The Abercrombie Family

for Steve

2009-12-08T08:54:00.000-08:00

Steve needed these for somethinga t work.

Buzz Lightyear!

2009-12-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

I was talking with Liz and she mentioned that I need to post this story up on the blog. Let me give the background to the story so that it will make more sense. A few weeks ago I accidentally threw Zack's Buzz into the bathtub with the rest of his toys. The thing that I didn't realize was that it was a Buzz with batteries (not sure what I was thinking then). Oops, I guess we all do stuff like that sometimes. Since then, Zack has wanted a Buzz lightyear that works.

Today, Liz and the boys went to Toys R' Us and Zack noticed a Buzz that was there and really wanted it. Zack didn't realize Liz had hid the Buzz and purchased it. She said that it was too expensive or something like that. Later on in the day when I was driving with the boys, Zack leans over to talk to me.

"Dad, I saw Buzz Lightyear at the store today!"

"Cool buddy, I heard from Mom."

"Dad, we should go there and buy Buzz for me."

"Well, we'll see what happens."

"Dad, you owe me because you broke the one I already had."

To be honest with you, I couldn't argue with him at this point and I felt pretty bad that I almost took him home and gave it to him. He'll get it soon enough though, we plan on giving it to him for going on the toilet so many times and he's pretty dang close. We're proud of him!

Hate

2009-11-30T13:32:00.000-08:00

While I was loading the dishwasher, Zack ran up to me and we had this conversation.
"Mom!"

"Yea Bud."

"I hate owies."

"That is a good thing to hate."

"I hate bees too."

"I don't like bees either."

"I don't hate bears."

"Okay."

"I don't hate some gorillas. I hate giraffes. I don't hate rhinos. I hate hippos."

"Well, okay."

"So, Mom, you hate bees too? Cool." And off he ran. I wish I knew what was going through his head somedays.

Rome-Part 4 "The Ruins"

2009-09-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning we got up and hopped on our bus. We went to the Forum and Palatine Hill. The Forum was the center of Rome. When Rome's empire expanded, this was the center of the civilized world. Palatine Hill is an extension of the Forum that use to be a huge Palace. Now there is just enough of these grand buildings left to imagine what it use to be. These ruins amazed me. They were my favorite part of Rome. It was so fun to walk through them and try to imagine what it use to look like and try to imagine how these people built these huge marble buildings and temples without the technology and tools we have today. Zack also liked walking and climbing these. For some reason, he came up with the idea that these were the Nephites houses. He kept saying "... and the Nephites lived here." That boy makes me smile.

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After seeing these ruins, we headed over to the Colosseum. On the way there, we ran into some 'Nephites.' Zack really wanted their swords. But they are a lot like the 'rose guy,' they just want your money.

The Colosseum was the huge stadium they used for Gladiator fights. This was built in 80 AD. In it's day, it could hold 50,000 fans.

The inside was incredible. The stage use to cover the whole bottom. But now we can see the underground tunnels. They use to house animals from all over the world in these tunnels, like lions, tigers, bears, crocodiles, elephants and hippos. Then when the Gladiator least expected it, they would lift the animal up in an elevator and release it into the arena. It amazing me that these fights would fill the arena up every night and that thousands of people, who were protected by nets that ringed the crowd, would cheer this on. I think I will stick to football. There's a little less blood and death. But this was a really awesome structure.

From here we walked to St. Peter in Chains Church. This is home to another Michelangelo. This one is Moses. You can see the ten commandments in his arm. We also saw the chains that were used to lock Peter up, or so the story goes.

Next, we hopped back on our bus and hopped off at the Pantheon. (I wish it really was that fast. But the bus kept staying at the stops for 15 minutes. It is just suppose to let people off and then let people on and go. It was really annoying. But both our boys were sleeping, so we just stayed on to let then get a nap.) We checked out the inside of the Pantheon. The inside was awesome! The dome was amazing. It was the first of it's kind and inspired many other domes, including St. Peter's and our Capital building. This dome did have a big hole at the top. This was the only light source of the building. On the floor beneath the hole are little holes to let the rain water drain. The art work was beautiful.

From here we sat at a little restaurant and ate some wonderful pasta. The best we have ever had. The pasta itself tasted like it was made from scratch and the sauce was divine. Oh, how I miss real Italian food already! The boys even loved it! The waiter was so nice. He brought us two glasses of free wine to try. It was the restaurant's special strawberry wine. It looked great, but, of course, we declined. I hope they weren't offended. We headed off to our hotel with our bellies full and our feet very tired.

In the morning, we walked around our hotel. We found the best Italian Ice Cream place. Then our lovely shuttle driver picked us up and we headed to the airport. This time he was even more colorful. We made it safely to the airport and then safely back to Germany. This weekend was incredible. We wanted to go out with a bang and I think we did.

Rome-Part 3 "The Night Life"

2009-09-08T06:09:00.000-07:00

We haven't see much of Europe at night. The boys are usually exhausted so we head to bed early. Since this was our last weekend, we decided to check out Rome at Night. We followed Rick Steve's "Night Walk." (Have I mentioned that I love his books. I would recommend them to everyone who comes to Europe.) We started out in Campo de Foris. Rick recommended to try some pizza bread with cheese from a little restaurant in this square. Here we are eating our pizza bread. It was really good.

Next we headed to Piazza Navona. As you can see, this place was busy at night. People were playing music on the street, groups dancing, artists selling their pictures, and water fountains. The fountain above is the Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini. It was a cool fountain.

We grabbed a quick ice cream cone and then headed to the Pantheon. This temple was built in 120 AD. It was very beautiful at night. In the square by the Pantheon, Zack found a water fountain. We stopped to let him grab a drink. We love these fountains. They are our saving grace in the middle of the hot days in Italy. Zack has become a pro and drinking from them.

Our next stop was The Trevi Fountain. This was a huge fountain. It has 24 spouts of gushing water. It was so crowded that it was hard to get a good picture. We were warned about going in to the crowds in Rome. There is a lot of pick pocketing. So I stayed with the boys while Steve tried to get a good shot.

The last destination was the Spanish Steps.
These looked like the night hang out. We checked them out and then Steve battled the crowd to get some more pictures. While I was hanging out with the boys, a man came up with a big bouquet of roses and handed 3 to me. He said it was because I was so beautiful. I said thanks and he kept saying I was so beautiful. I think Steve saw this guy talking to me because he hurried back. He gave the guy a hard time for giving his wife roses. The guy just basically just said you are lucky. Then he offered to take our picture. He gave Steve the rest of the roses he had and took our picture. See my expression in the pic it is like "Dude, why are you backing up? You better not try to steal my camera." He took the picture then gave us back our camera. Whew! But then he asked Steve for money for the roses he gave me. I tried to give them back saying we didn't want to pay for them. But he wouldn't take them back. He kept asking for money. We tried to walk away, but he followed. So Steve gave him 2 euros, which he said it wasn't enough. But we walked away and he didn't follow. We knew he had something up his sleeve. The things people do for money...

This was the end of Rick Steve's walk. Now we had to figure out how to get back to our hotel. It took us about an hour to walk back and we didn't even get lost. Josh fell asleep on the way back and Zack loved the new "swords" he got.

We really enjoyed seeing this city at night. We wished that we had done this at more places (but the next day the boys reminded us why we didn't. They need their sleep.)

Rome-Part 2 Vatican City

2009-09-08T05:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, we headed to Vatican City. It was about a 7 minute walk from our hotel. We learned later that Vatican City is it's own country. The Pope runs all the religious and political matters. So this makes 9 countries that we have been to.

Our first stop was St. Peter's Basilica. This church is in the location of the apostle Peter's upside down crucifixion. His tomb is under the main altar. I never knew the Catholic church worshiped him so much.

The exterior is completely amazing! Standing in front of it I could not believe it was just a church. St. Peter's Square has a ring of columns around it. The ring opens up to the main street in Vatican. It is suppose to represent that the church has open arms and will welcome anyone. On the top of the columns there are 140 10 feet statues of different saints. In the picture above, we are standing on the steps in front of the basilica. The Square is behind us. Do you see the huge columns and the saints on top?

In the middle of the square is this obelisk. It came from Egypt and is over 2,000 years old! Behind you can see the actual church. The dome on top of the basilica was designed by Michelangelo.

Here is a close up of the top of the church.

After checking out the outside of the church, we got in line to go inside. The line really didn't take too long. When we finally made it inside, it was truly a WOW moment. Here is the video from our first step inside:

One of the main attraction in this church is Michelangelo's Pieta. It is a statue of Mary holding the Son after the Crucifixion. Truly, breathtaking. We later learned that this statue use to be in the middle of the Basilica without any protection. Then one day some crazy Hungarian man climbed on in with a hammer and scream "I am Jesus and this is not my mother." Then he started attacking Mary with his hammer. Pieces of the statue flew all over. Many tourist picked up a piece for a souvenir. It took 5 years to get all the pieces back and the statue back intact. Now it is behind bullet-proof glass.

After spending our time in the church, we headed up to the top of the dome. We paid the extra 2 euros to take the elevator up instead of walk over 500 stairs. We walked around the inside of the dome. It was an amazing view.

Here is the view of Rome from the dome.

Here is a closer view of the dome. Pretty incredible! Just think at how old this is!

When we were done with the Basilica, we headed over to the Vatican Museum. This is the 2nd largest museum in the world. On our way over there, a lady stopped us and tried to sell us tickets to a guided tour of the museum. We wouldn't have to wait in the hour line to get in. We wouldn't have to try to find our way around a maze like museum. We wouldn't be confused as to what we were talking about. We would have a lot of fun and laughs...okay, she sold us. And let me tell you, it was worth it! We learned so much on this tour. Here are a few of the fun facts:

1. Captain Jack Sparrow is in the Vatican.
2. Bill Clinton is also in the Vatican. Steve didn't snap a pic of it. But there was a statue that looks exactly like him.
3. It was uncommon for artists to sign their work. When the Pieta was revealed, the crowd didn't believe that it Michelangelo's work. It was too good to be. He overheard this. So that night he broke into the chapel and carved his name on Mary's sash. We could see this on the duplicate in the museum. It wasn't behind bullet-proof glass. :)
4. Michelangelo was forced to paint the ceiling on the Sistine Chapel. He didn't like painting. He much preferred to sculpt. But the pope asked him to do it. They had an argument in the pope's office. Michelangelo can out of the office with the imprint of the pope's ring on his cheek. The pope won.
5. Michelangelo painted some interesting things in the ceiling for the pope. First, he painted God's naked bottom right were the pope would be staring during mass. His response, God was busy creating the world so that is why he is facing the opposite direction. Second, a little boy on the ceiling is "Flipping the Birdie." It is in a dark corner so the pope didn't see it right off. Third, Michelangelo puts the pope's second hand man in hell in the painting. This man told the pope that Michelangelo had painted everything naked. Michelangelo was than sent to repaint them with clothes. Thus this clerk was going to hell. He also had a snake wrapped around him and biting him in a not so pleasant part. Ummm...I think Michelangelo won.
6. Da Vinci was caught by the pope dissecting a dead human body in his room in the middle of the night. This was against the law and he was kicked out and never allowed back in.

Here is a little slide show of the museum. It was amazing! I really have a new appreciation for art. I can only imagine how hard it would be to sculpt marble and paint ceilings and sew tapestry. Simply amazing! I'm glad we went in!

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After our tour, it was time for lunch. We found a little stand and had a panini. We also grabbed an Italian Ice. The boys really liked those.

Then we headed to our hop on hop off bus to get to another part of Rome. We sat up top. The boys thought this was neat, esp Zack.

We got off the bus and went to the Cappucin Crypt. This was another church that had bones in it. We thought it would be a lot like the one we saw in Hallstatt. The one there was peaceful and not at all gruesome while we were in it. This was a totally different experience. They had used real bones to make everything. The bone chandelier really freaked me out. They had also put bones back together to make a body and then put those dark black robes on them. Then they made a scythe out of bones for them to hold. It looked more like a horror movie than a church. We got out of there pretty dang fast. CREEPY!!!

From here, we walked over to the Baths of Diocletian to find out that the church we go through to get to there was having a wedding. So we couldn't go in. Rome must be the place to get married. I can't tell you how many brides and grooms we saw. There was a cool waterfall in front of the church.

From here jumped back on the bus to get to another part of town. Watch for more pics from our night walk.

Rome- Part 1

2009-09-08T05:03:00.000-07:00

Ever since we found out we couldn't drive our car to Rome, Steve has been searching for an inexpensive way to get us down there. He talked to his coworkers about how to find airfare deals and hotels and everything. He took there advice and planned the whole weekend. He really did an amazing job. Everything was great!

On Friday, we headed to a little airport about an hour from Stuttgart. After checking in and passing security, all stress-free I might add, we found a little children play place by our gate. This was wonderful! It made the 2 hours go by so fast! Zack and Josh loved playing! Every airport NEEDS one of these!

Zack loved flying the airplane.

He even let Josh get in and play with him.

There were big Legos. Zack really liked building towers. Josh liked bum scooting around in them.

There was also a TV playing little parts of several different kid movies, like Jungle Book, Toy Story, Dalmatians, Cars, etc. They were all movies that we did not put our our laptop for Zack to watch. Zack noticed the movies and exclaimed "Mommy, Mommy! I haven't seen this in a long, loong, loooong time!" He was so excited. It was pretty cute. After a while of standing in front of the TV, he said "I need a seat." Then he grabbed a little chair and sat down. I think he will like being home next week with all of his toys and movies.

Soon it was time to board the plane. First we got on one of these.

This drove us to the plane. We got out of the bus and had to walk over to the plane. Then we walked up the stairs right into the plane. I thought this was really cool. I had never had to do this before. It was a fun way to get on the plane. Zack could actually see the big plane and could tell we were getting on it. I thought it was pretty cool.

The flight was short, only about 1 hour and 10 minutes. The boys were both great on the plane. We are hoping this is a preview of our long 13 hour flight home. At least we can hope!

Steve used the USO to set up a driver to pick us up from the airport and take us to our hotel. We met this guy right outside of the airport. He was really nice. He even had a car seat for Josh. He just didn't know how to install it properly. Josh LOVED facing forward. Zack LOVED not having a car seat, until he was sliding all over the seat around every turn. At one point, I thought he was going to loose his lunch. The driver was a little crazy. He honked at everyone and would say something in Italian to them under his breath. Sometimes he even yelled at them in Italian. We were very happy when we arrived at our hotel all in one piece.

We checked in to our hotel. Then we went to the restaurant next door for some real Italian food. We ordered some pasta and pizza. It was so delicious. The pasta sauce was amazing. We don't know if we can ever eat Olive Garden pasta again. It is just not the same.

After enjoying our wonderful dinner, we headed for bed. We knew we needed a good nights rest so we could tour Vatican City on Saturday!

Hallstatt, Austria

2009-09-02T05:27:00.000-07:00

After Rothenburg, we headed to another picturesque town: Hallstatt, Austria. Hallstatt was smaller than Rothenburg, but just as cute! It might even be a more beautiful because it is tucked up in the mountains next to a lake. It was gorgeous. We met the Hunter there. This is their last weekend here and we are glad we could spend part of it with them. We got there right in time to take a picture of the Market Square before it was too dark.

We grab a quick bite to eat. And I mean really quick, the restaurant was going to close just as we walked in. The chef wasn't too happy about how large our group was, but he let us eat as long as we were fast. So we ate fast.

We headed back to our hotel. We had an apartment like hotel room that slept both families. There were 2 rooms and a kitchen and dining area. Zack really liked waking up with his friends right there. All of the hotels that we have stayed have playpens for cribs. But this hotel had a real crib. I was wondering how Josh would do in it. I know he doens't remember his crib at home. He was very excited when he figured out that he could stand up in it. The sides in the play pen are too high for him to grab to pull himself up. Luckily, we only had to lay him back down 2 times. Then he fell to sleep. What a good baby!

In the morning, it looked like it was going to be a cooler day. We didn't have any pants for Josh, so he got to stay in his pajamas. We headed off to town. We saw this cool pear tree in the Market Square. It grows right up the side of the house.

Here we are in front of Market Square. Can you see what a cute little town it is?

And, of course, our boys are looking right at the camera.

From here, we walked up a hill to St Micheal's Church. In front of the church is a cemetary. It was a really cute cemetery. Each grave had a flower box filled with flowers.

Then we went into the chapel and saw this:

It has over 600 painted skulls with all the other bones under them. Space was limited in the cemetery. Bones would only be there about 10-15 years before making room for the freshly dead. Many of those bones ended up in this chapel. Interesting, huh?

We walked down to the opposite end of town, which is like a 10 minute walk, and found a boat to rent. we rented a really slow motor boat. It was very relaxing! Zack even got to 'drive' the boat. He thought he was pretty cool. Josh loved the bottom of the boat. He bum-scooted all around it. He also loved looking over the edge and waving hi to the water. The scenery was also amazing. There were just too many picture to have just one. Here is our lovely boat ride:

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After our ride, we ate some lunch and then went to tour the Giant Ice Cave. Here we are at the cave entrance.

This was magnificent inside.

It was really cold inside. But what do you expect when the ice was over 35 meters deep in some areas.

Here is one of the ice structures. I can't remember what the guide said about it. She would talk for a really time in German and then say like one sentence in English. So I should remember that one sentence, but I don't.

This is our whole group at the bottom of the cave. Beautiful view, huh? And some cute people!

Only one more weekend left. Here we come ROME!!!

Rothenburg

2009-09-01T03:47:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Steve's work had a family picnic. Zack got his face painted like a tiger. He also ran around with American kids. When the German kids try to talk to him at German parks, he gets confused and sad. It was fun for him to run around with kids who speak the same language.

We left the picnic and drove to Rothenburg. Rothenburg is one of Germany's preserved medieval walled towns. It is a very darling little town. Here we are walking through the gate to get in the city.

All of the houses and building look like this. It is so cute! It is what I pictured when I thought of Germany- cute little A-framed houses all squished together. The house reminded us a lot of the Cuckoo clocks that we saw in the Black forest. The clocks look very similar to many house we saw here. Very darling!

We walked to Market Square. Steve and the boys in front of the Town Hall and in the middle of Market Square.

At the Market Square, we met this guy:

He is the Night Watchman. He gives very comical walking tours of the town as he 'watches' the town. We and a group of about 50 people followed him around while he told us the history of this town and what it was like to live here many years ago. We actually learned a lot. But I'm not witty enough to make it interesting, so I won't bore you. He did take us on the outside of the wall. This is the gate we walked out of. I thought it looked so cute all lit up.

He showed us the hill that the town sits on. It was a breath-taking view.

After the tour, I decided I was going to change my profession. Everyone in the group of 50+ paid the Night Watchman 6 euros. Then he did another tour in German at 9:30. He made over 600 euros in 3 hours and that includes a break between the 2 one hour tours. That is some fast cash!

Anyway, we headed back to our hotel room and tried to sleep. We were reminded how much we miss our AC and our quite neighborhood where there isn't loud drunks laughing at all hours of the night.

In the morning, we headed back in to the walled town.

Our first stop was the Crime and Punshiment Musuem. Zack trying to be just like Daddy. It was really fascinating to see and read all the old punishments. I didn't get to read much because I was chasing Zackary around. But I did read that bakers were put into a cage and dunked under water (and who knows how long they were held under) for not making bread the right size. If the bread weighed 20 ounces when it was supposed to be 15 ounces, they were dunked 5 times. Crazy!!

This is a mask for women who talked too much. I think I have one sister who would have had to wear this. But I'm not going to mention any names.

Zack was fascinated by the big execution swords.
It was really an interesting museum, unlike any I have ever been to.

Next, we visited St. Jakob's Church. The outside was under construction. The main attraction in this church (is that what you call it when it is in a church? It seems like all the churches have some reason to get the tourists inside) is a 500 year old, 35-foot-high wood carving called "Altar of the Holy Blood." On top is Christ on the cross. The center is the Last Supper. On the right is Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. This was the first time I have seen this in a Catholic church. It was amazing!

We walked around the town some more, the shops were so fun, and then headed to the wall. We could walk aropund the whole town on this:

This was the view from the wall:

We really loved Rothenburg. I don't think the pictures above do it justice so I have to include a slide show of a few more pics to help us remember this cute little town.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Cologne

2009-08-27T04:24:00.000-07:00

On our way back to Germany from Brussels, I fell asleep. I know that surprises all of you. :) Sometime during the drive, Steve pats my leg and says "Hey! We just entered the Netherlands." I think I said something like "cool." Then I fell back to sleep. If I was more coherent I would have taken a picture. That is what I get for sleeping. But that did make our count to 8 countries that we have been in during our time here. WOW! That is a lot of countries. I don't think either one of us had ever thought that we would travel to 8 different countries.

Anyway, we drove through the Netherlands to Cologne, Germany. Like I said before, there was supposedly a really cool chocolate factory here. As we drove in to the city, we were surprised at how pretty it was. (I don't know why we keep getting surprised over this. EVERYTHING is just beautiful here!)

We found a parking place and walk to the Schokoladen Museum.
Please ignore my face in this picture. I was tickling Josh trying to get him to smile and Steve took the picture before I was ready.

We were hoping this was going to be similar to chocolate factory in Broc. Zack had a really good time there. But this was more of a museum. It had a lot about cocoa beans and how they are harvested. They had movies of people cutting down cocoa bean trees. There was a lot to read and look at, which is not what a 2 year old wants to do. So we moved quickly through this part. There was one display about how chocolate is actually healthy for you. It had all sorts of reason why we should eat chocolate and how it effected the different parts of our body. But I am still wondering how healthy it really is. Why are my pants a little tighter after all the chocolate and chocolate waffles this weekend? Oh, I know, it must have been the fries!

The center part did have really cool machine making chocolate. We could go right up to them and look in. Zack liked running around and going up all the stairs to look at the chocolate.

This is the machine filling in chocolate molds.

This machine is making hollow molded chocolate. You know, like those hollow bunnies we can buy at Easter time. It was a really cool machine. The arms were moving constantly and in every direction. I never knew how they did this.
Very cool to see!

There was a model cocoa bean tree with chocolate running out the bottom. They dipped little waffle pieces in it and handed it out for a sample.Look at Josh eying Zack's chocolate. Lately, we have noticed how much Josh notices what Zack gets and he doesn't. We did give him a piece without chocolate. The chocolate was dripping all over, so we didn't want a mess. But he obviously knew the difference.

We finished up at the museum. It was a neat place, but we did like the Broc factory better. Zack liked this one a lot. He did not want to leave until we saw Willy Wonka. Some how we talked him in to leaving with out too much hassle.

On the way back to our car, Zack saw a little Merry-Go-Round with cars on it. Since t was only 1 euro, we let him ride. Every time he would circle back towards us, Josh would wave and say hi and Zack would wave back at him. It was the cutest thing.

These two can be each others best friends or each others worse enemies. I really like it when they play together. They can both giggle at each other for quite some time. I just love it!

Brussels

2009-08-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

We arrived to Brussels at about 6:00 PM. There are two parts of Brussels: the Upper Town-which has big marble palaces and broad boulevards, and the Lower Town-which has old building and narrow streets. Since it was still relatively early we decided to tour the Upper Town.

We started in the Parc de Bruxelles. There was some carnival going on so we didn't go through the middle. We walked around the outside. It was a very pretty park.
Across the street from the park is the Belgium Parliment building.

The Royal Palace is on the other side of the park. This is the office of the King of Belgium. If the flag is flying from the palace, the king is somewhere in Belgium. There was no flag. So we had no chance of running in to him. I am sure we would have recognized him. :)

From here we walked pass the Place Royale. This is just a really fancy church. They do rent out part of it for other uses. But we couldn't figure out what those were.

Next we ran into the Notre-Dame du Sablon Church. This church is known for a little statue of Mary dressed in white with a lace veil. This statue has powers that saved Brussels many times. Unfortunately it was closed by the time we got there. Then it had mass on Sunday. So we didn't get to see the statue.

Across from the church was a little garden. It was really pretty. I think Zack is starting to like the attention he gets from getting his picture taken. He also liked being out of the stroller for a while. He was running all over the garden. We were glad it wasn't too crowded. There was a nice little fountain. Zack, of course, wanted to touch the water-no we didn't let him.

There was a really good view of the church. These old churches have quite the architecture. Who knows what Zack is doing...but he is smiling.

Down the street is the under construction Palace of Justice. This was built in the 1800s. It is still used as a Hall of Justice where big court cases appear.
We really like the golden top of the dome. Very classy looking.

On the side of the Palace is a great viewpoint to see all of Brussels. It was a great view. Zack again loved walking all over.

We returned to our hotel for a good nights rest. Then headed out in the morning to tour the Lower Town. We started in the Grand Place. This is the center of Brussels. This square was filled with chocolate shops, waffles, cafes, lace and flowers. The first thing everyone sees in the Town Hall. It is massive! It is pretty impressive. The building were all topped with statues. They were all pretty cool looking. We checked out the inside of the town hall. The outside is definitely the better part.

We thought it was funny to see this Australian Ice Cream shop right in the middle of Brussels. I didn't know Australia had good ice cream. But apparently it is good enough to be sold in Brussels next to Italian ice cream.

Every time Zack see any kind of sculpture of an animal. He has to stand by it and smile while we take his picture. Then we has to feed it out of his hands and of course pet it. He was very excited to see this elephant.
We were excited to see the Chocopolis behind the elephant. We went inside to check it out. They gave each of us a free sample, even a whole one for Josh. He really liked that.

Next we walked down the street to the Galeries Royales St. Hubert. This is Europe's oldest still-operating shopping mall. It was glassed covered. It had stores that made custom hats and canes. There was a store to make shoes custom to your foot. They all made them right there in the store. It was a pretty neat mall.

Next we walked down the Rue des Bouchers. I have never seen so many restaurants in one place. This is all this street had. It was amazing how many tables were squished into such a little area. Plus it seemed like they all sold the same thing: Mussels. We just could not get ourselves to eat Mussels in Brussels. We are not fish eaters and we just could not do it.

The Church of St. Nicolas was our next stop. It was a smaller church than we had been seeing. But, as always, very beautiful inside. It is always interesting to see the different statues of people and all the candles under them. It was interesting to see that the candle and match cost. You want to ask for a blessing, please pay here.

On our walk to the highlight of Brussels: Manneken-Pis. We passed this. This is a statue of the Mayor of Brussels who would not surrender the keys of the city to invaders. So we was tortured and killed. The legend is if you touch him, you will get good luck. So of course I had to touch him.

We finally got to the Manneken-Pis:

Originally, in 1619, this was made to provide drinking water to the neighborhood. Now it is the pride of Brussels. We had to run just to get a picture with it.

It is really funny how proud this city is of this little guy. He is made out of chocolate, metal, lace, you name it and they have it. It really made me smile to see these in almost every chocolate shop we passed. Zack kept asking "What is that?" I'm not sure he quite understands.

Of course, we had some more waffles and fries before heading out of the country. We really, really liked Belgium. It made the list of where we want to come back to someday. The buildings were amazing. We think it is a very classy country (well, to visit, at least.)

Belgium- Day 1: Bruges

2009-08-25T04:33:00.000-07:00

Last week Steve had to work late, so he was able to get off at 1:30 on Friday. We were so excited! We were going to take the opportunity to see a few more things. The plan was to drive to Cologne, Germany. Go to the Chocolate Factory/museum and see a couple more things and then drive to Bruges, Belgium where we were spending the night. The drive to Cologne was supposed to be 3 hours then it was another 3 and a half hours to Bruges. We could be at our hotel before 10! We had to be at the factory by 5:00. We put the address into our wonderful GPS. It was estimating that we would get there at 5:30 because of our favorite things in the world, staus (traffic jams). So the factory was out of the question. We changed our game plan. We were going to stop in Trier, Germany to see some Roman ruins and then to Luxembourg, Luxembourg (how many of you have heard of that country before?) to see Gen. Patton's grave. So we headed off to Trier. We got there and looked and looked for these Roman ruins. We thought they would be in the GPS or that there would be signs. But we couldn't find them at all. We did drive on a really cool bridge that looked really old. But we never found any sites. Here is our proof that we went to Trier.

We continued on. Can you tell how thrilled Steve is about driving? We might be getting a little tired of these 6 hour drives. But they have all been well worth it!

We got to General Patton's grave at 6:10. It closes at 6:00...opps forgot to look that up. It looked like it would have been a site to see.

So onto Bruges. I guess that extra time didn't help after all. We still didn't arrive at our hotel until after 10. Plus they didn't understand that we had kids with us. So they had to set up the cribs. Steve and I finally got to bed a little after midnight. We just can't have a great weekend if we go to bed early!

We woke up bright and early, thanks to 2 darling little boys, and started our exploration of Bruges. Bruges was a very beautiful town. In the 14th century it was one of biggest towns in the world. Most of the buildings are well preserved neo-Gothic style, which I fell in love with. I love the look of the roofs, the stair like arches. Loved it!

We started out at the Market Square. The old canal came up to this square. All the farmers would ship their goods here to be made into a final product that would then we shipped out. Today it is filled with restaurants and old buildings. The statue behind us honors their victory over France in 1302.

The main attraction in Market Square is the Bell Tower.
This has stood over the square since 1300. It's bells rung every 15 minutes. We tried to climb the 366 steps to the top, but after 15 minutes of standing in a line that wasn't moving, our boys were done. So we moved on. This is us at the bottom of the tower.

We walked down Breidelstratt. This street was darling. Homemade lace, tapestry, chocolate and waffles are all sold on this street. These shops just lined the street. Each had there own little touch to call their own and make theirs better than the rest. The lace shops were amazing. I loved the little white lace dresses they had for baby girls. They had the shoes and hats to match. The outfit would have been so wonderful to bless a baby in. But I couldn't spend that type of money on a dress that would be worn once or even a dress that would have been wore a ton. They were pricey!

Of course, we had to stop at a chocolate shop. Belgium doesn't have a big chocolate company; it has lots of little family run chocolate shops. From the first bite, we decided that this is the BEST chocolate we have ever had. It is the essence of melt in you mouth. Look at Josh's face...he is concentrating on not letting that leave his mouth. YUMMY! The only bad thing about it is that it is not individually wrapped so it makes transportation hard. We are not sure it will last the 3 weeks until we come home. We will see if it makes it.

At the end of that street is the Burg Square. This square alone has 6 centuries of architecture. This square had a lot to look at. The first thing we saw was a group of people with coolers and some sort of alcohol. Most were dressed nice. THey were celebrating in front of the town hall. We are assuming that a couple just got married. Our Rick Steve's book says it happens a lot. This is me checking out the inside of the Town Hall.

The next stop was the Basilica of the Holy Blood. Here is the Legend of the Holy Blood: Several drops of Christ's blood were preserved in a crystal phial in Jerusalem. In 1150, the patriarch of Jerusalem gave the blood to a Flemish soldier as a thank you for rescuing his city from the Muslims. This soldier returned home and donated it to the city. It is now held in this Basilica for people to come and see. We were pretty excited about seeing this. It sounds like a cool idea. We went inside the church. It was amazing! There were painting depicting the story of how the blood got here. Though 3 huge arches was the phial. The phial was being watched over by 3 priests of some sort. There was a line to get to the phial. We sat and watched everyone go up to the phial and cross themselves and worship the phial. It was interesting to see how many people were really worshiping this phial. Since there were silence signs all over and our boys weren't being that silent, and since we really weren't there to worship the thing, we decided it was best to leave. It was a really neat basilica.

On the corner of Burg Square is the Crowne Plaza Hotel. This is one of the cities newest buildings. It sits atop the ruins of the town's oldest structures. We had to go inside and ask the receptionist very nicely if we could see the ruins in the basement. We must look like nice people because he let us go and see. The basement is lined with an old stone wall.

These are oak piling that held up the moat to the city.

They also found a town water hole which turned up a lot of ruins that they put back together. These were pretty neat.

Can you believe this is all in the bottom of a hotel? We were so glad to have Rick Steve's book so we knew about this. Most people just walked right past this hotel.

Next we had to have some Belgium fries. This is where fries were really started. I don't know how they got the name French Fries. These were by far the best fries we have ever had. I don't know what they do differently, but they were dang good!

While we were eating fried, Zack found a little metal model of the Bell Tower. he thought it was neat. He kept going and looking at it and touching it. He was fascinated.

We continued checking out the city. We found the original iron hinge from the city's gate. It use to close up at 10:00 PM.

Then we came upon an amazing view of the bell tower with the canal and some other old buildings. It was a perfect spot for a great family photo. You know, one that can go on the Christmas card. This is what we got:
Lovely, huh? Josh pulling his funny face and Zack way more interested in his fingernail than the stranger taking our picture.

It was getting time to try a Belgium Waffle. The Belgium eat waffles as a dessert or as a snack with their tea. They are much different than the ones we have for breakfast. They have some sort of sugar coat on them. I don't know if they put sugar in the iron or what they do. It is like sugar cooked into them. Then they have a million different toppings: strawberries, hot chocolate, nutella, caramel, whip cream, bananas, and any combination you can come up with. So here is us with our lunch:

Do you think Zack is excited? Chocolate for lunch...I'm a great mom.

Next stop was the "Church of Our Lady." This had a huge steeple, but it was under construction. So the picture isn't as cool as it could be, so you don't get one. Just a pic of the front. This church is famous for having one of the few Michelangelo statues to leave Italy during his lifetime. The statue is "Madonna and Child." It is Mary with young Jesus standing in front of her. Needless to say, it was amazing!

We were also amazed at how much the Catholics worship Jesus on the cross. There is nothing about the resurrection or anything of what happened before the cross. All three of these events are what gives us the opportunity to live forever. It made us realize how lucky we are to have the true gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives.

Next we ran into the Minnewater. This is just a very peaceful lake. It was nice to sit a relax for a while.

From here, we walked around and enjoyed the town a little more. We really liked this place. It was relaxing and beautiful. The buildings were amazing. When we were done, we headed to Brussels to check out the country's capital.

Here is a slide show of some more Bruges pics just to help you get a better feel of what it was like. We loved it there!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Mainau Island

2009-08-24T02:14:00.000-07:00

Our last stop, last weekend, was Mainua Island. It is a little island on Lake Constance. This lake is on the borders of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The water was so blue and clear. We were amazed at how easily we could spot the fish in the lake, even Josh could see the fish. That is how clear it was. This island was full of great activities, mostly for children. Yay! We were excited to have fun things for them to do. The first stop was the petting zoo. We got to go in the goat's pen. Josh loved petting and getting close to the goats. Zack liked it, until they got a little aggressive towards another little kid. She had food so the goats ran towards her. This frightened Zack. But after they laid down again. He was all over petting them. We also go to see bunnies, chickens, and donkeys. Zack's favorite part was the pony ride. He was so excited to ride a horse. In the slide show, look for the picture of his face while he was riding. Priceless!

The island is also called "The Flower Island." It lives up to this name. There are so many gorgeous flowers all over! They had flowers made out of flowers. It was pretty incredible. The main flower garden is amazing. It has a little stream going through the middle and stair on both sides with flowers blooming everywhere you look. I wanted to get a good family picture here so badly, but of course Josh was asleep when we got here. But it was fun to look at.

There was a beautiful pond with lily pads. The whole pond was covered. It was beautiful. The flowers with the lily pads were gorgeous. I think I need some of those back home. :)

There was also a palace on the island. It was a cute little palace. There were palm trees around it. We felt a little like we were in Hawaii. Now we don't have to go there.

The last thing we visited was the butterfly exhibit. It was amazing! There were butterflies everywhere! They had put fruit out that the butterflies would land on. Then we could pick up the fruit and "hold" the butterfly. Both kids liked this. There was also a ton of water in this exhibit. Zack was interested more in the water than the butterflies. He wanted to touch every pond we saw. He liked looking for fish and turtles. But he wasn't too concerned about the butterflies.

There also was a big playground. It was actually a normal wooden playground! There was a wooden train to get in and drive. Zack really liked this. It was fun to have a weekend that he enjoyed, plus it was so beautiful that we enjoyed it too!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Affenberg Salem

2009-08-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

After the World's Largest Cuckoo Clock, we drove to Salem and went to the Affenberg Salem. We got to the Affenberg and saw this. They had about a dozen pelicans and a couple of huge nests. Zack liked the big birds. They were very pretty birds. They made a very funny noise with their mouths. We continued down the trail that looked like this. It was very pretty. But there was just one problem: BEES. For some reason, the bees really like us here. I have never been stung by a bee in my life, yet in the first few weeks here, I got stung by a bee as I was walking along doing nothing. (Seriously, I was even inside!) So we were constantly trying to get the bees away from us. We had to keep moving or they would just circle us. These bees were rather aggressive too. They would land on us. They followed us when we ran from them. But we weren't going to let these stinkin' bees ruin our fun. So we kept going. Finally we got to the main attraction, 200 200 Barbary Monkey. These monkeys aren't caged. They wonder through a 20 acre forest and the trail that we were on goes right through their main habitat! They hand out free popcorn to feed the monkeys. Zack was very excited about this. He told us that he wanted to hug the monkey. Here is the first time we fed the monkeys:
He loved it! It was so dang cute, as you can all see.

Right after we fed that monkey, some of the other monkeys started squealing and yelling at each other. All of the sudden in the tree right by us, a baby monkey started screaming and running down the tree. It kind of scared us. We had no clue there was a baby up there. The monkey that we fed ran to the baby. The second she had her baby, the baby stopped screaming. It was really cute!
We continued down the path. Josh also liked the monkeys. We would ask him "Where is the monkey?" He would look around and point right at one. He even fed one. But really wasn't very amused. He wanted to eat the popcorn and didn't like this guy taking it from him!

The monkey had some really cool trees to live in.
As we were walking through the forest, all of the sudden Zack starts saying "Owie, Owie, Owie, OWWW!!" I look at him and see a dang bee on his finger. Sure enough it is stinging him! We got the bee off. Luckily, it didn't leave it's stinger. I think we caught it soon enough. Before we knew it, his finger was all red and swollen. He was very tough. He just wanted Mom to hold him. But he wanted to keep feeding the monkeys. We walked along and got rid of the popcorn pretty fast. His finger just kept swelling. So we really wanted to get some benadryl in him. We also hurried through the gift shop. We bought him a little monkey because we felt so bad for him. Finally we made it to the car. As I was attending to Zack, I feel this stinging pain in my armpit. Sure enough there is another dang bee! I really think it was smelling my deodorant. Those German bees aren't use to that! This one got me good. The stinger was left in. We pulled it out and fixed it up. It has been 4 days and it still itches like crazy and is red with a bump. I told you it got me good. Needless to say, we got in the car as fast as possible and got out of that place. In the car, Zack's 'baby monkey' kissed his sting better. He hasn't had a problem since.

It really was a cool place. I just wish they did something about those bees. Zack absolutely loved it. He still asks if we can go back to the monkey zoo. He says that there are not bees. When I tell him that there are, he says he isn't scared of them. The monkeys won his heart!

Triberg: The Black Forest

2009-08-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday, we drove an hour and a half to a town called Triberg. The hour and a half was so much nicer than the 6 hour drives we have been doing. It was very much needed! Triberg is in the Black Forest. From my understanding, this is where the Cuckoo Clocks were all started. Now it is famous for Cuckoo Clocks. So this is where we started:
The House of 1000 Clocks. Steve said it was the coolest store he has ever been in. We really liked the bear on the outside. The one on the rope was moving up and down.

Their clocks were amazing! We have seen them a lot of places. But it was cool to see them in the town that they come from. You will all have to come and see mine when we get home, so you can see what I am talking about. They are real Cuckoo Clocks. Some look like little houses, others are carved wood with leaves and crosses like the one above. We really like the house ones. After spending way too much money in that store, we headed across the street to see Germany's highest waterfall. I don't think that we saw how high the waterfall actually is. We climbed as high as we could with the stroller. I am not sure if it the fall kept going up the whole trail or not. The part we saw was amazing! It was really beautiful!
It si kind of funny that this waterfall doesn't have a name. The signs just say wasserfalle, which means waterfall. All the pamphlet just call it "Germany's Highest Waterfall" I just think it could use a cool name.

We continued walking along a trail to get to a little pond.

It was really cool to walk in the Black Forest. It was really kind of dark. It wasn't black, but dark. We looked at the town and saw that the sun was shining on it. It was bright! But we were in the shade the whole time. The sun was not getting to us. It was cool to see.Can you see the contrast? Pretty neat!

At the pond, there was a little park! We love to see parks! It is a great place to let Zack run around and have fun. Josh also loved the tetter-totter. He giggled the whole time!

We had a wonderful dinner a little cafe by the pond. Then we walked back to our car and headed to our hotel. When we got to the hotel that we had a reservation for, the receptionist told us there was a problem with our room. We asked about what the problem was. She said that it is already occupied. WHAT?! Since when did having a reservation mean that you don't have a room? She told us that they have a partner hotel that will have a room for us. She said that they had everything we needed and assured me it would be the same price and that I would still get my points. (I joined Best Western Rewards since their hotels are usually really nice over here and since we have been staying in a lot of hotels, why not get something out of it.) The receptionist gave us directions to the other hotel. We found it. The guy was super nice. He said that we are very lucky because he has one room available. But he didn't know that we had a baby. He did not have a crib. He also didn't have the view that the other hotel had. He did not have the adapters that the other hotel had (which explains my hair in the following picture. I had no curling iron and one bad dryer!). There were many things that we look for in a hotel that this one didn't have. But we stayed there anyway. We just needed a place to stay. The next morning we went to pay and check out. Steve pulled out his VISA and the man tells him that they don't accept credit cards. Well he don't just have 100+ euros on us. So we have to try to find an ATM. We go looking in town. We find one. It doesn't accept VISA. We go searching again. We found another one and yes it accepts VISA. We get our money. We return to the hotel and pay. This took quite a bet of time from our day. Yes we still did everything we had planned, but it was a huge inconvenience. Yes, I have emailed Best Western and asked what the definition of a reservation is. It doesn't seem like a huge thing now, but at the time it was really inconvenient and stressful. Anyway, we headed off to see the World's Largest Cockoo Clock.

It is pretty big! We also got to go inside of it and see all the gears and how a clock worked. It was really cool! When we were in there, the clock struck 11:00. The gears started moving so fast. One wheel particular. Then we saw the bird go out and Cockoo 11 times. It was awesome!

Fernehturm Stuttgart

2009-08-19T04:25:00.000-07:00

About 15 minuted from our hotel, is the Stuttgart TV Tower. This was the world's first TV Tower made from concrete. So we decided to check it out. Once on top we could see all of Stuttgart and more. You are suppose to be able to see the Swiss Alps, but we didn't. It was still very pretty. We tried to get a good family picture. But Zack is done with his getting his picture taken. He won't look at the camera. I try to dance around so we can try to catch a good one. But I don't think even the best professional photographer in the world could get a good pic of all of us. So you get 2 picture instead of a family picture.
Here is Steve and Joshua:Josh looks very amused, doesn't he? It was really windy on top.

Here is me and Zack:YAY! He is looking at the camera!

Do you see the view? We also ate at a little restaurant on top of the tower. It was the highest place restaurant we have ever been in. It was very nice to look out and see the view as we were eating.

There was a park at the bottom on the tower. Zack really liked playing on it with his friends.
See he is happy when he doesn't know his picture is being taken!

Our Life

2009-08-18T04:02:00.001-07:00

Our Home:

I know you are all jealous of the size. It is huge!

Our Kitchen:

See the whole 2 burners we have! Also note the can of spaghetti sauce. We have been eating a lot of that and also a lot of Hamburger Helper, Chicken Helper, and other easy one pot meals. You can't do much else with 2 burners, one pot and one small skillet and no spices or sauces and stuff. We don't have room to haul those around every weekend. We will be so happy to have a real home cooked meal when we return!

Our Dining Room:

Kinda cute, huh?

Our Closets

We live out of our suitcases. These have taken quite the beating the last 2 months! We unpack every Sunday night and pack up every Thursday night. We have to take everything with us because we check out every weekend so that we can travel Europe.

Our Lake

This beautiful lake is a 5 minute walk from our home.

Our Park

This park is right behind the lake. The playground is a little scary, but Zack stays away from it. He only climbs as high as he feels comfortable. If you turn the metal wheel, water comes out of a little spout and down the long metal pipe. Zack loves this!

Our Race Track

Zack uses the pipe as a race track for his cars and a river for his boats.

Our Sand

Zack also loves playing in the sand. Our sand sparkles. Plus mixed with the water, it makes great sand castles!

Our Drinking Fountain

We were so excited to find a drinking fountain. They are very sparse here. But when we got closer, we decided not to drink from it. Zack thought it was great!

Our Right Lake

This is the other side of the lake. Very Pretty!

Our Grocery Store:

Unfortunately, this is not as cheap as everyone says it is. But we are happy that we can find familiar food.

Our Car:

Okay, this is a picture of our car, but it is what our car looks like. I just keep forgetting to grab a pic of it. We love it! It is a very nice vehicle. Plus it has a great GPS. We would literally be lost without it!

Our Laundry Room

This is also just a picture of another laundromat. Ours is much smaller. It is wonderful to have all the clothes cleaned and folded in less than 2 hours. But the clothes never get as clean as they use too. It is not so fun to keep 2 boys entertained in a little room that is usually crowded with people. Plus it totally stinks to have to pay to clean your clothes. I know we pay for the water and stuff at home. But it just seems silly to pay $1.25 for a small load and then at least $0.50 to dry them. It is also no fun hauling all the clothes to and from the mat. I will be ecstatic to have my own washing machine when I get home.

Our Funner Than a Park:
Since we are in such a little room with not so many toys, there is a lot of wrestling and playing around the room. The boys love to ride us as a horse, or a nay as Zack calls them. Zack and I are getting very good at playing the drums on the garbage cans and make quite the marching band. We have a lot of fun together. The other day while Steve, Zack and Josh were playing, Zack shouted "Dad is funner than a park!" Pretty cute boys!

Our Friends:

It is crazy that we had to come to the other side of the world to meet a wonderful family that lives in our same city! But they have been wonderful friends! We are so lucky to have them here with us. They have made this experience that much better. Thanks, Hunters, for letting us hang out with y'all!

Oh My Heck!

2009-08-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

Early today I was going to upload all of our video from our camcorder to our computer. I looked all over in our little hotel room and couldn't find the camcorder. I was sure that Steve had hidden it somewhere so the boys couldn't get it. When he walked in the door, I asked him if he knew where it was. He got a look of panic on his face and said no. We searched our room really fast again, but had no luck. We had to plans to go out, so we ran out the door. During our look, I saw the garbage can and thought "maybe it fell or Zack put it in there." The maids clean our room everyday and take out the trash. It wasn't in there right now, but what if it was in the garbage they took out already. I said something about it to Steve. We headed off to see the TV Tower with intentions of going through the garbage when we got home. As we left we saw the garbage cans on the street. The garbage truck comes tomorrow. We enjoyed ourselves at the TV tower. I am sure a post will come soon about that. When we got back to our hotel, we parked our car. I walked out to the street to look in a can to see what exactly was in it. (They have a lot of different cans for recycling and stuff.) I opened the lid and there were flies all over. It was so nasty. I thought "Oh no, I really don't want to go through garbage." Just then Steve called my name. He was looking in another can. Right on top was this:

Take a closer look at the right hand corner. What do you see?

Our CAMCORDER (it's red if you can't see it)!! After plenty of wipes, it is as good as new! Zack must have tried to throw it away. We are usually really careful with this. I am not sure what happened. We are just so happy we found it! What a blessing!

A Little Piece of Heaven

2009-08-11T03:07:00.000-07:00

Switzerland is our favorite place we have been. So we decided to go there again. It is just so beautiful. We are amazed by all the different views and different breathtaking scenes around every turn.

This time we started in the French Swiss countryside. We stayed in Fribourg. We thought this was just a stop on our way to see the things we wanted to see on Saturday. But this town was really neat. This was the church that was right across from our hotel.

We went on a little walk and saw this view. Amazing! I just love all the old buildings all around Europe.

Saturday morning, we headed to Broc to the Callier Chocolate Factory. Zack calls it Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory.

To start the tour, we watched 3 short, black and white movies about chocolate.
We saw the inside of the factory. We saw cocoa beans get roasted, ground and then heated and mixed with milk to make chocolate. We saw how the machines poured it into the molds. Zack really liked it, even though he couldn't understand it. Then we actually got to go see the factory. Of course, we couldn't actually go inside. That would not be a very clean factory. We just got to look through big glass windows to see the machines. This is the mixing machine.
See all that chocolate!

They did have huge bags of nuts that they used to make different kinds of chocolate.

The best part of the tour was the TASTING TABLE! We really enjoyed ourselves! They had about 40 different kinds for us to taste. Don't worry we didn't try all of them, but the couple behind us did! They must have really liked it. We liked what we tasted. Very yummy!

Steve liked it so much, he wanted to try all the chocolate he saw!

After the tour, purchasing some very delicious chocolate and eating way too much chocolate for 9:30 in the morning, we just had to have a taste of their hot chocolate too. DELICIOUS!

After the chocolate factory, we decided we still needed to eat a little more so we went to the Gruyere Cheese Factory. This was actually really, really cool. First we learned about cows and the importance of cows in the cheese making process. Especially about their diets. Switzerland cows have the best diet which makes the best cheese.

We saw big pots of milk being heated and stirred to make cheese. Look behind me and you can see them. We listened to the audio through that remote I am holding.
Zack liked checking these out!

We saw how they mold it into large circles. We saw the salt baths that the cheese is in for 36 hours. This is the cellar that the cheese sits in for 5 months. After that it is ready to eat. But if it sits longer, it will get a stronger flavor.

We had a couple different samples of different aged cheese. We decided anything after 6 months was to strong. But before that was very good.

Since it was lunch time and we were at a cheese factory, we had to try the restaurant's cheese fondue. It was the best cheese fondue we have had and if you know us, you know we have had a lot of cheese fondue. So delicious!

Zack liked that the restaurant had toys and a park.

Josh, like always, was just happy to be there.

After lunch, we drove to Interlaken. While we were driving there, we turned a bend in the road and saw this:
I told you Switzerland is absolutely beautiful!

In Interlaken, we met up with the Hunter family. Since it was foggy and rainy, we decide to tour the St. Beatus-Hohlen caves. It was a beautiful cave. Of course, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the cave. Just take my word for it, it made the Timp cave look like hideous. It was amazing!

Sunday morning, we looked out the window of our hotel room and saw this:

For breakfast we had some of these.

Okay we had more than a hard boiled egg. But these made me smile. The Swiss are so proud of their flag. They put it everywhere!

After church, which had English translator radios-they must get a lot of visitors, we went on the same hike we went on last time. This time we saw the Alps! It was amazing! They are absolutely breathtaking. We were able see all three peaks. We saw the Eiger and Jungfrau as we were hiking. But a cloud would not leave the front of the Monch. Just as we were leaving in our train, we looked back and the cloud had moved! They are amazing! Another thing that was new this time around was cows. Last time we didn't see any cows. This time they were all over the hike. There was even one on the trail. At one point, Steve was going to take my picture with a cow behind me. As soon as I got into position for the photo, the cow start urinating. Steve and I just started laughing. There were also goats all over at the final destination. Zack wanted to pet one. So we went up to pet it and guess what it did. That's right urinate. We must have that affect on farm animals.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

As you can see, Switzerland is still wonderful! It is still our favorite place yet, even more so! We will be saving our pennies to come back here someday!

Rubble Hill

2009-08-11T02:46:00.000-07:00

Rubble Hill is a high hill that looks over the city of Stuttgart. The rubble from the bombing of Stuttgart in WWII was piled here. Now it is a memorial to rememeber the dead and warn the living. The rubble raised the height of the hill 40 meters. Here is some of the some of the rubble.

We took a little walk up the hill to get to the top. It was really neat to see all the rubble. We had a picnic dinner with this view:

Beautiful, huh?

Zack really liked to climb on all the rubble. He is such a boy.

Josh enjoyed the donuts more than the view or rubble.

It was really fun to go and see this hill. It was a great reminder of the things that we did for Germany and the things we are trying to do with the Iraq, Iran and other countries. War is not good, but great things can come from it.

Happy Anniversary!

2009-08-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

Today is my parent's 41st Wedding Anniversary! They are an amazing couple. They have been through so much but still keep enduring the trials of life. They have reared 9 children, who have all been married, or soon to be married, in the Temple. Now they have 27 grandchildren who love them so much! Since we weren't around to celebrate with them, we wanted to wish them a Happy Anniversary! Go out to dinner and do something fun. Please eat some good, tasteful food for us-like Texas Roadhouse or China Star(have I mentioned that the food here is kind of bland). We tried to get Zack to wish you a happy anniversary, but he was too busy fighting his dragon. Josh sort of said hi but is a little tired.

Venezia

2009-08-04T05:36:00.001-07:00

Or as we Americans call it: VENICE! We decided that we just had to go to Venice since we are so close and who knows if we will ever make it out here again. Steve talked to our car rental company and they said that we could rent another car for the weekend that was allowed into Italy. We looked at flying and taking a train, but the car rental was the cheapest price. So on Friday, we picked up a new rental car and drove the 7 hour drive to Venice. Of course, there were staus and we had to make a few stops and an unintentional detour (thanks to a not so good GPS). We finally got there at 12:30 AM. The boys got us up at 7:30 and we were off to Venice. After a 7 minute train ride, we headed off to explore Venice. Since you go to Venice to see Venice, there aren't any big attractions. We just wondered around looking at all the beautiful thing, the shops and the amazing views all over. We did notice a certain molding smell every once in a while. But hey, that is what you get when you are surrounded by water.

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Here are 3 words we would use to describe Venice:

HOT: It was so hot and humid. We have been living in the 70s. So the upper 90 degree temps with humidity really got to use. The sun was blazing down on us. We were sweating from every pore! We were glad we had deodorant, but not glad that Europeans don't have deodorant. Smelly! At one point we were walking around found a little water fountain where people were filling up water bottles with cold water. We got so excited! It was like a pond in the middle of the dessert. I wouldn't be surprised if we actually ran to it. Zack also loved the cold water. He followed the other people and put his arms and legs in it to cool him down. Josh also liked the cool water on him. We also noticed that if Josh gets hot and sweaty, his hair in the back curls. It was pretty cute! Another problem was that we didn't have any sunblock. We didn't bring any over here and haven't found any here. We looked in the shop to find something to shield our boys from the sun and we found the most expensive bottle of sunblock we have ever seen. I'm not kidding. It was about $25 for a regular size of sunblock! But we didn't want our baby waking up with blisters on his cheeks and his cheeks so swollen he could barely open his eyes. So we bought it. Which leads me to the next word...

EXPENSIVE: Everything in Venice is expensive. Well, besides ice cream and Italian Ice, which made us very happy and helped us cool down. But it was still more than we pay in Germany. We were told we had to ride a gondola. It's Venice-that is what you do. But when we heard the price we were a little weary. Then we were told to barter with the gondola driver. At first he offered us a 40 minute ride for 100 euros. We said too much. He said 30 minutes for 80 euros. We countered back with 40 minutes for 80 euros. He said no way. So we started walking away. Soon we hear someone yelling at us, “Yes, we do it for 80 euros!” It is always funny. Whenever you start to walk away, these people start running after you. It is like they have to make sure that you are serious and that they can't get more money out of you. We did enjoy the gondola ride. It was awesome and very relaxing. But the guy didn't sing to use. In fact, we didn't hear one sing the whole time we were there. Zack loved to be on the boat and wanted to go back on it. He really liked the gold horses that were on our boat. It was interesting to see the boats parked behind back doors. Of course that is how you would get around in Venice. It was just interesting to see that instead of getting in a car, you get in a boat. It was really fun to go under the bridges, instead of over.

STAIRS: The only way to get over the canals is by going over bridges. The only way to get over the bridges is to go up a set of stairs and then down. This wouldn't be a problem, unless you were hauling 2 boys around in a double stroller. We either had to left the whole thing up to go up and down the stairs. Or when the stairs were wide enough, we could go on step at a time. And it wasn't just a couple stairs. It was like 20+ stairs going up and 20+ stairs going down. This made for a great work out for Steve! But really, on top of those bridges were amazing views.

On Saturday, we just wondered around the main island and of course took a gondola ride. On Sunday, we took a waterbus to a little island that is part of Venice called Murrano. This is where they do the glass blowing. We were able to go inside a furnace. Okay, not literally inside, just in the room as the furnace. We saw a man make a vase and a fish out of glass. It was really, really cool to see. The glass would be on the end of a pipe. It was orange because of how hot it was. Then he would spin the pipe and blow air down the pipe and make whatever he wanted to. There was a shop connected to the furnace that had everything they make out of glass. They pretty much can make anything! It was a very cool store. But, of course, expensive. One plate was 100 euros!

Venice really was breathtaking! We loved that it was a little more relaxed than our last couple of weekends. We could just stroll along, enjoying ourselves. Zack really loved chasing the birds. He was able to walk more since we weren't in a hurry. He also loved the ice cream. It was a very nice weekend.

The Capital of Germany: Berlin

2009-07-29T10:43:00.000-07:00

We arrived in our hotel room in Berlin at 11:00 PM. The drive was, of course, beautiful and also full of staus (traffic jams). We passed a couple a fields that had over 20 big windmills that were spinning and spinning. I imagine they get a lot of energy from them. It was quite the site to see.

Saturday morning we met the Hunters and found a hop-on hop-off bus to help us tour the city. It helped us see basically everything a tourist wants to see in Berlin. We walked down the Unter den Linden, the most famous street in Berlin. This lead us to the Brandenburger Tor. This is the main gate to the city. It once was part of the wall. The statue on top represents victory in Germany's many wars. To the right of the gate is the Reichstag. This is Germany's parliament building. In it there is a big glass dome with a huge pillar made of mirrors. You can walk around the pillar to get to the top of the dome and see a view of the whole city. When we go to the Reichstag there was a huge line to get in. We decided to just take pictures and come back later to get in to the building and walk to the top. Then a man came over and told us there was a family entrance to use to get in with a stroller. We follows him to the entrance and were very happy to see the line was basically walk right in. It finally paid off to have that huge stroller with us! The inside was really cool. The mirror pillar was amazing. We had headsets that were programed to show us all the main sites in Berlin. Berlin had some very old buildings along with new buildings. They had to rebuild from all of the bombings. It was interesting to compare the different buildings and see the differences between the centuries.

After the Reichstag, we saw that a storm was coming. We hopped on the bus and circled the city. We were so glad that we didn't have to stand in the rain! We past different waterfalls and statues that had different meanings. Most were very cool, some were a little different. We hopped off and found a place to eat, right as the storm stopped. Yay for hop on hop off buses!

After lunch, we headed to Check Point Charlie. This was a checkpoint that the US military police opened to let people cross the border from East to West Germany. There was a very high priced museum that we could have gone into that had different stories of the people who used this checkpoint. But like I said, it was high priced and, with kids, don't last long in museums. I was talking to the lady at our home hotel and she was telling me her stories from crossing the border and wall. She said that she grew up in West Germany and her grandparents were in East Germany. She would visit them for 2 weeks a year because that is all West Germans were allowed in East Germany. She said the checkpoints for crossing were horrible experiences. She said the East side would check all the luggage and everything you were wearing. They didn't want anything brought into the East that wasn't from the East. They didn't want the East Germans to know what they were missing. The East Germans weren't allowed to watch TV that wasn't from East Germany. They weren't allowed to wear anything that wasn't from East Germany. They weren't allowed to leave. They could only leave if there was some huge event, but even then it was up to the guard that day. She said that when her mom died, her sisters weren't allowed to come over. She said the guards were just in a bad mood that day and that is how it was a lot. She also remember that once her mom had a ring on that was given to her by her mom, so from the East, and the guards took it from her on her way back to the West because she didn't have a record that she bought it. She said her grandma died soon after and her mom really wished she had that ring. It was amazing to hear her how she remembered the separation.

After the Checkpoint, we walked down the street to the remaining wall. It was left up as a reminder (and I'm sure a tourist trap). It was interesting to see the wall. It was basically a concrete wall with barbed wire on top. Behind the wall was rubble that they said they wouldn't touch because of all the evils things that we decided on in that spot. They had a wall set up with pictures and stories to read all about some of the horrible things that Hitler did. It was very humbling to see. It reminded me of how glad I am to be an American.

We hopped back on the bus and got to our starting point. We went to Alexandraplarz and had dinner. This also had the Berlin Town Hall and a couple of Cathedrals on in. It had a huge fountain (that someone had left a shopping cart in, Berlin wasn't the cleanest place we have been). We let the kids run around for a while. Then we walked down the street and found the Holocaust Memorial. It had huge rectangular blocks set up. It is called the place of no name. Zack liked running through the blocks. Steve and I enjoyed relaxing on the blocks after the long walk to get there.

Sunday, we woke up and went to church. We were a little nervous because we wouldn't find an English speaking ward. Last time we went to a German speaking ward, we didn't last very long. We weren't getting anything out of it because we couldn't understand it and our boys were out of control. So we left early. We showed up at a church in Berlin, hoping for an English ward. But it was German. But they had missionaries standing in front, I'm sure trying to get someone to come in. We talked to them in and they offered to translate for us. It was an amazing sacrament meeting. During the sacrament song, the Spirit was so strong. We could understand a word of the hymn or the prayer, but we could understand the Spirit of it. There were only about 30 people there (the Hunters and us included). It definitely testified to us once again that this is a world wide church and that Heavenly Father cares about every ward, even the ones with less than 30 people. The rest of the meeting, I felt like we were the American side show. The missionaries translated for us as we tried to control our boys. It is different to get them to sit still when there is a whole empty bench to your side and in front of you. Steve and I took turns taking boys in the hall along with the Hunters. By the end of the meeting, the missionary that translated for us said “Boy, family life is hard!” But we must not have been that bad, because the Bishop came over and invited us to a ward lunch after the block. We told him we would try to make it.

After sacrament, we walked down the street to the Victoria. It was a huge pillar with a statue of Victoria on top (I can't remember if Victoria was some goddess or a queen or what). The missionaries told us the call her Moroni's wife. Then we walked around the corner to a church that had been bombed but they left what remained. It was really cool to see the church. Inside was amazing! There were pictures in tile on the ceilings and walls. Of course pictures of Christ everywhere. Zack started singing “I Belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” after he saw a picture of Jesus. Good thing people can't understand him, we might have gotten some weird looks. There was also a water fountain next to the church. On our way back to the LDS church, we past the zoo. Zack say a big cement elephant and got really excited. I think that was his favorite thing in Berlin.

We arrived at the church a little late, but all the people were so kind and asked us to come and eat. There wasn't enough of the lunch to feed us. But they were just bringing out dessert. A member of the Bishopric told us to go grab some. We were kind of taking our time to make sure the ward member got what they needed. Then the Bishopric member was like “Come on. Grab some. We're not polite. It's Germany!” This made me laugh. I think this is their country motto: “We're not polite. It's Germany!” But, hey, at least they know it.

After eating desserts, which were quite tasty-but I couldn't tell you what they were, we headed out. We stopped on our way home at the Frieberg Temple. It was a little temple. I think our chapel at home is bigger. But the Brother in the visitor's center was a little offended that I called in little. Opps. It had hostels behind it to house the people that drive days to get to the temple and then stay for a week or so. It was a very beautiful temple!

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PARIS!

2009-07-22T05:24:00.000-07:00

“Mom, where are we goin'?” Zack asks, while driving in the car Friday afternoon.
“To Paris”
“WOW!” Zack yells. “I want to play with Paris!”

That is exactly what we did. We played hard in Paris. We drove there Friday night. It took us about 8 hours because traffic was so bad. Construction is every where, even outside of Utah. We arrived a little before 10:00 PM. We hadn't had dinner yet, just snacks in the car. There was a crepe stand just around the corner of our hotel. We grabbed some crepes and took them back to our hotel. Can I just tell you how god they were? They were delicious. I had never had a crepe with ham, egg, and cheese before. I was a little worried about trying it. But they were so yummy! I am going to have to invest in a crepe skillet when we get home. I really think they are the best 'new' food we have tried. Anyway, the next morning we headed out to explore Paris with our friends the Hunters. First stop: the Eiffel Tower. This was an amazing structure. It was even cooler than what picture show. To me it looked very similar to a bridge. The designer had won some contest and that was why it was built. The designer was a famous bridge builder. I forgot his first name but his last name was Eiffel, hence Eiffel Tower. We found out that when it was first built most everyone in Paris thought it was an eyesore. One of the higher up people would eat lunch in it everyday just so he didn't have to look at it. Now it is the thing to see in Paris. It was very, very crowed. We took the elevator to the 2nd floor and looked at Paris. It is a beautiful city. We wish we had know exactly what we were looking at, but we just enjoyed the view. We decided not to go to the top because the lines was hours long. We wanted to see more things in Paris. When we got to the bottom, there was a huge area blocked off and police every where. Everyone was staring at the tower. We looked up and saw a guy standing on the outside of the first floor of the tower threatening to jump. Of course we took pictures! Then we left. We don't know the outcome, but I'm pretty sure they had ropes around him by the time we left. Pretty Crazy!

Next we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. This was an amazing arc that Napoleon built to commemorate his victories. We had to walk under the street in a tunnel to get inside the arc. Inside the arc was a huge France flag. It was a beautiful structure. The engravings were amazing. It had many names on it. There was also a flame burning with flowers around it. We weren't quite sure what that symbolized or whose flame it was.

After the arc, we walked down the Champs Elysees. This is the most famous street in Paris. We enjoyed the walk and loved looking at all the old building. We just took in the Paris atmosphere. At the end of the street was the Place de la Concorde. There was a monument that looked very similar to the Washington monument in DC. This was given tho Paris from Egypt as a gift. This is also where the guillotines were during the revolution. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were beheaded here. We also saw some French Poodle walking around. We had to take a picture of that.

From here we walked through the Jardine des Tulleries. We stopped here for lunch. Guess what we had? CREPES! I think I am addicted. I might have to go back to France just to get one. They were yummy! We also had some French french fries. They tasted pretty much just like fries, but without salt. Still good. (did I mention I am going to come back 20 pounds heavier?)

At the end of the garden was the Louvre. This was the most massive museum I have ever seen. It was amazing! It is such an old building. We learned that if one person was going to spend just one minute at every exhibit in the museum, it would take 4 months to go through the museum. We decided we didn't have that sort of time. Sorry, Mona Lisa, we will catch ya next time.

Next we walked across the Seine river to the Notre Dame Cathedral. On our walk, we found THE wedding dress for Becky. You have to check it out. It is in the slide show. Someone make sure Becky sees it! I'm sure we can make it temple ready. :) Notre Dame was also a very cool building to see. The gargoyles were very neat. The line was very long to get inside, so we just looked at the outside. The back side looked even cooler than the front. The bell was very fun to listen to. Also around the Cathedral, there were hundreds of pigeons and a few people feeding them. One couple was nice enough to let Zack feed them. At first, he was a little timid but I think he liked it. It was all he could talk about the next day. Josh also loved the bird. The lady put some seed on his stroller. He was hollering and cooing at the birds. It was pretty cute to see.

From here we walked back up towards our hotel. It was already past 5. We saw a few more sites but I can't remember the exact names. I know we saw the place where Napoleon's tomb is and some universities. We enjoyed looking at all the sculptures. There were so many of them. We even saw one of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. I really like the ones that weren't any one in particular, just women or men or babies. They were neat.

For dinner, we had a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower. We sat under a tree and had our sandwiches. While we were eating, I felt something drop on my head. Sure enough, there was bird droppings in my hair! How many people can say they have been dropped on in front of the Eiffel Tower? Thank goodness we had lots of wipees. We ended the day there and got the boys to bed. I wish we could have seen the city at night, but we had already wiped the boys out. We figured out late that we walked over 9 miles this day!

The next day we went on a boat ride down the river. Zack really liked it. We was excited to be on a boat. But the wind started blowing and it got kind of cold. So his excitement didn't last long. It was neat to see the sites and learn more about them. After the ride, we head to the Versailles Palace. As we were driving out of the city, we were able to see the Statue of Liberty. I wondered if we were crossing the same bridge that Nicholas Cage was on in National treasure. It looked very similar, but there are a lot of bridges.

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Versailles Palace

2009-07-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

This palace was MASSIVE! It was so big! I can't even begin to explain it to you. I'm sure the gardens alone were bigger than my ward boundaries back home. We didn't have time to tour the inside. The line again was long and both the guys with us had to back to work early Monday morning. We decided to just do the gardens. It was so amazing! There were water fountains all over the place. It seemed like where ever you stood you could see like 3 different water fountains. Zack was able to sit in our friend's stroller. He loved it. He laughed and laughed with their daughter. Matt would run over these large bumps in the walk way and Zack would yell “another one! Another one!” He thought he was cool. We are so lucky to have met friends here to share this experience with. Josh wasn't thrilled about the gardens. He was so tired! But we didn't want him to sleep so that he would sleep on the car ride home. He did get to the silly stage of being tired and ended up laughing at everything. Cute baby boy! We loved Versailles but had to leave to get home. We could have spent a whole day there. It took us less than 6 hour to get home. This was a very exciting weekend. Paris was amazing!

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Joshua! (or Josh-Josh as Zack calls him)

2009-07-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

I have been posting about all of our fun trips, but have neglecting doing updates about our boys. Josh is 10 months old today! Wow-time flys! NO-he still isn't crawling. He does an army crawl, but really prefers to scoot on his bum.

These videos were taken over a month ago. he started doing this just as we arrived. He is much faster now! Within seconds we can be across the room.

Both Steve and I agree that he does say three word (on purpose, when he wants it): mama, dada and baba (for bottle). So maybe he isn't too slow. He is quite the attention wanter. He will try to talk to everyone on the streets. He has learned to wave hi and will have his arm and screech at anyone passing by. He thinks everyone's attention should be on him all the time. The women and the hotel just love him. Zack is very shy with them, but Josh just smiles and laughs at them all the time. He is very social!

He has been sleeping in a play pen, while we have been here. The play pen has netting for the sides. He tries to crawl out of it. It is so funny to see his face all squished up. It makes me laugh and then he laughs and then will keep doing it just to make us all laugh. Last night Steve and I were laughing so hard we were both crying. He is such a silly boy!

Legoland

2009-07-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

The next two months we are going to be traveling a lot and doing things that Zack might not think are as cool as we do, so we decided to stay close and do something he would like to do. Legoland Germany is only an hour way from our home base in Boblingen, so we decided to go there. We went with the Hunter family. The dad, Matt, works with Steve and is doing the same rotation thing as Steve. They are also from Layton. They have 3 kids and are really fun to hang out with. In one of the pictures there is a baby asleep on Steve, it is their baby. She is really cute. The interaction between Josh and her is really fun to watch. We were glad they came with us.

We spent the day going on rides and letting the kids play. Zack loved it! He has been talking about it since we got back. He liked to see the dinosaurs and pirates. He loved riding the horse, driving the boat and flying the plane. He wanted to get in trucks (but you know how he really says it), but he was too short. (side note: I have discovered that German's also know that how Zack says truck is a bad word. You should see the looks I get when he yells that. I don't think they understand truck (the real word) when I try to correct him. They look like I am horrible mother because my son is saying that word. But really he is just excited to see a garbage truck. Maybe they should learn more English than swear words.) Zack did love all the rides! He giggled the whole time on a lot of them. But he was not a huge fan of the characters. He had to be in Mom's arms and on the opposite side of the Mom than the character. He held me really tight which explains my face in some of the pictures.

Steve and I thought the Lego City was really cool. They had all the big German cities and some other Europe cities all made out of Legos. It was really cool to see Venice and Berlin made out of Legos. I couldn't imagine putting them all together. It must have taken months to complete. They had a big soccer stadium made out of Lego. They had one side open and the stadium was full of lego people. They had lights flashing like cameras going off. It was really cool. That is how all of the cities were. They had things moving and lights flashing and music going. It was really cool.

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We also learned about German line etiquette. They have none. They are very pushy and will cut in front of you if you are not moving in the line. We were in front of the line for a coaster. It had spots marked off corresponding to the seat on the ride. Steve and I were in our spot for the front two seats in a four seat car. There were three people behind us for the back row. When the gates moved so that we could get to our seat, the people behind us moved and tried to jump in front of us (these were the same people who had cut in front of us in line already). We just kept walking and got to our seats. They tried to look confused and said something to us in German. But we got in our seats and went for the ride. That is just one example of how they pushy they are in lines.

By the end of the day, Zack was exhausted. But he had a lot of fun. Now he wants to go to Disneyland (after watching the Disney Sing-A-long and realizing what the rides actually are) , so Grandpa you better be saving your money!

Hohenzollern Castle

2009-07-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday, after church, we headed to the Hohenzollern Castle. Unfortunately the only tour they had was in German, so I can't tell you mush about this castle. It was a really pretty castle both inside and out. I think it was a castle for a queen because the only bedroom was a Queen's room. We did see a lot of Knight Armor. It was really old. The swords, spears and daggers were really neat. We also saw a crown that was gorgeous. We saw the Queen's day dress. If I saw it before I got married and I had a reception, I would have looked for a wedding dress similar. It was the most amazing dress I have ever seen. But of course it was inside where no pictures are allowed.

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Zack loves looking at the castles. He liked walking in the middle of this one. While we were walking along, he said “Guys, this is crazy!” I think that explains what we think everyday. We all get moments that are like “Oh, I am in Germany. I can't believe it,” basically “this is crazy!” We are enjoying ourselves here. But I would be lying if I said we weren't getting a little homesick. But that goes away as soon as we remember that soon we will be in Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin, Belgium just to name a few.

Garmisch, Germany

2009-07-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

On Thursday afternoon, we took off to Garmisch. This is a little town in the south east part of Germany. It is the base of the highest peak on Germany, the Zugspitz. We didn't visit the peak but looked at it from afar. It wasn't nearly as high as the Matterhorn or the other Swiss Alps, so we decided to check out some other things. We stayed at a resort that is only available to Military and Government employees. It was really nice to be somewhere were everyone spoke English. We were excited to celebrate the 4th of July here, but our boys were much too tired to stay up for fireworks. We just listened to them from our room while our boys were asleep. We are wearing those boys out. They have been great travelers. We drive a TON every weekend. They just hang out and rarely complain. This is one of the things Zack does to entertain us during our drives.

He made up this song all by himself. He is saying "The roar is going to come and get me." Sorry about the camera work. If he sees the camera he usually stops, so I was trying to be discrete.

On Friday, we woke up and went to see castles. We visited the Hohenschwangau, Neuschwantstein, and Linderhof castles. They were amazing.

Hohenschwangau Castle

2009-07-07T05:23:00.000-07:00

We walked a mile and a half up a big hill to get to the Hohenschwangau Castle. This was a Neo-Gothic castle that King Maximillian II restored. When he died, his son King Ludwig II took over the castle. We were able to go inside, but weren't allowed to take pictures. Zack was so excited that the castle was open. He has wanted to go inside every castle we have seen. Once we got inside, he decided it was scary. But I think he liked it. Since then he talks about the King's BIG bed. He even found a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and told me the King had a big bed in there.

Inside the castle was amazing. They didn't put pictures on the wall; they painted pictures on the wall. They would even hand paint frames around the pictures. The ceilings were incredible. There was molding all over in lots of different patterns- some was painted with color; others just blended in the ceiling. We learned that King Maximillian II had all the painted pictures clothed, but when King Ludwig took over, he had them repainted without clothes. This castle was beautiful.

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When we walked out of the castle, it was POURING. The weather here is very interesting. It can be a sunny and warm and then within seconds start down pouring with thunder and lighten. We have learned we need to always be prepared. But we weren't as prepared as we should have been for this. We had umbrellas but no jackets. The boys stroller was left outside and was soaked! So instead of causally walking down the hill, we ran! The poor boys got soaked. But they re so good, they didn't cry or complain or anything. We grabbed our jacket and headed off to the Neuschwantstein Castle.

Neuschwantstein Castle

2009-07-07T05:22:00.000-07:00

The Neuschwantstein Castle is the castle which Walt Disney used to design Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland. It looks amazingly similar. We also had to walk a mile and a half up to the entrance of this castle. Yes, it was still raining. We walked as fast as we could. We found a covered place to store the stroller and went inside. This castle was even more amazing than the last one. The wood work in here was amazing. It was all hand carved. Above the King's bed was a wooden canopy which was incredible. I think this is where Zack was amazed at the King's bed. It was also interesting to see that all the castles had a prayer room in the King's room. This castle was not finished before King Ludwig died and never go finished. We could only see the few levels he finished and they were breath taking. But again no pictures were allowed. Sorry.

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After the tour of the inside, we walked around a little outside. It had stopped raining. But we were all wet, so we didn't stay long. It was a very pretty castle and the view was amazing. After running down the hill (it is easier to run with the stroller than try to walk with it, but you should have seen some of the looks), we made it to our car and headed over to the Linderhof Palace.

Linderhof Palace

2009-07-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

The Linderhof Palace was King Ludwig's favorite. He built it after the palace in Versailles, France. He also made it so that he could be alone. His dining room table was able to be lowered through the floor to the kitchen where the servants would load it up with food and then send it back up to the king. I guess he liked his alone time. The inside of this castle was also amazing. Many of it modelings and décor were covered with gold leaves. It also had a mirror room where all the walls were covered in mirrors. It was very funny to watch the tour guide show everyone how to look in the mirror and that it made us go on forever. We thought that looked a little familiar. Everyone else was amazed and how the mirrors could do that.

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Outside the castle was a man-made cave. The King wanted somewhere to go to see an opera that wasn't crowded; somewhere he could just sit and listed. So he built a cave. In the cave, there was a stage, a place for the orchestra (not the whole thing, but most of it), and for him to sit. People would come and perform for him here. It was a pretty cool cave.

We headed back to the car and guess what...it started POURING again. Just as we had dried out, we got all wet again. This was the wettest weekend we have had so far.

Crystal World

2009-07-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Saturday, we got up and really didn't know what we were going to do. We decided to head into Austria and see what we could do. We heard that “The Crystal World” was a cool museum. So we headed there. The museum was sort of under ground. Look in the pictures at the big head. We went into basically the head's ear to get inside the museum. It was an interesting museum. We thought there would be a lot of crystals and different sculptures in crystal or made up of crystals. There was some of that, but there was other stuff too. There were dancing legs and mechanical men and women (who were naked so there are no pics). There were a lot of cool technological things like a floor that made a stone walk way in the exact place you walked. We could watch a movie on a screen made of crystals. It was a fun museum to go to. When you exit the museum, you walk right into a crystal store. This store had some amazing things and was very pricey. Zack really liked the crystal tiger and really wanted the crystal soccer ball. He was a little upset when we told him no. We left that store only to find that they also had a park. It was the most normal park I have seen so far. Zack played there for a while.

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When Zack was done playing, we headed off to Innsbruck to see what we could do. There's not much to do in Innsbruck. We tried to find a chapel with a gold roof that everyone told us about, but we couldn't find it. We left Innsbruck and check out a little town called Oberammergau, Germany. It was a neat little town.

Partnach Gorge

2009-07-07T05:19:00.000-07:00

After the little town, we went to the Partnach Gorge. This was a little hike that followed the gorge to the top. The waterfall at the top was little, but the gorge was beautiful. It was a very fun hike. But just like this weekend had been. When we got up to the top of the gorge where there is only one way to go and that way is outside, what happens? It starts to POUR. This time we did have jackets and umbrellas and the stroller was in the car. But somehow with all that stuff, we still got drenched.

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We returned to the hotel looking like we had just gone on Big Foot Rapids. We changed our clothes and went to dinner. The resort we stayed at was almost like a little America inside Germany. We actually had some onion rings and a good burger for dinner. It was nice! The resort had a lot of activities going for the 4th, but all Zack wanted to do was watch “Finding Nemo” which they had playing on a big screen. SO we skipped the Magic Show. I took Josh to bed. Steve and Zack were able to watch a little of a Bavarian Show. Zack was soon tired and Steve brought him to the room. Zack wanted to watch fireworks but was out before he could even think about it.

Sunday, we went to church in Munich. We were going to go to another castle that is close to our home hotel. But it started pouring. We will see it another time. When we pulled up to ur hotel, there were big tents and people everywhere. We couldn't even get to our parking lot. I ran in to see where we were supposed to go. The owner told me it was the annual Boblingen Festival. After we got our car situatated, we walked around and checked it out. It was a cool little festival. There was a little bit a everything. We even got to see the two drunkest men we have ever seen. We also tired so crepes. Delicious!

Slide shows

2009-06-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

The program I am using for the slide shows is cutting off a lot of the pictures. If you want to see the real pictures, click on the picture when the slide show is going. It will take you to the big picture and you can look through those or click a button in the upper right hand corner to see the whole album. If anyone knows of a better slide show program, please share.

Reading posts

2009-06-30T06:32:00.001-07:00

Read the post in this order: Wengen, Trummelbachfalle, Zermatt and The Matterhorn. It will make more sense that way. I can't figure out how to change the order.

Zermatt and The Matterhorn

2009-06-30T05:12:00.000-07:00

After the falls, we drove down to Taesch. We stayed the night and woke up the next morning and took the train to Zermatt. Zermatt is also a car-free town. It was a bigger and cooler town than Wengen. It had horse carriages to take people places. There were choirs singing. It was a cool town. We loved the bakery and ice cream they had. From here, we took a cable car to get higher on the mountain. We would have hiked it, but we didn't have the time. While we were going up the mountain in the cable car, the Matterhorn was right in front of us. This was the main highlight of this peak. We could also see lots of other peaks. It was stunning. The Swiss Alps are beautiful. It felt like we were on top of the world. There is a tram that goes up to the top of the mountain range. But we couldn't go because children under the age of 3 are not allowed on top. The altitude is too high for them. When we come back with no kids, we are doing that. Anyway, the Matterhorn was a sight to see. It is HUGE! A lot bigger than the one at Disneyland. We sat for a while but we able to see it with no clouds. We could see the very top. The pictures don't do it justice. It is very cool!

After the Matterhorn, we checked out Zermatt and then headed back to Germany. When we drove to Zermatt, our GPS took us all the way around a big mountain. We were wondering why there wasn't a way to get through the mountain. So driving home we took a different route. The GPS cautioned us that there was going to be a motorail. But we went anyway. There was a motorail. It was pretty cool. There is no road to get on the otherside of the mountain that doesn't go around it. But there is a train track so they have a motorail. We drove our car onto a train. The train carried probably about 50 cars. All the cars lined up. Then the train started. The train took us right through the middle of the mountain. We were in complete darkness for 15 minutes. It was pretty neat. Sometime the car would shake from side to side. That was a little scary, but overall a very fun thing to do. If the GPS gives us this option again, we will do it. It took aver an hour off the drive and only cost 16 euros. It was one of those experiences we can't have back home.

Matterhorn

Trummelbachfalle

2009-06-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

After we walked the Alps, we took the train back to our car and drove 10 minutes to the Trummelbachfalle. This was amazing. This waterfall is made up of the water melting from all 3 glaciers (those glaciers we just "saw"). To see the waterfall, we took a tram up the middle of a mountain. Then we had to walk up a lot of stairs. This took us farther into the mountain. Everything was wet from the water splashing: the stairs, the walls, the hand rail, and us. It was so loud. The water was moving so fast! It was really cool. I have never seen anything like this before. The pictures will show you what it was like.

tRUMMELBACHEFALLE

I will post a video later. My camcorder is out of battery and we only have one converter. After it gets charged, I will post a video of this waterfall.

Wengen, Switzerland

2009-06-30T04:48:00.000-07:00

Switzerland was full of amazing sights. As we were winding through the Alps to get to our hotel, we would turn around some bend and see 1, 2, 3, or 4 waterfalls in the mountain side in front of us. I think we said "Wow! That is amazing" about 25 times the 2 days we were there. The water was the bluest water I have ever seen. The trees were bright green. It was an amazing place. We will definitely go back.

However, there were two problems with Switzerland. First, it is not like a national park. There are all these amazing sights, but there are not pull over places or even room on the road to pull over. So a lot of the pictures are not the best. They were taken from the car. Second, it is EXPENSIVE!! But very worth it.

Friday night, we drove to a town called Lauterbrunnen. We got on a train and rode it for about 15 minutes to Wengen. Wengen is a car free town. The train was the only way to get there. We stayed the night there. In the morning, we got on a tram that took us up into the Swiss Alps. From there we walked across the mountain (the stroller did great!). On this walk, we were supposed to see the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks. These peaks are topped with glaciers and I think are some of the highest peaks in the Swiss Alps. We are told there are a sight to see. We would have been able to see them, but there was fog. After we were told that they are covered by clouds/fog more than not. But that that day was especially bad. Usually you can see the mountains. It was still a beautiful walk and what we could see was amazing.

Wengen

Wildpark

2009-06-30T04:15:00.000-07:00

wildpark

The boys and I went to the "Wildpark." In Germany, they pronounce a W like a V. Say it like Vildpark. It is a lot more fun! This was a really neat park. It was a petting and feeding zoo. It also had playgrounds. Zack LOVED it!! I thought he would be afraid of the animals. Once he saw other kids touching them, he did it too. He would say hi to the animals and blow the animals kisses. Josh also loved it. He just screamed (in a good way) and laughed at the animals (that is his way of saying hi). We saw all sorts of different types of goats, sheep and deer. We also saw bison and big cows. All the signs were in German so we couldn't read what types we saw. It was really neat and it was free! I bet we go a couple more times before we leave.

This is Zack's interaction with the some of animals.

Happy Birthday to Madi and Brook!

2009-06-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

Zack wanted to say happy birthday to his cousins. He wants them to come
to a park with him. Every time we go he asks if Brooklyn will be
there. We hope the girls had a great day!

Sorry this is so late. I have been having issues with my
camcorder...looks like it was just an ID10T error. :)

Jami- Your inbox would not accept this. I don't know why.

Dachau Concentration camp

2009-06-23T05:37:00.000-07:00

Dachau

This was a very humbling experience. It was incredible to see one of these in person. We saw how little the bunkers were. We saw how they had to stand at attention for hours, no matter the weather. We saw how small the standing rooms were for when they were being disciplined. We saw how hard they had to work to build bunkers to expand the place. We saw the rooms of real people as we listened to them tell their own stories. We saw the "shower rooms" that showered them with gas. We saw the chamber room where they laid dead bodies waiting to be burned. We saw where they hung people above the fire so they would not have to move their body. We saw the concentration camp.

BMW Museum

2009-06-23T05:32:00.001-07:00

bmw

We also went to the BMW museum. We were able to learn a lot about the BMW company. Did you know it's first engine was a plane engine? We also saw the cars and how they transformed from start to how they look now. They had some sweet cars! We learned about the development of their cars and motorcycles. I didn't know how many motorcycles they have. We also saw the 2 BMW cars that were in 2 James Bond movies. BMW knows how to make good looking cars!

Don't mind the Indians in the pics. They thought they owned the place. They touched all the cars even though all the cars had signs that said "Please do not touch." We couldn't loose them. So just ignore them.

Fortress in Salzberg

2009-06-23T05:23:00.001-07:00

Salzberg Fortress

This was the coolest thing in Salzberg. We climbed up lots of stairs and hiked up a couple long steep hills and made it to a Fortress that was at the top on the mountain in Salzberg. The center of the fortress was awesome. In the center was a mid evil town. There were different booths set up doing lots of different mid-evil stuff. One booth was a man making pottery, another was a puppet show, another was a wood carving show, another was beer tasting (that was the best one...oh wait we skipped it). They had a play going on in the middle. It was so fun. Then we went inside the fortress. It was really cool. There were cannons and other chambers with cool things, mostly torture stuff. We also were able to walk along the deck on the top of the fortress and see Salzberg in all it's glory. This is where we saw the Vaughn Trapp house. The view was incredible. Check out all the pics. It was so much fun! Zack loved it. He thought he was in a castle all day and was glad the doors were open so we could go inside. Josh was also happy the whole time. It was fun!

Salzberg

2009-06-23T05:07:00.000-07:00

Salzberg

We went to Salzberg, Austria this weekend. It was a cool town. It is hard to explain what the city was like. The picture will explain it the best. We walked down the street and there were stores along both sides. It was like an outside mall, but more old fashioned. The street were little and no cars were allowed in. The stores were tall. I think there were apartments on top of them. All the stores were connected. It wasn't like a line of stores, they curved and almost went in circles. The only way to get to an inside section of stores or to get to the center of the city was to find a break in the stores and go through. Once we got to the inside of town, there was a lot of cool things. There were statues everywhere and museums to go into. There were water falls. It was amazing. This is the city where Sound Of Music was filmed. We saw some of those sites. They filmed in the Mirabelle Garden which was absolutely amazing. We heard the bell that is on the movie from the convent, but we never found the convent. We saw the house that the Vaughn Trapp family lived in, but we didn't get close enough for a picture. It was a very fun city. Amazing!!

Eagle's Nest

2009-06-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

Eagles Eye

This weekend we went to Eagle's Nest. This is the house that was built and given to Hitler for his 50th birthday. It sits on top of a mountain. To get there we had to take a bus to a big tunnel. Then we walked down the tunnel and went in to an elevator that took us up over 400 feet. Then we were at the house. We could only go into part of the house because the house is now a restaurant and they don't want the customers bothered. The view is suppose to be amazing. It was raining and very foggy, so we couldn't see the view. But it was amazing to see all the fog and look down and see nothing. It was cool. The tunnel was really neat to walk down as well. It was weird to think that we walked the same place that Hitler walked. It was neat to read the history behind it and how long it took to build the house and the road to get to the house. It was really neat. We didn't stay there long because it was cold and raining. We might try to get back if we have time.

Ulmer Munster

2009-06-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to the Ulmer Munster. It is the tallest chapel in the world. It was amazing! The hour drive to get there was absolutely beautiful. The forests here are so green and so thick. I even saw green vines going up tree trunks. It is just so green and amazing!
The top of Ulmer Munster:

This is the bottom of the front of the chapel.

The boys and I went to the Ritte Sport chocolate factory today. Zack was excited to see Willy Wonka and was sad when he wasn't there. But it was pretty fun. We got to try our first European chocolate. It was yummy!! Don't you wish you could all have some?

What a bummer!

2009-06-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

We just found out that our rental agreement doesn't allow us to drive our car in Italy. It will be compounded if we even try. We really wanted to go to Rome and Venice. We could fly there but that would cost over $700 and then to get to Venice we would have to take a ferry. We decided that this gives us more time to travel Switzerland and Austria. If anyone knows the must see places in those countries, please let us know!

German Parks

2009-06-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

I thought that the park we ran into on the grounds Ludwigsberg Castle was an old fashioned park. I thought they put what German kids would have played on when that castle was a functioning castle. I was wrong. Yesterday, the boys and I went to a playground. The receptionist at our hotel told me about one that is 10 walking minutes away. She said it was a wonderful playground and talked it up quite a bit. So we went walking and found it. I didn't even get lost! But it was a lot like the one we found. It did have real swings. But it was a bunch of old wood pieces nailed together in a not so sturdy way. It had a walkway spiraling up one long piece of wood. There were no side guards on the walkway. It went up at least 10 feet. On the top was a platform with ropes to climb higher; at least this had ropes along the sides so kids could fall. Zack was too scared to climb too high. We decided to play in the sand. It was by a "lake" (it looked more like a pond to me, but they call it a lake). There were ducks and a lot of walk ways. There was also a big grass field. I bet we go here at least once a week. But I think we will stay away from the playground.

Ludwigsberg Castle

2009-06-16T05:58:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Steve's boss picked us all up at 11:00 to get all the in-processing stuff done, like ID cards to get us on base and stuff like that. We got all that she wanted done by 2:30, so she said Steve was free to go. We decided to take advantage of the situation and check out the Mercedes Benz Museum. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. We parked and went to the front door only to see that it is closed on Mondays. So we went with another idea and drove to the Ludwigsberg Castle. But since we wasted so much time driving to the closed museum, we got to the castle too late to go inside. But the courtyard was still open. It was amazing!! It was a gorgeous walk.

This is the main garden. I love the shaped shrubs and all the different flowers!

While we were walking, we ran into a little park. It was nice to let Zack get down to run and play. It was an old fashioned park. It did have water fountains that the kids could play in, but those got turned off right as we got Zack out.

This is for Jenny. Don't those flowers look familiar? They are like weeds here. They are all over all the grass that we have seen. Now I know why they don't survive my hot rocks. It is so much more humid and cooler here. That is probably the weather they need. It was funny to see them here.

Hindelberg castle part 2:

2009-06-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

This is the view from the outside of the castle. I loved the bridge. We might go back walk across it, if we have a free day. You can see how compact Europe is just by looking at how they have the house and how they squeeze them so close together.

This is a video of the King's keg...it is huge!!!

Here is the huge protactor of some other things they had on the wall that I didn't know what they were and I couldn't read the German to find out.

Heidelberg Castle

2009-06-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

Today, after church, we went to the Heidelberg Castle. It is about an hour away from our hotel. It is a really old castle. The original castle was built in the early 1200's. It did get destroyed many times during different wars, but was always rebuilt. We saw the remains of some of the destruction. It also had an amazing view from the top. My battery on my camcorder just died, otherwise I would post a video of that. It was beautiful! Here are some pics...they explain better than I can.

My boys and me on top of the castle.

Steve and the boys.

Inside the castle they had the biggest kegs I have ever seen. The biggest one held up to 230,000 liters of beer and that was just the king's keg! I bet he was a happy man!

Also inside was the biggest protractor I have ever seen. It was the size of a large wall. They must have done a lot of geometry!

Rainbow

2009-06-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

While we were driving home today, we saw the most beautiful rainbow we have ever seen. We could see the whole arch and both ends. It was really bold. It arched over the autobahn so it was like we were driving to it and then under it. It was amazing. The pictures don't do it justice.

Look what happens to formula in an airplane!

2009-06-13T09:23:00.001-07:00

Note to self: never take a container of formula that has already been opened on a plane. Air pressure is not good to it.

Weird Observation #1

2009-06-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

I am sure there will be a lot of these.

I thought it was so interesting that these shrubs were so perfectly shaped, but there was random bumps all over. We have seen these a lot.

We made it!

2009-06-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

This is how we traveled from SLC to Dallas:

Zack loved watching Monsters Inc on Steve's iPod. He was very well behaved. But after about the first 10 minutes, he wanted off the airplane and thought it was time to go home. He played very nicely the whole flight, even though he wanted off.

Steve had to sit across the aisle and couldn't have any of the children on his lap because of some code. Josh slept for maybe 30 minutes. He loved looking outside. He was very happy and didn't cry the whole time!

This is how we got to Altanta from Dallas:

Zack took a nap the whole time!!!!

Steve was across the aisle again...but there was no code on this plane. So he got the baby. Josh slept for only 30 minutes again. He likes his crib too much! But still didn't cry and was happy the whole way.

I don't have any picture from flying to Stuttgart because after the plane boarding 30 minutes late and then sitting on a stopped plane for 3 hours, we were all too tired for pictures. First the plane was delayed because of cargo problems and then after they worked that out (2 hours later), there was a lightening storm and the runway was shut down. An hour later when the runway was reopened, we finally left. Did I mention we were on a sitting plane for 3 hours with tired babies? Really the boys were pretty good, considering. I got Josh to sleep before the plane took off and he slept for 9 hours. Zack fell asleep as soon as the "air-plane goes really really fast and then we go up." (that is how Zack described take-off). He slept the whole way. Steve and I got as much sleep as possible.

After we landed, we rented a Mercedes-Benz SUV. We can't remember which type. But it is a really nice car and fits everything we brought in the back. The driving here is insane. We are going to have to get use to it.

We also found our hotel which is pretty nice. They changed our rooms so instead of having a full kitchen to share across the hall, we have a mini kitchen inside our room. It has 2 burners, a fridge, sink, table, pots, skillets, utensils, and dishes. It is really clean.

I think that is it from day 1 in Germany!

Update

2009-05-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

I have been SUPER busy planning our vacation...well, my vacation, Steve still has to work. But here is a quick update of everyone.

We went on our first real camping trip in April. We went to Moab and hiked all over Arches National Park. It was a blast! We went with my sister Jenny and her family and the Toone family. We had a wonderful time together and still like each other. So I think it was a sucess. We might even go camping again maybe even with them.

We have worked out most of the details of Germany. We leave June 12th and return September 12th. Luckily we were able to get the same flights as Steve (he has to go through work and we bought ours before he could book his). We found an awesome hotel, after hours of looking. This hotel will let us check out every Friday and check in every Sunday so we can travel every weekend. We are going to go everywhere in Europe that we can! We are within driving distance of Paris, Switzerland, Austria, Berlin, Venice, Rome, and many other places. It is going to be amazing! I will be sure to blog a lot when I am there. If anyone knows of cool places to go, let us know so we can put it on our list.

Josh Update

2009-05-14T14:13:00.001-07:00

Josh is getting bigger and cuter by the minute. He is a gigglier. He is always giggling. He laughs when anyone laughs at him. He loves to play and be played with.

Food is also his new obsession. He loves to eat anything and everything. Well, except baby food. He will eat baby food until he sees that we are eating something else. Then he wants what we are eating. We were naughty parents and gave him a chocolate cookie the other day. He really liked it!

He loves to sit up and play with toys. He is beginning to like tummy time and might crawl sometime. I have never seen him roll over, but I have seen evidence of it. I will lay him down on this belly or back. Then I will leave the room to change laundry or something and when I return he has rolled over. He does it in his crib a lot. I try so hard to get him to do it for me, but he won't. I think he likes to tease me.

I swear he says mom. Whenever he needs me, like when Zack is coming too close or he is hungry or just wants me, he looks at me and he says "mmmmoooommmm." It is really cute. I really think it is on purpose, but it could just be babble. Who knows"?

Zack Update:

2009-05-14T13:57:00.000-07:00

What can I say about Zack? He is getting smarter by the minute. He says new words and sentences everyday. Some of his favorite phrases are "Nice kick Dude!," "Mommy, roars is going to get you!," "Mommy, Baby screaming at you." (he says this any time Josh is trying to get our attention), "I want to go hiking," and "I want to play outside!" He definitely keeps us busy. We have decided 2 year olds have a lot of energy. His favorite things to do is pile all the cushions off the couch and jump on them, wrestle with Ape Face (his stuffed gorilla) and hiking. On our trip to Moab, Zack acted like this for half of the first day. He hated hiking and hated the backpack. Well after some talking to by his Dad, he loves hiking. We have even done a couple hikes around here and he loves it.

CONGRATS!!!

2009-05-14T13:50:00.001-07:00

Congrats Josh and Becky! This is my little brother and his fiancee. They just got engaged and I am so happy for them! Just over 2 years ago, I gave Becky's number to Josh (Becky was a young woman in my ward) and told him to call her. They hit it off. But after a couple months of dating, my brother left for a mission. They sort of wrote, she got busy going to the Y and he got busy doing the Lord's work. He came home on April 16th. They got together and before we knew it they were engaged. They are a very cute couple. They will get married October 16th in the Salt Lake Temple. Congrats! I am excited!!

GOOD NEWS!

2009-03-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

We are going to GERMANY!!!

For those who don't know what this is about: Steve's work (DISA at Hill Air Force Base) does rotations where the employee can go to different bases for 3-6 months. Well a couple months ago Steve applied for 3 positions, hoping to get 1. He applied for 2 different Germany positions and 1 Hawaii position. We heard last Thursday no on one Germany position, but he was offered the other one today. He will start work there on June 1st and be there for 3 months. I am so excited! We are going to be able to see so much of Europe! I'M GOING TO GERMANY!!!!

Terrible 2

2009-03-03T13:40:00.000-08:00

How many naughty things can Zack do in one day?

1. Draw a big pen mark right down the middle of the arm on my cream colored sectional.
2. Scream all the way to his room after getting caught with a pen (yes, this woke up his brother).
3. Get off the bed numerous times when he was supposed to be taking a nap, screaming in a high pitch tone the whole time (yes his brother was screaming too. Josh just wanted a nap).
4. Finally realizes that he is going to get spanked (I know I am horrible) every time he gets off his bed so he stays on his bed. It gets really quiet. I check, hoping he is asleep. Nope, he just has his clothes and diaper off and let's just say being very naughty.
5. He screams the minute he sees me (yes, waking up his brother again!). He knew he was being naughty.
6. While I am nursing Josh, Zack pulls out a bag of Goldfish and dumps it all over the kitchen floor. This was a Sam's Club sized bag not the little ones.
7. While Mom is in the shower, he finds baby oil gel and smears it all over his face and the play kitchen (at least it wasn't the real kitchen).
8. Whine all day long.
9. Throw fits every time he doesn't get what he wants (he never took a nap)

Okay, that is only 9 naughty things. I feel better. It wasn't 20.

Oh the places we'll go...

2009-02-12T12:35:00.001-08:00

All week I have been so excited for today. I knew I would have something fun to post today and some fun news. We were told we would know on the 12th if we were going to Germany, Hawaii, or no where. Well Steve got an email this morning that said the process was delayed and we would hear within a week (which probably means a month, it is the government.) I was highly disappointed. I really want to know. So I decided to find something fun to blog about. At Josh's expense, here is our fun:

Before:

After:

If you can't tell, we buzzed his hair. I didn't take a good before picture because I didn't think of it before. But luckily I took picture this morning of him being cute in his jumper. His hair on top used to touch his eyebrows when we combed it forward.

Also, he rolled over for the first time today! Yeah!

Silly Boy!

2009-02-02T13:04:00.000-08:00

Zack wakes up from his nap today and sees me like this:

He says "Egg, Mommy, egg!!"

Then while he is eating lunch, I go upstairs and switch to this:

He says "Scary Mommy! Scary!"

Attack of King Kong

2009-01-24T20:33:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, we were visiting my parent's house. While we were there, King Kong was playing on TV. Since it is "a classic" (according to my dad), he was watching it. Zack saw the big gorilla and loved it. Now he begs to go to Grandpa Gorilla's house. We have been back a couple times and Grnadpa will put in his DVD of King Kong and let Zack watch it. Zack still loves it, even though it is scary, his own words. Last night we were at my parents and watching King Kong, which Zck calls the 'Gorilla movie'. We told Zack that it was time to go and he told us to leave him ("Leave me" were his exact words). He didn't want to leave the gorilla movie. So we decided to borrow the movie. Well this morning Zack woke up at 4:30 very excited. He ran into our room, came over to my side of the bed and said "Mommy, Gorrila movie!" He had the biggest smile on his face. Of course he wasn't too happy when I said no and put him back in bed. I don't think he ever went back to bed (I don't know why kids don't think we can hear them). We finally put the movie in at 6:30. I think we will be returning that DVD soon.

Puppies

2009-01-23T13:09:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was helping Zack say his prayer before bed. He usually just repeats what I say and starts saying amen when he is done. This is what he said last night:

Me: "Thank thee for my family"

Zack: "Thanks family"

Me: "Thank thee for Jesus"

Zack: "Thanks for Jesus. Thanks for puppies"

We asked for some blessings. Then we finished the prayer.

I thought it was so cute that he was thankful for puppies and came up with it all by his self. Steve had taken him to the pet store while I had a shower at our house. Zack loves animals. It just breaks me heart that he is so allergic to them. They make him so sick. At least, there is always 101 Dalmations!

Solid Foods

2009-01-23T12:37:00.000-08:00

For the last couple weeks Josh has wanted to eat CONSTANTLY. So I decided I was done with that and started solid foods. I just love the face babies pull when you first start them on rice cereal. They wrinkle their nose and almost cringe like "what is this stuff?" Here is a video of Josh eating "solid" food for the first time.
I love it! He gets excited and starts kicking his legs when he sees the spoon coming. Then when it enters his mouth he's like oh that stuff again. Even though he doesn't love this stuff, he is always much happier after eating. He is all smiles. It's kinda like he is saying "ahh.. my belly is finally full!"

From the Boring life of Liz...

2009-01-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted for a long time and it's not because I don't have the time it is because I never have anything to post. I tried to think of any cool things we have done, any funny things Zack has said (he says funny things everyday, but I didn't think anyone wanted to hear all of them), or anything new. But I couldn't. So in a nutshell...I have a boring life. The best thing about my boring life is that I don't think it is boring...I LOVE my life and wouldn't change it. So here are some pieces of my boring life...

1. Josh's Hair:

We cut almost 2 inches off of Josh's hair. He had a nice mullet. I thought it would fall out, but it kept getting longer. So snip-snip. It's gone. (He also has enough hair on top to make a ponytail...if only he was a girl.)

Before:

This is the hair! I can't believe it was that long!!!

After. He looks like a boy!!!
>

2. New beauty secret:
K-this is going to sound silly. I am always looking for cheap ways to look better. I love looking great but hate spending money on stuff so superficial. I heard on a TV show that you can make a face mask out of an egg. I tried and my skin has never been so soft!! So I dare you to try it. Here is what you do.
1. Separate an egg. Put the yoke in a little bowl and the whites in a little bigger bowl (you have to whip them).
2. Using a make-up brush, but the yoke on your face. It will make you look jaundiced. Leave on for 10 minutes then wipe off then wash off.
3. Beat the whites till frothy.
4. Put whites on face. You can leave these on as long as you want. The longer you leave them on the firmer your face gets. Then wash them off and wash your face.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear it makes my face soft...plus they said if you do this once a week by the time you are 55 you will look 40.

3. Family Night:

For family night we made cookies and let Zack decorate them....he had fun!!

This is what Josh thought if it...

Yes...he would get as many sprinkles on his hand as possible and lick!! YUM!!

4. Josh-
Josh has been cuter than ever lately---well after getting over bronchitis. He sleeps through the night, giggles, and is eating great!! I am actually liking nursing at the time. I love his giggles! I love that I can put him in his crib and he just falls asleep. I love his hugs and cuddles...this is alomost making me baby hungry again....almost...I'm not that crazy!

5. Zack-
The other day I asked Zack if mommy had 2 cute boys. He said "Nope, just Zacky!" I love that he is talking now! I love seeing bits and pieces of his personality. He is a lot smarter than I thought. He started naming colors the other day...who knows where that came from. He can count to 10 but we all know where that came from.

Now you can see...my life is boring...but at least I posted about it...right?

Nursery Boy!

2008-12-22T09:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday after church, I had this conversation with Zack.

"Did you have fun in nursery today?"

"Yep!"

"What did you learn about?"

"Jesus"

"Good...what did you learn about Jesus?"

"I LOVE Jesus!"

I am not sure what the lesson was about, but this was good enough to me. We are so lucky to have such wonderful nursery leaders who teach our son! Thank you!

Birthday Boy!

2008-12-18T07:44:00.001-08:00

Zack had his 2nd Birthday on Saturday! It was a very fun day. He got all of his presents in the morning and played with them all day long. It also snowed so he got to play in the snow for the first time. He decided it was too cold, especially since he wouldn't walk.

I made him a soccer play cake. Thanks to my sister Jami for helping me. He liked it a lot! He wanted to eat the whole soccer ball, but I quickly talked him out of that.

Here he is with some of his presents. He got a picnic table for outside, Mega blocks and a big truck. His favorite is the big truck. But don't ask him to say it because truck sounds like it starts with a F and has a weak r sound...not the best wod for a 2 year old to say.

Happy Birthday Zack! We love you!

Questar Guy

2008-12-11T13:18:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, I got a phone call. I answered it. The man on the phone said he was Tim from Questar Gas. He said he was calling because Questar is doing a promotion where they send a guy to your house to inspect your attic. He said that most people lose 40% of their heat through the attic because it is not insulated correctly. He promised there was no obligation to buy anything, but if we needed insulation Questar would pay for half of it. He asked if there was a good time to send someone out. I said sure (if I am losing money through my roof, I would like to know.) We decided that Wednesday at 11:00 a qualified inspector would come to my house. I got off the phone and thought "That was weird. I didn't think the Caller ID said Questar." I checked and it didn't. It said "wireless caller."

So I decided to redail and change my appointment to Friday, because Steve would be home. I called the number and he answered saying "This is Tim."

I asked "Is this Questar?"

"Yes, Tim with Questar customer service." he replied. We rescheduled the appointment. But then I got to thinking. This seemed a little off. I told Steve and he agreed. We decided that I should call Questar and ask if they were doing this promotion. I called Questar today and they said it was not them. After hearing this, Steve decided to call the Layton Police department. We filed a report and the officer said he would check into it.

About a half hour later, the police man called. He said that he called the number and talked to Tim. Tim had just lost his job and was trying to figure out ways to make money. This was one of his ways. He was going to come to our house and blow some insulation in the attic and bill us for it. Real honest man, huh? The cop said that he won't be coming to our house now. And that he sent the report to the city attorney to do something with.

I just thought I would warn all of you, don't let "Questar" come look in your attic.

No New Cast!!

2008-12-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

I took Zack into the doctors on Tuesday. They took his cast off and did a new x-ray. To our, and the doctor's, surprise his leg was basically healed. There is a little part that is still cracked a little in the middle of the bone, but the doctor said the advantages of having a cast on are less than having the cast off. YEAH!! We just have to be extra careful and not let him jump off of anything or let anyone jump and land on his leg.

The funny thing is that Zack still won't walk normally on his leg. He acts like the cast is still on. Silly boy! But he is a lot happier!

Look! I am a genius! I taught Zack how to feed Josh!!! :)

Odds and Ends

2008-12-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't blogged for a while, I thought I might do a quick update on everyone.

Zack got a real cast! It is bright green and unfortunately goes to his thigh. At first, he had a hard time gettting around. But he has adapted really well. He even took a few steps today! On Tuesday, we go in to get a new one that will be below the knee. I can't wait! He loves to draw on his cast and let anyone else sign it...he thinks he is pretty cool!

We gave Josh his baby blessing in November, but I never posted any pictures. So here he is on his blessing day. We had a little brunch at our house after. It was a fun day. We love our little guy.

Josh is a complete angel now (not eating milk is worth it)! He has been smiling for about a month or so. He tries to giggle but stops when he hears himself. It is really cute; he pulls this face like "where did that come from?"

My favorite thing to do is watch Zack and Josh interact. Zack is one of Josh's favorite people. He watches him so intently and smiles at him all the time. Zack also loves his baby. He has to give him hugs and kisses all day long. I can't wait until they can really play together...I hope they are best friends. Our boys are our life. They keep us busy, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Poor Zacky...

2008-11-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

Last night we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house. All of the little cousins were downstairs playing, most were boys. All of the sudden we heard Zack screaming downstairs. I ran down to get him and he was laying flat on his stomach on the cement of my parent's unfinished basement. He wouldn't move. I picked him up and examined him. I couldn't see anything wrong, but he wouldn't stop screaming. I took him upstairs to see what the others thought. He wouldn't put any pressure on his legs and screamed when we tried to straighten his right leg. His leg was also shaking. Since he didn't stop screaming, I decided to take him to an Instacare. I had to call Steve who was at his mom's house (it's a long story of why we weren't all up there, but Zack can't go to her house). He came down quickly and we left Josh with my mom and drove down the street to the Kidscare. When we got there, the receptionist gave Zack a magic sucker. This was the only thing that made him stop crying. Boy do I need some magic suckers! After X-rays, we found that Zack had a spiral fracture on his tibia bone. Poor little guy! They put a splint on his leg. Here is his splint.

Tomorrow we go to an orthopedic physician to get it in a cast. The doctor at the Kidscare was pretty sure they could put on a walking cast, but wasn't sure because the break went high.

Needless to say, last night was horrible. Zack only sleept 3 hours. He was crying in pain the rest of the night. I was giving him both ibuprofen and Tylenol, but he kept moving his toes and leg which caused him pain. I really wished I had some magic suckers at 2:00 AM. This is him finally asleep at 10:00 AM (after a preisthood blessing). He is still pretty miserable, but getting better.

So what exactly happened downstairs? After talking to his cousins, we have concluded that his 4 year old cousin jumped off the couch onto Zack. So, basically, just boys being boys. I better get use to this.

Ice Cream Substitute!

2008-11-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

With my new diet, I was missing ice cream very much. I love ice cream and can't stay away very long. We went to Double Scoop Deli today and their Italian Ice hit the spot. It is definitely not ice cream, but for my 6 months of no dairy; it will work! It is water based and very yummy. Plus it was only $2! Yeah!! I think I can handle the next months!!!

Good News or Bad News?

2008-11-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

Good News:

Well after 7 weeks, I finally have a happy good baby! Josh was a great baby for a few days, hence the earlier post, but then turned really fuzzy. He always had to be held, wouldn't sleep very well and when he did he was restless, was very gassy, and would often scream like he was in pain. At first I was sure we just had a bad baby or I was just a bad mom. Zack was a great baby so it was our turn for a bad one. But now he is a perfect happy baby. He will just lay and look around and smile. He will fall asleep by his self. He only wakes up once at night, which I is getting later and later every night so I think he will sleep through the night soon! Yeah!!

Bad News:

Okay it's not that bad, but it's not that fun...Josh has a milk sensitivity. He is not lactose intolerant, or he would have been really sick. But if I eat dairy, he is not a happy camper. So this means I can't drink milk, or eat cheese or anything else that has a lot of dairy in it (like yogurt, cottage cheese, or milk chocolate). The hope is that he will grow out of it and by on whole milk at 1 year.

So that is what has been going on with us...now life is great and I can actually get stuff done. Amazing isn't it?

Air Hockey

2008-10-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

We had to get a new dishwasher. (It is so nice to have one that works!!) RC Willeys had a deal where if you spend above a certain amount, you can get a discount on a nice air hockey table. SO we said "What the heck..let's get one." And so the fun began...

Zack found the Styrofoam after Steve set it up. He discovered that if you put it on the wall it sticks.
Yes, even after vacuuming a ton, we still find little pieces of Styrofoam all over the house. What is it with that stuff...how does it just reappear?

As you can see, Zack and Steve love to play. I love the top picture of Zack. He understands what a camera is now. So whenever he sees it in my hand, he pulls that cheesy grin. Zack does a pretty good job of actually hitting the puck; he even beat Steve.

As you can see, Josh loves air hockey too. He is one month tomorrow. Can you believe it? Still cute!

Look Alike?

2008-10-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

"Oh he looks just like Zack!"

"He doesn't look like Zack at all?"

"He looks like your mom." -talking to Liz

"He looks just like Steve."

"I think he looks like you, Liz."

These are just some of the responses I have heard when people see Josh for the first time. My question is: Does he look like Zack? Here are pictures of both of them on Day 13. To be honest, when I first saw Josh my thought was he doesn't look like Zack at all, in fact he is cuter. (Don't tell Zack, yes Zack is pretty cute too) I still don't think they look very much like each other. What do you think?

Josh: 10 days old

2008-10-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have decided that baby #2 is sooo much easier than baby #1. I don't know if it because I am more comfortable with a newborn or if Josh is just a better baby or because I had a really easy delivery, but everything is going great!! Josh doesn't sleep as well as Zack did, but the night time feedings don't bother me. I enjoy the time alone with him. He has never cried just to cry. He is a little cuddle bug and loves to be held. Here are some pics of him today.

Zack has been really good with Josh. He calls him Baby. He gets very concern when he cries. Everyone told me he was going to turn evil after the baby. But he hasn't. He's been in time out the same as he was before. He loves to help give Josh a bath and change his diaper. He asks me everyday if he can play with the baby. The one thing that he has changed is his sleep habits. He has decided to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. I think he hears Josh and me downstairs, since we fall asleep downstairs during the 3:00 feeding. Just look at the bags under his eyes. I hope he decides to sleep in soon!

This Little Piggy

2008-09-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

While I was at a Pack Meeting, Steve decided to make cookies for Zack. The cookies came out of the oven just as I walked in the door. We gave some to Zack and let him enjoy.

He ate the chocolate chips first. Then he shoved the other stuff in his mouth. By the end, his legs were the only thing without chocolate on them. No wonder our son is a little chubby boy! He loves his sweets!

Welcome to visitors

2008-09-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

Hey all,
We are home now and welcome to visitors if you'd like to see the new addition to our family and are not sick. Here's some more pics of him today:

HE'S HERE QUICKER THAN WE THOUGHT!

2008-09-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

Well everybody,

Our boy, Joshua John Abercrombie, has come into our lives a lot sooner than we expected. The original date that we planned on him coming was this Thursday when we had already scheduled a time to get Liz started to give birth. However, I got a phone call this morning at work from Liz saying that she was already dialated to a seven. I immediately got off the phone, talked to my supervisor at work, and headed home. We went to the hospital and got situated, the minute they started to bump up the patosin (not sure if it's spelled right); things sailed smoothly. Both Mom and baby are doing fine. Josh was born at 1:42 PM, 7 lbs 3 ounces and 21 inches long. He's a very healthy boy and we love him. Here he is:

We love you buddy!

Baby name???

2008-08-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

I am less than 2 months away from having our baby boy. We have talked about names, but haven't really decided what to call our new one. We need help. What name do you like the best? There is a poll to the left. Please help us.

Then and Now Tag

2008-07-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

Way Back When...

20 Years ago...

I don't have a scanner so you can't see how dang cute I was back then. I was 3 years old. My childhood best friend Heather Pack had just moved in next door. I played with her every waking minute. I had at least 5 baby dolls and 10 outfits for each of them. I loved them like they were real. I guess that I was born with a love for babies.

At some point during this year, my big brother Jeff pushed me down the stairs. The fall broke my collar bone, which is the only bone I have ever broken. Thanks Jeff!

What else can I say about being 3...

10 Years ago...

This was one of the best years of my school life. I was the 8th Grade Vice President at Bountiful Junior High-the best junior high ever. We were preparing to be in the Bountiful parade on the 23rd of July. We worked so hard getting a float ready and making sure we were going to be the best float of all the junior highs around. Then the day of the parade came and it poured... and I mean poured cats and dogs during the whole parade. We sat on the float soaking wet and freezing. We waved to the few who braved the storm. But I really don't think anyone remembered our cool float. Despite our bad luck in the parade, this schol year rocked! It was full of parties and games and friends and of course boys (which is important to any 13 year old teenage girl.) Little did I know that the next year I would be SBO President and have even more fun in school. I do have to say that Junior High was way more fun than high school. I think of it as the best years of my school career. But I don't think I would ever go back!

5 years ago...

On the 24th of July holiday was the first time Steve and I watched fireworks together. On the Fourth of July, I had watched them with a creepy guy named Jordan. I met him while I was walking around the Bountiful Temple on a Sunday evening. He asked for my number and since I just graduated high school and excited that an RM noticed me, I gave it to him. He asked me out for the Fourth. He was kinda cute, but I didn't know until our date how creepy he was. We played games on a blanket until the fireworks started. It was fun and then while we were watching the fireworks, he grabbed my hand. I tried to get it away but he didn't take the hint. We went and got ice cream afterwards and he continued to hold my hand and try to seduce me. He never got the hints. He took me to his house, which I would have never gone in if his dad wasn't at home. He showed me a clip from his favorite movies. I can't remember what they were called but they were weird. They had weird music playing and gothis people flying around and stuff. He thought they were so cool. I finally talked him into talking me home. He, of course, walked me to the doorstep and tried to kiss me. I made a fast one and turned my head. He kissed my cheek not my mouth. I was amazed at the pushyness of this RM. He asked my out for the next night. I told him to call tomorrow and see...I couldn't think of an excuse fast enough. I went inside and vowed to never date an RM for a long time!

The next day I played Ulitmate Frisbee with a bunch of people; Steve was one of them. He knew I went on a date with Jordan and even knew Jordan. So he asked how it went. I just looked at him and he knew it was bad. After playing, he asked if I wanted to talk about the date. I said yeah, but I need to get home to baby-sit my nephew. He asked if he could come along. I said yes. (I already had a crush on him). We spent the whole afternoon in my parents yard on a blanket with my baby nephew. We talked. I told him about the date and he gave me advice on how to let Jordan down nicely. He met my parents. Eventually he went home. Then Jordan called. I told him that I wasn't interested. About 2 minutes after getting off the phone with Jordan, Steve called to ask how it went. At the time I thought "Wow, he really cares. He was listening and really wanted to help me." Now I know it was to make sure I wasn't taken and he could ask me out. We talked for a while. I hung out with my friends that night. The next day Steve called and asked me to go on a walk with him (it was Sunday so it was the only thing we coudl do). Of course I said yes. We went on a walk. He held my hand...I let him. I started falling in love and the rest is history. I love you babe!

Three years ago...

Steve and I moved into our first house, which is the house we still live in. We bought it from my sister Jenny and her husband. Many people told us we were stupid for buying a house so young, but it is the best purchase we have ever made.

We were both still in school. I took the summer off and worked full time at Nutra Brands selling vitamins to stores all over the nation. Steve went to school and worked full time at A Insurance. We had some good times being young and married and kid-less.

One year ago...

I had just graduated from Weber State! That was one of the best feelings in the world. But what was even better than that was the fact that now I got to be a MOM. I know Zack was born in December, but I still had to go to school. I left him at my sister Jenny's house for basically the first 4 months of his life. So after I graduated I could be a mom and only a mom. I love it!

Steve was commuting to Ultradent in South Jordan. He was working hard and moving up in the company pretty fast. The problem was the commute. He was happy to do it since it meant I could stay home. What a great guy!

So far this year...

I love my life. I always think I am so lucky and that I have the life that anyone would want. But others remind me they wouldn't want it. So I guess I just have the life that I have always wanted. I have a wonderful husband, a cute little boy, another baby on the way, a house, and the gospel. I get to stay home and play with Zack all day long. This summer we go to Cherry Hill a lot. He loves it and I love playing with him. I also get to clean and cook and do the laundry. I try my hardest, even though my house isn't as clean as Brenda's, most of the time it is good enough.

Steve got a new job at Hill Air Force Base. It is much closer than his last job and has more benifits...like pension. We actually see him. Zack loves his dad and always wants to play with him. He asks me all day long where Dad is. I know a lot of it is because Steve doesn't come home tired from driving for at least an hour and is home 2 hours more a day. We are glad he is closer and likes his job.

We have been working hard in our backyard. I really think by September it will be presentable. We are going to have a huge party if it is.

Yesterday...

I got up early and ran a lot of errands before 9:00 AM. I went to my sister's to exercise. After we did that, I ended up running her errands too. I got home at 2:30. We cleaned up the house, yes Zack is starting to help. Then Steve came home and we went to Cherry Hill. At one point we were the only ones in Pirate's Cove. It was dead. We also went on the mat slides a lot. Great Family Home Evening!!

In the next year...

We will get a new baby brother. I am hoping that he comes out faster than Zack, but is still a healthy baby. We still have a lot to do before he gets here. He is sharing a room with Zack. So we don't have a nursery to worry about. But there is still plenty to be done.

Zack will continue to grow up. Hopefully he will get potty trained. Most of all I hope he continues to be silly. I hope that he still feels loved after the baby gets here.

Steve and I will be the same. Hopefully I can get back into my clothes after baby #2. If not, I have Turbo Jam. We might go and leave at another base for a couple of months. We are trying to go to the Hawaii base, but it is hard to get in there. Other than that we will continue home improvements and stuff like that.

Now I tag: Lena, Kim, Jami, Joan, Michelle, Amy, and Sasha. Have fun!!

Washington DC

2008-07-15T12:26:00.001-07:00

Steve had to go to Washington DC for work training. So I decided to go with him. We left Zack home with my sister. We arrived in DC on Monday July 7th. I got home on Friday and Steve came home on Saturday. While he was at meetings all day, I went on guided tours. He would then find me and I would show him the cool things he missed. We also went on a Washigton After Dark tour the first night we were there. The whole vacation was amazing. It even inspired me to find a history book and read it...yes that means it must have been something special...I usually hate history.

The Washington Monument is my new horn!

Sorry about the long blog...I hate them too. But there was no other way to do it...there is just so much to post. But hey at least it isn't about Zack. :)

The U.S. Capital Building

2008-07-15T12:15:00.001-07:00

I was able to tour the inside of the Capital building. It was really neat inside. They didn't let us take many pictures, but here is what I could take.

The rotunda is made out of cast iron. This picutre is at the top. It has George Washington in a throne with Greek Gods and Goddesses surrounding him. They all symbolized something, but I can't remember them. The guide spoke really fast.
There was a mural around the bottom of the rotunda. It followed history. This is the beginning where Christopher Columbus is arriving at the New World.

The White House

2008-07-15T12:04:00.001-07:00

The house of the President. On one of my tours, we passed by the Federal Executive Building. This building was kiddie corner to the White House. We went to turn down the street the tour always goes one, but the road was blocked off and there were guards all around. Then the driver went to drive us passed the White House (which by the way, the street in front of the White House is closed to vehicle also thanks to 9-11). Along the streets for tow blocks were men in uniform. These men held a big black bag in one hand and the other hand was in the bag. The driver said "oh yeah, you know exactly what is in those bags!" He guessed the President or Vice President was going to or returning from the Federal Executive Building. It was pretty cool to see the security they really get. I don't think a President is going to get assassinated anytime soon.

This is the closest they let visitors get-thanks to 9-11.

Washington Monument

2008-07-15T11:54:00.001-07:00

The famous monument! What you don't see is that it is circled by 50 US flags. It also has a line about one-fourth to one-third of the way up. This happened because they started building it and ran out odf money. The building stopped for a number of years (if I remember right 12) and then when they started the stones didn't match after 12 years of sun and rain.

Us at the base of the monument.
One night we were walking around and heard a helicopter. We looked up to see Marine 1, the President's helicopter flying around. We knew that the President was coming home that evening, so if you ask us, he is in that helicopter.

Abraham Lincoln Monument

2008-07-15T11:44:00.001-07:00

Lincoln's statue stands 19 feet high-there is only one other statue taller than him in DC (the Peace statue on the capital). If you look at his hands you can see that they form an A and an L in sign language. These stand for Abraham Lincoln. They designed it like that because one of his sons was death and mute. This is also the place where Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream" speech. His two famous speeches are engraven upon the walls.

This is the outside. Lincoln sits in the middle of that building, looking straight at the Capital Building.

Thomas Jefferson Monument

2008-07-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

This monument was awesome! On the inside of the walls, many of Jefferson's quotes were engraved. After reading these quotes, it was plain to see that this nation was founded under God. I knew once again that this nation was founded so that Jesus Christ's church could be restored to the Earth. It also made me happy that all of the Founding Father's temple work is done. After reading Jefferson's quotes, I am pretty sure he accepted the gospel. What a great man!

FDR Memorial

2008-07-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

This memorail was really cool. It had 4 different "rooms" that symbolized each term FDR was in office. Each room had a waterfall and each waterfall got bigger and bigger in each room.

These stones were in the room that symbolized Pearl Harbor.

Steve and I at the last waterfall.

One of the falls at night. This memorial was gorgeous at night.

FDR as the country knew him

I am in line for welfare. The only side view you will ever get of me 6 1/2 months pregnant.

Steve trying to get some money too.

Arlington National Cemetery

2008-07-15T11:03:00.001-07:00

The whole cemetery ws lined with tomb stones. Many of them are soldiers that gave their lives for our country. They are lined up to symbolize soldiers standing at attention and ready to battle.

This is the eternal flame of John F. Kennedy. He was buried at this spot because 11 days before he was assassinated, he was visiting the cemetery. He stood at this spot and said "This is so beautiful. I could stay here forever."

His wife is buried next to him.
This is the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers." It holds many bodies and remains of soldiers from all the wars since WWII. A gaurd watches the tomb 24 hours a day. He paces back and forth with a gun protecting the remains. Every half and hour they change the gaurd in a very offical ceremony. We both saw the ceremony. It was really neat.