Potty Trained

James has been trying to convince me he was ready to be potty-trained for the last month or so. I quite honestly kept trying to convince him that he wasn't ready and wished he would just be happy to wear diapers. Since I wouldn't take him out of diapers he decided to take matters into his own hands. For a week straight he would take off his diaper after every time he went to the bathroom. Now this wasn't so bad when it was just pee (although we were going through so many diapers than we were before), where we ran into problems was after he pooped. The all to frequent call of "I'm stinky" had me running to see what mess I would find. Thankfully it was never too horrible, but after a week or so of this I was ready to begin potty training him. We found a little green potty at IKEA and started the process.

James was in heaven. The first time he went to the bathroom on the potty and we all cheered he said "call daddy!" Of course we had to share the good news with daddy. We took a few days of just getting used to the potty before we got serious about the full effort.

When the time finally came around it started out rather rough. He had FOUR accidents in a matter of TWO hours. I couldn't believe how much that kid could hold in. The day ended better with going potty on his own three times. He even told me when we had gone out to dinner and he had a pull-up on. He asked to go potty and he made it without an accident.

After that he was a pro. He had only one accident the next day (totally my fault because I was in the shower, he came and told me, but I didn't make it out in time). And has been going strong ever since. Even on the weekend when we dragged him all over. He always let me know when he needed to go. He is even pretty good about holding it until we can find a potty.

The only major thing we need to work on is his language skills. He is doing much better at talking, but when he needs to go to the bathroom he just starts pulling down his pants. This proves to be a little problematic when we are in public places. He just loves being a big boy.

Moving

The only sadness we had when we found out we were staying in Munich a few more months was that we would have to find a new place to live. Our current landlords had already found a new renter and couldn't get out of their contract (which they tried to do). It was a little stressful, but a little easier than last time since we knew the area a little better. The most challenging part is finding a place that will let us have kids. We figured this out the first time we were looking. We didn't want to have anything too far away from Todd's work and yet we still wanted to be close to public transportation.

We were excited when we found a place that is both close to Todd's work (less than 15 minutes even in 'rush hour' traffic) and a two minute walk to a tram line that takes us right down town in a matter of minutes. It didn't hurt either when Todd came to look at it and realized we were litterally right around the corner from the FC Bayern Munchen training facility. Before I had seen it, I liked to tease Todd that it was probably a terrible apartment in a 'great location.' But once we moved it I have fallen in love with the place. There are so many great windows as well as complete privacy (which is nice since James likes to streak around at times). We are also a block from a place where Hailee and James can take swimming lessons, gymnastic lessons, and other sports classes. The only drawback is we don't have a grocery store really close, but with a bakery a block away where you can get chocolate croissants and amazing pretzles, there isn't much to complain about. If we run out of food we can always enjoy the bakery.

Overall it's been a good move. We still miss the people we met in our last place, but we have really started enjoying our new surroundings in Munich. Plus we get the chance to learn another part of the city that is pretty fun.

Below are pictures of the kids sporting their new Bayern Munich uniforms. They were both thrilled to get new jersey's. I was thrilled to have another shirt for James to wear. For the last week and a half  he would only wear his 'soccer' shirt my mom had given him for Christmas. Now we at least have two soccer shirts to rotate.

Last Saturday we had to go to the training facility to check it out. Their younger squad (they looked to be about high school age) were playing a game. Todd, Hailee and James were thrilled to watch. We were unfortunately wearing the wrong colors, Hailee and James were both wearing blue like the other team.

James watching in his 'soccer' shirt.

Hofbräuhaus München

For Matt's last night in Munich we went to the Hofbräuhaus downtown for some authentic Bavarian food. They also have a lot of beer there since it's the original brewery of the King of Bavaria. It was also the location where the Nazi party was organized, but that wasn't mentioned on the menu with the rest of the history of the place.

I'm pretty sure that if there was every a place where the men's restroom line could be longer than the women's, this would be the place. There were a whole lot of men drinking a whole lot of beer. Their beer cups hold 1 liter at a time. I was amazed to watch the waiters there. They can carry 12 beer steins at a time. That is about 3.17 gallons of liquid, not to mention the heavy glass steins they use to serve it.

James really enjoyed his fanta and Hailee really enjoyed coloring her picture they gave her to color. Overall the kids did pretty good there. Thankfully it's a noisy place anyway so when James got a little noisy at the end, he wasn't making the most noise. 

The food was really good as well. Here are Todd and Matt enjoying their apple strudel to finish off the meal. We couldn't let Matt come to Bavaria and not have a taste of Bavairan food.

Just because...

James couldn't let Matt go home without some kind of crazy excitement, he decided to fall on the corner of the coffee table. He cried for a bit, but he was more upset that I was trying to stop it from bleeding. It was the first time he had gotten a bump like this that actually broke the skin as well. Thankfully it didn't require stitches or an ER visit (I still need to find out where the hospital is, at this point I'm just testing fate). Once I let him get down and run around he was fine. I decided to show him in the mirror what had happened to him (hopefully thinking it would make him a little more careful). I wish I would have taken my camera to take a picture of his reaction. He was thrilled! Actually thrilled and proud to see the huge bump on his head.

It is looking much better now, but he still has a pretty good size bruise on his head. I don't think I'll be able to ever get a picture of him without a bruise on his head.

Vienna

 While Matt was here we decided to take a weekend trip to Vienna. When Todd got back to work and told people what we had done they were shocked. Two of the guys in the group had never even been to Vienna because it is so far away. It is just over 4 hours from our house, so not far at all, but there was more to see than we had time for in one weekend. I wouldn't mind going back at all.

Just before this trip we found out we were going to be staying in Germany longer than originally planned. This brought on several challenges all at once. We had to apply for a work Visa for Todd and family visas for the kids and I (which required a lot of paperwork and getting documents that we had left in the US). We also had to find a new place to live, as our current landlords already had some one moving in right after we were suppose to have gone back to the US. Unfortunately for our trip to Austria, this meant the time I would have spent researching the area went to sorting out a few things for stay. We did manage to get a hotel before getting on the road to go.

The first place we saw when driving into town was the Schloß Schönbrunn. As we had nothing planned out, we decided to stop and check it out. It was well worth the stop. It was the summer home to the Royal family, the Versailles of Austria. We popped in for an audio tour of the castle. Hailee was thrilled to see where Sisi, a Bavarian princess who married the Austrian Emperor, live for a time. It was actually quite fun to see a place without doing any research on it. It was fun to just listen to the tour and see what history we could learn. The best room we went into was where the young Mozart came and played for the King and Queen. I've heard that story so many times, but never put this palace and the story together. The best part was when I heard it on the audio handset I turned to look at Hailee. She was just a few seconds behind me and her face, when she heard that this was in fact the room where Mozart had played, was absolutely classic. She was as thrilled as I was. 

The palace grounds were absolutely beautiful as well. Todd and I have decided that we need to have one of these tree lined trellises in our house one day. We've seen several around Bavaria and Austria, but this one was our favorite. The purple flowers hanging down were not only beautiful, but smelled absolutely divine.

I liked to tease Matt that he was my official photographer. I made sure to take pictures of the people, but I left all the landscape and architecture to him. The only problem was that he was so busy taking pictures (I believe he took over 1,200) that I had a hard time getting pictures of him. The kids absolutely loved having him come for a visit. Hailee was just three years old when she had last seen Matt, but I was amazed how quickly they took to him. From day one James became his best friend and I'm afraid that the kids were about to drive him crazy with attention. It's a good thing he has so many nieces and nephews, so he was used to kids mauling him with attention.

Hailee in front of St. Charles church.

The next turned out to be freezing. We started our little tour at St. Charles church, but quickly realized the kids weren't going to last long in the cold. Since we didn't know where we were going we decided to find a place where the kids could get warm. The best place we could find was McDonalds. The kids could get warm and Matt and Todd went to check a few things out.

I still can't believe how nice McDonalds is here. This is a view of the ceiling. It was in a beautiful building and they kept it beautiful on the inside. At least they make them a little nicer here than they do in the US. The other nice thing was they have free wi-fi so I could catch up on my Austrian history while we waited for the kids to warm up and the boys to get back.

Todd started feeling a little sick and James needed a nap so we got the car and parked in a garage a little closer to St. Stephen's Cathedral and let them both rest. Matt continued to look around when I took food back to the car. While we were eating a huge rain storm came along (so I'm 3 for 3 that it rains in Austria every time I visit). Matt got stuck in it, but for once I stayed fairly dry in Austria. In fact I didn't even know it was raining. After lunch and the kids and I went to a park across from where we parked and was surprised to see the aftermath of what looked like a pretty bad storm. There were tree branches everywhere, but the beer garden (as the park turned out to be) was still packed with people enjoying a little drink. Right after the storm passed the sun came out and things were drying out, but leave it to my children to find a puddle to jump in. They had fun splashing around the beer garden park.

It was a fun quick weekend and we didn't get to see everything, but I can't wait to see Matt's pictures. I'm afraid my book this year might have to be split up. I'm not sure 450 pages will be enough. 

Wild Park

Our neighbors/landlords invited us to the "Wild Park" with their grandkids about 20 minutes from our house. Hailee and James have loved playing with Ella and Yuna. When they invited us to go to the park we weren't really quite sure what to expect. They said it had animals that you would find in Germany, so we were expecting a zoo type atmosphere. We were all surprised that it was more like a petting zoo, some of the animals were behind fences, but others were just wandering around freely.

 The kids got a sack full of food when we got there and were so excited to see and feed the animals. Up first were some bunnies. Hailee, Ella, and Yuna trying to feed them.

 You can tell how excited James was to be there.

 As we walked around this deer just came up to us and wanted food.

 James was thrilled to have his own bag of food.

 One of Hailee's favorites were the ponies. We saw so many fun animals.

 In the middle of the 'Wild Park' was a park for the kids. Let me just say, so far every park we've been to has been fabulous. They really know how to make a fun kids park. They make me nervous at times, but the kids have an absolutely wonderful time.

 First up was this huge slide. It was really even bigger than the pictures give it credit for and since there aren't a lot of turns in the slide you come down quite fast. While I was waiting for Hailee and James to come down another little boy came shooting out backwards and head first and got a little hurt. At that point Hailee and James were just climbing up for the first time and I was more than a little nervous. Thankfully neither were hurt that time or the many other times they went down. They both loved it.

 Hailee loved this little machine. It actually worked. It was powered by some kind of generator or something and had three levers for all the movement.

While I was watching Hailee dig I heard James calling for help. He was at the top of a rope ladder and needed help getting on top of the platform. Now mind you, when I went to go help him I had to climb up two rungs on the ladder to reach his bottom to push him the rest of the way up. The slide was so fun coming down that it was on the third try going up he no longer needed my help. He must have climbed up more than 20 times.

He had so much fun on the playground that I was worried I was going to have to take him away screaming. But he played hard enough when I told him it was time to go he gladly climbed into his stroller and was ready for rest. And that is how you know the boy had fun. He played until he was completely exhausted.

Munich with Matt

 Matt came to visit us at the end of what we thought was our trip to Munich. Right in the middle of his trip Intel surprised us with an offer of an extension. An extension is something we were excited about, but didn't think it was possible. Especially because a week before we were to go home we still hadn't heard anything about it.

It was fun to have Matt here. He was one of Todd's roommates from his freshman year until just before we got married. He lived in Provo the first few years after we were married, but since he moved to Seattle we hadn't seen as much of him. James and Hailee took right to him and I'm afraid they drove him crazy with attention while he was here. Luckily he had a lot of practice with nieces and nephews so he took all the attention very well.

One of his first days here we decided to give him a tour of the Marienplatz in Munich. Hailee was thrilled to show him all of her favorite gargoyles and statues of Marienplatz. Then we took him to the Residence. It was our third time, but the first time we saw it all. At one point on the tour it splits up and you can go on the shorter tour or the longer tour. Hailee was quite disappointed that we'd only done the short tour to this point. Once we finished the long tour she proudly exclaimed, "See I told you there were some cool rooms we missed." Sure enough there were quite a few fun things to see on the 'long' tour.

 We also got to go to the Treasury again. Hailee LOVES the treasury and I have to admit it's pretty cool to see all of the amazing jewels, crowns, and things from the royal families. St. George's horse and knight are one of her favorites as well as the picture below (sorry it's terrible because I couldn't use a flash, next time I'll have to take a tripod) of a queen's travel case. She really wants a travel case like this one.

Overall it was a great day!!

The Elder Family

We were joking one day that Jonathon and Louise are the UK version of us. Todd and Jonathon are both in the finance industry and have a lot of similar interests. Louise and I also share a lot of similar interests and if given the chance I'm sure we could talk non stop for hours and hours. While we and not completely similar in every way it makes for a great friendship and we are very happy to consider them dear friends. The only sadness we experienced while they were here was we never had a chance to play Settlers of Catan (and when Adelaide fell and got a massive bonk on her head, thankfully she was fine). In no time at all it was time to say good-bye. Needless to say no one was really ready or happy for this event. Just before getting in the car Adelaide was crying and James kept saying in a very empathetic voice "She's sad....mom she's sad." As soon as we came inside he said "I sad." That was the first time I can remember he told me that he was sad. We had some very sad days without friends to play and chat with. We miss the Elder family.

While the Elder family was visiting there were a couple of Champion League games. We couldn't get them on our TV so Todd and Jonathon improvised and got play by play trackers online. Here they are "watching" the game together.

Neuschwanstien with the Elder family

I know I am so far behind right now, but I will get caught up. The end of last week we found out that they are extending our stay here in Germany for the next couple of months, which is fantastic, but requires quite a bit of work to get going on. We have to get our immigration papers going and find a new place to live. At this point we're not sure what the plans are, hopefully in the next day or two we'll find out. 

So while I take a quick break from cleaning and packing I'll post a few more pictures from our fun trip to Neuschwanstien with the Elder family. It was so fun to have the Elder family come stay with us. They are the type of friends that even though it's been five years since we've seen them, it felt like no time had passed at all. 

 James and Adelaide. It was the best picture I got of both of them, They are even both kind of looking at the camera. Of course it lasted about 3 seconds and then they were both running and exploring again.

 The Elder family plus Hailee at Neuschwanstein.

 This was Hailee's third time to visit the castle, on the walk down she became our "expert" and led us on a different trail down the mountain.

Jonathon was a favorite with all the kids. I'm afraid that with my two kids wanting all of his attention he is going to need a break for a long time. He was so good with them and they adored playing with them.

It was a fun time at the castle and even more fun when Louise rode with me on the way home. James fell asleep, Hailee was busy reading her book and Louise and I got to chat all the way home without a distraction. I felt very spoiled by the time I got home.

Oberammergau

It's not only fun to say, it's also a beautiful place. It is just over an hour drive from our house and the perfect thing to do on a quiet afternoon. We've decided it's been one of our favorite afternoons here. The drive was beautiful. James, unfortunately fell asleep on the way so he missed the beautiful drive, but he did get some much needed sleep. The town itself is situated so beautifully at the foot of the German Alps. Once there we got to take a cable car to the top of one of the peaks.

 Hailee and Adelaide enjoying the ride up.

 James was still trying to wake up and Hailee wasn't too impressed by having to stop looking out the window to get her picture taken.

 Miss Adelaide didn't want to stop to get her picture taken either, she begrudgingly turned half way around so I could snap it. You can see how impressed she was with my idea. 

 It was a little windy and cloudy on top, but the view was still beautiful. It was a very fun afternoon in the German Alps.