Mormor, Morfar, and Zaki Visit Us

My Mom, Dad and Zak came down and stayed in a vacation apartment just around the corner from us for 2 weeks. It was so nice having them even closer by us and the kids loved playing with them and jumping on them for 2 weeks straight. (Now they need a vacation to recover from their vacation..... ;D) But seriously Ty cried every night when they went back to their apartment. Anyway, while they were here we did some fun stuff. One day we went to a town called Pottenstein. They had a fun Alpine slide that we went on a couple of times and these fun jumpy things that the kids tried and loved. Here's Laney almost doing a flip.
...and Ty. He looks grumpy but he loved it. So much so that he cried because he only got to try it once.
Close by there is also a stalactite cave you can take a tour of. My mom is a wee bit claustrophobic so she stayed in the car but the rest of us went. We should have left Ty with her though because he was freaking out the whole time. He was crying and shaking because he was scared and cold. At one point I asked him what he was scared of and he pointed and replied, "Goooo oooouuuttt!" Poor little feller.
There were a ton of cool bones from cave bears.

The pretty view from outside.
You can kind of see the entrance to the cave on the right side of the picture.
One day my parents and Zak took the kids to Playmobil Land. They had so much fun. They had also been really excited to go. Laney counted down the days til they went.

Taking care of the Playmobil cows.
Princess Laney and Prince Ty with the Playmobil King and Queen.


I was told they had some fun rafts they went on.
Morfar, Zak and Laney on another kind of raft. They LOVED it and Ty often ask me if we can go back there, which we definitely will have to one of these days.
One day we went to the playground and hung out. Laney loves to read and is really good at it, but when she's reading you cannot get in contact with her. If she's reading on the couch she normally is almost upside down with her long legs draped up the back of the couch and then you can yell and scream at her and she still won't hear you. So one this day, walking home from the playground she was reading while walking.
This is from the fun lake by our house....and those are my decapitated children and Zak making sure the heads down roll away.
And finally going out on the lake in a paddle boat. The kids loved it and want to do it again. My mom and I held down the fort up on shore and made sure Nyah was okay. Thanks for coming and playing and hanging out with us. We had so much fun and can't wait for the next time you come.

Our New Favorite Place...

There is a lake called Kleiner Russweiher about 2 km from our house. They have a little kids area with a little slide in the water, a playground, a volleyball area and a place to rent paddle boats. The kids and I went with my mom, dad and Zak last Monday and then the kids went with mormor, morfar and Zak again last Friday. It's so nice and the kids LOVE it. They could stay there all day playing in the water.


Morfar and Zak took Laney and Ty out on a paddle boat ride. They loved it and were so excited that they got to steer the boat and paddle.
We'll definitely be back and probably spend all summer there to cool down.

Nyah's Photography Session

Nyah and I had a little photography session where we did some experiments with baskets, blankets and different cute hair things. It was fun for me and Nyah just liked laying on the soft blanket! :D

Nyah Irene

Date: July 2nd, 2010
Time: 3.34pm
Weight: 4160 grams
Length: 51 cm

The Stork Is Circling the Neighborhood

Today is my original due date but since they bumped up my due date to June 26th I'm almost a week overdue.
We just barely got home from the doctor's office and this is what we saw on top of the apartment building across the street from us. Is that a sign or what???





Anyway the doctor said that if I haven't gone into labor on my own by tomorrow I have an appointment at the hospital for an induction at 7:30am on July 2nd.

No Baby Yet But We're Having Lots of Fun!!!

Today we went strawberry picking. It was lots of fun and when we got there Ty said, "I'm just so excited to pick strawberries!"
BIG BELLY!!!

I think Ty ate most of those when we got home!! :D

Laney of course dressed for the occasion in a dress with strawberries on it.
So every time Ty sees my belly he just starts laughing. It's pretty funny. The first time was hilarious....we had just finished eating and I lifted my shirt up a bit and Ty looked at my belly with huge eyes and then he laughed. Then he stopped laughing and just stared, then laughed, then stared, then laughed. We were all laughing so hard. Now he'll come up to me once in a while and lift up my shirt and just rub my big belly and kiss it. It's very cute and I think he'll miss my giant belly when it hopefully is gone soon. :D
On June 23rd it was St. Hans' Eve in Denmark. We of course had to celebrate so we roasted hot dogs and burned the witches that my mom had helped the kids make.

We almost couldn't get the kids to burn their witches though. They grew very attached to them within 2 minutes but finally we got those witches sent back to Bloksbjerg.
We have some huge windows or doors I guess that take up almost the whole wall in the living room. It's so nice with all the sunlight but they are right out to the road and people who walk by have a tendency to see what we are doing on that particular day. Ben thinks the previous renters must have put on a show every day and now people expect that from us as well! :D Anyway, we decided to get some planter boxes and plant some trees and such.
The kids and I also bought some flower seeds that we planted. The kids love watering their little plants and watching them grow.

The last couple of weeks it has been pretty hot so after Ben is done mowing the lawn he'll turn the hose on a let the kids run through the water.
They love it!!! :D

Our Yellow House

So we're here in Germany now. We stayed in a hotel for about a month and then we found a house that we're renting. Our stuff came a couple of weeks after we moved in and we're still working on unpacking everything.
On the ground level there's a kitchen, dinning room, living room, bathroom and an office. Upstairs are 4 bedrooms and a bathroom. The attic is not finished yet but has some very nice views of beautiful Germany. And then there's an unfinished basement. We loved it and are excited to get unpacked and situated.
So when Ben mowes the lawn he has to put the grass in buckets and take them down to the dump place. Well I guess we waited too long to take the grass down (also because they are only open when Ben's at work) so it was pretty stinky and rotting by the time he put it in the car. He drove with it for about 5 minutes and then came back 'cause the dump was closed. But this was a week ago and the car still stinks. It wasn't even just a slight odor.....it was full on stinkyness of rotten grass which smells like rotten food. We tried everything! We put baking soda in the back, vacuumed, drove around with all the windows down while the kids felt like they were going to fly out the windows. Nothing helped. Finally we bought some odor neutralizing spray and sprayed it in the back. For a while it smelled like spring time mixed with rotten food but now it seems like it's finally going away. Ben decided instead of putting the stinky grass in the car another time and driving it down to the dump yet again he would just scoop it into some black bags and put it in our garbage. He asked if I could help him hold the sack while he scooped but when I went over to help him he told me not too because he was sure I would throw up. He was already gagging like crazy. When he was all done he stunk like rotten grass and even though he washed his hands for about 5 minutes and put lots of lotion on his hands smelled like rotten grass all day.
Needless to say we going to look at some compost things so we can dump it in there instead of stinking up the car again. :D