First weeks of Summer

We have kept pretty busy around here! Elliott is on an awesome schedule where he goes to bed at 7:30 and sleeps until 8:00 then takes a nap from noon until 3:00. This is like clockwork ... he usually does not stay up or sleep a minute past these times! In between sleeping we go on walks, run errands, or drive to post to play at the playground. Poor Vic is still stuck inside, but he is slowly getting better - and we even ventured out to eat this past weekend.

Yesterday I took E to a playgroup the is organized on post. It was ... interesting. Mostly I just realized what a sweet, sweet baby we have ...

This is the huge hill that we live on top of ... and that is the Army post below. Elliott and I have been walking/running this every morning and it's a killer - especially on the way up.

One morning I attempted to takes to dogs and Elliott ... this was not a smart plan ...

We love the park on post ... it's very toddler friendly and Elliott could run around there for hours ...

Vic enjoying his breakfast on the couch ...

A friend of mine let me borrow her backpack carrier to test out during Molly's visit. This is a super-duty one, so I am hoping it works out and then we can invest in our own!

Elliott has been doing this baby sign language for awhile now ... he can say please, thank you, more, help and all done. My favorite one is 'please' though. It is supposed to be a circular motion on your chest, but he does more of a drag ... and says "eee" ... and if he really wants something he extends it to "eeeeeeeeeeeeee" ...

He's usually more willing to say them, but he has to be stubborn for the camera ...

Playing at the Park

We love the park ...

Barf ...

Here is a little something to start your day ... I hope none of you are eating breakfast ...

Gross, right??? Obviously this is Vic's foot ... which looks like it might be dead, but the doctor said it is healing just fine. It hurts me to look at ... and makes me want to throw up a little bit.

Onto lighter topics ... last weekend was Father's day and we had some fantastic weather. Actually the past week has been great ... high 80s and plenty of sun. This weather has sent most people running to buy fans and A/C units (Germans do not believe in central air), but not us ... we love it! Our third floor is a little warm with out air conditioning, but the middle floor is livable, and the basement is still nice and cool! I am hoping this sticks around for awhile!

In finishing up my last week of course, and a couple of final projects - I forgot about purchasing Father's Day presents - or mailing any for that matter (sorry dad - I'll make up for it, and buy you a big beer in Spain!) ... so I ran the night before and frantically searched for a gift. The PX on post isn't exactly ripe with fashionable clothes or desirable gifts, so I settled on an electric toothbrush! Woohooooo .. in my defense - he really did want one of these gadgets ... can't you just see the excitement on his face???

I also cooked up an amazing dinner of these kabobs (is that how you spell that word?) ... if you know anything about my fear of raw meat - you can guess that this meal was absolutely terrifying for me. Not only did I have to chop raw meat into cubes, but then I had to touch it and stab it with this metal rod ... ugh, the things you do for love. Anyway,

Elliott is really enjoying himself and his freedom from daycare. We have spent a lot of time going on walks and hanging out in the backyard. He loves playing with his bubbles and chasing the dogs around ...

Look at this mischievous grin ... I'm pretty sure Roscoe was fed half of his breakfast ...

My couponing stockpile is getting a little out of hand ... and this is only half ... and my wall of diapers is equally impressive ...

Nothing on this shelf was over a dollar ... and I think we are all set on detergent for awhile ...

Life is a little less stressful since work ended ... my first session of summer school is complete (with two A's - might I add), but the next classes have already started. These two seem to be my easiest ones yet, so hopefully they go quickly!

Summer Vacation Begins!!!

Woohoo ... my last day of work was yesterday, and I could not be happier to have eight full weeks of being a stay-at-home mom. I have a long list of things that need to be accomplished, cleaned, and organized, but I'm really excited to take Eli out to some parks and pools that we haven't be able to explore yet.

The weather has made a drastic improvement in recent days. We are finally in the 80's and I am loving every second of it. We bought E a little pool, and I'm hoping he gets to test it out today.

I finished my first session of summer classes, and squeaked by with two A's! The second session starts on Monday - not much of a break, but I would rather get them out of the way.

We are back where we started with Elliott's ear issue. After a ear infection last week the Army doctor suggested we go back to the ENT. The ENT doctor did an exam and saw that E's tubes had fallen out and his ears were in no better shape then when they were placed. It looks like we're going to do another tube placement (this time with gold plated tubes - ohhhh-la-la) and remove his tonsils on July 16th. I hate that he has to go through this procedure again, but hopefully this will do the trick. I feel like this poor kid has been constantly sick, or on some type of antibiotics, since we moved to Grafenwoehr.

Vic's foot is healing nicely, but he is struggling with boredom with having to be cooped up inside. Hopefully this week he will start to feel good enough that we can go out to dinner, or get him out of the house some how!

E has started some daring toddler behavior which has left him with several bumps and bruises. At one point last week he had three different bruises on his face. This one was from chasing after a soldier that he thought was Vic - and he bit it on the sidewalk. Poor guy.

Most of the other bruises are attributed to things like this ... don't worry, I made sure this thing wasn't going to tip over before I snapped a picture. He finds the craziest ways to get to things that he wants. This was in the hotel room while we were waiting for Vic to get out of surgery ...

We have reached uncontrollable levels of  curls. I hate to cut them, but he keeps getting mistaken for a girl and it is getting harder and harder to tame this madness. Decisions, decisions ... I don't even know where to take him - the beauty shop? Barber shop?

Elliott has figured out how to take his diaper off ... which was a proud moment, but also a scary one. In this picture I told him that we were going to take a bath, and when I came back in his room he had taken his diaper off, THROWN IT AWAY (wow), and then, of course, got sidetracked playing toys naked. It is so funny how he knows how to do things that we have never taught him, but he has only observed us doing ...

In case you were ever wondering if Elliott has ditched the burp cloths ... the answer is no.

He loves these stupid things.

Also, you can barely see, yet another, bruise on his cheek ... this one was from running into the corner of a table.

Our new favorite activity is dumping out all the coins in his piggy banks, and then putting it all back ... coin by coin ...

It takes so much concentration ... and allows for me to fold laundry ...

Last weekend my neighbor Kim and I took the kids to the park. Elliott loved it, but refused to play on the baby equipment which caused me to have to chase him all around the park - up and down ramps and slides. It wasn't exactly the relaxing morning I had in mind, but he had a good time ... and then took an awesome nap.

We got him this water table for his birthday, and it has remained unused in the basement until now. We finally were able to bring it up last weekend, and he loves it!

Check out the manicured lawn in the background. With Vic not being mobile I have had to take over mowing duties. I have done quite well for myself - considering I have never really mowed grass in my life. German mowers are electric, so it's kind of like vacuuming the lawn - the most challenging part is to not run over the cord. Who wants to take bets that I shred the cord by the end of summer??

I have not attempted weed-whacking yet - this is on next week's agenda though.

I just like Elliott's face in this picture ... he is looking a Vic like he's crazy ... I often give Vic this same look ...

My very best friend, Molly, is coming in a couple weeks, so I am planning our days and getting ready for her big arrival! So excited!

Salzburg

I am taking a brief break from my school work to update this from our amazing trip to Salzburg. We made the 3.5 hour drive last weekend, and explored for two days. The weather really sucked (do you see a pattern here?), but we powered through and made the best of it. The city is beautiful - even through heavy fog, and it is relatively small, so you can visit everything by foot. I chose an awesome hotel (sometimes I don't fare so well in that department), and we really enjoyed our time there. It was a fancy-pants kind of place, and they even had a champagne breakfast buffet in the morning ... oh la la.

Here are some pictures from our trip ...

Salzburg is the birthplace of Mozart ... which also happens to be Elliott's favorite composer. As a baby he watched that freaking Baby Mozart about 9 million times ... so we thought it was only proper to take him to see all of the Mozart sights. The picture below was in the gift shop of Mozart's childhood home. You could tour the place, but it was like 11 euro a person, and we don't like Mozart that much ...

This is a big fountain in the Residenzplatz ... it is one of the cooler fountains we have seen in Europe ... the detail was amazing ...

 Next we went into the Salzburg Dom - which was beautiful. These pictures do not do justice for this church. Mozart was baptized here ... which I thought was pretty cool! Elliott soon figured out that his voice echoed in here, so we did a quick tour as he started to scream random words just to hear the effect ...

Creepy statue outside the Dom ...

This was a weird statue in another main square downtown ... from a distance I really thought there was a man standing on this ball (I should probably get my eyes checked), but in fact it's just a statue ...

The Salzburg Fortress from downtown ...

Standing in from of the Neptune statue downtown ...

Another statue ... Elliott's favorite ...

He would have played on and around this statue for hours if we let him ...

Walking like a little man ...

Love this picture ...

He had the whole thing to himself ...

Picture of the statue with the Dom in the background ...

Statue at the Residence ... the wall behind is a cave texture ... very cool up close ...

So we're strolling down the street and we see this cute little travel agency, so I'm checking out some of the trip prices ... then I see this cute little German model house. Cute, right?? Then I looked at the detail ... ummm, those are tiny little penises painted on the house ... with tiny little penises dangling from the roof. What in the hell? Only in Europe ...

That night we ate at a really good Italian restaurant, and headed back to the room a little early so that Eli could get a good night's sleep.

The next day we woke up super early and made sure we took full advantage of our champagne breakfast buffet. After that we headed out to check out the fortress, and a few other sights that we missed. We basically had the city to ourselves ... Europeans tend to lay low on Sundays.

We messed around at the big weird statue ...

We took a train up the mountain to see the fortress. Funny story ... we jumped on the train with what appeared to be some sort of Asian tour group. They didn't speak any English, but thought Elliott was the coolest thing ever. Anyway, they all pulled out their cameras and started taking pictures of him ... like dozens of pictures each. It was really awkward, but he was loving the attention ...

View from the fortress ...

I don't know what kind of face I'm making ...

Cannons inside the fortress ...

These were weird wells and the floor underneath was filled with money ... we didn't quite understand that, but Vic said it reminded him of The Goonies ...

Another view from the fortress ...

This is carved into the side of the mountain ...

Cool bubble guy that Elliott loved ...

One of our last stops was Mozart's birthplace. 

We really, really loved Salzburg and we would ideally like to go back when the weather is nice ... if the weather ever gets nice. We pretty much have our trip itinerary planned out for our remaining 18 months ... and it's pretty jammed packed. We are starting to face the fact that there may be a few places on our 'bucket lists' that we just may not get to, but we are going to try our best!! We need someone to come and watch Elliott for like two weeks so we can go on a whirlwind tour of Europe ... any takers??? We love traveling with him, but it sure is a lot of extra work!!

This past week we made another long drive to the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany so Vic could get his foot surgery. Everything went well, and he is at home recovering as we speak!! Lucky for him - he has 30 days of convalescent leave, so he has plenty of time to heal and relax.

We will be taking it easy at least for the next few weeks. Work ends for me on June 13th!! I am really excited to have free time, and take Elliott on some little day trips. I am currently working through a couple of courses and one of them is just horrible. I am trying to get the hardest ones out of the way first, but I am really in over my head with this particular one!! Luckily it is only five weeks long, so I just have to 'embrace the suck', as they say in the Army, and finish it up!!