders. Hopefully it all comes quickly that we will all be there together by the end of July. Time is flying!!

Alex and I are doing well. This recovery did not go as smoothly as when I had Ty (never had a problem post-op after Ty's birth).... Thankfully, everything seems to have gone back on track (yeah infection, etc is NOT something I want to be dealing with while moving LOL).

Alexandra had her first wellness appointment and is already growing like a weed! She was 8.9 lbs when born, went down to 8.3 and is now up at 9.2 :-) She likes to eat!! She also likes to make noise - squeeking and 'talking' as we calling...she sounds like a little Ewok.

Ok long enough post - I will try to post more often over the coming weeks so they are not so long, but I am not making any promises :) Here are some more recent pictures!

ALEXANDRA ZOEY PASTOR IS HERE!

2008-05-28T03:08:00.007-10:00

Alexandra arrived Friday, May 23rd at 11:37 AM

Big Sis and lil Sis taking a well deserved break together!

She was born at Weiden Hospital, Germany about 2 weeks early and weighed in at 8.8 pounds and 21 inches long = as big as Tyler was, just past her due date! It was via c-section and while it didn't quite go as smoothly as Ty's, we are both doing great. In fact I think I am healing and up & around faster this time around LOL though part of that may be necessity :-)

Sebastian was AWESOME and he and Tyler got some true "Daddy & Ty" time. She is still following him around everywhere mimicking all that he does :-) No jealously rearing up much yet which is nice. The hardest thing has been that I cannot pick her up yet and she doesn't completely understand why I can carry Alex but not her. She has had a few meltdowns over that but we are working on it. Daddy’s ice cream and park time certainly seems to help a lot :)

We were discharged on Monday (a process that takes ALLLLL day here) and were home Monday evening. Since then we have been resting trying to get into new routines and, of course, begin all paperwork for the Army, etc….

To Lori H and Stephanie -

Special thanks to you wonderful friends for helping out - we don't know what we would have done without you!! Knowing you were taking care of Ty for us gave us a piece of mind that was so needed and appreciated while in the hospital!

More updates later but here are some pictures for now. Time to take a break :)

Me and Mom!

Ty and Alex visiting at the hospital .....

Finally at home .......relaxing with Dad

Finally feels like summer!

2008-05-13T18:39:00.016-10:00

Well the weather has finally turned it seems and it is starting to feel like summer :-) YEAAAA! I still need a better picture of me than the ones below - thanks for the 'you're huge/swallowed a balloon' comments LOL - and I will try for that this week. You just don't think it is possible to get bigger but, I swear, in the last couple of weeks I have! I have yet another doctor visit this Thursday to see when Alex should be making her arrival - I don't think we will be going to June 4/5.

We went to Ramstein to get out of Graf for a bit and pick up a few last minute things for Alex as well. Somehow we forgot that it was Cinco de Mayo weekend. It was great. Even though the 5th fell on the Sunday they were still doing stuff on Saturday as well making it a more interesting visit. (The picture above was taken there.)

There are more photos below of the local 'duck park' as the kids call it :) I had planned on doing books for Mothers Day but found out only after doing the layout and everything that the pictures were not of a high enough quality to print with. Talk about %$#^% you off. Sure enough, I went into the camera and while 'superfine' was selected there are apparently better options still in there LOL So I have changed the setting and will have to take a bunch more

pictures to do a book with. In the meantime I will post some of the others here.

Checking out the crowd and starting to dance!

I'll go with Dad to take a closer look :-)

"Now this is what right looks like" - Ty

Grafenwohr "Duck' Park

All at the park......

Ty and Paige checking out some ducks.....

They've found something!

Then it's off with Drew to the

...park favourite!

Preggy Picture

2008-04-14T07:34:00.008-10:00

OK I have procrastinated long enough LOL I am almost 33 weeks now so I took some pictures - not the greatest but you definitely get the idea :) I am hoping to do a couple better ones over the next few weeks before the baby comes.

Yes, I am now wearing Sebastians sweatshirt and I feel like I have swallowed a beach ball!

Paris: Part 2

2008-04-12T20:48:00.002-10:00

Thanks Rachel for bringing to my attention that Slide had dropped the last 12 pictures from my slideshow!! Apparently there IS a limit as to how many pictures you can have in one show LOL

Here is Paris:Part 2 (that does include the torch...or what you can see of it!)

One interesting note on this whole escapade with the Olympic flame was the way it was reported in the media. While we all know that the way something is reported is often not necessarily exactly the way it went down, it is still sometimes surprising when you see it happen first hand just how different it can come out.

There were pictures taken of a couple of protesters who ran out onto the street with flags in front of us. That's it. They didn't try to grab anyone, tackle anyone, or do anything other than shout stuff ('Free Tibet' usually) and wave their Tibet flag for which they knew they would get bum-rushed by the police (no one is allowed out on the road)....We later saw these pictures in the French media, Drudge Report online and other places...It was amazing how suddenly these individuals who ran out on the road were shot in close up with the police on top of them making it look much worse, much more violent and out of control than it was.

What I wish had been shown in the media was the freaking photographers/paparazzi themselves. IMO they were more out of control than the "protesters" we saw. Picture if you will: single young man runs out onto street waving a flag saying 'free Tibet' and 2-3 police quickly grab him and physically carry him off the street...all followed by up to 6 (yes that is SIX) other individuals racing across the road, surrounding the police and protester all vying for the best shot, the best angle. It was unreal how often they would get in the way or in the face of the police...I commented that the French police showed great restraint - not with the protesters (though they acted professionally there as well), but with the stupid photog's because if it had been me I would have slugged more than one of them that morning!!

Just my lil sidenote for the morning :-)

Paris 2008

2008-04-11T22:23:00.003-10:00

Best laid plans.....

2008-04-01T22:45:00.005-10:00

Ahh yes - things never quite work out as you plan, eh? :-) We stayed at home for the Easter weekend since it was right after Sebastian's return from France (picture slideshow below) and we have Paris coming up soon. Wouldn't you know - it SNOWS! I think we had more snow that week than we had during Christmas! It is gone now but kinda ruined plans for decorating outside so we could take pics of Ty is her spring dress. Another time I guess LOL

Given the huge dumps of snow in the area we did take off for an overnight with some friends to Garmisch on Friday night - seemed like a simple enough thing to do. Leave Friday, come back Saturday. Ty had her shots (they did both 18 month and 24 at the same time - why I don't know) on Thursday and at noon Friday I thought she was having a reaction to it....I have since come to the conclusion that she picked up some kind of gastro-bug while at the clinic and was sick the entire night and following morning....we were, of course, leaving that afternoon. LOL She is doing better now - not 100% but better.

My pregnancy is coming along well - and I know I am procrastinating on getting a picture up LOL I will soon :) The countdown has begun! 7-9 weeks!! This little girl is going to be a good sized baby like her sister was. She has been measuring a couple of weeks ahead for a while now. At first my doctor was verrry concerned and I tried to explain that Ty was big too but my Dr was not satisfied till after the diabetes test (came back neg) that I am just having a rather big girl LOL I am still hoping that I will go into labour before my due date and there will be no complications (and thus no repeat c-section) but as long as she comes out healthy we will be happy. At this point we are just eager to meet this little one who moves around like crazy and is giving Mom insane heartburn!!! I seem to be having more Bracks this time so fingers crossed :-)

That's it for now! Will have more to post next week!

NOTE: Slide has done something that the slideshows do not continually run over and over - to see it again just refresh the page

March 2008

2008-04-01T22:45:00.001-10:00

France Ski Trip

2008-04-01T22:19:00.001-10:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA!!!

2008-03-14T04:21:00.002-10:00

Okay since I cannot call you (fix the darn phone so it will accept my calls already! LOL) so i will wish you a

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!!!!!

here instead....and I will be kind and not post how old you are turning!! LOL

love ya sis! Keep checking your mail box too!

Iron - A wonderful thing!

2008-03-14T03:32:00.010-10:00

Ahh iron pills.....they suck to take them but WOW do they make a difference LOL I had been pasted to the couch thinking to myself that, even though I am pregnant and chasing an 18 month old, there is no way I should be this sooooooooo bone-dead-tired exhausted! I had a doctor appointment last week and ironically enough they already had an iron perscription in the computer for me based on the blood tests done the prior week. Scary how it just sneaks up on you over a period of time that you don't realize how bad it is. LMAO But now after a week on iron (on top of prenatals) I am already feeling a 180 difference!

In other baby news: passed the diabetes test with flying colours - something the doc was not expecting. I have not gained a lot of weight but apparently little baby girl is already pushing the 95 percentile for size at 27/28 weeks LOL I tried to explain to the doctor that Ty was a good sized baby too but..ahhh well, better to be safe than sorry. I will have to post a picture of me up when Sebastian gets back with the camera. Lori is BIIIIIG :-)

Speaking of - he will be back tomorrow sometime. The lucky bum took a week long ski trip to the French Alps, sans pregnant wife and daughter (yes, he is repeatedly telling me that he will be staying with the kids while I go next season LOL and I am holding him to it!!!) They have had a few days where the lifts were closed due to weather but also some truly spectacular days. I am expecting fantastic pictures when he gets back home and we will try to get those up this weekend.

Tyler is great..I am really loving this age! Okay - not so much the teething (I swear all the teeth she did not yet have are all coming in at once!), but the personality, mimicing everything she sees and talking more:) Unfortunately I do not have many pictures since I don't have the camera! We will have to do that next week..below is a couple of pictures of Ty. You can tell when we have been using the computers too much around her - she goes to her 'desk' and fat fingers keys on the my old laptop we put there LOL after I get her away from mine that is!!! Techno kid already!

At her 'own' laptop

Sneaking onto Moms laptop

Work out time with Mom! :-)

February Flu

2008-02-21T20:54:00.017-10:00

Well another couple weeks have passed and there is not a lot to report. About 2.5 weeks ago Ty caught a flu/cold bug and brought it home - joy oh joy! LOL Knew it would happen sooner or later but we had been so lucky this far with her never getting sick.....HA! And right when she is in the process of molars breaking through and I am pregnant (and thus cannot taken anything for it), it happens. Thankfully I didn't get it too badly and neither did Sebastian (who was smart and taking med's as soon as it hit). We are all feeling better if still a bit tired.

One cold and rainy day we managed to hit a place close by called MegaPlay with some friends tho - it was great! (for the grown ups too :)

Tyler & Paige

Tyler LUVS the slide with Daddy!

I am now past my 6th month - 6 months and 1 week actually :-) Wow this is going by fast! I know I have said that before but it is really, really flying by this time. Still no word on how this baby will be delivered yet - have to wait another couple weeks before getting an idea on that. It hit me the other day how much variance we have in her due date (yes 'she' does not yet officially have a name!)..My due date is 5 June still but if I have to go c-section then it could be up to 2 weeks before that; or if not then they could let me go up to 2 weeks past! LOL I know that 2 weeks before or after is normal but we never seem to have really early babies in our family - Ty hit her due date and showed NO signs of coming - so who knows!

Travel is done for a little bit. In March Sebastian has a solo ski trip and judging from how warm this winter has been, I am thinking it just might be the last ski trip till next season. In April we have the Paris Marathon that I am in this midst of finishing up plans for. Originally we were driving there but now we are flying. YEAAAAAA! No 9-hour-over-2-day-car ride with Tyler :) I was surprised to find that the cost of flying was roughly on par with what driving would be (gas, staying overnight on the way there and back, etc). A 1.5 hour flight sounds delicious in comparison to traffic jams and hours in a car with a bored Ty! And it is such a short flight that it should not be a problem being pregnant. Despite being so far along I am very much looking forward to this trip. With how many places we would like to see yet in Europe, I doubt we will hit Paris again so we are going to savour this one and check out a few fav's but do some new things as well. Thats one thing about such a huge and beautiful, historical city - there is always something new to do/see if you look for it (And springtime is a great time to do it too )

***********

Thats all for the moment...We will have to get more pictures for the next blog. Take care & feel free to leave comments - I know you are visiting (my ticker tells me so!) so don't be shy!! LOL You do NOT have to have an account, just click on the comment link and type :-)

January fun

2008-01-29T00:12:00.000-10:00

Time to update a bit though not a great deal has been happening here. We had another ski weekend in Garmisch for the MLK long weekend and I have included some pictures here. It was amazing how much snow had disappeared in the couple of weeks between when we were there after Christmas and that weekend! But the skiing up on the mountain was still goood and, with the sidewalks clear, it made for easier walking with Tyler so I cannot complain!

The slide program appears to be on strike today so I will put a couple pic's below:

New shades!

Have Chariot will travel! Loooove this thing! Believe it or not, there is an attachment you can get to replace the wheels with SKI's LOL (for cross country skiing) it would've come in handy this trip

The snow was definitely there the higher up you went :-)

Wiped out at the end of the day!

***

The pregnancy is going well and I am feeling big even though I am only 5.5 months and the ballooning part is truly yet to come LOL Scary thought! And we did find out we are having another GIRL :-) Darling Daddy is officially and permanently outnumbered!

Ty's been walking around everywhere now and has been in a decent mood considering she has broken in one back molar completely and the others are peaking through! Not the little baby anymore :) We've been telling her she is going to have a baby sister and, while she keeps saying 'baby', I know it will be loooong time before she gets it. She has definitely figured out that Mommy does not look the same though haha

HAIRCUT!

2008-01-13T07:38:00.000-10:00

Well I did was I was not sure I would ever do.....I cut about 4 inches off for my 'soccer-mom' do and this past week I took the next step; another 4 inches off the back :-) LOL And I LOOOOOOVE it! (as does Sebastian surprisingly enough)

What can I say - it was time for a change! And yes the pregnancy is really beginning to show....I cannot believe that I am 5 months practically?! The time is going by really fast this time!

A Few Christmas Pictures

2008-01-10T07:23:00.000-10:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008-01-02T04:45:00.000-10:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

Sorry I have not blogged in a bit but as I am sure is true with everyone else, Christmas kinda side tracked us :-)

We stayed true to our word that we were home for Christmas....we left for Ramstein the next day LOL We stayed there for 4 days eating shopping and site-seeing (yes in that order) and then came home for 2 days and now we are in Garmisch (Alps) so Sebastian can get some skiing in before his leave is over. We are only here for a couple days so we will make the most of it though we now have Internet in the room (hotel did not before) so I may be able to throw some pics up if i can find them over the next couple days...

WOW 2008...that just does not seem real. Of course the thought that by the end of this year there will be 4 of us celebrating New Years is still mindboggling as well :) My biggest New Years resolution is to re-prioritize I know I am not the only one doing this so any thoughts, suggestions, prayers good mojo are appreciated LOL (Ok family, stop laughing now...Seriously I'm going to do this) Basically it comes down to making my family and work the big 2 and figuring out how to make them work together. You'd think working from home would make that easier...Nope No such luck - if anything I think it makes it worse but I digress...what else is there you may ask?? Travelling, housecleaning (gawd that never ends), errands, 2 X 80 pound furballs who think they are human, friends, etc Basically everything else. Trying to stay on top of everything is simply not going to work so the big challenge for me will be letting things...ahem....slide.

One last note (and then I will have to add more later as I am getting the 'lets go already' from Ty and Sebastian) is that Ty WALKED! Ok to clarify she has been standing and taking one/two step and then sitting down again for about 6 weeks (she thinks its hilareous) but on 30 Dec at Ramstein she walked about 4 feet back and forth between Sebastian and me. Sweet. I know my days are now numbered LOL

Ok - off to dinner. Hugs to all and hope you had a great Christmas and New Years!!

Is it really 11 days till Christmas?

2007-12-14T04:10:00.001-10:00

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

2007-12-03T07:15:00.000-10:00

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 :)

Internet down - arghhhh

2007-11-26T08:07:00.001-10:00

Hello All!

Well as luck would have it right after I wrote my last blog our phone died...so I went to Deutche Telecom and was told to 're-set' it by shutting everything down/cut power and restart everything....yeah, well I got the phone back and promptly lost all Internet!! ARGHHHHHH!!!!!

So back to DT I go and I get a phone number to call....oh joy German technical support and I barely speak enough German.....luckily I got someone who spoke better English than my German (lol) and to make a long story short after many tests and trials they sent someone out to tell me our modem is defective. Even better, because it is a warranty thing I cannot simply swap it out at the local DT office - ohhhhh noooooo - we have have one sent to us which, of course, got here while we were gone last week for Thanksgiving! Ahhh some of the joys of living overseas :)

Well I got the new modem today and was able to set it up - more or less. (Plug and play does not exist here) Still have not figured out why I cannot get the computers to connect wireless to the modem yet. Hope to have that figured out in next day or two so I can use the main computer upstairs that I normally blog from as it has all my pictures!

I wish I could find an animation someone sent to me once - it was a cartoon figure getting PO'd at their computer and beating the #%%& out of it...Yup that would about sum it up! :-) So I will try to get more up on lots of stuff - travel, pic's etc - once I get the rest of the computers back online.

Tchuss for now!

Bad Blogger!

2007-11-15T04:38:00.001-10:00

Sigh...yup that's me - a bad bad blogger who has been AWOL for over a month! Sorry!!! October to November just kinda spun out of control....

Sebastian's parents were here for 3 weeks which was fun. Ty got to get to know the Pastor side grandparents again and it was great to visit and check out some new sites around Germany. I will post pictures in the next day or two (promise!)

Aside from that yours truly has been 'under the weather' for over a month...yup that long. It sucked; nausea, sinus/allergy attacks, exhaustion, more nausea.....but then again what do you expect in your 1st Trimester of PREGNANCY!? :-) Yes we are expecting again, but this time I will not have to deal with the summer heat! My current due date on/about my birthday: 5 June. We are both really excited and looking forward to our newest addition though the idea of "family of 4" when traveling, hitting restaurants, etc is taking some getting used to :)

Sebastian is already convinced that it will be another girl and that he will officially and permanently be outnumbered LOL I am not so sure - but we'll have to wait a while and see.

I must now go feed the hungry mouth that is already here :-) When it comes to food, patience is not her strong suit! I will post more this weekend.

Take care!

Ireland!

2007-10-01T05:53:00.001-10:00

Gosh it has been such a busy month! September long weekend Sebastian came home, we went to Garmisch the following weekend (see couple pictures below) and the weekend after that we were off to Ireland! Coming back last weekend we were tired but had really enjoyed out trip!

The weather held for the most part - scattered rain here and there but nothing to terrible bad. We landed in Dublin and then took the train to Galway as well. While in Galway we took a bus tour north to a national preserve area called Connemara. If we were to go back, that is where we would go back to. The whole area is rolling mountains, hills, mist, stone fences, and lots of sheep! LOL I don't think I have ever seen so many sheep in one country! All along the train ride Ty kept looking out the window saying" Da dawgs!!"

Have to keep this short - will add more to this post later. Time to make dinner!

Sept/07

2007-10-01T04:38:00.001-10:00

Tyler's 2nd Birthday Party

2007-09-07T10:28:00.001-10:00

Sorry for the delay in getting this one up. I had actually completed it mid-week when I lost the Internet connection and the entire slideshow! It took till now to get it re-done :)

Ty's Birthday Part 3!

2007-08-30T09:59:00.001-10:00

Mom got tired so I put together a slideshow for my Dad. We had fun tonight! But it would have been more fun if Daddy had been here! Hmmmmm I DO get to have another party when he comes home...so that works out okay :-)

OH I saved you a cupcake too !

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TY! Daddys Post

2007-08-29T22:58:00.001-10:00

Tyler Mackenzie Pastor is now 1!

While open to everyone, this post is mainly for Daddy who is not here today.....

just so you don't miss anything! I will be posting more as the day goes by.

Your daughter having her pancake breakfast!

One pancake with syrup and the other (in your honour) with NUTELLA! LOL

Notice there isn't much left on her tray - she definitely likes Nutella :)

The the sticky-nutella-birthday girl needed a luxurious morning bubble bath to get all the chocolate off!

Our shadow had to, of course, join us!

Next we iced all the birthday cupcakes and Ty helped with the sprinkles! All set for tonight! (The birthday cake we will do on Monday) I am still trying to figure out how to make the "1" candle I bought stand up on one of these...

We tried to get a birthday shot in while she was still clean but now

she is getting tired and is not interested in picture-taking!

I am going to try to get her down for a nap (yeah keep laughing) and will take more pictures and post them later.......keep checking back when/of you can....

We miss you and love you! Can't wait till Sunday!!!

Birthday Part 2

2007-08-29T22:55:00.000-10:00

BACK!

Well there was no naps this morning so we had lunch. And since we were having lunch by ourselves I decided we could break and have one lil birthday cupcake early!

This is how it started.......

YUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM!!!!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

And this is how it ended!

LOL Funny - she was more than willing to share her sandwich with Max & Riley but NOT the cupcake!

The we played outside a bit - it is a beautiful day today and the lady at the Neukauf gave Ty some bubbles so we coloured with chalk and blew bubbles in the sun!

Then finally came the nap :) And me getting everything ready for tonight...Speaking of - people should be here in an hour or so, so I had better get going! Will write more at the end of the night.

Max's surgery

2007-08-15T23:51:00.000-10:00

Well Max went under the knife yesterday. He had a big lump/mass and a smaller second one that we thought were fat lumps. We figured it was better to get rid of it now instead of waiting for it to get bigger as time passed since neither dog is a spring chicken anymore and the bigger one was about half the size of my fist!!

Well turned out they found 3 lumps so now he has stitches on his stomach, under his left leg and on his front right leg. In other words he is a mess! I picked him up and brought him home around 3:30 and he was still half out of it. Ty was a problem as she kept crawling over to him to see him and I had to keep pulling her away. (Putting Max in another room wasn't an option since I had to make sure he didn't start licking his wounds and he kept howling/whining when he could not see me). It made for a long afternoon and evening LOL especially after a day of painting here :)

He woke up a couple times last night (we had to sleep downstairs) and, finally, I was able to get him to stand up this morning....till that point he was in exactly the same spot that he had laid down at yesterday when he first came home. He has also been able to keep the pain meds down - along with whatever food Ty decides to 'share' with him LOL Thats when I figured he was on the mend! Now comes the fun of keeping Ty away from the stitches, etc till they come out in a week or so :)

Good Morning!

2007-08-08T22:16:00.001-10:00

Well not a lot to update here. Sebastian took off late last week. He is in Cali now and, according to him, very busy and hot! LOL I think it is close to 100 F there right now (we have rain - not sure which is better!).

Back at home here we are here playing catch up :) I have catching up with my trading to do and, having just found out that we maaaay be in the house longer than a year, I have decided to go ahead and do some decorating that I initially figured we wouldn't do because of the time lines. We have also been talking about taking a trip once Sebastian is back home so I am researching that as well. Man I wish the dollar would go back up! OH and planning Ty's 1 yr birthday :-)

Ty is, as always, keeping me busy too. She now has 4 teeth on the bottom and 2 on top. I don't know if that is all she will get or if she is getting more - for how much she is chewing on stuff I think there may be more coming sooner than later but time will tell.

Units here are deploying - including some of our neighbors. So we (my neighbor and I) are planning a get-together Friday at our house for family members left behind making it lasagna & wine night! Nothing makes deployments easy but knowing we are all here together (hopefully) makes things easier.

Thats about it for now! Hope everyone is doing great :)

Dog days of summer

2007-07-30T21:05:00.001-10:00

Here are some recent pic's from around home (Max & Riley were starting to feel neglected on the blog! :-)

Where is summer going?

2007-07-30T19:19:00.000-10:00

YEAHHH! I cannot quite believe it but Ty is now 11 months! Cliche I know but where did the time go? many times over the past months we have commented that she definitely does not look like a baby but a little girl....particularly when I (finally) started to get pictures printed and put into albums!

Which also means Sebastian is about to leave to have his 'fun in sand' LOL Though I don't know that he would describe being in the Box that way. He will miss Ty's first birthday but only by a couple of days so we are having 2 parties - one on her actualy birthday (I couldn't just let that day go by with nothing) and then a bigger party once Daddy is back :-) My friend Lori is all for it so she will be my accomplice! Something tells me Tyler won't mind having 2 parties,....okay, she won't remember having 2 parties but Mom won't mind either!

The other reason I fell like summer is fast fading away is the weather. I hope it warms up again soon. It was great in July - hot actually and this past week the temperature dropped enough at night that I have been putting Ty is fleece PJ's! Daytimes have been sometimes sunny with clouds suddenly rushing in making you think a big storm is brewing...then it rains a LITTLE and then disappears again?!? WTH? Strange that it can supposedly be around 15+C but it sure won't feel like it. Someone commented that they heard once the kids get out of school that is when the temp starts to drop aka that its the beginning of the end of summer....the German kids got out last Friday LOL so that timing wouldbe about right! I hope that isn't true - I am NOT NOT ready for summer to be over!

Playing in the Park

2007-07-25T03:49:00.000-10:00

Getting ready to go to the park!

We had a 'play in the park' day with some good friends of ours. We are lucky enough to have some really great neighbors here including Lori ( yes her name is the same as mine!) who has a little girl close in age to Ty along with an older son - and Ty loves to play with both of them! Visiting at each others houses is pretty comonfor us :-) but today it was decided to hit the park. Fortunately this cute little park - complete with ducks, one white swan and a fountain - is not far away from our houses. We both took our bikes and Chariots to the park instead of driving....a Chariot you say? Well it is a bike trailer, jogging stroller, regular stroller and a couple other things all rolled into one! LOL This is what it looks like:

So yes, Munchkin has her very own, ahem, Chariot that awaits her in the garage :-) That's what it looks like without the bike attachment or jogging/stroller wheels on it. It is AWESOME! For anyone who is looking or a high quality multi-purpose stroller/bike trailer this is the way to go! We can bike to another town, put the stroller wheels on, lock up the bikes and go from there. I have some pics of Ty in hers - they must be on hubby's laptop.....will have to post them another time.

So onto the park we rode and we managed to escape the rain though we really had some doubts from time to time. Here are some pictures - no slide show as I cannot seem to log onto the site to make one today (grrrrr hate unreliable sites!)....

Snack time at the park!

Baby P doling out the head 'bonks'!

Floppy hat for the very little sun that came out!

Unfortunately my one or two shots of the pond didn't pan out, I'll have to try again next time! At the moment Ty has decided it is NOT blog time so I will have to write more later....

'Remember Me'...For anyone who has not seen it

2007-07-16T03:00:00.000-10:00

Regardless if you support the war or not, I think everyone agrees how important it is to support our soldiers. This video brings that home. If you have not seen it (it has 8 million hits) take a minute - it is MORE than worth watching.

Nicole & Jason's visit

2007-07-16T02:24:00.001-10:00

THANKS Jason & Nic for taking an extra train or two to get here! I know we are a bit off the beaten path LOL While it was a quick visit we really enjoyed having you here and wished you could have stayed longer. I know Ty had a great time (above) and she sends you 'baby bonks'....Max & Riley already miss you as well :-) They are now feeling seriously neglected without Jas on the floor with them!

It is always great to see old friends again and this time was no exception. It also made us miss being state-side! Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate - maybe next time (hint hint). But that just made hanging out, barbecuing and catching up all the more fun. The timing was perfect as well - we were back from our Garmisch/Austria stint (where we actually ran into Jas & Nic!) and it was right before Sebastian had to take off to the states once more.

Speaking of - yes he is gone for a week or so which is partly why these blogs are shorter and a bit late getting out there :-) Well that and it finally stopped raining long enough to get our jungle lawn done (ughhhhhh) I kid you not it was a good foot high in places! In 24 hours the temperature when from 60's on Friday to 94 over the weekend. Tomorrow the rain returns....

Tyler has been mostly in good mood despite that her sleeping at night has been off lately. I didn't know why till yesterday when I saw the new teeth coming in!! New ones on the bottom AND top! Yeah, teething....figures that would be when the Army sends hubby in a trip! LOL

Naptime is over so I have to run. Hope everyone is doing great!

Last Trip Slide Show!

2007-07-15T18:00:00.000-10:00

Here are some pic's from the last Garmisch trip (last week)...we went to Austria to do some hiking which was awesome! (And a very good workout carrying the ever0-growing Tyler)

Even better was running into friends of ours from Bragg, Nicole and Jason. Call it serendipity or fate - we were leaving Garmisch when we saw some people walking along and Sebastian and I looked at each other saying No Way! Turned the car around and went back and sure enough - there they were LOL We knew they were in Europe but didn't think we would get a chance to see them...I have a few pictures of Jas & Nic's visit with us that I will post a bit later today...At the moment darling Ty is insisting that we do something else :)

Till later.....