A Clean Getaway: 2016

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

So I said I would post about our travels on here but I'm a slacker and so this post is a month and a half late. Sorry! Since I'm using Facebook less now, yay political season, I plan to keep our family and friends updated more often on here.

In January we visited Garmisch-Partenkirchen for my birthday. The city of Garmisch-Partenkirchen is actually two cities who combined in 1935. It is mostly a resort town known for skiing and alpine hiking. The week after we visited Lindsey Vonn won the downhill race at the Alpine Skiing World Cup being held there, it was a record setting 38th downhill win for her, the most by any woman in a specific discipline!

We had a fantastic time! I got to ski again for the first time in 14 years (I snowboarded from age 14-22). And it was the first time I was on the slopes at all in 6 years! I forgot how much I absolutely love skiing. I'm pretty terrible at most sports, anyone who knows me knows how uncoordinated I am, but skiing is definitely my thing, and luckily it's like riding a bike; a few runs and it all came back! I've skied all over the US but skiing in The Alps was hands down the most memorable. I wish I had more pictures from the top, next time I'll have to wear the Go Pro!

Mauricio went to daycare for the first time while we were there and loved it, and all the daycare workers loved him as well. This is wonderful since he'll be going to daycare for a few hours twice a week starting next week so I can go to the gym. I'm hoping this will be beneficial for both of us; socialization for him, and exercise for me!

But back to Garmisch, on my actual birthday we went to the top of Zugspitze, which is Germany's highest peak (2,962m summit). We took a gondola to the top and then a train back down so we could check out all the views. Although there were white out conditions at the top it was still super amazing.

I got to have coffee and cake at the top of a mountain for my birthday, nothing better!

One of the most touristy things to do to in the area is to visit Neuschwanstein, which is Germany's most popular castle and the inspiration behind Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World. It was built by King Ludwig II, who had a fascinating controversial life and death, and it is beyond opulent. Although it was never fully completed the rooms you can see are incredibly decorated and preserved. They have a very strict no cameras rule inside, we even witnessed someone get kicked out for breaking this rule, so I only have photos from the outside.

You park pretty far away from the castle and either have to walk up a pretty steep hill to get to it or you can opt to take a carriage ride up for a few Euros. We opted for the carriage since it was cold and I forgot the carrier for Mauricio.

This is another castle in the area:

We also went to Gasthof Fraundorfer for dinner at the suggestion of a friend. It is well known and loved in the area for their traditional Bavarian food and entertainment. Mauricio really enjoyed the knee slap dancing and yodeling, but his favorite part was eating a large amount of daddy's amazing schweinebraten. I highly recommend eating dinner there if you ever visit Garmisch!

I'm currently planning a few more trips for us to take in the next 6 months so check back for updates. We miss you all!

Monday, January 11, 2016

It's Been Awhile... Hello From Germany!

It's taken me a few months to write this post, the whole having a colicky newborn thing kind of took up a lot of my time... and sanity... and brain power... So here's an update on our life:

Mauricio:

He is 6.5 months old now and growing like a weed. He wears 12mo clothing in US sizes and 70 in European sizes. He's a big boy! He received his 6 month shots at his well baby exam today and handled them like a champ. He's sleeping slightly better but still not more than a few hours at a time, so I'm still super exhausted. Long term sleep deprivation is for the birds!

We finally managed to convince his doctor to refer us to a (German) Gastroenterologist for his reflux/constant spit-up and we're hopeful this will get him the help he needs. Other than that he's developing great and it seems that most of his colic has subsided. Yay for not being screamed at 24/7!

He is now CRAWLING as well, we have a mobile baby, which is both terrifying and amazing at the same time. He loves to crawl over to the dogs and pet them (ridiculously adorable) and is obsessed with trying to eat daddy's shoes (gross). He seems to be a little happier now that he can move, he's always been a very active baby so I predicted that would happen. He also finally cut his two bottom teeth after months of teething, hopefully we'll catch a little break before he starts cutting more.

We started solid food the week he turned 6 months and he loves it! He pretty much likes everything but tart fruits do cause him to make a hilarious face that I've yet to capture on camera. He reaches for all of our food so next month we'll start giving him some of our dinner instead of just baby/mashed food.

Overall he loves people and has never met a stranger, he smiles and talks to anyone who makes eye contact and doesn't seem to have any separation anxiety. I'm excited to see his personality develop as he grows!

Germany:

We are now pretty much settled in our house here, we just have the office left to unpack. This is the biggest house we've lived in so it feels slightly overwhelming but we're very grateful to have a house and yard for both Mauricio and the dogs, we fully expected to be placed in an apartment.

I absolutely love the little town we live in. The locals are extremely nice and patient with my terrible German. Most of them don't speak English, which is actually great for me because it forces me to practice my German. Although I'm a pro at ordering food and asking for things my conversational German is still pretty terrible. Mauricio will probably speak better German than me by the time he's three!

We spent the holidays in the states seeing family and getting Mauricio baptized. It was nice to be home and see everyone but we're very glad to be back in Germany in our own house again. As we were landing in Nürnberg I felt instantly happy when seeing the little German houses as we broke through the cloud layer, and realized how quickly Germany became home to us.

We've traveled a bit since we've been here but not outside of Germany because we didn't have a tourist passport for Mauricio, now that we have that we plan to travel farther away and are super excited about that.

Hopefully I'll have time to update this a little more often now and I plan to write a post on my experience of becoming a mom. For now, here are some photos: