This might be....

the start of a beautiful friendship...or at least a new family tradition.

When we stayed with the Layer family, Sunday morning they made us delicious crêpes. I love crêpes but have never attempted to make them. I thought they would be too hard or I would need a special crêpe maker. Dave and Laurie's crêpes were so delicious I decided to try my hand at making them.

What I discovered was, the whole family loves them, they aren't too hard to make, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be a new tradition.

I really tried hard to get a picture of James eating his crêpes. Once I would make his crêpe, give it to him to eat, get another one started, and grab the camera he was always putting the last bite into his mouth and asking for more. He ate three good sized crêpes all by himself.

I like to blame Matt

When Matt came to visit us James took to him instantly and now I know why. He just  knew that Matt had some great ideas. At one point in his visit we were talking about Matt's "bachelor ways" and he admitted that it's going to be tough to giving up drinking juice/milk out of the carton. Well it's been a few months, but James has finally figured out the trick. I guess James knew that they were kindred spirits the first time he met him.

James has loved mango juice, or May-no Juice-A as James calls it,  for quite some time. His addiction reached an all time high while we were potty training because I let him drink as much as he wanted.  After looking at all the empty mango juice cartons one day, I got to thinking that maybe it wasn't the best thing to let him continue to drink all he wanted. I started limiting his juice consumption. To which James almost instantly responded by becoming completely independent, at least where getting his own drinks was concerned.

One day I found the mango juice carton on the floor with the lid off. A little confused I first thought James had found one of the empty cartons to play with. Then I caught him in the act. The only problem is he doesn't put the juice back. I'm sure he was thinking, 'why would you put  it back if you're just going to want a drink again'. This is okay for mango juice, but a big problem for milk. The only thing I'm a little OCD about is dairy products being left out at all. I think milk should never be set on the counter, you just take it out fill your bowl/glass and immediately put it back in the fridge.

We have enjoyed watching the World Cup here in Germany. It has been so fun. Every one of us has looked forward to the games and cheering on our favorite teams. The World Cup has a long history with our family.

When Todd and I first started dating the World Cup was going on in Korea and Japan. I went over to Todd's apartment at 3 in the morning to watch games. It was a lot of fun, but honestly I wasn't really going for the soccer.

The next men's World Cup was just before heading back to MBA school . It was pre-DVR days for us so I was video taped every game that I could and then Todd and I would watch them when he got home from work. I have so many fond memories of that world cup. Portugal did amazing and the Portugal vs England game is still one of my favorites.

The next year was the first time we watched the women in the World Cup. I don't remember where it was, but the games came on early in the morning. One morning Todd was up watching it and Hailee woke up earlier than normal. She was only three years old but she was so excited to watch girls playing soccer. It was then I realized that we needed to start watching more women's sports, especially for our little girl. I recorded a few more games that we could all watch together.

Last year brought about the Men's World cup and to celebrate Todd bought a new TV to enjoy it. DVR made this one a lot easier to watch and we had a lot of great family time watching the games together. Hailee especially remembers when the US scored a goal to win and Todd picked her up and threw her up in the air and caught her. It was an exciting time at our house.

This year brought us the World Cup in Germany while we were living in Germany. As soon as we found out we knew that we wanted to go to a game. We had such a great time watching all the games and going to the game as well. We got more and more excited as the US kept advancing...and advancing. Sunday was the day of the final and we were so excited. It took a long time for 8:45 to come around at our house. We loved cheering on our team and were so sad when the game didn't turn out quite like we had hoped.

The late night in the ER plus the late night watching the game plus the disappointment of losing the game was just too much for our little girl. She was devastated. It was a good lesson for our little girl to learn. It's fun to win, but it's really important to be a good sport. Thank you Abby Wombach for showing that to our daughter. It was so nice to see her congradulate the Japanese team. I think in the end she understood the importance of it, but in the depths of her despair she was so sad that the next World Cup wasn't for 4 more years and she would be 11 by then. Eleven is so OLD and so far away. She was a little consoled when I told her that Abby and Hope would be playing in the Olympics in London in a year. As she was finally falling asleep she said, "I wish it was next month and not next year."

I am so happy that our little family loves watching soccer together. I even impressed Todd this year with my growing knowlege of soccer. I am a much better soccer watcher than I used to be. All it takes is watching a lot of soccer the way soccer is meant to be played. It truely is a "beautiful" game.

Sophie taught Hailee all about all about painting your nails for special events such as the World Cup. So we went down to our local DM and picked up a few festive colors for the occasion of the final. Hailee was so thrilled with the results. It helped  pass the LONG hours before the World Cup Final.

ER

I should have known that 6 months was just asking too much of our boy to not need a trip to the ER. It was a two hour drive home from the lake, and then we had to figure out where to take him. Thanks to a guy Todd works with we found a great hospital for kids. We plugged it into our GPS and drove the 10 minutes or so to the hospital. We couldn't see a parking garage and the street parking was full so I used our GPS to find the closest parking which was just over half a kilometer away. Not too bad we decided and off we went. The problem was we didn't really know where we were going once we got out of the car and the GPS managed to take us to the Middle eastern area of Munich. No kidding it was like we had left the continent and landed in the middle east. The men were all wearing Thwabs and the women were wearing Burkas. To say we were out of place would be a huge understatement. It had me a little nervous so after getting  a little lost we decided to go back to the car and try to find a different place to park. We weren't sure how long it was going to take and if I was scared at 9:30 pm what would it be like at midnight?

Prayers were answered and we found street parking right by the front door. Really it was a miracle. As it turns out ER's in Germany are a lot like the US. A few logistical differences, but when it boils right down to it you have a long wait and then you get to see a doctor. The doctor and nurses were really nice to us "dumb" Americans. It turns out James had a dislocated arm. The doctor made me take Hailee out when he put it back in because he didn't want to traumatize Hailee (or his mother for that matter). In a minute or two they were out again and James looked fine. When I asked Todd how it went he said that they popped it back in and James barely flinched. The doctor was really impressed. So it looks like even in Germany James hasn't lost his ability to Impress ER doctors. Let's just hope this is the last one he has to...but really who am I kidding, he's barely 2.

The doctor wanted us to wait 10-15 minutes to make sure he would start using his hand again. It took barely a few minutes before he was running around and using his left arm again. We were all thankful that it wasn't anything more serious. James is such a tough little guy (which, I'm sure, is going to cause his mom a few more grey hairs).

All better and ready to run again. We finally got home around 1:00 in the morning. It was a long day and I'm just glad it ended happy.

An eventful day at the lake...

Saturday started out brilliantly. We were so excited. Todd was feeling good and we were all up and ready to go early. Since we had some a great start to the day we decided to try Lake Konigsee again. The weather looked promising and the day seemed perfect.

We were not disappointed at all. The lake was beautiful, the weather perfect, and we even found rowboats we could rent. Honestly it couldn't have been more perfect. That is until disaster happened on the 20 minute hike, I thought would be a fun way for the kids to burn off a little energy. It all happened when James decided that he didn't want to walk, he would much rather collect rocks and play in front of everyone else trying to walk on the path. Note to self...James is still a little too young for 'organized' hikes. At one point Todd decided to just pick him up and carry him. He grabbed both arms and James decided he didn't want to be carried. He was able to get one arm free and twist his body as hard as he could to get away. This unfortunately didn't have the effect he was hoping for. Instead of getting away he just ended up hurt. True to form James cried for a few seconds and then settled right down. We were almost to the second little lake when it happened so we walked the few more minutes and he wanted to throw rocks into the river.
We watched him closely the next little while and he refused to use his left hand. On the way back he fussed a little if the trail got to bouncy (this time we were carrying him down the trail). In the car ride home he was just fine, but when we stopped for dinner and I got him out of the carseat there was obviously something wrong that wasn't going to get better with time.

Overall the day was lovely....except for the unfortunate accident. More on our visit to a German ER on the next post.

Hailee loved the rowboat. It was her job to give directions since Todd couldn't see where he was going. It was hillarious. Every few seconds it was "...a little to your right....a litttle to your left....go straight...no no, go that way...a little to the left." Todd really didn't know which way to go. 

Salzburg

 We were so excited to meet up with my cousins in Salzburg. What we did do is learn a valuable understanding on how dependent we have become on cell phones. Unfortunately the day did not go as planned, mainly we never were able to meet up with them. The kids did phenomenal on the train and back home again.

Some of the highlights....

We saw this a little puppet on the street just before going up to the castle. Hailee and James loved it. I think they would have been happy to just sit there for hours watching the little marrionette play the piano. Hailee was so excited when she put some money in the little suit case she got to shake the puppets hand. It was like she was meeting a celebrity. Too cute.  We also found a little marrionette musem at the castle that they both enjoyed as well.

James also got to try his hand and shooting a cannon. Thankfully it wasn't loaded and no one was hurt. He is such a little boy. Any time he would find a rock he would pick it up and hold it in his hand until he found the perfect place to put it. His favorite place was a man-hole type thing with a little hold. Dropping a rock down it was his favorite thing to do.

We were so sad not to meet up with Mickelle, Paul and Krista. Hopefully they will come visit us again and the kids and I will be a little better prepared.

Hot Day

Oregon has definitely spoiled us. It's amazing how quickly Todd and I have adjusted to mild temperature of Oregon. Now if it gets above 80 we start to feel the heat. It's a little funny considering we both grew up in places where well over 100 degrees was the norm.
We were a little worried about temperatures in Munich. We've heard that it can get quite warm here and a third floor apartment with no air conditioning didn't sound like a very fun summer to me. Thankfully we have had a very abnormal summer so far. It has been raining a lot. We don't go more than a few days without rain. It's been so lovely. That being said we still do get a little warm on occasion. It will get up to the low 80's when it's not raining. On those warm days, the kids have a water party on the back patio. It usually consists of changing into their swim suits and  Hailee filling 8 or so bottles with water. Then they take them all out to the patio and take turns dumping on water on each other. It's amazing how long it keeps them entertained and how nice and cool they get.

The first day they did it James was so excited to get his swim suit on but as soon as it got a little wet he just stripped it off. I explained that it was suppose to get wet and put it back on him. Confused he kept playing and as soon as it got wet a little bit  he took it off again.  He was so confused again when I tried putting his suit back on him. "Mom, it's wet!" and ran off to play in the water naked.

The next time it got a little warm I thought we were making progress when James asked for his swimming suit and asked Hailee to start filling up the bottles. I thought to myself....oh good he is realizing that he needs to wear his suit. But unfortunatly it was a repeat of the time before. As soon as it was wet he took it off. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my little streaker. Hopefully we can get him to grow out of it sooner rather than later.