Bavarian Pretzel Class

One of the biggest things for us during our time in Germany was the pretzels.  We lived in southern Germany, in the state bordering Bavaria, so pretzels were plentiful.  They were also extremely cheap and easy to get your hands on.  You could get them at the grocery store for 30 Euro cents and there were stands everywhere to snag one on the go.  It was great because I could grab one for Brady right before catching the train home and he'd eat it the whole way there, then be ready for nap.  If it's possible, I think he ate more pretzels than we did.

Since returning home, we've been on the search for a pretzel as good as the ones we had in Germany.  It's been very disappointing.  The worst was when Andy bought one at Heinz Field during a Pitt game.  It was so dry, I had a hard time choking it down.  We were sure pretzels were ruined for us forever.  Our friends, the Reeses, were in Germany during the same time we were, and Bethany loves to bake.  She has take several classes at a bakery called Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, learning how to bake all different kinds of bread.  She saw they had a Bavarian pretzel class and invited me to take it with her.  While I wanted to get somewhere close to our Germany pretzels, I'm not the cook in our family, but I accepted anyway, figuring I could give Andy the recipe after we got home.

We booked the class back in August and had to wait until this past Wednesday to take it.  Part of the problem with the soft pretzels here in America is that they aren't made using lye which is very dangerous and corrosive.  This class used the lye and other things like un-hydrogenated lard and barley malt which are also a little more difficult to get your hands on than other ingredients.  One of the biggest things was that you have to knead the dough by hand for 8-10 minutes as it's a very tough dough and would burn out the motor on an electric stand mixer.

When it came time to shape, the instructor showed us two different types of shapes, both of which we'd seen in Germany.  The more stick-like shape and the classic twisted pretzel.  She showed us the fun way to twist them in the air and suggested we try it at least once.  Several people struggled to make it work, but I got it every single try without any effort.  Bethany joked that I was a natural because it's in my blood (although my people are from nowhere near Bavaria, so pretzels weren't their thing).  Above are my pretzels.

 Because the lye is so dangerous, we were given gloves and only one lye solution was prepared for the whole class.  We were able to go up two at a time to dip our pretzels in the solution, of course being very careful not to splash ourselves.

When the pretzels were baked, we all got to sample the batch the teacher had made.  She had also demonstrated the alternative to lye by making a solution of baking soda and water.  She dipped only a few so we could taste and see the difference.  Even before they were baked, we could see the ones that were dipped in lye were already getting darker.  When they were baked, the baking soda ones were a very light brown and the lye ones were a very deep dark brown.  There was certainly a taste difference, with the lye ones tasting way better. 

While we were at the class, Andy and Tom were at our house watching all the kids.  Above is Sam and Ainsley playing on my old Little Tykes see saw.

Our class ended around 9PM, so the kids were getting a little tired.  I guess at some point, Andy decided to put on Disney Junior for the kids and as you can see, Ainsley and Brady were hooked.  Sam has little interest in TV, so he continued to play.

We each got to take home the dozen pretzels we had made during class and they were still warm after the 30 minute drive home.  As soon as we walked through the door, both Brady and Sammy bombarded us asking for pretzels.  They were the best that first night they were baked.  By Friday night, we had to throw away the two or three we hadn't eaten as there are no preservatives.  My dad, who thought he knew how to make pretzels, is eager to get his hands on the recipe, but first we have to track down those elusive ingredients which are hard to get your hands on.

Lederhosen Portraits

My German and Austrian heritage is very strong, so knowing we were headed to live in Germany, I knew I wouldn't be leaving without a pair of lederhosen for Brady.  My grandparents were Austrian immigrants, and although my Oma is going strong at 92, I know that it's going to fall on my shoulders to keep the culture alive and strong for my kids (it doesn't hurt that Brady is sucker for schnitzel and strudel like his mom, must be genetic).  I found the perfect pair of lederhosen in Munich this past April and haven't seen any that are this nice in any of the stores in other cities.  I wanted to get him a pair for when he's older, but the ones in Stuttgart just weren't up to my standards.  When Andy has to make a trip to Germany someday for work, I intend to travel with him, and take the short train ride to Munich and stock up!

Most of you know I'm big on pictures and getting Brady's portraits done.  He hasn't had any portraits taken since Christmas and now that he's getting older, we will only be doing Christmas and summer (family portraits not included).  I was thrilled to take him in his lederhosen.  He's been a rock star when it comes to portraits, so I was totally taken aback when he wouldn't cooperate at all!  I thought the portraits were terrible and only ordered a handful, scheduling a second sitting, hoping we'd get better shots.  Well, the second sitting went no better, and looking back on it now, the portraits from the first sitting turned out better and I didn't eve realize it in the moment.  The top portraits was from the original sitting and is probably the best of the bunch.  I had to order an 8x10 in hindsight because it turned out better than all the others.

We couldn't leave Germany without a beer stein.  My dad has one from when he traveled to Oktoberfest in Munich (the largest in Germany) when I was about Brady's age.  We also had authentic nutcrackers and Hummels, but they were outrageously expensive in Germany (and that was before the exchange rate kills you).  The nutcrackers are on the list for when we go back, but I can get the same Hummels here in the States for half the price.

 A decent full body shot.

I didn't initially order this one and I have no idea why because he's genuinely smiling and holding the stein showing the front.  Don't worry, I went online and ordered some.

 For those of you who normally receive our Halloween cards, these wallets will be coming your way in early October.  I have wallets of all five shots shown above, so if you have a favorite, let me know!

Big Bro Brady

Buying a house wasn't our biggest news this summer.  If you haven't figured it out by the title of the post and the pic of Brady at the top, we're expecting Trap baby #2!  We've wanted to add to our family for a long time now, but with our constant moving both domestically and internationally, we've had to adjust our plans.  We found out we were expecting only a week after we got home from Germany.  That means we have a little Germany baby and Brady is our Hawaiian baby.  I'm sure any future children we have won't have such special places to say that they were made.

We wanted to wait to make our announcement public (only a few close family members and friends knew from the beginning) until we hit the "safe zone" by hitting 12 weeks, not that any time is every really safe.  More importantly, we wanted to wait until we heard a heartbeat or saw the baby on ultrasound to know that they were alright.  This is something we learned when I was pregnant with Brady and they had trouble finding his heartbeat early on, and I was sent for an emergency ultrasound.  As a first time mom, that was truly terrifying, and fortunately everything was just fine.  Not everyone is so lucky.

I had heard the heartbeat of this new baby last week before I parted ways with my old doctors in Pittsburgh.  I met with the new doctors here in Michigan just yesterday and can say that I feel pretty comfortable there.  During the exam, I had a moment of sheer panic when the doctor felt my abdomen and said that I didn't feel 12 weeks, but more like 10.  That completely freaked me out because there are some women who don't know that their pregnancy has ended and the baby has stopped growing until they see a doctor and it's discovered.  I had just heard the heartbeat a week before, but was still a little nervous.

What's really great about this new practice is that they do all ultrasounds and blood work in the office, so they brought in the machine (since they normally do a first trimester ultrasound and my old doctors didn't).  The doctor was shocked to not only see the baby was doing well, but that it was measuring bigger than 12 weeks!  He took several measurements (at this point they go from crown to rump) and the baby was measuring a full week ahead.  He then measured the head size and it was only a day or two bigger than where I was supposed to be.  My guess is that this baby, like Brady, takes after Andy with a long torso and short legs.

I was supposed to go for a screening for chromosomal abnormalities in Pittsburgh next week (the appointment was set before we scheduled the move), but with the baby measuring big, they figured that I might miss the cutoff for the testing by then. Since they do everything in-house, they did it then and there!  It involves an ultrasound to measure a certain part of the neck and blood work.  The ultrasound was a lot of fun because the baby, like Brady, was crazy and wouldn't stop moving.  The ultrasound tech kept laughing because it would move just as she was trying to get the measurement.  She did get it eventually and it was within the normal range and I should have the blood work results next week.  The best part was that I walked out with about 10 different ultrasound pics!

This was the pic from the first ultrasound the doctor did.  I love how the baby is hanging out upside down. It's amazing how fast they grow at this point, from smaller than a grain of sand to the size of a peach now at 12.5 weeks!

If you look closely at this one, you can see the baby's face.  You can make out the two eyes for sure.

A nice right side up profile shot.

Despite measuring big, the doctor decided not to change my due date, which is March 9 (wonderful timing two weeks after Brady's birthday and only two days before mine . . . NOT).  We've been talking to Brady a lot about babies every since we found out he was going to be a big brother.  Now he spots babies everywhere and gets so excited!  He kisses my belly at naptime and bedtime each day and says goodnight to the baby.  He even seems to understand that the ultrasound pics are the baby.  He's insistent that the baby is going to be a "sissy," and gets very upset at talk that it might be a brother.  Of course, we'd love if he was right, but we'd love another boy as well!  We won't know for sure either way until about a week before Halloween.

Legoland Deutschland - Park Time

Once we finally made it through Miniland, it was time to hit the rest of the park.  They had a bunch of Lego busts of famous soccer players, but since we're not big into soccer, we didn't really go around and have a look.  Brady did like the bear with the soccer ball though ;)

I love this pic and was really glad that Brady played along long enough to get a good shot.

Brady is quickly catching on to the fact that he's always having his picture taken.  He went right up behind the lion, climbed the steps, stuck his head through, and said, "Cheese!"

We can't pass a playground, without Brady pointing and screaming, "Play! Play!" We decided to let him out of the stroller for a bit.

They had a mini train in the play area and of course Brady wanted to ride.

Regaling Mommy with his, "Choo Choo!"

Waving bye bye to Daddy.

Next up was the safari ride!

Unlike Disney, where Brady could ride pretty much everything but the three coasters, Legoland had a lot more height restrictions.  Fortunately, Brady is just at 90 centimeters, so that opened up a whole bunch of rides that he could go on when accompanied by an adult.  Unfortunately, the first ride we came to with a 90 cm height limit, turned out to be a little more than we bargained for.  You can see me and Brady just to the right behind the bear in the picture above.  It turned out that this ride went in fast circles, with bumps all around.  I knew from experiences in my childhood banging my head on rides, to put my arm behind Brady's head.  He did really great going round and round and then the ride stopped.  We both thought it was done, but instead it started to go backwards!  That's when Brady started to get a little upset.  He started calling for his daddy and we were both a little dizzy when it ended.

We survived the ride and Brady was really good about getting off rides all day, waving bye bye, as seen above.

Brady was tall enough to ride on this jousting ride alone.  As you can see, there isn't room for a second person.  Andy was nervous since we couldn't see him between the start and finish, but I knew he'd do great and he did!

This was another ride where Brady just made the height cut and it was a little more nerve wracking that the others.  He kept seeing these cars above us on a track, so we decided to try it.  As you can see the seat belt isn't very snug and the railing on the car is way at his toes.  I kept a hand on him the whole time to make sure he didn't fall out.

The view from the observation tower.  Andy immediately noticed the amount of trees, that you don't really see in amusement parks back at home.  Goes to show how environmentally friendly they are.

Brady getting ready for his first swinging pirate ship ride.  We stayed towards the middle so that we didn't go up too high.

I love the Lego man taking a shower in the waterfall.

Next stop, the Lego factory!

They gave every kid a special Lego brick at the factory and it's a great keepsake that I can put in Brady's memory box.

Lego people from years past.  Both Andy and I recognized several from our childhood (you can click on the picture to view it larger).

Brady watching the machine stamp the Lego bricks.

Hanging with the rest of the crew ;)

"My what big teeth you have!"

Last real ride of the day for Brady.

A mid-flight shot.

Our final pass through Miniland.  Brady wanted to walk most of the day and was very good about staying with us.  He's getting big so fast!

The final stop : the water playground!  Brady loves water and like usual, we didn't have a bathing suit or swim diaper with us.  We did have extra clothes in case of an accident (nothing ever happens when we have extra clothes, so it's our new insurance plan), so we decided to use the shirt he'd been wearing all day as a towel and let him loose in his diaper.

We always seem to have problems with big kids over here (the parents aren't very watchful), but it's hard because we don't speak their language and can't tell them to be nice around a kid way younger than them.

Brady loved the Lego puppy.  He's seen here petting its head.

We can't go anywhere without hitting up the souvenir shops.  I saw these Crocs and fell in love, but they were 35 Euros ($43.50), when I normally only spend $30 at home.  I did look online and found similar ones for $35, so maybe next summer, I'll get them for Brady.  We did walk out with a nice Legoland Deutschland T-shirt for Brady.  The store also had all the box sets of Duplos and Legos and there were so many that I wish I could have gotten him, but the question is always the same, "How would we get that home."  I felt really bad when he spent the whole time in the store rifling through a bin of 5 Euro Lego car sets.  When we got home, he started searching through the shopping bag, saying, "Car?"  I think he figured that since he really liked it, we would have gotten it for him.

Brady did really good at the park and had zero meltdowns.  We were surprised since we arrived at 11AM and left at 5PM (he usually goes down for a nap around 1PM).  He did take a nice nap for 45 minutes on the ride home and was ready to play again.  He and Andy decided to get out the Duplos and build a garage for his many cars.

We had a really great time, and as always, it's more exciting to watch Brady's reaction.  We're already planning on going to the Legoland in Florida (in addition to Disney World and a Disney cruise) during Brady's 6th birthday week, which happens to be the mid-winter break at the school district we're looking at for buying a house.  The Legoland in Florida is the largest in the world, so we can't wait!  Andy always jokes that we spend every vacation talking about the next one, but I just get so excited that I can't help it.