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!

God Bless America!

I've been a bit behind in my blogging, but we are finally back in America!  We are overjoyed to be home and have such a great respect for our country after our travels abroad. This post will talk about our trek across the Atlantic and the days following.

Five days before we left Germany, our freight shipment was scheduled to be picked up.  The restrictions on what can be air freighted is much more strict coming into the United States than leaving the States.  There were a lot of things that we were able to ship to Germany that we couldn't ship back, even though they were purchased stateside.  Those things included any liquids (shampoos, lotions, etc.), batteries (even the ones that were screwed into toys), and any type of medication (including vitamins).  This meant a lot of extras got left behind because we didn't have the space for them in our checked baggage. Pictured above is about 3/4 of the things that we had freighted back home.

 The winter clothes that we shipped home.  We decided to take four checked bags home with us instead of the six we came with, so we were a bit worried about making weight for the air freight.  We were allotted 180kg and everything weighed in at 178.45kg.  Talk about cutting it close!

The weekend before we came home, we had Dennis and Courtney over for dinner.  We had a great time hanging out and probably won't see them again for a long time.

 Brady and his buddy, Dennis.

 The Euro Cup was going on while we were preparing to leave and Germany was doing quite well.  We noticed everyone had flags all over their cars and we asked Dennis why we don't see them any other time.  He said that Germans showing pride with flags outside of sporting are called Nazis.  Crazy, huh?  We continued to watch Germany play once we got home and they made it to the semifinals before they lost to Italy.

 We handed over our keys to our landlord the day before we left.  The ultimate irony was that our landlord came in with a measuring tape and told us he was going to put in a clothes dryer for the next family moving in.  Talk about irony.  We decided it would be easiest to spend the night in a hotel close to the airport, since we had an early flight.  It also allowed us to return the rental car the night before and take the free airport shuttle right to the gate.  Poor Brady was stuffed in the car, but fortunately we got everything that we needed into the car.

We had a 9:30AM flight out of Stuttgart, so we got up bright an early to make it to the airport.  Go figure it's much harder to get back into the States (we should've known).  We were asked at every turn about our luggage and our reasons for going to the States.  There was even a point where we walked literally around a corner about ten feet and were asked for our passports and grilled about our luggage again.  We were very worried about our bags being overweight, and were very fortunate that the woman working the counter wasn't paying attention, because three of our four bags were over the 23kg (50lb) weight limit.

We were worried about how Brady would do on the flight because we were traveling all day, instead of overnight on the flight over.  We managed to get him to take a two hour nap and were lucky that our plane had individual touch screens on the headrests in front of us.  There was a wide selection of movies and shows that you could start at any time and that was key in keeping Brady calm.  

Our flight took us from Stuttgart to Newark and took about eight hours.  The best thing was landing in America and seeing the Statue of Liberty.  We visit New York a lot since my Oma lives in Queens, so we've played a game since I was a kid.  We take the Verrazano Bridge from Staten Island to Brooklyn and whoever spots it first wins.  Andy was looking out the window during landing and shouted, "I win the bridge game!"  I was more than happy to let him win, I was just so grateful to be home.

We had a three hour layover in Newark and landed at 12:40PM (6:40PM in Germany).  This meant we'd already been up for 12 hours straight and there was no end in sight.  By the time we got on our flight to Pittsburgh, it would be well past Brady's bedtime.  You'd never know it with the way he was climbing on the chairs in the airport.  You can see him above on the top of the chairs looking out the window at the planes.

 Enjoying some American snacks

The best part of the whole trip home was that when we got to baggage claim in Pittsburgh, Andy's Uncle Buks appeared out of nowhere and surprised us!  I was shocked and immediately ran and threw my arms around him.  By this point it was midnight in Germany and Brady was like a zombie.  He perked right up when my dad walked through the doors with a balloon for him.  My parents live five minutes from the airport, so by the time we got our bags, we were pretty much done traveling.  It was great to see my parents and my brother, Alex, along with his girlfriend, Lauren, came over for dinner.  We got some Chinese takeout and had a great time hanging out.

Brady took a while to get adjusted to the time change.  There were about two days when he got up at 3AM and then it changed to about 5AM after that.  Thankfully we are back around 7-8AM. 

Brady developed a fondness for popcorn in Germany, so he was grateful that Dubby stocked up on popcorn at Sam's Club.

Brady was a very lucky boy that Alex's dog, Kiro, was going to be staying with my parents for our first five days home, while Alex was at the beach.  They had a great time running and playing together.

 That look on his face means he's up to no good :)

It was definitely time for Brady to get a haircut.  He hadn't had one since before we left for Germany.

Brady had to go out every time that Kiro needed to go out.  They were inseparable.

Brady's face is a little blurry, but you can tell how happy he is.  Kiro was very protective of Brady and would get mad at us any time Brady was crying.  He would follow us upstairs anytime Brady went up for a nap.  We joked that Brady is in the wolf pack.  Kiro was also jealous of Brady.  You see them both up on Dubby.  Kiro would try to get up on Dubby any time Brady would.  It was the same with Andy and when Alex came home, it applied to him too.

Fourth of July was the first time we got to see my extended family since we arrived back home.  Andy left for Michigan a few days after we got home, so he wasn't able to make it for the middle of the week holiday.  We've missed quite a few Fourths because it's usually the week we go to the beach.  My cousins have been doing a parade for years and since we were home, Brady was in it too.

Waving the flag like a proud American!

Brady got to bang the pot too!

This wasn't Brady's first Fourth of July parade, however.  He got to do it for his first Fourth of July when he was only four months old. It's crazy to see how much he's changed in the last two years.

On a totally random note, Andy was watching Sixteen Candles one night by himself in Michigan (weird, I know), and he texted me some pictures.  I guess they filmed the dance in a high school in the suburbs of Chicago, near where there is a Bosch location (notice the Bosch box on the wall).  It's so crazy that I'd never heard of Bosch before Andy took the job and now we see it everywhere!

Puzzle Playtime

Toys R Us has a great rewards program and they increase the rewards you earn during the holiday season.  I also have their credit card, so I double my rewards, and after Christmas had earned $50 to spend before we left the country.  This was a great opportunity to snag a few more compact toys for Brady that I could fit in our luggage so he could play with new toys as soon as we got there.  I decided that puzzles would be a good way to spend the reward money, since Brady didn't really have any.  I got him three peg puzzles, featuring pets, farm animals, and vehicles (seen in the pictures).  The animal ones made the noises when the peg was placed in the right hole.  We opened one to see how he'd do it before we left for Germany.  He tried, but couldn't figure out how to rotate the pieces to make them fit.  Within one month of our arrival in Germany, he was putting the pieces in the puzzle like a pro!  His favorite one is of course the one with all the construction vehicles.

He also likes to drive around the vehicle pieces ;)

 

He had gotten so good at the peg puzzles that I pulled out the last puzzle, which is a bit harder.  It has 6 pieces making up a police car.  He loves it since it's a car, and can get the windows and wheels in the right spot easily.  He still runs into a little bit of trouble with the blue doors, because he likes to put the wheels in first, making it a tighter fit for the doors.  He's still learning that the curved part of the door goes on the outside and the flat part goes on the inside.  He does almost everything with a measured calculation and loves to figure out new things.  I joke that one day he'll become an engineer and work at Bosch like his daddy ;)

The Reese Family Comes to Town!

We met the Reeses not long after we moved to Michigan.  Tom and Andy started on the very same day at Bosch and were both in the same program.  They got to talking and realized they both had stay at home wives, and each had one kid.  As luck would have it, we also lived in the same apartment complex!  It wasn't long before Bethany, and here then 2-year old daughter, Ainsley, were hanging out all the time with me and Brady.  We were the first people to ever join this program with kids, so it was really nice to have someone else who knew what it was like to be moving all the time.  We both expected to be gone at the end of six months, but they were able to stay through that first year, and we headed down to South Carolina for a full year.  They had their son, Sam, in April, and then moved to Chicago during the summer.  We both knew that an international assignment was imminent, but they weren't sure which country they'd end up in (we always knew our only choice was Germany).  It worked out that they were going to be in Germany also, but up north in Hildesheim.  That's a five hour drive away!  We had imagined possibly going to Germany together, but we always assumed it would be in the same town.  That meant we probably wouldn't get to see each other.

It worked out that the guys had a conference just south of Stuttgart and all the people in the program that were currently located in Germany were to attend.  That meant that Tom would be coming down and Bethany and the kids decided to join him (something we've both done in the past while we were in the States).  The conference wasn't so far that Andy couldn't make the commute each day, but they had booked him hotel room.  It was far enough away not to be on the metro lines for the city, so I offered for Bethany and the kids to stay in our apartment with Brady and I.  She took me up on the offer and I was so glad to have my friend again!  The last time we'd seen them, it was a few days before Sam was born, and Brady had only just turned 1.  Now, Ainsley is 4, Brady is 2, and Sam is 13 months.  I was so excited for them to get to play together.

 They arrived on Monday, and we decided to head downtown to walk around.  This is all the kids in front of the New Castle downtown.  I love how the boys are checking each other out.  I also love the first picture where Brady is holding Sam's hand.

 On Tuesday, we went to the zoo and after we'd seen all of the animals and had lunch, we hit the playground.  Bethany and I were sitting on a bench while Ainsley and Brady played.  Before I knew it, Brady had scaled the ropes and was up high.  That crazy monkey!

Ainsley loved playing in the sand.

He loves to climb.  He simply refuses help and usually doesn't need it.

 It had been so hot that day at the zoo that the kids were all sweaty and dirty, so we decided to give the boys a bath together that night.  Brady had never been in the bath with anyone before, so I was interested to see how he reacted, but they both had a great time splashing.  The whole bathroom was soaked, but they had a ton of fun!

Wednesday was the last day of the conference, and we were expecting the return of our husbands that evening.  It had threatened to rain, but we got lucky and the sun came out.  We decided to grab a picnic lunch at a bakery and head to my favorite park in the city.  We got all three kids on the spinner.

 I love how Ainsley is just lounging, enjoying the ride.

I had the great idea to get Brady and Ainsley on the seesaw together, since it's always so one-sided when I do it with him.  It turned out to still be one sided, but I was able to give a little assistance and both parties had fun.

I decided to try Brady out on the big kid swings, since they have a bar to hold onto and he did so well!  You can tell he's pretty happy.

That night, the guys came home from the conference and we all headed downtown to get dinner.  We had a great time, just talking like we used to back in Michigan.  We were very sad to see them go as they left that night to head to Munich and take advantage of the upcoming holiday weekend.  We know that we're headed back to Michigan, but they still don't know where their final placement will be.  We are hoping it'll be Michigan, since Bethany and I have spent the last 18 months talking about going back there together so we can hang out again.  The kids get along so well that it would be fun to continue to do playdates as the boys get older.