the kid has skills

i made a brief mention of this on facebook. honestly, i was still in shock. a couple weeks ago we finally took mayer's training wheels off his bike. i'm not kidding when i say he learned how to ride his bike in under 5 minutes. troy brought the bike up the driveway, mayer got on, troy told mayer how to push off and that was that. i caught his first ride on video - i apologize for my whooping and hollering but i was/am a proud momma. my favorite part is when mayer rides by with troy running next to him while holding grayson.

he hasn't fallen - well, he hasn't had a major accident. somehow he keeps falling over when he's just standing there but he hasn't fallen while actually riding the bike. he has gone on my walk/run with me and rides his bike the whole time. you may notice he seems ginormous on his bike - we are aware of the situation and looking to remedy the problem. and yes, he's in his pajamas....that's how he rolls. so here's the video of our little superstar:

once a month

apparently i choose/remember to post the blog about once a month....better than nothing :0)

let's see where we left off...we went to mallorca at the end of june for 5 days. i wanted a trip where there was little to nothing to do and a whole lot of pools and beaches. check, check and check. mallorca is a pretty good sized island of the coast of spain in the mediterranean. i was looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing. the weather was great, a couple days it got a little hot but nothing the pool or beach couldn't fix. we found an apartotel (apartment/hotel) that overlooked the sea and was a quick 5 minute walk to the beach, shops and restaurants. we had ice cream every day (sometimes twice), swam every morning and again after dinner every night. great family time!

after we got settled into the room the first night

we got in the first night a little around 7. by the time we got to the hotel, checked in and sat down we realized we hadn't eaten since noon. so out to the hotel's restaurant we went. we got a table outside overlooking the mediterranean. i could have sat there all night, but i quickly realized i had 2 kids who had been in a car for 3 hours, airport for 2 hours and a plane for 2 hours. back to the room we went. i think grayson finally crashed around 10. i checked in on mayer around 1130 and he was finally out.

on day 2, we got up and found the hotel's buffet breakfast (awesome! it was actually a buffet with a wide range of food, not your typical european breakfast). and then we did a little walking around our town of palma nova and found a little grocery store, many, many restaurants, the beach and most important - a playground. we headed back to the hotel and immediately changed into swimsuits and hit the pool until we couldn't hit it anymore. we didn't venture very far that night for dinner but the restaurant was awesome. mexican with a sangria special - i would have stayed there if they had rooms. they were super nice and mayer played with the owner's grandson, while we ate and drank some of the best sangria i've ever had. then they gave both boys ice cream. grayson was such a mess but such is the life when on vacation.

down in the tidal pools below our room

grayson and troy at the tidal pools

the third day we decided to go to the beach. the weather was awesome, the water was a little chilly but nice, the sand was hotter than....well, let's just say it was hot. mayer and i swam out to the little floating island 3 different times. it had a slide and diving board on it. it was a good distance from shore but we all know i could use the exercise. grayson's reaction to the beach is very similar to his reaction to snow. he was alright if you just sat him down with some toys but if you tried to get him to walk in it or move, he wasn't feeling it. he was good out in the water and good at the chairs but anything else was just asking too much of the little man. he will love the beach. i don't care if he ever likes the snow but i draw the line at the beach. anyhoo...back to the vacation. dinner that night was again awesome. an italian place with pretty much only outdoor seating. i got a seafood pasta dish that was just yummy. it had squid, mussels, shrimp and angler fish. and what was even better - grayson ate all of it too. it made up for his reaction to the beach. it's in there somewhere - you can't eat seafood like that and not be a little beachbum.

happy campers - sitting exactly where we put him

this is what happens when you move him

the head and yellow float are troy and mayer

at dinner

day 4 was more of the same. it was all day at the pool. and i'm ashamed to say we went back to the mexican restaurant for dinner. but we walked along the beach beforehand and walked all the way around into the next town over so by the time we got back to the restaurant, i was more than ready for my pitcher of sangria. and again the owners were awesome and mayer and their grandson had a great time running around.

pool after dinner

action shot

going for a walk

day 5 - more pool and beach and that night we had a surprise - more for mayer than grayson. i had done some research before we left and found out about a pirate show. it is dinner and a show - mostly acrobatic - cirque de soleil type of stuff. i thought this would be great to do our last night there. troy didn't really know what we were doing either. so we got there and i had pre-ordered a pirate's loot bag for mayer and it was there waiting for him. once inside, a pirate showed us to our seats and gave the kids a little treasure bag of more stuff and another nice family from wales shared our table with us. i actually had no idea how the dinner worked but they just started bringing food out and....brace yourself....unlimited sodas and sangria and one mini bottle of champagne per adult. after everyone ate themselves silly, the show started. i'm really not exaggerating, grayson and mayer

picture by mayer while waiting for the taxi to go to the pirate show

legoland

mayer had no idea that 45 minutes east of here there is a magical place (not as magical as disneyland but to a 5 year old boy with enough legos to last a lifetime, a very magical place). friends of ours that live up near ramstein asked if we wanted to join them on a trip to legoland a few weekends ago. we didn't tell mayer until the night before and even then we don't think he fully understood what was waiting for him the next morning.

so we hopped in the car and drove through the insane rain and thunder and lightning, hoping the patch of clear sky up ahead was over legoland. it was...sort of, on and off throughout the day. but who is gonna let some rain stand between them and lego overload? on the bright side, there was practically no one there.

we got there shortly after it opened at 10am and left right before closing at 7pm. mayer and gabe (our friends' three-year old) ran non-stop the entire time we were there. they went on every ride they could...most of them 2 or 3 times. they played in every play area. i'm pretty sure we saw every square inch of the park...twice. poor grayson wasn't quite big enough to go on any ride so he enjoyed legoland from the comfort of his stroller. and thoroughly enjoyed the play areas. grayson fell asleep for about an hour and both mayer and gabe stayed strong until we got in our cars to go home. neither one of them made it out of the parking lot awake.

it was a great day with friends and a great family day. we will be visiting legoland again soon.  

troy and mayer are under the "an"

too busy looking for the next ride to look at what's in front of them

mayer got a jr. drivers license after this course

this one just about sums up the whole day - look at that smile!

capt. grayson

peddle cars in the rain, what a dad!

***update - since i haven't posted this one yet - why, i don't know - but we have gone back one more time. troy had a "training day" (code for day off) so what better thing to do than hit legoland while all the germans are hard at work? yeah...the place was packed and it was a hot day. but this time all the play areas had their water features on since it wasn't cold and raining. so after a solid morning of riding rides, the boys changed into their swimsuits and ran around until i couldn't take it anymore. it was crazy hot. i would have stripped down if i had seen any other parents running around through the water but it was just munchkins. maybe next time.

barefoot park

yeah....i know it's been a while. thank goodness i take pictures everywhere we go or i would have no idea what has happened since the last time i posted :0)


i'm just going to go through my pictures and go in order of what i have. so, up first is barefoot park or barfusspark if you live here. there are a few of these parks throughout europe but there are several in germany and 3 or 4 within a reasonable distance from us. the one we went to was about 40 minutes from here. the idea of the park is sort of what the name implies...you check your shoes at the door (or the locker since the park is outside and there is no door). you go on a hike through the forest...barefoot. we started off through water, then a little hike on mulch and grass to the forest and throughout the forest there were various fun things to walk through - rocks (smooth, lava, little, big, etc), seashells, glass, pine needles, mud, sand (welcomed relief), etc. it was actually a lot of fun. grayson wouldn't agree with me and was carried through the whole thing. mayer loved it. and at the end there was a small biergarten but we opted for ice cream.

the only picture of grayson touching the ground....also about 2 seconds before he turned and fell on his face

good for the feet...bad for the pedicure

this water was so cold i couldn't go down the steps into the pool



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uncle nutty butters

i didn't take any pics, so i borrowed this one from amy. this was right before he left roanoke

as most of you know, my brother, jeff is en route to iraq. he's currently awaiting a flight into his final destination. last wednesday he left roanoke where amy and lena are staying while he's gone and his travels brought him through germany. as soon as i found out it was a remote possibility he was coming here, i blocked off the calendar. he ended up coming through ramstein, which is about 2 hours from here (on a good day with no traffic, construction, bad weather, etc) on thursday. he was suppose to get in a little after noon and have 3 or 4 hours before having to get back on the plane. so i loaded up the boys, checked the gps about a million times to make sure i was heading to the right place and we were off.

side note: this was my first time driving beyond stuttgart by myself and i was a little nervous to put it mildly.

we got up there in record time. we checked out the terminal and it said jeff would be coming in between 1245 and 145  and it was 1145 so we walked across the street and did a little shopping at the massive exchange and headed back over around 1230. somebody came in and mentioned the flight was coming in at 115....115 came and went. and then the next person said 200...which came and went. finally, someone said 230. 230 came and people magically started appearing from the direction of the exit gate. jeff saw me right away and we met up. and since their plane was an insane 2 hours late, he had 45 minutes before he had to get back on the plane. we couldn't even leave the terminal. but the bigger picture was that 1) i got to see my brother before he deployed and i hadn't seem him in almost 2 years. i was 4 or 5 months pregnant with grayson the last time i saw him 2) grayson got to meet his uncle jeffy 3) mayer got to show uncle nutty butters his cars and tell him all about soccer, the two things he talked about nonstop during the 2 hour drive.

we headed upstairs at the terminal and had some subway. mayer sat next to jeff and talked to him almost nonstop. i chimed in when i could. i love seeing the boys with family, especially since we are so very far away from everyone. grayson had no idea what was going on, but towards the end, he was interacting with jeff.

they called for jeff's flight and everyone got in line to get back onto the plane. i'm pretty sure that was the fastest 45 minutes ever.  the line was crazy long, it seemed like the whole airport stood up and got into line. jeff was literally the last person in line. he had a reserved seat so that meant more time with my brother. it was a bittersweet moment. i was so, so excited to see jeff but at the same time, the only reason i was able to see him was because he was on his way to iraq.

as we were leaving the airport, mayer kept yelling up to jeff and saying/yelling "bye" and jeff waved and yelled back each time.

we left the house at 9am and got home a little after 7pm, all to spend less than hour with jeff, but you can bet, when he's on his way home and has another layover at ramstein, we will be there.

france

we have been trying to take a family vacation since april...it's finally happening in june but that's for another post. troy took a couple days off last week. one day was to frühlingsfest and the other was last friday. we decided to head on over to france for the night and check out a couple of the towns. a friend of mine commented on facebook, that i made it sound like a day trip to tyson's corner (mall in virginia, sniff, sniff...i miss it so much). well, france is a day trip from our house. it's 1 1/2 hours from here. it's actually easier to get to france than most of germany from here.

i have heard many people talk about strausburg and have been bugging...i mean asking...troy to get his international driver's license so we could go and check it out. it's a little ridiculous to be that close to another country and not be able to go. anyhoo, he got it on tuesday and on friday we jumped into the car with one small suitcase and some snacks...at this point it was already my favorite trip - easiest prep ever. we drove the hour and half. we walked around when we first got there and sort of stumbled upon this huge cathedral, which, since we've been back home, troy has googled it and has all sorts of interesting facts but i can't remember anything he said. after lunch in a cafe, we walked around some more and found a huge playground and mayer played for quite a while. i did A LOT of window shopping but only bought a couple little things. the rest of the day was more of the same, walking around, dinner at another cafe, more playground shenanigans. the kids fell asleep pretty quickly that night.

the next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and checked out. we then took our one bag back to the car and checked out the saturday flea market that had just begun. i'm sure i would have found something to buy there had I not heard...."oh no! grayson! what happened?!....jenn!!" grayson popped the top off his sippy cup and had dumped his milk all over himself (we have since stopped using this sippy cup, now that mr. grayson has learned how to pop the top, he does it every time he has this cup). after a quick outfit change in the parking garage, we did one last loop around the town and then headed to the next town.

soufflenheim is another french town, it's claim to fame is it's pottery. i have seen some of it at the bazaars around germany. some of it I love, some of it...not so much. so, when i heard there was a whole town with nothing but pottery shop after pottery shop it was put on the must-see list. we arrived there around 11:15 and i found my favorite shop and bought a few pieces and then stumbled upon another store that was huge. an overly-friendly woman told me i better hurry up since the store closes from noon to 2pm. to which i asked which stores stayed open.

ummm.....yeah, the whole, entire town closes from 12-2pm.

anyone wanna guess what time it was?

11:50. so i quickly picked out a pitcher and filled troy in on the town's awesome hours. i decided that since the town was closed, we should head on home. plus, i was out of money, so the damage was done. i will definitely be heading back to this little town....preferably well before noon and even more preferably, without my children.

all in all, it was an awesome family weekend. everyone had a great time. and did i mention, it all fit in one suitcase? i foresee many more weekend trips in our future.

grayson's first lollipop, ate it like a pro...did you really have any doubts?

mayer taking a break at the playground

2 story carousel...yes please...twice

another photo by mayer. i think i may let him be the photographer on our next trip

this building looked so old, like if you touched it, it would crumble

my attempt at trying to get the whole cathedral in the picture

frühlingsfest

Last week Troy took a day off from work to spend some time at home with the family and we decided to go get our fest on at the Frühlingsfest. It is almost identical to Volksfest/Oktoberfest, it's just a little bit smaller. But a fest is a fest - who cares what we're celebrating, let's fest it up. By-the-way, we're celebrating Spring. And I'm starting to wonder how many times I can say "fest".

Mayer riding a horse, this one wasn't trying to win like last time.

Driving his own bumper car

cutest little pirate

captain troy

troy riding the big boy bumper cars

mayer and t-rex (and yes mayer is wet, 2 times the water ride will do that to you)

grayson and his zebra balloon

And as they say, I saved the best for last....apparently, I come from a long line of carni-pirates. It's the Schultze Pirate Ride. Although, I have to say, this was one of the better rides and the guy running the ride was the only operator dressed to match the ride (that's him on the left, behind the parrot) and he said all sorts of pirate-ery things.