My Cinderella Vacation: Part 2 (Colmar)

Heidelberg, Germany: We stopped here for a map of France and a coffee. Cute town.









Frieburg, Germany: We stopped off in this town to see this old church. Big and dark.









Speeding through Germany on the autobahn is an effective way to get around. Without stops it would have taken us 2 and a half hours to get to Colmar, where we were spending the night before getting to Burgundy. As it were, we got to Colmar after dark. Colmar was not on our original destination list, but thanks to Rick Steves we stopped there for the night and really enjoyed the town.


In Colmar, France: This was the patisserie we went to in the morning; cafe au lait, espresso, pain au chocolat, and a croissant. Funny thing: an older couple was seated in the corner when we sat down. They had already finished their breakfast and were just talking over coffee. We sat, ordered, ate, drank, and paid our bill all while this couple sat and enjoyed their coffee. This, we decided, was the way we would like to spend our Saturdays--and our "after kids" years too!








Colmar streets--pedestrianized and bustling with Saturday shoppers. There's a mix of French and German architecture here because it's very close to the German border. The sky was actually pretty clear, although in these pictures it looks pretty cloudy. It didn't rain on us once during our trip. Perfect weather for walking, sightseeing and cafe hopping.

My Cinderella Vacation: Part 1 (The Bumps)

Our vacation to Europe was amazing and it never would have happened without the support of our family. Thank you so much! For 10 days BJ and I traveled through France and Germany, experiencing new cultures, foods, people, places, languages, and of course, great wine! We took almost 500 pictures (thanks to the digital age--our trip to Spain 5 years ago resulted in about 6 rolls of film) and we'll post the highlights soon.
You may have already heard the particulars of our trip but I'm going to run through the highlights here, from my perspective. I may have BJ "guest blog" here with his insights.
In Providence (Thursday afternoon) we decided to take a bump off our original flight because United had overbooked the flight. The benefits: two free plane tickets (we'll be using those to come to Colorado this summer, thank you very much!) and bumps to "Economy Plus" (more leg room). The downsides: our baggage was already on the original flight and we'd be getting into Frankfurt 4 hours later than originally planned. So we flew to Chicago while our luggage went to D.C. Therein lay the problem. We found out (in Chicago) that our bags wouldn't be going to Frankfurt without us, so they were taken off the plane in D.C. We had to scramble for 45 minutes to get something worked out in Chicago before we left to make sure that our bags got on the next flight out of D.C. The gate person in Chicago really helped us out--we were hoping that after the stress with the bags he'd give us a voucher for a drink on the plane. Instead he said, "You can have all the drinks you want" and led us to seats in Business Class! We enjoyed that bump immensely. We got a three course meal, champagne and wine, and breakfast in the morning. We had insane amounts of legroom--we could stretch our chairs out almost flat. I also discovered that the movie "Twilight" was playing, so BJ lost me for about an hour! I knew we were never going to travel in that much luxury again so we tried to enjoy it.
Once we landed in Frankfurt we worked with three different United baggage and ticket counter people to find out where our bags were. The most stressful point was when a woman checking in the computer said "These three bags went to Chicago to accompany the passengers." Oh crap, we thought. Now we're never going to get out of here! We were anxious to start our vacation. Luckily we didn't have reservations anywhere for Friday night so we weren't planning on leaving Frankfurt without our luggage. We were hoping that United would find us a hotel room or a place to stay until our bags arrived. Before we left the ticket counter one of the agents gave us a bump for the flight back, wishing us good luck for our third trip down to baggage claim to look for our bags.
The third time's a charm! The bags were in fact on the correct flight and had been taken off the carousel and put in storage since we weren't there to claim them. All in all, the decision to take the bump way back in Providence resulted in two free plane tickets, two bumps to business class, and an overall delay of 6 hours into our vacation.
The last bump came at the rental car place. The person helping us noticed our Colorado driver's licenses. He said that he spent 8 years in Widefield while his dad was in the army. What a small world! He and BJ talked about wrestling teams and south side Springs schools and the guy gave us a bump to a Mercedes and a 10% discount on our bill.
Ahhhh--cruising down the autobahn in a Mercedes, rested from a flight in Business Class, a week with no plans other than touring, eating, and drinking French wine--we were ready to settle into our vacation.

My Son's New Haircut

I cut Toby's hair this morning.




























I can't help but think he looks like Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber:

My OMG Day

There are just some days of mommyhood that are better left to die in the black hole of forgetfulness that is my brain.
However, the events (100% Toby-generated) that occurred today are almost too unbelievable--not that they happened, but that they all happened in a 12-hour time frame. I will admit willingly that a few of these things have occurred at one point or another as Toby has gained independence. Today I think he flat-out declared war against any kind of sensible parenting. And no, it never occurred to me to get the camera out for any of these real-life situations.

• First offense of the day: About 5 minutes before we head out the door for Bible study (aka, my work) I have Norah in the high chair eating pears and Toby eating peanut butter toast. I go into the bathroom to grab a hair tie and walk back into the kitchen to find: Toby on the kitchen table with his head dripping wet. What did he pour onto his head? Norah's bowl of pears with the pear juice. Oh joy. Strip Toby of his shirt, dunk him in the shower, get him a new shirt, have him serve a time-out, and get out the door all in record time.
  
• Second: After nap time we decide to drive over to the local library (our usual Wednesday afternoon outing). At the library all seems to go well. Leaving the library Toby couldn't have been any more perfect. There was one kid throwing a major fit while Toby innocently says "OK" at my suggestion to leave. Outside the library Toby gets a bad idea. While I'm loading Norah and buckling her in Toby thinks it's totally appropriate to climb on top of the car--ALL the way onto the roof. Don't ask me how or why that happened. I drag him down from the roof of my car and in a panic tell him "That's not safe!" over and over again. Back home for another time out session (with some serious temper tantrums on the way to his car seat--apparently he thought the roof was a great place to be).
  
• My mission now is to get Tantrum Toby inside for a time-out without him running all over the yard. So sweet Norah (who will probably earn a post like this in another two and a half years) stays in the car while I drag and carry 45-pound Toby inside. Note: this is probably why my wrist is so sore I couldn't lift my saute pan tonight to cook dinner. More on dinner later. Toby doesn't want to go to time out saying things like "Time out makes me angry" and "You hurt my feelings." So I set the timer anyway and then go back to get Norah out of the car. I pick her up out of her car seat and then come around the car to find: Toby outside with his pants down...pooping? I have no idea. (Did I mention he's already peed outside on our front steps once today?) All the better to spank, I say. I run in and put Norah down, race outside and scoop up Toby (we'll leave the poop outside, if there is any thank you very much) and bring him back in for time out.
• And the last horror of the day: Norah finally decides to escape the war zone (we have overcome the time-out tantrums and have earned back our books from the library--I think we've come to a truce about the earlier incidents) and takes a nap. She times this choice to align perfectly as I start to prep dinner. I whisk her away to her peaceful crib (wishing I could fit in there and escape too) and come out listening to the sound of pitter-pattering feet running away from the kitchen. Hmmmm... this is like a horror movie: don't go in the kitchen!!! So I decide to find Toby first (under the dining room table) and lead him into the kitchen first. What do I find? He has "helped" me make dinner by pouring two entire bottles of herbs into my saute pan (which already had olive oil in it). So now we're having a bottle of sage and a bottle of thyme mixed with a little bit of chicken for dinner. Yummy. What do I do? Throw in some garlic, salt, and pepper and call it herb-rubbed chicken. Toby's a better cook than I'll ever be (the chicken came out great; BJ rescued it with an awesome mushroom sauce).
  

At the end of the day Norah is enjoying some free roaming time and Toby is...not getting into trouble, actually. I am trying to zone out for 15 seconds before the next wave (bedtime) hits. Toby comes in and says "Mom, Norah's in the bathroom!" where she's not supposed to be. He runs out of the room to go get her and (I swear) he says "Come on, you're a hero." Three little words that couldn't feel more true had they been spoken by God. My son (and I) made it through this day alive and he still thinks I'm a hero.

My Nap-Head

Norah wakes up with crazy nap hair. She's not too sure about what we think is so funny.

My January Reading List

I realized that my summary of this blog states that I'm a part-time librarian and "wish-I-had-more time" reader. Luckily, in January I had a big chunk of time to devote to reading (mostly because BJ was off of school and around more to keep an eye on the kids while I got lost in a book).
Here's what I read:
I re-read the entire "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Then I did something I've been wanting to do for years: I watched all three (extended) versions of the movies. I didn't do a marathon (which would have entailed about 12 hours in front of the TV) but watched one movie a week for three weeks. They were great. And it reminded me of just how much I loved the books the first time I read them. And this time I picked up so much more. They are true classics and have a way of sucking you in to a world that seems far more real than make-believe.
I read, based on the strong recommendation of my father-in-law, "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. I thought this was the first time I had read Neil Gaiman but a friend pointed out that he wrote the children's book "Coraline" which I read on Thanksgiving (literally--it only took a day). I enjoyed that book (which has been made into a movie) but I loved "Good Omens." It was hilarious. I laughed out loud several times. Very cleverly written! Thanks for the recommendation!
Then I read "Sarah's Key." This was a fiction book recommended to me by a mom whose son is also in Toby's gym class. I wish I could say more about the mom because I really like her, but I don't even know her name. We "met" last semester during our kids' class; she was reading "New Moon" and was--she later said--a week away from having a baby. We've chatted off and on about Stephenie Meyer books and the Twilight movie. I'm embarrassed that I've let our conversations go so far without knowing her name that now it seems too late to ask. Silly me. Anyway, she said "Sarah's Key" was a great read, fast and engaging like "Twilight." Well while it was nothing like "Twilight" it was a good, fast story about a journalist living in Paris who researches the Vel d'Hiv roundup of Jewish families during the War. She gets involved in the story of one family that has connections to her own in weird ways. I kept thinking the story was going to go in another direction but I was happy with the way it ended up. The weird thing about this book is that I started reading it before we had finalized plans for our trip to Paris. Once we had settled on the decision that I would go with BJ to Europe it made the places in the book (Paris and Burgundy--both on our itinerary) jump off the pages. I'm very excited to visit the city she talks about in this book. (And on a side note, I read lots of books that are not like "Twilight" and I don't measure all of my book choices against that one.)
Lastly, I've been reading the organizational book "Never Check Your Email in the Morning." Kind of silly for a full-time mom to be reading, but I've actually taken away a lot of info about how to manage BJ's school and teaching schedules and to-do lists along with the day-to-day tasks of running our household. It's given me a handful of ideas on what I would do differently if/when I do return to the working world outside our home. Hopefully the strategies I implement from this book will help us to have a less hectic and more organized semester. :)

Now we're already halfway through February and I'm looking for books to take to Europe next month. I'm thinking about taking "The Dreams of my Father" by Obama. Maybe that will get us started talking to some locals on interesting topics. Last time we went to Europe when Bush was starting his 2nd term we had some rousing political discussions with both ex-pats and Spaniards on the American President.

My Pictures from January

Norah and Lincoln on a shopping trip to the GAP (she's taking crackers from his tray).

Toby in the cockpit of the plane coming back from Denver.

Norah getting herself stuck inside the rails of a chair at home.

Toby shoveling snow--with a real shovel--at my parent's house.