Quick Trip to Frankfurt

 Zak was in a couple of scenes in "Shakespeare in the Garden" at his school, so Nyah and I decided that we really wanted to go and see him. We took the train since it's pretty cheap and takes about the same amount of time as driving.

 Nyah sat like this in her seat for about 5 minutes then she was all over. I had to bring her car seat since we were going to be driving back to Eschenbach with my mom. So getting on the train and switching trains, I carried Nyah in the backpack and then I had the car seat, a duffel with our stuff and my camera bag. I must have looked at little bit like a pack mule. But it was nice to have the car seat on the train because it kept Nyah entertained trying to buckle it. :D

 This was on the stretch from Nurnberg to Frankfurt. I had put the car seat on the floor in front of Nyah's seat since her legs are not that long. She thought it was great 'cause she could sit or stand on the car seat and use the train seat as a table for all her toys. On this stretch Nyah also decided to flirt with every single passenger. It got to the point where I didn't know where to look when she was just flirting away with somebody. It was pretty funny.

 Well, we made it and my dad picked us up at the train station in Frankfurt. A couple of hours later we drove up to Zak's school. There must have been a lot more people than what they planned 'cause they weren't enough chairs for everybody, but that was okay 'cause Nyah and I got to stand/sit by all the actors and actresses which of course included Zak. Nyah of course immediately started flirting with Zak and his friends. Anyway, this first picture is of Zak in 'King Lear'. It was kinda hard to take good pictures of him in this play since he was on the other side of the 'scene' from where we were situated.

 This was his big scene in 'Twelfth Night'. He did an AWESOME job (in both) and it was so fun to see him and his friends acting.

 He really did great. He's an excellent actor and I'm so proud of him for being so brave (and a little jealous) since he not only tried-out but also made it into 2 plays already. (I memorized the whole scene to try-out and then chickened out...boooh! :( )

Well done, Zak-chen!!!....You're a real Shakespearean actor in my book! :D

Laney's Photo Shoot

 Laney's turn for a photo shoot. We did it over 2 days, had a wardrobe change in the middle and borrowed Ty's awesome hat!! We just love that hat. I think everyone needs a hat like that.

 When I look at some of these pictures Laney just looks so grown-up to me. Crazy!!! STOP GROWING.

 Laney always says she wishes she had my hair....WHY??? I love her hair....I want hair like hers!!!

Ty Started Kindergarten

So Ty was less than happy to start Kindergarten. He was excited but also VERY nervous and he definitely didn't want me to leave him there all by his lonesome. The first day was only Ty and 4 other kids to ease them into the school schedule. Everything was fine until I had to leave and then Ty started crying. After a lot of coaxing, a quiet prayer and the promise of cookie making after school he sat down and stopped crying and let me go. The next day I had to drop him off outside and he looked like he was about to have heart attack. He tried to get out of the line. He tried to pull me with him. The worst was when the teacher took his hand and he looked back with giant tears rolling down his cheeks and stretched his arm out toward me and I couldn't do anything but watch him getting coaxed inside.  No fun being a mother at those times.

Ty on his first day.....less than thrilled to be there.

BUT, then I walked down and waited for the bus to come and drop the kids off after school. The bus drove  past me and I looked up and saw Ty's big smiling face in the window of the bus. He looked like he had just won the lottery!! I couldn't stop smiling either 'cause he just looked so cute. Then him and Laney got off the bus and immidiately we were surrounded by all the other kids getting off at the same bus stop. They were all telling me about how it was Ty's first day of school (which I think I already knew hahaha) and this one kid told me about how he knows how to make kites and he was going to make Ty one because Ty was very shy. It was so cute 'cause all the kids were really excited for him to be going to school and driving the bus. It made me so happy that he gets to drive on the bus with such cute kids who are so excited for him. They'll take good care of him and make sure he's okay.

I Forgot.....

I have to write down a couple of things from our Croatia trip that I had forgotten about and that I want to remember. First off, Ben forgot all our medicines and stuff that we might need, so when we woke up after the first night, and the kids * especially * were covered in mosquito bites, we didn't have anything to put on them to ease the itching. So, we bought some window cleaner to dab on there to help the itchiness. Poor kids seriously were covered in mosquito bites every morning, even though we closed all the windows and went around smacking all the mosquitoes we could find before bedtime. When we came home, we counted 16 bites on Nyah 's one little leg and 25 on the other.

Second, in Croatia there were a ton of Italians also vacationing. We noticed all the Italians' cars first when we were driving to Croatia. Now, I want to make it clear that I don't think Italians are BAD drivers.....they are just CRAZY drivers. For example, on the freeway in Slovenia we drove around a little bend in the road, and right after we saw an Italian car just stopped on the middle of the freeway. It looked like he was backing up a bit and we think maybe he missed his exit and was trying to back up to get to it. Either that or he was broken down....but I have to say, it sure looked like he was contemplating backing up.  Either way, we were thankful we were in another lane and didn't run into him.


Third, before we left I asked Ben if he needed his Official Passport, which is like a visa kind of thing saying that he's allowed to be here in Germany. Ty was getting a new American passport so I just brought all the kids' Danish passport and of course mine. Ben didn't think he needed his Official passport so I just brought his normal (unofficial? :D) American one. Anyway, he noticed that when we showed the passport and they could see Ben's blue one they would ask to see them closer but if we put the Danish red passport on top they would just wave us through. On the way into Slovenia from Croatia the passport guy noticed Ben's blue passport though and grabbed them to look closer at them. He looked at Ben's for what seemed like years and finally started asking questions. Ben, I guess didn't understand the man's English 'cause he didn't answer right away. So I was trying to translate for Ben and get him to answer quickly so the guy didn't think we were just making up the answers. Anyway, he wanted to some kind of proof that Ben was allowed to live in Germany and finally Ben showed him his military ID and we were let through. Phew!! I was imagining that I had to leave Ben in no-man's land between Croatia and Slovenia and drive all the way to Eschenbach myself, get the Official passport and the drive back, with all 3 kids, so that we could bring Ben back home. Good thing I didn't have to.

Ty's Photo Shoot

 I wanted to take some pictures of Ty because I took some of just Laney a while back and because he likes getting his picture taken most of the time. Also, because I found this awesome hat yesterday and both Ty and I are in love with it. He frequently wears my Indiana Jones hat that's WAY too big. But since I bought this hat for him yesterday I think he only took it off when he was sleeping.

 We went down to these cool old sheds in Eschenbach and seriously spent about 10-15 minutes.

 He did so great! I would show him some pose I thought he should do and he did with only little or no help.

 He loves this hat that I found for him, only taking it off to sleep.

 Laney and him decided that the hat looks like Don Lockwood's hat in "Singing in the Rain" and they both love that movie.

 This was when he told me he really had to pee. hahaha

I really like this last picture because of the background....I'm just a tiny bit bummed that he's leaning a little. Oh well, we had a lot of fun and I'm so excited to hang some of these on my wall with picture of the kids.