Tübingen

On Saturday, we decided to have an all day adventure, so the next three posts are about our day! In the morning, we headed to a smaller town a little ways South of us called Tübingen. The town was positively adorable and we visited during a few different festivals. Here are a few sights:

At the music festival, they were giving out free balloons, so we had to stop and get some of those:


I decided to wear Victoria in the wrap since we were only in this town for a short while. I certainly caught a lot of funny looks- I don't think that slings/wraps are very common here. As if we didn't stick out in the crowd already!

And here are Isaac and Daphne in front of the marketplace:


Here are some sights around the town:





You can barely see us, but we are there on the little bridge going over the creek on the right side of this pic:

After exploring the city for a while, we found an awesome park where the kids stayed to play a while. I love all of the parks I have seen here. Most of them are a little shady as far as safety is concerned, but they are a lot of fun. Sometimes I think litigation has caused our country to over-regulate our children's playthings. But, I digress. Anyway, most of the parks have really cool little water pumps with sand troughs where they can explore. I give that part a thumbs-up!

Downtown Stuttgart- City Centre

On Wednesday, we decided to take a little outing to downtown Stuttgart (which is the city we are living in for the summer) and see the sights.
Here is a view of the drive along the way:

We arrived too late to actually go into this museum, but the children really liked the odd statues outside:

We stopped for a family photo in front of the city centre:

The kids really wanted to make a wish with a penny in the fountain, but we said no because there were no other coins in the fountain and I said, "We want to be respectful of the German way of doing things and not be rude to their fountain."

Immediately following this comment, we saw this:

If you can't see that due to the water, it is a small child in his underwear playing in the fountain, with his father. Nice.

You may remember some of these sights from our "Germany Here We Come" post which can be found if you scroll down on this page.

The flowers were so beautiful we had to take a picture of those, too!

We heard from my friend, Lindsay, that the ice cream in Germany is so delicious that I will no longer miss my Blue Bell. So, we decided to walk up the steps at the outside of the city centre and get some yummy ice cream. Here is a view of the centre from the ice cream shop:

And here we are having our ice cream. We tried to sit at one of the tables outside the shop and were told that we could only sit there if we were going to drink. So,we "just said no" and we meandered on down to a park bench. Tori LOVED the ice cream!

Then we wanted a pic of the kids in this lovely gazebo:

Sorry there aren't more anecdotes along with this one... I've been trying to post this forever and keep running into technical difficulties. I'll post more soon- we had a fabulous day on Saturday, too!

Dinner and A Park!

On Tuesday, the kids and I went for a walk in the neighborhood behind our hotel. After about 1/2 a mile, We turned the corner and found... A Playground! Yay! I cannot explain to you the joy that filled my heart when I saw it there. I mean, our hotel is fabulous and spacious, but 3 small children in a hotel room gets real old, real fast. We also found a little German restaurant across the street, so we brought Matt back for dinner later that evening. We've been out to restaurants here, even foreign ones, but we hadn't actually had "German" food here yet. So, we ventured out and tried it. They didn't really speak German, so we sat there with our German dictionary and tried to muddle through. We asked for NO Mushrooms multiple times ( in terrible German) and our dishes still had mushrooms all over them and we accidentally ordered perrier instead of regular water. But the food was good and the children ate it well. Then we headed across the street to the playground.
These pics are actually from Wednesday, when I took the kids back to the playground. ( I forgot my camera on Tues.):

Here is the resaurant where we ate: Super Quaint!

Herzlich Wilkommen in Stuttgart!

Well here is a little update of our first few days in Germany. I apologize to those of you who have heard some of this already, but there are a few new stories/details, and of course, pictures!

The flights went very well- the children behaved beautifully and endured the planes well. We had to pay international taxes for Tori to travel with us. On the longest flight between Chicago and London, They all slept for a decent chunk of time, 4 to 5 hours depending on the child. Matt didn't sleep at all and I slept about 45 minutes. When we were boarding the flight from London to Stuttgart, they said that I didn't have a ticket for Victoria and weren't letting me board the plane. Of course Matt, Isaac and Daph were already walking down the gigantic runway and I was standing there waiting to find out if they were going to let me on. They finally decided that since I had a receipt paying for the taxes that they would let her on the plane with us.We arrived in Stuttgart at about 10:45 am and went to get all of our bags. They lost our biggest suitcase and the baby's carseat. Some very kind airport workers followed us around with a huge cart filled with all of our luggage as we sorted out the lost baggage issue and got our rental car. Sixt didn't have the type of car we had reserved but they figured out a decent substitute. The rental car place was ORANGE. And I mean orange. The counter tops were orange, the walls of the counters were orange and were back lit- The walls of the place were orange and the poor women who worked there were all wearing orange vests with big orange bow ties. I wish I knew some German phrase of sympathy to share with them. ... So, the nice men then split up and one went with Matt to get the rental car and the other one went with the children and me to take the bags to the curbside to wait for Matt. At this point, we had been awake for about 30 hours and Victoria cried to sleep in my arms and Isaac had to go the the bathroom and I couldn't leave the bags to take him, so we waited about 10 minutes for Matt to arrive with the rental car and I asked my first question in German! "Wo est die toilette?" And I got the answer in German and found the bathroom for my son! Yay me! Small Victories. Matt gave the nice men a generous tip and tried to fit all of our luggage in our rental car, which is a small SUV comparable to a Santa Fe, called a Ford Kouga. (Whatever the heck that is.)
SO, we then decided that there was no way to fit all of us and our luggage in the car and decided to get a taxi to drive me and the baby and some of the bags while Matt drove the other chidren and other luggage to the hotel. We made it to the hotel after Tori and I endured the some of the worst Body Odor ever from the cab driver and got out in the parking garage of the SI Suites, who of course had inadvertently cancelled our reservation and could no longer offer us our room. We talked to them for a long time, I waited in the parking garage with the three very tired children for a over half an hour and they finally got us our room for at least one night. They said they didn't know yet if they could offer us our room for our long term stay. Exhausted and frustrated, we trudged to our room with almost all of our bags and waited waited for them to figure out if we could stay here for more than one night. We finally got into our room at about 2 pm Germany time. As we began to get settled , we realized the bag that they lost was the one with the rest of the diapers and wipes. A short time later, the hotel manager called to tell us that we would be able to stay in our room for the entire stay and that the airline would deliver our bag that evening. (Yay! Thank you, Lord!) So, we fell into the beds and slept for a few hours. (With regard to recovering from jet lag, this was a terrible idea... but Matt and I had been awake for about 37 hours and the children had only slept about 4-6 hours of those 37 hours, so we were desperate!
We awoke to meet our neighbors, Zdenka and Kirk, who are amazing and kind and helped us out with tips and info about our surroundings. They also helped us order some very interesting pizza and find an ATM to get some Euro to pay for our pizza. We got our lost bag and car seat, thankfully; took showers and baths and went to bed. Of course it was 11:00 pm in Germany, so only 3 pm in UT and Daphne woke up at about 1 am and susequently woke everyone else up. I finally got Tori back to sleep and then got Daphne back to sleep about 4 am. Then we slept until about 10:30/ 11 am. I'm not really sure because there isn't a clock in our room. Other than no clock in the room and losing the reservation, the hotel is fabulous. Our room is perfect- plenty of space and the kidsuite is perfect! Here they are on their bunk beds: There is also another bed for Tori and their own shelves and tv and wardrobe. We have more room than I expected, although I'm sure it will feel pretty cramped after a few weeks.

Victoria is definitely enjoying all the extra pace, even if she doesn't want to sleep here. Here she is helping me unpack a suitcase:

and in the bottom of my wardrobe, throwing out all my shoes:

So here are a few pics from our hotel. Here are the kids just outside (they are standing right next to our breakfast table.)

Here they are in front of the fountains just outside our hotel room:

More fountains just outside the hotel entrance:

The breakfast is amazing- I'm sure that it won't be as exciting in a month, but it is delicious and has a very wide assortment of foods. I picked up an eclair on our first visit and took a bite and wrinkled my nose saying, "Eww- chocolate." (I love chocolate almost anywhere, but rarely in pastries) And then I chewed it and said, "Wow- that was really good chocolate!" and I ate the rest. I'm really tempted to take a picture of the buffet- it is pretty incredible. But alas, we are fairly conspicuous as it is, and I don't think that would help us blend any better!

Monday night we went shopping on base and stocked up on groceries, etc... they also have a Popeye's chicken and we enjoyed some real American food with ice in our sodas and straws in our drinks and free refills. We had a great time until.... Dum Dum Dum!

Probably about 50 times while we were shopping we asked the children , specifically Isaac, not to touch breakable things. He had to be reminded many times. On the way out of the BX, there are lots of little shops. Matt and I were trying to decide about a calling card and I was holding the fussy baby and Matt was pushing the cart. All the sudden I hear, CRASH! I look over and my two older children are standing in front of a display table that had been pushed out into the walkway in front of an Antiques Shop, wearing expressions of shock and fright on their precious little faces. My heart sank to the bottom of my belly and I rushed over to find a broken plate. I was moderately relieved, as far as antiques go, that seemed like one of the smaller items for display. I went into the shop with the manager and sent the children over to Matt. After much negotiating and apologizing, I had to pay 50 euro for that antique German wall plate. Sigh. I'm still not completely sure what to do about it.

Matt has had a very few stressful days figuring out how to drive here and get where he needs to be for work and all. We seem to be adjusting now and will hopefully do more sightseeing soon. But for now... we are just trying to sleep at night and be awake in the day and drive on the autobahan without death or injury!

Love Y'all!

Tori in Europe!

Well, since Victoria spent the 12, 13th and 14th months of her life abroad, I thought I would include a montage of her time in Europe! After this post, I left in any post that contained cute pics, funny anecdotes or records of milestones. But for all the rest, I put togethere a hodgepodge post of cuteness.

Unpacking:

She threw all the shoes out of my closet and climbed inside!

Downtown Stuttgart, enjoying our first sample of German ice cream!

Tubingen:

Hohenzollern castle:

Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber:

Yum!

Victoria was completely obsessed with animals! Any time we saw a dog or a horse, this is the reaction she offered:

4th of July in Berchdesgaten, Germany

During the week, while Matt was working hard, we hung out at the SI Suites, our home for 3 months. Tori spent much of her time playing in these rocks or climbing the cement and metal stairs. Although the hotel room was fairly kid-friendly, the grounds were not.

Pizza in Italy! On the Vaporetto in Italy:

The Aquarium at Legoland Deutschland: More Legoland... how cute is that baby?

Tori and her buddy, Josh:

The Fam in Legoland:

St. Avold Cemetery in France:

(this is the largest American military cemetery in Europe)

Victoria with her bottle habit just outside General Patton's grave:

The Roman Black Gate in Trier, Germany, which is the oldest city in Europe (so they say)

Cochem on the Mosel River

Pointing at swans out on the Mosel River:

Burg Eltz:

The Eiffel Tower!!!

Tori at the top of the Eiffel Tower! It was while we were waiting in line to go to the top of the Eiffel tower that I held Tori's finger and let her walk around me for a minute. Matt said something to me and I turned to look at him, at which point, a strange woman in line picked Tori up and started giggling while all of her friends took pictures of them together!

Needless to say, I was horrified at their rudeness, but a little flattered that they adored her so much. Everywhere we went, people would ooh and aahh over Victoria (I think they loved her white-blonde curls):

Walking along the Champs de Elysees Taking a very windy boat ride around Paris!

I spent most of the ride just holding on to Tori to keep her from going over the side!

Walking down Rue Cler:

Munching on a real French Baguette:

Rubble Hill (which is in Stuttgart, where we lived)

Salzburg- this is Von Trapp house in the Sound of Music:

Salzburg: Mirabell Gardens

Tori spent a lot of her time in Salzburg walking on some very famous floors and throwing big fits when she was not allowed to climb the stairs over and over and over again. Kinda like this:

Lucerne, Switzerland... Tori would not keep her head under the shade, so she ended up pretty soaking wet by the end of the morning:

Just outside the caves of St. Beatine in Switzerland:

The tallest waterfall in Germany, Triberg:

Versailles Palace:

Schloss Schoenbrunn in Vienna:

Hallstatt, Austria:

The Ice Caves just outside Hallstatt:

Our last ice cream in Germany, also in Stuttgart's City Centre:

Such a big girl!

Victoria, we are so glad that you got to tour Europe with us! I only wish you had been a little older so that you would remember all the amazing sights. But here is a little record so you can know that you really did see Europe!