The Last Month...

So I know I have been slacking in the posting on the blog department but here are pictures of our adventures from the last month. After school got out we stayed in Eschenbach for about a week and then headed over to Frankfurt to visit my parental units for 2 weeks. While we were there we were lucky enough to also see my Farmor (paternal grandmother) and my uncle who stopped by for 2 days and my aunt who came down to visit my parents for about 2 weeks. Anywho, this picture was one afternoon it was raining and the kids asked if they could go play in the rain. Both kids are big fans of the movie "Singing in the Rain" (to my great delight) and so Ty immediately started singing the song and dancing around. I loved it.

After a while it stopped and I walked out so see what they were doing.....I'm still not quite sure but after this they laid down on the grass and I heard them talking and playing. As long as they aren't fighting I don't care.

Nyah is a cuddlebug and when she wakes up from her nap we love to just sit for a while, while she wakes up. Now that Laney is home from school I sometimes give her to Laney and they'll sit and cuddle for a while.

Nyah is starting to feel like she's such a big girl and she always want to sit on the couch or big chairs by herself. And when we let her she always gets a giant smile on her face 'cause she feels so big....that's what I think anyways who knows what she's really thinking.

So we headed over to Karben and the kids enjoyed playing outside when the weather was nice. Here's the handsome man wondering why I was calling his name and acting weird to get him to smile. Crazy mom!

Nyah frolicking outside with no pants on.

The kids playing with this fun water/boat thing.

Nyah enjoying the water. She also thought it was a good idea to stick her feet in the water....too bad she had shoes on. I love the belly hanging out and the sagging diaper. Ü

And then it was Nyah's very first birthday. I still can't believe my little baby is one. Her birthday was on a saturday and since it was a long weekend because of the 4th Ben took the train over to Frankfurt and celebrated with us.

My dad, as always, brought out the flags. And when my mom reminded him that Nyah was born in Germany, he brought out a German flag too. hahaha

The decorations for Nyah's partay. Giant pouf ball things I hung in the trees....the neighbors probably thought we were a wee bit crazy. Oh well, I really liked them. Ü

Nyah and uncle Zak looking at and picking some apples.

Since we all missed Sct. Hans Eve (which is on June 23rd) we decided to celebrate it on the same night as Nyah's birthday. What can I say....it was PARTAY night!!! WOOOHOOO Anyway, the kids made little witches to put in the fire after we had roasted our hotdogs and Shubidua's "Midsommersangen" was blasted throughout the house. Aaaah summer how I love thee.

Nyah's birthday s'more. She had been practicing her blowing skills but unfortunately they had not been perfected in time.

This girl got spoiled. Lots of clothes (which she really needed) and lots of fun toys.

The hippo from Laney.

Luckily she had a big brother to help out with the unwrapping.

And a cute baby doll from Ty.

Ty and Laney made her a card each. This is Ty reading the card for her.

While we were in Frankfurt Zak had an internship at Saalburg, the roman fort. We went to check up on him one day. He must have been sleeping in a corner somewhere 'cause we never found him. But we did see lots of very interesting things and Laney decided that she would like to do an internship there too one day.

Just proof that I go on the family vacations too. Ü

The entrance. Ty asked the other day if we could go back to "the Roman house". haha

The father and the lady.

And this is......Zak??? I don't know some cool place inside the fort. hee hee

We, of course had to get a Roman ice cream.

Toothless.

So every time my dad travels (which is A LOT) he brings home something that Zak likes from that specific country. I don't know if it's every time but it seems like he often has chocolate bars from Czech or soda pop from France. Anyways, while we were there he brought home these orange sodas that Zak likes from Paris. But apparently they have different sizes because he brought these tiny little cans home. We thought they were about Nyah sized and  had a lot of fun making fun of the tiny cans.

Nyah drinking her Orangina.

Laney is a craft maniac. She is always asking if I have a craft she can make. My mom is making a quilt with these cute little flowers and when she was visiting us a while ago she let Laney have a go at it. Laney did really good, so while we were in Frankfurt, Laney made these cute flowers with buttons in the middle and put them on a t-shirt to go with some pajama bottoms my mom bought for it. One talented crafty chicken.

And last but definitely not least....the wonderful parental units. I loveth them! Ü

Hurricane Nyah

 

Some days I think about  how nice it would be to be a baby and just run around and play all day and not have any responsilities. When there's something you want you just cry and people come running to satisfy you. What a life!!! But then I started thinking and I realized that Nyah actually has a full schedule. That girl is busy. I started thinking about what her daily to do list would look like and this is what I could think of off the top of my head:

• Empty the snack drawer
• Empty the cupboard with cereal and little oatmeal packets and scatter throughout the house
• Unroll all the toilet paper
• Throw things in toilet
• Inspect shower drain when the shower is wet and I’m dry
• Scatter tampons throughout house and into the toilet
• Throw food on the floor when I’m done eating

• Rub food in my hair until I look like Einstein
• Empty drawer in office desk
• Suck on some cords
• Climb up stairs when somebody doesn’t close the gate
• Finds straws Mom has hidden and suck on every. Single. One
• Unroll the tape
• Pull out some books
• Get the knives in the dishwasher when it’s left open
• Pull out all the pushpins
• Crumble up some of Laney and Ty’s drawings
• Turn computer off when Mom's in the middle of a blog post (I learned that from my cousin Liam hee hee)
• Hide Mom's keys in the couch
• Throw important stuff I find in the garbage
• Move some chairs around
• Move the garbage can into the other room
• Be really cute so they don't get mad at me!!  

Yep, she has a full schedule! O

Aaaand she's off.....

She's officially walking. It's been in the works for about a month now, but I think we can officially say that she's walking now. She looks like a stiff little robot but she's oh so cute meandering around the house all day.

Nyah - 9 and 10 months

 *you can now do peek-a-boo*

*you like to tease us. If we try to catch you, you look at us and crawl faster while you squeal*

*you can pull yourself up without holding on to anything*

*you have been taking steps on your own. One day you took 25 steps*

*you have started yelling at us instead of crying*

*you have the cutest laugh and we can always get a laugh from you. Sometimes I think it’s a little fake, but it’s still so cute*

*you now have 2 teeth on top and 1 on the bottom. There’s another one lurking on the bottom and it’ll come all the way up any day now*

*you pull your socks off anytime you get the chance. There’s no keeping those things on you.

*you are really good at crawling up the stairs but need some help getting down*

*if there’s anything soft on the floor, like a blanket, stuffed animal, pillow, anything - you’ll crawl over and lay your sweet head on it and smile and cuddle with it and say ‘aaahh’*

*we love it when you put your cute little chubby arms around our necks and hug us*

*you sound like you might be saying ‘mama’ and ‘dada’*

Pharmacy Conference in Garmisch

 Ben had a Pharmacy conference in Garmisch, Germany and the kids and I tagged along. We left Friday after Ben came home from work and drove to this really nice hotel we stayed at. Then Saturday Ben got up and went to the conference. The kids and I drove to a gorge called Partnachklamm. We walked about 1 mile up to the gorge and then it said that we had to leave the stroller. So I positioned Nyah on my hip and thought it wouldn't be too bad. When Ty saw the beginning part of the gorge he started freaking out. Like wailing and crying. But lately he has a tendency to not want to do anything and then afterwards realize that it was actually pretty fun. So, mean mom that I am, I dragged through the gorge. At parts it was REALLY dark and a little scary. I gave Ty the tiny flashlight that I have on my keys in hopes it would make him less scared. I made sure he realized that if were to drop my keys we would be in serious trouble. Ü Through some of the tunnels I sang to Ty hoping it would calm him down a little. They were both plugging their ears......not because of my beautiful singing (I try to convince myself) but because of the sound of the water. Laney later told me that she was plugging her ears and singing to herself. 3/4 of the way through Nyah fell asleep. When we got out on the other side I expected a little trail back to the beginning but we were left with the choice of going back through the gorge or picking one of the many trails that were leading all over the German Alps. By this time, Nyah had gained at least 30 lbs and my arms had gained 30 inches. We found a trail that was leading up a mountain that I seemed to remember having a tram coming down from it.....and the sign promised that it would only take 20 minutes. Ty took one look at the trail and decided that he actually was quite fond of the gorge and would rather walk back that way than up the many stairs that were leading up the mountain. He was outvoted. We hiked, the kids ran ahead, my arms grew longer and longer, sweat was trickling down my back (I was thinking about all the millions of pounds I was sure to be loosing), my legs could barely move, the kids would tell me how far they thought we had left.

 We finally made it to the top......and it was gorgeous!!!

 This was the view the other direction.

 Then we found this little tram. It was not maned, you just had to open the door and walk in and when you closed the door it would start going.

 The kids loved it. When we got back down we bought an ice cream and went back to the car. As we were walking back Ben called and I told him all that we had seen. Laney said the background, "It was totally worth it!" ....and that made it totally worth it to me. When we got to the car and reached in my purse to get my keys. I pulled them out and thought they looked a bit smaller, skinnier than usual. Then I realized my car key was missing! I think my heart seriously skipped a beat. I thought about my poor car key at the bottom of the gorge. But then I looked in the bottom of my purse and saw my key that had fallen off my bundle of keys. Phew! (Oh I should mention that Ty had a wonderful time and know looks back on this experience as a good one.....not a traumatic one.)

 After our adventures at the gorge we still had half the day left so we found the walking street in Garmisch and walked down it. It was cool how so many of the buildings and houses had paintings on them. This one was a store that sold lederhosen and dirndlen.

This is my favorite mountain in Garmisch. Doesn't it look cool and rugged and a little scary?!

 Up on the mountain you can see a whitish building....that was our hotel. It was a spa hotel so there was a pool and the kids were überexcited to go swimming. So after our many adventures that day and after Ben came back from his conference we took the kids to the pool. They loved it. We had to drag them back out. Everybody had so much fun...even Nyah, even though she got worried every time Ben dived under the water.

 The next morning Ben had another conference so the kids and I headed up to Eibsee. It was gorgeous.

 We walked around the lake for a while, just enjoying the beautiful scenery, throwing rocks in the lake, and trying to make the clouds part so we could get a good peak at Zugspitze (the highest point in Germany).

 Eibsee

 Ben was done by lunchtime on Sunday so we drove him up Eibsee so he could see it too, but on the way there it started raining. He jumped out to catch a quick peak while we drove around and then picked him back up. Since we had plenty of time to get home we decided to go exploring when we saw a sign that said "Linderhof Castle - 16 km". After a couple of kilometers we drove through Ettal and saw this beautiful cathedral. We jumped out, looked around for a while and continued on to the castle.

 We finally made it to LInderhof castle which turned out to be one of King Ludwig's castle (He also had Neuschwanstein castle built) and I must say that he sure knew how to build castle.

Linderhof castle from the back.

 Ben and the kids in front of the fountain where Ty was very intrigued by the fact that water was coming out of the horses mouths and noses. We decided that it probably was less than comfortable for the poor horses.

 We wandered around for a long time and saw the beautiful castle, the gardens, waterfall, fountains and so on. We were so glad that we made that detour.

Ben controlling the monkeys. There was also a 'grotto' where you had to buy tickets to get in. We didn't buy tickets since we weren't quite sure what it was but as we wandered around and saw the 'grotto' we realized that it was a stalactite cave. Ty immediately freaked out and backed away with a horrid look on his face and kept saying, "we not going in there." (to refresh your memory of why Ty would be scared....look here.) 
We had a wonderful time in Garmisch and would love to go back and explore the area further. Ü