A Natalie-ism!

Upon overhearing Colleen and I talking about me joining a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu club, Natalie pipes in and asks, "Who's doing jiu jitsu? You Daddy? Why, so you can beat up my boyfriends?"

Ha ha.

Thanksgiving and Our First German Christmas Tree!

Even though the German's don't celebrate Thanksgiving over here, we HAD to!  My parents had been here for a few days, and left the morning of Thanksgiving to fly back to the states.  It always sucks when they leave! 

But we decided to plow on and enjoy some turkey ourselves!

Here he is!  He's not very big, but then again, there are only four of us!

Naturally, Todd had to carve our small little bird.  I don't know why the kids found this funny, but apparently they did!

A very happy Thanksgiving from the Bailey's of Auerbach, Germany!  We even broke out the fine china, the chargers, and the nice glasses for the kids!

Natalie wrote this story about Papa the Turkey, and they displayed it at the Food Court at Rose Barracks!  She was really proud!

We put up our tree in the days following Thanksgiving.  We were going to go on a trip somewhere, perhaps Switzerland, but we booked a week long trip to Rome for the week after Christmas, so we decided to stay home and save money!  We got our tree and put it up and as we did, I took this picture, only to see much later that Grant had his hand down his pants!  And he seems super proud of it! I am still surprised, six years into motherhood of a boy that this kind of stuff still shocks me! Ha!

Silly Kiddos

I love this picture of us.  Grant.... could this be any more like him!?

Prague, Czech Republic

Our very first "across the border" weekend getaway was for our 10th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately (fortunately?) we had to take the kids with us because our usual go-to extended period babysitter, Nana, was off on her own big European/Middle Eastern adventure.  No problem, as she promised to come back and watch the kids while Todd and I go somewhere to celebrate my 40th (cough cough, 29th!) birthday in 2016.  

 After we checked into our cool VRBO apartment (in a wicked good location), we walked over to see the Astronomical Clock on the Old Town Hall.  I don't think I ever realized how low to the ground the whole thing was. 

After the clock chimes, a man with a trumpet comes out and plays a tune.

We climbed the Tower at the Old Town Hall and look, there he is!  The trumpeter!  Apparently he should be wearing red and yellow, but it was kind of cool out so I guess he needed a jacket.  He waves to everyone when he is done.

Pretty colorful buildings of Prague.

Because we have kids, we sometimes have to do activities that we wouldn't normally do as adults.  (And no, kissing Heidi Klum is most certainly something Todd would like to do as an adult!)  While we would rather hit up an art or history museum, the kids would be incredibly bored (read: whiny).  So the tourist office had a little pamphlet about the local wax museum, and it was actually really fun!  Here's Todd smooching on his main squeeze, Heidi.

Here's the littlest dictator of our family, in the Hall of Dictators.  Notice he's got his buddies Lenin, Stallin, Kruschev, Mao, Fidel and others behind him. 

OMG I did not ask him to make this face, but could he BE more sassy here!?!  He totally looks like he fits in with Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner!  He should have totally been in he Twilight movie series!

Time for a little dinner and a Pilsner Urquell.  Yes please.

The next morning we got on the local bus and traveled around the city.  In Wenceslas Square, I saw this beautiful building.  Too pretty not to snap a pic!

Speaking of ol' King Wenceslas, this is the statue of him in the middle of Wenceslas Square.  This square is where locals gather during political protests, uprisings, and other celebrations and demonstrations. 

Back on the bus, we made our way across the Vltava River and over to see the Church of the Lady Victorious.  It was built in the early 1600s and houses the famous Infant Jesus of Prague. But this church?  This isn't that church!  That church wasn't as pretty on the outside.  I liked this one, St. Nicholas, just a bit north of the Church of the Lady Victorious. (HA!)

The Infant Jesus of Prague is a wooden doll covered in wax that was originally owned by Saint Theresa of Avila.  It's now pretty old and fragile, but they still change the vestments with the different times in the Holy Year.  In Ireland, they believe this statue influences the weather.  (Weird!)

We should immediately go drink more beer?  OK!

 

 Next, we walked down to the Charles Bridge.  This is on the west end of the bridge, one of the towers.  It's really a nice bridge, but the number of people painting and selling things gets in the way of it's beauty.

 Then it was off to the famous Prague Castle!  It's the largest castle in the world!  (Ok, Ok, some dispute that, and for whatever reason, the Guinness Book of World Records has many "largest castle in the world" record holders. The Prague Castle is the "largest ancient castle in the world."  If you google Largest Castle in the World, this is the one that comes up.

Up at the castle, which is naturally up on a hill, there is a big church called St. Vitus.  It's really big and pretty and has a really neat section of jewels and other cool relics that you can look at but can't take pictures of.  (And Natalie kept getting yelled at for touching the glass!)  There's even the arm of St. Vitus!  And the sword of St. Wenceslas!

This is the back side of St. Vitus, and of course, we are drinking Gluhwein and hot chocolate (I'm guessing you can figure out who is drinking what here!)  Gotta stay warm somehow!

Next up, we decided to take an evening boat ride along the Vltava River.  This is Natalie giving us a thumbs down because we won't let her get a mug of beer keychain.  Maybe when you're 21!!!

We saw the most spectacular views of the Charles Bridge from this boat ride.  It was evening and the lights just came on on the bridge.  The whole city was just so beautiful and I love the early nighttime coloring.   

Afterwards, there was time for one more farewell dinner to Prague with these two crazy kids.  I ordered meat on a stick!  It was amazing!  We can't wait to visit Prague again - there's so much to see and do!

German Sunsets

I can't get enough of the fall sunsets here.  So beautiful.

This one was taken from our upstairs balcony, as was the one below.

I promise, I didn't Instagram or filter any of this!  Just a regular iPhone shot.  

This one was taken from our exit off of the highway.  Super pretty!