Oh the Weather

Apparently our snow day on Sunday was not the climax of this weather system. It snowed more on Monday so Reese and I went out and tried to find a sled. We successfully purchased a cheapo sled and then came home and bundled up to go sledding on the little hill by our house. Reese had so much fun, she kept saying "again, again" everytime we finished. She's a little off balance on the sled, so after we ride down she gets on her hands and knees on the sled while I drag her back up the hill like on of those Alaskan Iditarod race dogs. We took a break from sledding and tried to build a snowman, I've never built a snowman that I can recall and Nate's instructions the previous day hadn't worked for us so instead we built a little snow-gnome. He was quite handsome if we do say so ourselves. Reese was very helpful in packing the snow and also in attempting to eat the snow-gnome.
Today we were trying to catch a hop to D.C. to see some great friends that recently had a baby. There was a flight out of Spangdahlem so we got to the terminal for our 8:15 am showtime and we were the only ones waiting for the plane...YAY! We got ticketed and awhile later we were told that the plane might be skipping over the base we wanted to go to and going straight to Delaware. I asked if they would keep me updated because Delaware is 2 hours away from where I wanted to land. They finally sent us through security around 10am and the guy told me that as of now the plane was stopping in Maryland but the pilot might decide midflight to skip Maryland and go straight to Delaware. I was confused but decided that this was my best chance to get there so I pressed forward. When we were getting on the plane, the snow was really coming down so they said they were getting it de-iced and we'd be on our way. Over an hour later, after I'd fed Reese and she'd fallen asleep, they came to give me the bad news that they had a two hour delay due to the weather. They said we could wait on the plane or they would bus us back to the terminal to wait there. Since Reese was already asleep I decided not to wake her so I laid down for a nap on the plane. When she woke up later we started watching Bolt until they came to give us the bad news that the flight had been delayed until tomorrow. We were sad that we didn't get out, but we didn't have such a bad day at the terminal so I guess we'll brave it again tomorrow.

Snow Day!

We've gotten so much snow over the past few days that church was cancelled today.....YAY!!! To celebrate our snow day we had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and then got all bundled up to play in the snow. When it snowed a little bit a month or so ago it was only 5 degrees outside and Reese freaked when we took her outside to play in it. Today it was significantly warmer and she had so much fun playing in the snow. She found walking through the deep snow to difficult so she took to just crawling around in it which was hilarious. She made a few snow angels and tried to throw some snowballs but couldn't with her mittens on. Jaeger ran around in the snow for a little bit, but then got tired of the cold and hid underneath the park bench where there wasn't any snow. Nate and I had a snowball fight and while Reese thought it was funny for Mommy to throw snowballs at Daddy, she got quite upset when Mommy was running down the street as Daddy chucked snowballs. All in all it was a fun day and I was glad that she had fun playing in the snow today.

The Best Thing Since Post-Its

Generally speaking, when Nate changes operating systems on the computer I either don't care or grumble just a little bit about how I have to get used to something new. When Nate upgraded us to Windows 7 I had absolutely no emotions, that was until I found my new favorite feature the sticky note. I can't believe I lived this long without computer sticky notes, for those of you who don't know they're basically post its for the desktop and they're ingenius. You don't have to save them, they just stay where you put them until you delete them. There are a bunch of different colors so I color code different topics, for example I have a bunch of green ones right now that pertain to the trip I'm planning to Ireland. Nate doesn't get my fascination with the sticky notes and I think the shear volume of them that I have may be beginning to irritate him so I've started stacking them so that they take up less room, but he just doesn't understand how convenient they are. Previously when I would be planning a trip I'd have to open a word document or the notepad to jot down the different dates, prices, hotels, etc. that I found, but now I just put it on the post it and there it is for me to remember. When someone emails me something important I generally forget after I've closed the email, but now I jot it down on a post it (in pink because that's the closest to red and thus the most urgent post it color there is) and when I get on the computer I can see it and remember. Eventually I'll be able to sway Nate to the magical world of sticky notes, but for now I'm content that he merely rolls his eyes when he sees the new pile of them on the desktop...though it's possible that he's rolling his eyes not at the sticky notes but at the new trip he sees coming together in sticky note form everytime he logs on. Which brings up the point, when will he learn that three day weekends were not meant to be wasted sitting around our house?

What Might Have Been

When I was in college my friends and I would always come up with stories of what each others future would be like, needless to say none of them were very pleasant. One friend was going to be morbidly obese and never leave her house but would also be a very successful writer. Another was going to be the manager at McDonalds, she was a business major, and would be constantly trying to hook up with guys that went through the drive thru line. My story was that I would be a career Albertsons employee that at the age of 40 would still be hitting on the new college student employees.
Fortunately for me, my friends misjudged my future and now I'm a married stay at home mom that lives in Europe. I think the real problem here was that they misjudged what my future would have been had I not gotten married. This morning as I was lying in bed I realized what would have been, or perhaps what could have been. If I had not taken the road I had, I would've been a "dog lady", think "cat lady" but with dogs instead of cats. Along with Max we're watching our friends' dog Luna so when Nate got up this morning he took the dogs out to pee and then brought them in and threw them onto the bed with me. As they cuddled up with me I began to wonder how many more dogs I could have curl up in bed with me before I would deem it to be too many. This thought alone brought my epiphany of my life as a dog lady. Sure it would've started out with one dog, but soon I would've bought another so they could play together while I was at work. After that I would've started taking in strays and soon I would've been working from home and taking care of hundreds of dogs. The best part is that no one would've realized I was crazy until the number of dogs surpassed 10, when you tell someone you have a cat an alarm goes off in their head but if you say you have a dog no one thinks twice.
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As I was writing this my friends arrived to retrieve their son and their dog, I'm back to only having one dog. I guess we'll never know what might have been.

My Future Car Jacker

We're watching Max for a couple days while his parents take a nice little solo trip. I really like it when Max comes over because as a general rule he and Reese play very nicely together and I get to have some time to work on my own things while they entertain each other. Today after lunch he and Reese were taking turns pushing each other around in the car. Reese was in the car first and he pushed her around and then she actually got out of the car on her own and let him get in for a chance. She was pushing him down the hall when I started to hear Max cry, when I turned the corner I saw her trying to weasel her way into the car after her first attempt to pull him out of the car had failed. I rushed to get the camera because it was far too entertaining to let slip by, but I missed getting pics of the first part where she was trying to force herself in to the carseat. Once she saw me taking pictures and realized that I wasn't going to drag Max out of the car she started crying with him in an attempt to paint him as the villian in the story. Once she realized I wasn't going to drag Max out of the car and he wasn't going to get out on his own she decided to play the martyr and pull herself out of the car on her stomach.

She's Getting So Big!

I was looking through Reese's baby photos last night for a project I'm working on and I couldn't get over how big my little girl has gotten. When we went to her 18 month check-up in November the doctor said she was in the 20th percentile for weight and the 80th for height. He also said that she was "a smarty-pants" which I already knew but it was nice to hear someone who isn't completely biased say it.

Reese loves animals, no love isn't quite strong enough, she ADORES animals. Whenever we see an animal of any kind she wants to run over and pet it and hug it and kiss it and just generally make it love her as much as she loves it. Her favorite book is her animal book, which I must read 50 times a day, and she knows all the noises that the animals make....or at least she knows all the ones that I know, I have no clue what to tell her a chameleon says. Cats don't say meow, they sound more like the name of the Chinese leader Mao but in a really sweet voice. Dogs say wooh wooh wooh, ducks say quack and pigs make a very similar noise but is slightly different in it's own way. Donkeys say hee-aw, horses laugh, when she sees the spider on the page she hits it...because that's what we do to spiders, she knows dolphins and cows and tigers and sheep and snakes and many others that I'm forgetting but they're all very very cute and she's willing to tell you what any animal says if you just ask.

She loves to watch movies, there were a few weeks were it seemed like someone was always sick so she got to watch a lot more tv than usual and she is utterly addicted to Finding Nemo, which she has been addicted to since birth, and Bolt. She'll go over to the movies and pull out either "neno" or "bowl" and ask you to watch it over and over and over. The has a Nemo tablesetting and when she uses it she spends the whole meal showing you that Nemo is on her fork or her plate and so on and so forth. Nate was making pancakes the other day and Reese was in there helping so he asked her to get him a bowl from the cupboard...she ran into the living room shouting "BOWL!!!!" and brought the movie Bolt to him.

She loves to read and will bring you books over and over and over again, but she also loves to play with all of her toys. She'll drag her blocks out and build a tower or make me something to eat in her new kitchen, she's always doing something different and it's exciting to see her imagination growing and to watch her learn to play by herself. One of her favorite things is her car, she'll come grab my leg and drag me to the playroom and then get in her car and wait for me to push her around the house. One time we made Jaeger ride with her so now she always wants Jaeger to ride with her and if Jaeger runs away then we chase her. She loves to play outside, but the weather hasn't been nice enough recently, when it is nice she likes to go to the park and swing and use the slide. I wish we had a larger park in our town but luckily the little slide keeps her entertained at this point. She also loves to play with a ball, one of her favorite things we do is go bowling and if we enter the bowling alley for another reason she'll just start shouting "BALL BALL" and pointing at all the bowling balls. We go to a playgroup on base twice a month and when they play she always wants to get a basketball and carry it around and throw it and chase it, it makes me very proud.

Reese started going to nursery a few weeks ago and it didn't surprise me how quickly she took to going to class and playing with the other kids. I went with her a few weeks and then the first week she was alone they said she cried for less than a minute when she realized I was gone and then went off playing with the other kids. She's very social so she doesn't have any problems getting in there and playing with other children and she tends to be alright about sharing unless it's with her friend Max. Max is basically Reese's best friend, they play all the time and their personalities are perfectly suited because Reese is bossy and Max is laid back. They'll play with the car and Max will take a turn pushing Reese around and then Reese will get out for Max's turn and go do something else instead of pushing him around. Luckily once she's reminded to share with Max and to take turns then she does, she just forgets that she's supposed to share with him.

When Reese goes to bed at night we read a book, her favorite is the grover book "The Monster at the End of this Book", a classic if you don't have it, then she tells me "tuw-tle" which means she wants to turn her turtle constellation light on and then she gets in bed and folds her arms really tight together for prayer. She's an excellent sleeper and goes to bed everynight at 8pm with generally no fuss, however if you try to put her to bed even 15 mins early she will regulate on you and of course she has to have Emmy, puppy and gloworm to go to bed and if one of them is missing then she waits until you find it.

Reese hates most fruits and all vegetables, I'm not sure when this began but all the sudden she refuses to eat anything that is green besides grapes. The only fruits she'll eat right now are applesauce, but never an apple itself, grapes and raisins. Her favorite thing is cookies, any variety accepted. She calls them "cook" so if you accidentally ask her if she wants to cook something in her kitchen or if I ask her if she wants to help me cook she immediately thinks she's getting a cookie. We took her off soy milk recently and she's doing really well on the lactose free milk which is quite exciting, no more walking out of a store covered in poop for me! Every morning I ask her if she wants milk or water and generally she tells me "nyuk", which is how she says milk but sounds exactly like that noise the three stooges made, but sometimes she'll want "wa."

I'm trying to think of anything else that I've missed. She loves to play hide and seek, she finally started going down the stairs on her stomach instead of trying to walk down them, we tossed the sippies out a few months ago, she needs a clip in her hair so that she doesn't look like a shaggy dog but refuses to keep it in....hmmmm....oh, and when I'm in the shower she likes to empty her drawers and hide her clothes from me. I think those are the highlights, clearly there's so much more seeing as she's constantly saying the most hilarious things, but that'll have to do for now.

Proud of Me

I'm so proud of myself right now that I'm practically beaming :) Nate and I have been converting the office into a playroom to store all of Reese's toys in, so when we were at Ikea I saw this fabric that I thought would be really cute to make curtains out of to put in that room. Now I did look to see if they sold curtains in this fabric or anything else that I liked because in these types of situations I'm not much of a do it yourselfer, but alas they did not so I decide that this was something I could manage to do. I got home and measured the window and found out that I wouldn't have enough material for two panels so I would have to wait until I went back to Ikea to get another thing of this fabric.....boooooo....then I decided instead of doing that I would just get some white fabric to add to the bottom and then I would make some loops at the top as well. So I took all my fabric over to my friends place to use her machine and basically have her oversee my operation but I ended up doing all the sewing and cutting myself, she helped iron some hems but other than that it was all me and I'm very excited about that fact. I was so proud of my little creation that I couldn't wait to get it home and hang it, but first I had to go get these little hook clips because this room doesn't have a regular curtain rod. It's this weird thing where you hook these clips to the curtain and then you slide the clips into this runner at the top, in all of the other rooms we just took these down and hung rods but I wasn't interested in going to all that trouble so I figured I'd find a way around all that. I ended up just pinning the little clips to my loops and voila it looks fantastic. Now all that's left to do to make the room complete is frame and hang the prints I bought so as soon as that's done I'll post pics of how wonderful this room looks.

Also, I thought I'd post a pic of my new BFF...his name is Mario and he likes to hang out with me while Reese naps and while Nate's working on his homework. He just arrived on Tuesday but already I can feel a true friendship emerging between the two of us.

And a Happy New Year

We just rang in the New Year here in Germany and as we were sitting here with friends playing Apples to Apples and eating mass quantities of dip I couldn't help but think of how much has changed since Nate and I's first New Years Eve here in Europe, our first New Years Eve as a married couple.

December 31st, 2006 we were in Paris on the Champs Elysses dodging fireworks set off by drunk frenchman and then standing on one of the bridges of the Seine River and drinking champagne while we enjoyed our view of the Eiffel Tower. Tonight when the clock struck midnight we were in the front yard dodging fireworks being set off by our friends and drinking sparkling cider while we listened to the church bells ring out.

No matter where we are and what we're doing I'm glad to be starting another year with my best friend by my side...I love you honey.

One Week in Egypt

We've been home from Egypt for almost a month now and I'm just now sitting down to write about our trip. I have some legitimate reasons for why it has taken me so long but the truth is that everytime I went to sit down and do it I realized how much I had to say about it and the thought of beginning was daunting. Luckily I'm now feeling up to the task and since it hasn't officially been a month yet I figure I'm still writing in a relatively timely manner, so here it goes...

We left for Egypt on Sunday the 22nd of November. We flew from Frankfurt to Cairo on Egyptair and had a relatively uneventful flight. I was a little overexcited about the little things like all the things on the plane being in English and Arabic, but I think that was just my excitement for the trip spilling over. I took quite a few pictures of things on the plane just because I was so eager to get there. When we arrived in Cairo and were waiting to receive our visas the Reese madness began. All these Egyptian men started pulling out their cellphones and taking pictures of Reese as she wandered around the little area outside passport control. One guy even came over and asked to pick her up to take a picture with her, this was the first but would be far from the last time someone asked to take a picture with her. Once we got our visas we went to catch our next flight down to Luxor. We didn't arrive in Luxor until about midnight so we went straight to our hotel and Reese and I got ready for bed while Nate went with a bunch of other people from our group down to Pizza Hut to get some food since everyone was starving. I have to say that I generally dislike Pizza Hut, but Egyptian Pizza Hut is WAY better than American, that and I was starving so I'm sure that made a huge difference.


We only got about 3 or 4 hours of sleep that night because we had to get up early Monday morning to start our sightseeing. First we drove over to Karnak temple which was an amazing first stop for our trip. Our tour guide, Abdul, had a master's in Egyptology so he could literally answer any question and was able to tell us so much about ancient Egyptian culture. Reese was pretty much passed out the entire time we were at the temple thanks to her late night but when she did wake up she was all over the place and enjoyed just getting to walk around. She found some stray dogs at the temple and in typical Reese fashion she wanted to hug it and love it but luckily she settled for just looking at it from a distance. After Karnak temple we went and saw how Papyrus was made and saw some really cool paintings done on Papyrus. From there we went on to Luxor temple where we wandered around and saw the image of the fertility god. After that it was lunch time so we headed to our cruise ship to check in, have lunch and catch up on all the sleep we missed the night before.

On Tuesday we were still in Luxor and we got up early once again to go to the temple of Queen Hatchepsut. Queen Hatchepsut had tried to subtley suggest to the people of Egypt that she was a man so she could be pharoah so the images of her are somewhat manly but the artisans included details to show that she was in fact a woman so her plan didn't work out so well, though she had another plan later that worked in her favor. Our tour guide had warned us that nothing in Egypt is free which was so true, there would be men in robes at the different sites that would try and show you something and then want you to pay them for doing so or would ask you to take a picture with them and then you would have to pay them, luckily Nate and I had no issue saying no and just walking the other way since I didn't want to get swindled. There was one guy who was playing with Reese at the Temple of Queen Hatchepsut and I did take some pictures of them playing but then he wanted me to take a picture of him with her and I said no thinking to myself how I already had a picture of them together. After the temple we went to the Valley of the Kings where there are more than 60 tombs including that of King Tut. We were able to go inside a few of the tombs and it was amazing how much the colors on the wall had survived the time. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, though I'll admit that we did sneak one inside Ramses IX's tomb. After we left the Valley of the Kings we stopped at the Colossi of Memnon to take a picture and it was a little sad how deteriorated they were. It's really only an outline at this point but it was still very cool to see. We finally returned back to our ship to sail for the rest of the day which ended up being very entertaining. As we were approaching the locks at Esna, Nate and I were in our room getting Reese up from her nap and I looked out the window to see these little fishing boats rowing towards our ship. I was so confused and then one of the little boats hit the side of our boat, they were merchants who were trying to sell things to the people on top of the deck. They would wrap these blankets and shirts in plastic bags and chuck them up onto the deck, it was hilarious. Then when we were leaving the locks these young boys started throwing old film canisters onto our ship and begging us to put money in them and throw them back. One guy put a euro in one and threw it back and it ended up sparking a fight between these group of teenage boys. It was crazy to watch, but I'll admit it was an entertaining boat ride.

On Wednesday morning we woke up in the tiny town of Edfu and went to the temple there. Edfu is not a typical tourist city, the only thing there is the temple so on the ride over to the temple we got to see what a typical Egyptian city looked like complete with the street market and complete lack of hotel. The temple there is for Horus and had some really cool artwork on the wall. After our tour guide gave us free time to explore we let Reese wander around the outside of the temple and she had a great time exploring. That was pretty much our routine at every stop we made, we'd have her ride in the backpack while the tour guide took us around and gave us the information and then when we were given time to look around on our own, we'd let Reese down and let her stretch her legs and lead us on a walk to see what she was interested in. When we returned to the ship we had the afternoon sailing on the ship so took the opportunity to play in the pool and do a little tanning. The weather was one of the best parts of the trip, getting to sit in the 70-80 degree sun every day as opposed to the dark skies and cold temps of Germany was not a part of the trip that we took for granted. In the late afternoon we docked and went to the Kom Ombo temple which is a dual temple for the gods Sobek and Haroeris. The temple was constructed as like a mirrored image with the two parts side by side. One of the highlights was the extremely realistic depiction of a lion biting a hand, the fact that the ancient Egyptians were able to be so detailed with the technology they had was pretty amazing. We walked from the temple down to a depiction of what an Egyptian farm house would look like, it was a little cheesy but this farmer down there had some animals and it ended up being one of the highlights for Reese. She get to pet a baby goat and once again she was in love, she just wanted to to keep petting it and trying to pick it up and then she cried when it was time to leave the baby goat. That night on the ship we had a Galabeya party which is where we all dressed up in the traditional robes, ate traditional Egyptian party food, and then danced and played games. It was a lot of fun and Reese loved the dancing.

On Thursday we arrived in Aswan and rode a smaller boat down the Nile to a Nubian village. While we were on the boat these kids swam up to the side and were singing to us and basically doing anything to get us to give them money, some people had some little hard candies which they gave to the kids who were quite excited to receive them. We got off the boats a ways outside the village and got on camels to ride into the village. I was so excited for the camel ride and decided to have Reese in the backpack so that she wouldn't fall off, it was so scary when the camel went to stand up since I was afraid the weight off her on my back would throw me off balance and make me fall but our tour guide stood next to me and made sure we got up safely. The ride was fun and the rocking put Reese to sleep pretty quickly, when we got to the village we wandered around and saw the set up of how the Nubian people live and we even got to hold a baby crocodile. Then of course they were all set up to sell us stuff so we bought a pretty cool knife and then got back on the little boat to head back. From there we went in to Aswan and saw the unfinished obelisk which was an obelisk that hadn't been completely removed from the quarry. The Egyptologists believe that they started to extract it but then saw that there was a crack in it so they abandoned it. As we were leaving the quarry we had to walk through a little market place. As I stated earlier, nothing in Egypt is free, so when a little boy said that he wanted to give Reese a present we said no thank you but he kept handing her this book mark and insisted that it was a present, and low and behold he didn't want to be paid for it. This happened over and over again at this market place and she ended up leaving there with two bookmarks, two bracelets, two necklaces, and a few scarab charms. All the men there were saying that she was good luck and so they wanted to give her luck. From there we drove over to the High Dam and then went on to Philae temple which we had to take a boat to. When we finally arrived back to our boat everyone was ready for something different from the usual boat food so we had our Thanksgiving dinner at a McDonalds there in Aswan and then went down to the marketplace to wander around. In the market place once again people were all over Reese, they took pictures of her, wanted to take pictures with her and wanted to give her presents. Nate and I probably could've made a lot of money on this trip if we had charged people for taking pictures of her, but it was just flattering to have so many people commenting on how cute our little girl was.

On Friday we went to the airport in Aswan and flew back to Cairo for a day of sightseeing there. Our first stop was the hanging church which is a Christian church and one of the highlights for me. The architecture and design was so different from the churches that you see in Europe and I just enjoyed seeing something so different. We then went to the synagogue and then over to a mosque where I had to make sure I was fully covered. The mosque was a little anti-climactic since we had been prepped for there being a ton of people there since it was a Muslim holy day, but it ended up being empty between prayer calls. After the mosque we went to the Cairo museum where a highlight would be the mask and various treasures of King Tut, other than that we were all so tired that all we wanted to do was relax and not be wandering around a museum, in a nutshell it had been a very long day. Our last stop was the Khan El Khalili bazaar where we didn't spend much time since most of our tour group was ready to get to the hotel and relax.

On Saturday, our final full day in Egypt, we finally went to see the pyramids of Giza. It was as exciting as I had built it up to be in my head. At the Great Pyramid we got to ride camels for a little bit and we were allowed to climb up the pyramid, the feeling of being on the pyramid was crazy and while Reese didn't quite have the same image going in her head she loved playing on the pyramid. We then went to the second pyramid and the third pyramid before we drove over to the Sphinx. After all that excitement we drove to a restaurant in Sakkara which ended up being the best meal in my opinion. I loved all the different sauces that they had to dip the flatbread in and the meat was really good too. Then we drove over to Memphis and then on to the step pyramids where we got to enter a pyramid. It was this tiny opening and we had to bend over the whole way down and then walk squatted down until we got to the burial chamber. When we got back to our hotel they had one of those huge blow up slides for the celebration of the holiday so Reese played on it for the rest of the night taking turns having us take her to the top.

On Sunday morning we went back to Cairo airport and flew home to Frankfurt. When we arrived we were greeted with a gloomy sky and cold weather, we missed the sun god immediately.

I'm trying to think if there's anything I've forgotten, but other than hoping that I've given you the full impression of how many photos were taken of Reese by people who are not her parents, I think I've said it all. We had a great trip and we had an amazingly well behaved little girl the whole time we were there. We traveled with an amazing group of people and I don't think we could've had a better time, we did everything we wanted to and still had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the sun. (I could only add a few photos to this post but I have a ton uploaded if you click on the "Egypt" link under "Even More of Our Pictures")

Egypt

So we went to Egypt Nov 22nd-29th and I've yet to have time to sit down and blog about all the wonderful and amazing things we did while we were there. I'd like to say that that was what I sat down to do right now, but unfortunately I'm not. I did however add the link to all the pictures on the sidebar under "Even More of our Pictures." If you select slideshow on the page of the photos the captions will show up, and yes I'll get around to writing about it very soon since if I don't I'll never remember.