LEGOLAND Deutschland

We spent Memorial Day at Legoland with my friend Jill and her two children. What a spectacular day! The weather was beautiful and all of the children had a blast. No whining involved, just a lovely day. Thank-you Jill for sharing our first trip to Legoland with us and we do hope you will come stay with us next time so that we can make a second trip to Legoland. (Jill had to make a 3 hour trip from Wiesbaden! We live only 1 hour from the park, so next time we would like to make it a slumber party!!!!) Note to the other Wiesbaden-ers, the Bailey Babble Bed and Breakfast has a sweet studio apartment that you can rent for FREE, (I don't even collect Euros for the toiletten!). So if you want to visit and make a trip to Legoland.... let me know.

Burg Hohenzollern

We spent today visiting Burg Hohenzollern in the Swabian Alps, approximately 40 minutes from our house! We had no idea how close it was! Burg Hohenzollern sits atop of Mount Hohehzollern at 855 meters above sea level. The castle was home to the Hohenzollern family that ruled Prussia and Brandenburg until the end of World War I. The castle that we visited today was actually the third castle that was re-built at this location. It was constructed by King Wilhelm IV at about 1850.



Beckett practicing his walking skills around the castle. Someday I hope he looks at these pictures with some appreciation for where he was born.

Still walking.....

A view of the courtyard from where we ate a little snack.

The big kids checking out the cannon. Jordan thought this was particularly exciting. Ava was more concerned with the Queen's Room that we visited on the inside. (Sorry no pictures, cameras were not allowed on the inside.) Brady was waiting for the knights to come alive.

I love these pictures of the kids walking... look how big Jordan is getting!!!!

It was quite a climb to the top... hot and my hair was showing it!

At the entrance to the Castle grounds.

Endangered Species????

CAUTION: FROGS, please drive slowly so that maybe you could cause an accident while driving around them? 30 kilometers per hour is approximately 18 miles per hour.

sidenote: please scroll down, this is my 3rd blog post today. I am catching up!

Mother's Day

Beckett seems to think that he can do this school thing....

I had a wonderful and eventful Mother's Day. Last Thursday, Jordan's first grade class held a Mother's Day Celebration for all of the Moms. It was fantastic. They all wrote their own poems and his teacher made binded books out of them for the children to present us with. The whole class sang a couple of songs for us and then each child took turns reciting one of their own poems in front of the class. After the poetry was finished, the children served us refreshments. Thanks to a friend, I was able to attend the celebration with just Beckett in tow. It was very special to Jordan and I was very proud of his poetry and artwork that accompanied them.

Then on Mother's Day I slept in while Charlie and the kids made breakfast. It was yummy of course! And then the events began.....

Charlie has been ultra busy trying to juggle work and taking classes for his Masters, so I have been ultra busy with the kids on the weekends. I try to leave the house with all of them for a few hours each day so that Charlie can get some reading and/or writing done for his class. Mother's Day was no exception because his class starts tonight and he needed to finish writing his paper that is due at the start of the class. I decided to take the kids grocery shopping and to a playground for a few hours. When we came home, I dropped all of the bags downstairs and somewhere misplaced my keys. Ava and Jordan decided to play with these iron-fuse beeds that you can make pictures with and then iron together. I made the mistake of telling them to take them upstairs because they were getting a bit loud and Charlie was deep in concentration. A bit later as I am putting groceries away, I hear Ava start screaming.

Apparently, she wanted to feel what it was like to stick one of the beads up her nose. Why? I will never know. It is so FAR up there, that we can't possibly get it out and we can barely even see it. Of course, I can't find the keys to the van because they are in one of the 25 grocery bags that I haven't emptied out yet. 15 minutes later, I locate the spare keys and we head to the ER. Ava calmed down in the van on the way there, but not for long. The doctor at the ER said it was too far for her to blow out and too far for him to fetch out without sedating her. Can I just say that I was so thankful that Charlie was there and he went in the room with her!!!! The idea of the doctor sticking a tool up her nose, made me want to vomit and brought flashbacks of when she was an infant with RSV. As an infant she had a great big tube stuck down her nasal passages and it was disgusting. Even with the sedation, I could hear her crying when they took it out. YUCK! It took about an hour before she could walk straight and we were allowed to go home.

Nothing says, "YES, YOU ARE A MOM" like a trip to the ER on Mother's DAY!!! I suppose I will never forget the Mother's Day that Ava got a bead stuck up her nose.

Not a Red Sox, but a Texas Ranger

It is Spring again and this year we have a Texas Ranger! Enjoy the photos of his second game of the season, because I forgot my camera for the first game.