A Roller Coaster? Is That What It's Called?

Well, here it is Labor Day weekend, and I haven't ventured further than a kilometer from my front door.

That's because Benny Boy had to go off on some exciting adventure for the ENTIRE four day weekend, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

BOOO!!!

(Just in case there was any question as to how I felt about it)

And just to rub it in, the weather has been perfectly sunny with highs in the low seventies.

So cruel. 

BUT, I did get him to steal away from work for a half a day on Wednesday to take us to a nearby amusement park called Tripsdrill.  We wanted to celebrate Em's upcoming Kindergarten debut.  Exciting times!!!

Germany is really growing on me. Tripsdrill is a beautiful and pristine park

The girls went on a roller coaster for the first time. 

 Em couldn't get enough of it.  

C, on the other hand, well, the picture says it all:

Do you love how unfazed Ben seems to be by her complete distraughtness??

I know it sounds cliche, but it really is fun to explore the world anew through your children's eyes.  Roller coasters?  I could take 'em or leave 'em.  But, how fun is it to ride with Emily over and over again, who was having the time of her life.  She was screaming and hollering and having a ball. 

After we got off she asked inquisitively, "A roller coaster?  Is that what it's called?"  

Yep, that's what it's called.

So fun to discover the simple pleasures of life.

Sadly, James didn't meet the height requirements for the rides :(

And a 30 minute downpour was no biggie for the Germans.  Hide under the umbrella and wait for it to pass

Gushing

Nothing new to report here, just some insanely cute photos of the kiddos. 

 Am I gushing?  I guess I am.  Consider this officially gushing.  Can't help it. 

This kid's only 8 weeks old but it seems he's already showing off his personality.  

The price we pay for being beautiful

A Palace for my Princesses

I never got the chance to blog about our visit to Ludwigsburg Palace back in June before the baby was born.  So since nothing exciting has happened here lately,  I'll take the opportunity now. 

Isn't it beautiful?  It's just a 15 minute drive from our house!

I promise to take anybody who comes to visit us!!

But before I expand upon the beauties of Ludwigsburg, I have to mention the biggest headache we encounter when ever we leave the house.  

Parking.

The bane of my European existence.  

Sorry for the bluriness, but this is an example of a typical parking place in Europe:  underground, low ceiling, and extremely tight squeeze.  Oh, and it's NEVER free. What is with the big beams?  I have scratched many a rear view mirror on those bad boys.  And our car is tiny compared to American standards!

The Kia Rondo makes for a tight squeeze

I'm always sweating bullets when I have to park.

But once that challenge has been conquered, we can finally relax and go exploring.  We didn't actually tour the palace.  Nine months pregnant with a 5 and 3 year old, no thank you.

But we did visit the grounds which are HUGE and lovely.

They have a Fairy Tale Garden, so fun for the girls  

They LOVED the boat ride

They have life-size presentations of various fairy tales. After all, the Grimm Brothers were German!   Not sure what this one is, everything was in German :/

We didn't have to understand German to figure out this was the Hansel and Gretel house.  Can you see the witch in the window?  Slightly creepy.

Em, always playing it cool

I love European parks, so green, spacious, and well manicured

So I guess the baroque-styled palace and gardens were built in the 18th Century by Duke Ludwig as hunting lodge.  He patterned it after Versailles, which he had previously visited and greatly admired.

It has some 400 odd rooms.  

I don't get it either.

But there's no denying it's beautiful!

World's Greatest Mom

... would not be me.

That's what I was thinking when I wrote this note the other night:

I'm so sleep deprived I can't even write a grammatically correct sentence.

You see, James hasn't figured out days and nights yet, more precisely, that you're not supposed to wake up every two hours for a midnight snack and then stay up to chitchat about it.

So, this is the way it's been going: after a very long night of intermittent feedings James wakes up to eat around 6:30 a.m., after which he likes to be awake and active.  Which means I'm awake, but not so active.  Then at 8 a.m. he dozes off to sleep and with a huge sense of relief, I crawl back into bed, drop my head on the pillow, close my eyes, and then suddenly... I feel the presence of a little body not two inches from my face.  My eyes flutter open and I'm greeted by, "Mom, I'm hungry!"

It's pure torture, I tell you what.

So, hence, how I found myself writing this note, basically telling the girls to fend for themselves.

And my overwhelming feelings of guilt for neglecting my children.

The funny thing was, Emily got the BIGGEST kick out of the personalized note.  She thought she was SO SPECIAL that I would write her a note "telling her what to do."  I caught her reading it over and over throughout the day when I finally came back to life.  She's a gem.  C on the other hand isn't so keen on fending for herself.  Hopefully James will get his act together soon!

A Few Good Reads

The invention of e-book readers (my mini ipad to be exact) has made nursing a very enjoyable pastime.  I've always loved to read, but have had a hard time making time for it the past few years with the little ones.  Now that I have to be sitting and feeding James every 3 hours, it's the perfect excuse to kick back and immerse myself in a good book, hands free!

So, here are a few good reads from the past six months or so.  

I realize I'm a little late in the game on this one, since it was all the rage several yeas back, but I just completed it for the first time and LOVED it.  I picked it up last fall....I was especially intrigued by Adams' ten year stint in Europe as a US diplomat.  He lived in France, Holland, and England.  But then I got bogged down about halfway through.  I just couldn't read anymore about the intricacies of English country gardens.  Blah.  But then just recently I watched this:

The HBO miniseries based on the book.  It was AMAZING.  I watched it during my hospital stay after giving birth, like the only three consecutive quiet days to myself in the past five years.  So, then I decided I better finish the book, and did so within just a matter of days on my ipad, often reading at 3 a.m. with the little one happily eating away. There's so much that could be said about it, but in a nutshell it was downright inspiring.  I learned so much about the founding fathers and the fragile birth of our nation.  I felt like I knew John and Abigail Adams on a personal level when I finished it.  EXCELLENT read.

During our trip to Amsterdam in April, I became interested in Anne Frank after visiting the Anne Frank House. 

                                         

                                          

 Here, again, I know I missed the boat.  I remember everyone reading it in jr. high, but for what ever reason my particular English teacher didn't require it.  And I never was too interested because I remember all the 8th graders complaining how BORING it was.  Yeah, 8th graders.  But that stuck in my brain so I've never given it the time of day.  Pretty sad coming from a history teacher, eh?  But I downloaded it after our trip to Holland and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it!  I loved how honest and frank (no pun intended, hehe) she was and was amazed at her writing ability at such a young age.  Several parts were even humorous. It inspired me to keep a better journal. So sad that her life was cut short. 

And it was not lost on me that these two books, John Adams and Anne Frank, could not have been possible without their dedicated devotion to writing (Adams' thousands of personal letters and Anne's detail oriented diary).

My friend recommended this next book:

This was the harrowing tale of American GIs captured at the Battle of the Bulge who were imprisoned at a slave labor camp in Berga, Germany.  They were mixed with other European Jews and were the recipients of the same brutal treatment.  It's definitely not a "pick-me-upper" but it's a good reminder of just how awful the Holocaust was and that our service members were not invulnerable to it. 

So after reading that one, I needed something light.  My mom mentioned this one during her stay:

I laughed through the entire book.  It was SO funny.  This was definitely a guilty pleasure. 

 So, now I've just begun this one:

The story of the Roosevelts and the American homefront during WWII.  I'm just a few pages into it, but can tell already it's going to be a winner.  

Please share with me any of your recent good reads!

Bienvenu a Strasbourg!

One of the best parts of living in Stuttgart, Germany is that I can get to the beautiful city of Strasbourg, France in less than two hours.

This city is near and dear to my heart because I spent six months of my mission here.  It was by far the best area in the mission and the most coveted.  I had great companions here, one of whom I trained, and served in two awesome wards.  The members of the church here were cream of the crop... very stalwart and very supportive and kind towards the missionaries and each other.  We had amazing investigators here too.  I gave my heart and soul to this area.

August, 2002

August, 2013

 Since Ben had the day off on Friday and the forecast was clear skies with a high of 77, it would have been a crime not to go.

And I promise to take anybody who comes to visit us to this charming ville.  You will love it!  Pictures do not do it justice, but here goes anyway:

The apartment on Petite Rue de L'Eglise, where I lived 11 years ago

Yesterday was not the first time I had revisited the city since my mission.  We came through two years ago when we lived in Poland.  My girls have this picture hanging in their bedroom from that trip.  Emily was 3 and Caroline was 1. 

And ever since, Emily has been asking when we were going to go to France so she could ride in the "pink car" again.

So it was super fun to bring her back.  That's all she cares about, riding in the pink car.

Ice cream is always a hit, especially Italian gelato.  Mmmm...

 And since it was a warm day, we let the girls wade their feet in a shallow fountain in Place Kleber.  I went to peruse a nearby bookstore and came back to find this scene:

            

Apparently she had fallen in, so her clothes were soaked.

Typical Em was a little more cautious and reserved

Stimulating Daddy/Daughter conversation over dinner (most likely about princesses) 

James enjoying his first trip to France

Me attempting to communicate with the waiter using my rusty French

Who can resist her?

Best Friends

Dancing to a street performer

Check him out in this 18 second video singing in French at the top of his lungs.  Love it!

All in all it was a great day, but a little much for little James.  He was happy to come home to his comfort zone