Its April!

So its been a while. We have all been deep into a pretty ambitious Spring To Do list.  I've made some changes in the house, based on wanting to get rid of the red wall throughout the kitchen/living room.  I liked the red, but as it started getting nicer out, it was just so heavy.  And the curtains were so big and flowing.  I went in the opposite direction.  Green walls and only valances for curtains.

Its fresh and nice and really makes the room feel bigger.  The green looks pretty apple-y in these pictures, but its calmer in real life.  Plus we moved our big substantial dining table to the place where we actually eat and turned the formal dining room into a informal play room. We picked up a trampoline, a playhouse and hung some of Claire's art on the walls.  That suits us much better.

We've also made some changes to light fixtures, cleaned out the basement storage area, fixed the garage door opener so it actually opens as it should, and are in the process of cleaning the garage.  Mike and I put up a big pegboard, which has kind of been the highlight.  It doesn't take a whole lot to keep us happy.

Claire also had her spring break.  We stayed home and had the chance to do some special things.  The highlight for me was a night spent at a hotel downtown just the two of us.  We did some shopping, went out for dinner and then hurried up to our room for the event Claire was looking forward to the most: laying in bed, eating chips and watching The Wheel of Fortune.  Doesn't really get much better than that, right?  It was really nice to spend a good amount of time one on one with her.  

Then there was Tess's first birthday which was a lot of fun.

A close second to the party fun of the weekend was Tuesday morning.  I had to have a new battery installed in the Pilot.  Milena came along and was beside herself with the idea that cars could be up on lifts.  When one big van was finally lowered, revealing a baby bus (a short bus) on a lift behind it, she could barely find the words.  When she finally did, there was no settling her down.  The past two days she's gotten up in the morning saying "Baby bus up up up", and she now cheers when we drive past that particular garage.  And as if that wasn't enough, the mechanic had lollipops.  We should see if they book birthday parties.

So far so good, April.

Bavaria

We just got back, a week or so ago, from Germany.  The Bavarian Alps, to be specific.  Originally, only Mike and I planned to go and meet Eric, but there were some changes and in the end we took Claire as well.  We've taken a number of amazing vacations with Eric now, enough that I think its become a kind of tradition (UK or bust this summer?), and this one was no exception.  He booked us a great place in Garmisch, a little town about an hour south of Munich.  There was quite a bit of skiing to be done, and a fair amount of exploring the area.  Some of the highlights were one of King Ludwig II's castles, Schloss Neuschwanstein...

...A day in Munich, which actually has a fun story behind it.  Mike just happens to play basketball with an opera singer, who lives in our city, who just happened to be preforming in the opera Carmen, in Munich, while we were there.  He hooked us up with some awesome tickets, and so we added 'see an opera' to our lists of firsts accomplished on this vacation.  Eric was really nice to spend the day with Claire so Mike and I were able to get away alone.  It was a lot of fun.  Not sure what I took pictures of here, except that the last one is the Rathaus, which is the Town Hall...

...And going to the "Top of Germany", the Zugspitze, Germany's highest point.  I've seen lots of mountains before.  I've been to the Andes and the Rockies.  I don't remember ever seeing mountains like the Bavarian Alps.  We luckily chose an awesome day.  It started out cloudy and hazy, but it cleared up nicely.  Mike, Claire, and Eric skied/snowboarded, and I took hundreds of pictures.  Then I put my feet up, ate some German bread and pastries, and read a book in front of the windows.  

Once in a while, I waved to the skiers.  

Eric took a bunch of awesome pictures of us all, and it wasn't easy.  He had to do quite a bit of maneuvering to try to get this guy in orange out of the shot.  He kept trying to sneak in.  

The way to the top was by way of a series of cable cars.   It was a bit windy on our trip up, and the car swayed in the breeze the entire way.  It was a beautiful ride, especially once we were above the clouds.  It was cloudy and gloomy at the bottom, such a huge difference from what we enjoyed all day.

Other than that, we spent some time in Garmisch-Partenkirche, the city our resort was in.  The city was hosting some kind of World Ski Event, so it was rocking with lots of people, live music, and street food.  We made it downtown a few times to enjoy it, and did some dancing right at our cabin.  Why not?

And, we made sure to follow one of the more important cultural traditions in Bavaria, beer and ice cream every night.  Not bad.

*Edited to add this great video Eric took as he, Claire and Mike took a run.  You can hear lots of wind.  Mike and Claire have plans to record a song to play over the video, but is hasn't happened yet.  I'll update if they get around to it, but the video is just too cool not to share right away.



Christmas 2010

Hurray! Everyone was healthy by Christmas Eve.  We had a great weekend.  It was nice to have a lot of time, there were a lot of people to see.

There was a lot of playing with new stuff and running around outside.  Milena hasn't liked winter weather from the beginning.  Hopefully she comes around, or I'll have a lot of pictures of her crying in the snow.  Maybe she'll see the light when she gets on skis.  

Holiday weekends are wonderful, but they can be so exhausting.  

Christmas is Coming, So Stop Puking Already.

Three or four years ago, Mike, Claire and I had a terrible flu that peaked in its awfulness right on Christmas morning.  It was the worst flu I've ever had, and the timing could not have been worse.  I think my brother is still angry we had to break tradition and wait to open gifts until later that night.  This year, Claire seems to have come down with a bug, though not anywhere near as terrible as the flu, and she just can't shake it.  Its so up and down. She'll be in the bathroom crying about how awful she feels, the stomach pains and nausea!  And then 20 minutes later she's jumping on the couch.  Last night, I would have bet some big money that she turned the corner.  This morning at 5AM, she was yelling for me from the bathroom floor.  I'm kind of over it, and I know she is too.  Hopefully she's back on her feet tomorrow.  

We have started to celebrate Christmas, though.  Claire and Milena both got their big gifts from us since we'll be out of town Christmas morning.  We're planning bringing most of their gifts with us, but that just wasn't possible for a few of them.  Claire "got" a piano.  Jim and Monnie let us long-term-borrow theirs (thanks!), and Claire loves it.  She and Mike played for a while last night, and then Milena got into it as well.

Milena got a train table.  She loves it, and I was kind of surprised that Claire was pretty into it as well.  At least she is now, when its new.

Three more days until Christmas, and nine left in the year.  

Snowing

I found some more pictures from the first snowfall.

These two pictures of Claire are fun.  I like to think she's trying to decide who to hit with her handful of snow.   Her father, who has definitely thrown his fair share of snowballs at Claire and deserves some retaliation,

or her unsuspecting, attention getting little sister, heh.  

But she must have been thinking something else, because no one ended up with a face full of snow.

We were hit with a big storm this weekend.  The girls and I were visiting my parents, and I made what was probably a bad decision that thankfully turned out fine: driving home right at the beginning of it all.  I figured I could beat most of the storm by leaving early, and if I stayed, I'd probably be there until Monday.  The trip started out fine, but quickly got bad, and then worse.  The slower I went, the longer I was out there, and the worse the roads got.  I believe in the end, it was probably a four hour drive that usually takes two.  It would have been fine if there were a plow or two out, but in the four hours I was on the highways, I only saw one, and it was on the other side of the highway.  On the positive side, the new Pilot handles really well in terrible conditions, and after logging all those hours behind the wheel, I am now at least twice as good at driving in the snow than I was a few days ago.  

Today I was more than happy to stay in the house, so although its beautiful outside with all the snow in the tree branches, I don't have any pictures.  Maybe tomorrow.

On to Christmas

This time of year I can not post for a few weeks and it seems like so much as happened.  Last time I posted was Halloween.  Thats like two holidays ago already.

Milena has started in on the pretend play.  She likes to feed her animals.  It was like she realized one day that you could pretend to feed the stuffed animals, that pretending was a thing.  A lightbulb went off, and she pretends all the time now.  Its really fun.

  

And she discovered painting on herself is also a thing you can do. There are many discoveries to make at this age.  

Claire got a fish, which she named Gordon.  He's a lovely, even-tempered beta fish.  She likes to feed him a lot.

Went to Green Bay.  Claire likes to hold Mason.  Mason still likes to sleep.  

The first snowfall happened between the last post and this one.  Milena was pretty excited about it, until I got her all dressed to go out and play in it.  Most of her winter gear is too big, and that kind of keeps her from moving around much.  But the major problem was that she didn't have boots that fit.  I figured a pair of Claire's old ones would be fine until we got around to getting her some that fit, but not two steps out the door and she crashed forehead first into the garage floor.  So the first experience was kind of a bust, but she has new boots now so next time will be better.  

I remember Claire at this age, figuring out what snow was.  Its kind of fun that next year Milena will probably see snow again for the first time.  

Halloween and Whatnot.

Claire decided a year ago she wanted to be a paintbrush for Halloween.  We were making her costume, a doorbell, when she stopped, looked at her brush and said, "Next year, I want to be a paintbrush". And it stuck.  So I bought a bunch of black felt and nylon tule and shredded it to make a skirt which in my head looked a lot more paintbrush-like.  I think the problem was trying to make her upper body look like a handle.  It just didn't, no matter what we tried.  But she had fun and thats what counts.  I think one year, when she was two or three and brand new to the whole trick-or-treating idea, she was a princess because she had a dress.  The following year she was Diego, and that was the end of the recognizable costumes.  She was a red blood cell.  Then last year she was a doorbell, and this year the paintbrush.  For the record, she's been thinking about being Venus next year.  If nothing else, she keeps me on my creative toes.  

Thats one of the things I love so much about Claire and hope that she holds on long past childhood.  She doesn't just go with the flow or do something because her friends are.  She's just so purely herself and doesn't give much thought to what other people will think.  I would love to be more like that. 

Anyway, I have a new nephew, which is pretty awesome.  Here he is:

His name is Mason, and he is super sweet.  He likes to sleep all day and party all night, from what I hear.  He is my brother's first kid, and its pretty obvious 'dad' suits him well.  Lots of new things going on over at his house, so we've been taking it easy at our house to balance things out. 

At the Library.

At the library, Milena is completely unwilling to look at books with Claire.  She wants to play with the trains.  While Claire is wandering around, Milena does everything she can to escape and get to the 'choo-choo choo-choo's.    Finally Claire has what she wants and we head over to the train table.  Milena is finally happy, and Claire talks about her book.  But not for long.  After all, it looks like such a good book, who can resist diving right in?

Also, the girls were having such a good time playing tonight.  Usually this will stop as soon as I reach for a camera, but tonight I got lucky.