Big Day!

Savannah had a very BIG day!!! She took her first steps (with an "s")!!! I had a friend over and while we were talking and playing with Savannah she took three steps using both feet with my "come to mommy" encouragement! I was so excited I almost peed my pants!!!

Then we finally got Savannah's Amazon shipment that included her new suction bowls, a few DVDs, a cool new sippy cup, snack pouch and three pairs of shoes. It was like Christmas for her as she sat in the middle of our floor among all the boxes.

When I put her super effective suction bowl on her high chair she totally ate the yogurt using her spoon....for like 5 minutes then the spoon flew to floor and she used her hands. It was hilarious, messy but hilarious!

Savannah likes to eat with us instead of us watching her eat so tonight she had dinner with us and she enjoyed a little bit of roasted chicken and smashed avocado mostly while she sat in my lap instead of the high chair. (P.s. This was the first time I roasted a chicken in my very small German oven, it was thankfully uneventful and at the same time delicious.)

Later before bedtime we were playing I asked her where my belly button was and she pointed to my belly button! I couldn't believe it! Then I asked her where my feet were and she pointed to...my belly button! haha

Looking back on today I realized Savannah practically turned into a toddler overnight. She's 10 months and 3 weeks old and it seems like yesterday we were at the Birth Center welcoming her beautiful face into the world. She amazes me every single day. I'm so happy and grateful that I can spend every minute with her to watch her grow and discover the world.

I will post the walking and eating from a bowl videos tomorrow!
XO
Elizabeth

First Step

Breaking news from our living room in Germany....Savannah took her first step (singular) with her right foot this afternoon! She did it out of the blue while we were Skyping with Aunt Maria! I think she really wanted give her Aunt Maria a hug (*sniff sniff*). She did it a few more times throughout the afternoon, it's just one small step with her right or left foot but it's a STEP and a step is a step, so I'll take it! :)

The Decision

We have finally made the final decision with our house dilemma! The verdict....we are moving to Downtown Wiesbaden in a garden-level flat located directly off the Kurpark inside of a beautiful building that dates back to 1890. The flat is newly renovated and we will be the first people to live there since the renovations. We can access the park directly from our backyard, the location could not be more perfect! The house has been in the landlord's family since it was built, her grandmother grew up there and as did she and now she is raising her three children there. We met her, the husband and children and the family dog...everyone was very nice. They were extremely helpful in answering all of our questions. They told us everything we needed to hear in order to consider moving.

Over the past week we tossed and turned over the decision. Finally I said we need to list what is most important to us and based on those things we make the decision, nothing else. There are so many different variables involved, so many pro's and con's to both places and it doesn't help they are both beautiful. Well what is most important to us led us to moving closer to the American base where our life is beginning to center. Savannah will have endless opportunities to play with friends and we will be able to walk to anything we could ever need including our hot German doctors! :) Rocky will be 10 minutes from work as opposed to 30 minutes. We will not have to purchase a second car right away and we will save hundreds of dollars on gas. The winter will not be nearly as bad since we won't be in the mountains and we won't be stranded in our house for days on end because of icy roads. To describe how different the weather is up here in the Taunus mountains let me tell you a quick story. I had a friend visit last Tuesday, she lives in Downtown Wiesbaden across the park from our new place. Sandie has a 3 month old boy named Issac. We decided to take a walk down to the playground at the bottom of my hill, it's a 15 minute walk to the park. When we arrive the clouds start to dark and the wind picked up so we started booking it back to my house. Well we didn't make it and it started to rain/hail  on us half way back up the maintain! Sandie has lived in Wiesbaden three years so I asked her if this sudden hail storm is normal German weather. She quickly replied, "No, this is totally a mountain thing!" When we got back to my house the hail had stopped of course! The babies were snuggled warm in our strollers so they were fine but we were out of breath and soaking wet!

Our landlord is on holiday right now in France so we will finalize and sign the new lease when they return. They need to install the kitchen and finish landscaping and then our place is ready! Move in day is scheduled for June 25th! My Mom is coming that next day on June 26th so I want everything as moved in as possible before she arrives so she will be comfortable and can enjoy time with Savannah.

I will post pictures of our new place soon. In the meantime you view it on the German realtor website, Immobilien and put the website address in Google Translator to read about it!

Sunday aka Family Day in Germany

In Germany Sunday is strictly family and friends day. Just about everything closes except for restaurants and cafes. It's an actual German law that stores must be closed on this day. There are only four times during the year that shops open on Sunday. Even German websites shut down. So instead of running around doing errands or work you spend the day with loved ones. At first we found this hard to comprehend that you had to get everything done on Saturday. Then we realized this German custom is a treasure that I will miss dearly when we are back in the states.

This Sunday started with a walk turned hike down to the park and through fields. Spring in Germany is absolutely beautiful. Everything is luscious green and the flowers are beautiful vibrant colors. There are horses and cows along the fields at the bottom of our hill where we walk. Savannah adores these animals! She gets very excited every time she see's Mr. Ed! :)

Sunday afternoon we ventured to Kongistein (a small lovely village about 4km or 3 miles away). Everything is Kilometers, Celsius, and Centimeters. Major adjustment but my trusty iphone apps are helping! :) The weather was BEAUTIFUL, about 75 and sunny. It was a gorgeous day. We walked around the park and then had lunch at this fabulous place called Villa Borgnis Kurhaus im Park. Their outside seating overlooked the park and down the mountain to all the cute German houses. The food was really good too. I had ordered an ice tea and was surprised with what I would describe as an frozen yogurt ice tea float. It was really good but not before you eat a salad! hehe



Rocky got a hamburger for the first time in over 2 months. He was excited! The restaurant was really nice so we decided this is where we will spend Easter brunch. I booked us reservations for Easter Sunday at 11am. Savannah will get all dressed up in her beautiful Easter dress from Aunt Maria and we can make a day of it. I'm very excited! :)

After lunch we walked around more and Savannah announced she had a new trick. She likes to mimic this bird like sound. I have a little video that I will post. People looked at us like we were very strange!

We got ice cream or gelato at a cafe. Everyone gets ice cream on Sundays after they eat. There is always a line, but it moves quick and trust me it's definitely worth the wait. The ice cream here is the best I've ever had. And it's so inexpensive too, if you visit you will definitely have a treat!

We ended the day with a movie called The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg. Good movie and there is nobody else that could have played that role, he was perfect! Since we don't have satellite and can't stream movies from my Mac to our TV yet because of our weak Internet signal we rent movies most nights from the video store on base.

Oh more thing! Rocky cut the grass for the first time on Saturday. You can only cut the grass from 1-3pm. But our landlord told us it's not that big of an issue so Rocky cut it Saturday morning when he got back from playing pick up basketball with his friend Dieter (Tia's husband). The lawnmower looks like a toy! First it's electric so you plug it into the wall, and then it's super small and bright red and yellow! It was really funny to see him cut the grass.

Enjoy the pictures! I will have the videos uploaded soon, our Internet signal is making uploading difficult. We love and miss everyone very much.

XOXOX

New Pictures

Hi Everyone! I posted a new assortment of pictures from here and there over the past few weeks. I hope spring is beautiful at home! XOXO

Life on the Hill

Hallo! Spring is here and in full bloom! We are finally experiencing warmer weather, beautiful flowers and unfortunately POLLEN (really the only downside of spring).  I’m so happy to be online again and up and running with the blog. I made the blog private because people from all over the world were accessing and that gave me the willies knowing that strangers were looking at pictures of baby! If you have family and friends that I forget to invite to the blog, please send me their email and I will invite them.

We have lots to update. Let’s start with “Moving Day” which was Thursday, March 24^th. We arrive at our house…I’m driving our 4 Runner, Rocky’s driving his rental car, and the big moving truck behind us. Mind you our house sits on the turning point of a 21% and 14% grade hill…meaning very steep and hard to maneuver traffic, especially big cars! We get out of the car and the first words out of Rocky’s mouth are, “What were we thinking, this house is to far out and the hill is too steep!?” I almost fell over. I said, “Really babe, I’ve been telling you this all along!” We both just laughed it off and moved ahead with the day.  The German movers were very efficient and it only took them about 3 hours for them to unload everything and assemble furniture. The rest of the weekend we unpacked, tried to clean and purchased items for our house.

Daily tasks that normally should take simply minutes take hours. For example, for each of our American appliances we need converters. No biggie we thought….we learned quickly that it is a biggie because each appliance is a different watt requiring different voltage converters. And if you get the converter wrong on the first try you blow out the appliance AND short-circuit the outlet. We almost lost all of our food in our refrigerator trying to vacuum. We didn’t blow up our Dyson vacuum but when we do vacuum we have to turn it on, then go all the way to our basement to flip the switch because the converter short sockets the electoral outlet, so then once the switch is flipped then we can turn the vacuum on again and it will work. This all translates to HIGHLY ANNOYING! J

We blew up our coffee maker and microwave in this learning process. Thankfully we got it right with our TV and that made it.

Patience is the key word everyday.

Our trip to Ikea that Saturday was made easier by a friend warning us you can only pay in Euro’s there. We picked out our closets but didn’t actually purchase them that day because you have to find each piece to the closet separately and gather it all by your self with no help. Oh and it’s all in German so that really makes it tricky. Rocky went back on Monday because believe it or not even Ikea shuts down on Sunday.

We took our first walk to the bakery down our hill that weekend and realized will have an ass of steal by walking everyday! Total bonus to living on a hill! :)

I found our scale and discovered I lost about 20lbs since we moved and Savannah weighs 19lbs! I attribute culture shock to my weight loss.

Rocky put together my closet and Savannah’s closet. Amazing that he figured this out with no help! Very proud of him!

Savannah was really happy to sleep in her own crib. But I found myself unable to sleep because she was so far away, all the way in the other room! J In the hotel she was at the foot of our bed and most nights she would end up in our bed.

After the weekend we talked and decided this house is beautiful, the neighborhood is lovely and the view is spectacular with the fresh air….however it’s too far from Rocky’s office and Wiesbaden. You may be saying, “well why did you chose this house?!” Well that answer is simple, we had about one month to choose a home and during that month we were adjusting to the time change while juggling illnesses, learning how to live in Germany speak their language and find out where we want to live. There is nothing anyone could have told us to do to prepare for the adjustment. Looking back on the last two months I didn’t realize how major that adjustment was. Anywho, so based on the few things we knew, we ended up in this house on the hill.

We chose this house because the view is to die for, the air is the fresh as can be and we have plenty of space for Savannah and Lilly to play inside with a yard outside. Our landlord is also the nicest man in Germany! The only downside we saw at the time was the hill and the 25-minute distance to Rocky’s work and Wiesbaden.

We’ve been in the house about two weeks and I’m starting to really enjoy it. The hill is fantastic exercise. Savannah and Lilly and I go on about 2-3 walks a day. In the morning we walk up the hills and in the afternoon we walk down the hill to the park where there is also a farm with lots of animals. Rocky is carpooling to work with his buddy who lives about 5 minutes down the hill. I’ve become fast friends with his wife, Tia, we have so much in common it’s like we were separated a birth! Hehe, really even our birthdays are only one week apart. They have two boys, 4 and 2 so Savannah already has friends. Tia has shown me around town and made everything less scary. I’m so grateful for her!

We’re still thinking about moving to a garden style flat in Wiesbaden. The location we like is directly on the Kurpark, a beautiful park in downtown Wiesbaden. Earlier in the week we found a newly renovated building from 1890 where the ground level flat is for rent. You can view it here. Google translator will translate the entire website if you want to read about how grand it is! :) The owner of the building has three kids so they are building a small play ground right in that yard that over looks the park. The place is STUNNING! Incredible location too, right off the walking path on the Kurpark. It's Living in Wiesbaden would put Rocky only 10 minutes from work and we’d be within walking to distance to everything including the base. We’ve heard winters are really bad living up here in the Taunus Mountains so living in Wiesbaden would be easier. People have told us to not have concerns about living on this hill in the winter but I can’t stand the thought of being stuck inside for weeks!

My fabulous new friend Tia told me everyone is depressed in the winter so wives and their children go on holiday together where it is sunny because the husbands can’t get away from work. Love this idea!!! We’re planning our trip now and it’s only April! ;)

There are many pros and cons to living here vs. Wiesbaden. As the days go by and I get more comfortable here, I want to stay but seeing the beautiful flat in Wiesbaden really makes me think that is were we should live because of the proximity to everything.

Any advice from anyone is welcome; please email with words of wisdom! :)

Today, Savannah and I ventured out into Konigstien, just the two of us. Konigstien is about 4 km, or 3 miles up the street from our house. It’s known as a town for the affluent. Beautiful architecture, great shops, and many many restaurants. I found one shop that had gorgeous rugs, I went in to see what a Bio (organic) rug would cost….my friends, a bio rug from this shop will run you about 9,000 Euros! I almost fell over! There is no way I could ever convince Rocky to get this rug, not even if we could afford it! The clothing shops were surprisingly way more reasonable though, even more reasonable than the shops in Wiesbaden. When I say reasonable I mean like boutique prices in the U.S. Most Wiesbaden shops are like Rodeo drive prices! Rocky bought me a super cute summer jacket from a shop in Konigstien for my birthday. I love and feel so fashionable in it! J Everyone has summer jackets because there is still a chill in the air during this time of year.

Savannah and I bought some delicious treats at the Italian market of salami and spreads, and then we got some fresh whole wheat bread to make little sandwiches for dinner. Well it looked like whole wheat with sunflower seeds. Whenever I order something I really don’t fully understand what they are telling me. Everything I order is truly an experiment. Most of the time everything is quiet tasty.

Savannah is now 10 months old! She can give kisses and hugs on demand, only for me though, she doesn’t hand them out to Rocky just yet! J She is a super fast crawler and can stand for long periods of time. Her and Lilly are total BFF’s, they play together and it’s the funniest thing. I got a video to explain. She’s very social and gets really excited when she sees other babies and dogs, her little legs start kicking and she starts squealing! Sooooo cute! :)

The weather here is really nice, temps in the 60-70s daily with cloudy days far and few in between. There is a chill up on the hill but the freshness of the air make it worth it.

I uploaded some pictures and videos from the weekend. Hope you enjoy. Now that I have updated you on the past two weeks, my posts won’t be like novels! J We love and miss you all!

Oh and remember, if anyone has advice on living a little farther out of town vs. living right in town while being in a foreign country please email us! 

P.s Check the video tab later today to see the videos. I'm uploading them now but it's taking a while!

XOXOXO