January 27, 2009

Snowworld Take 1

Sometime ago my dad starting calling Bradley "Bam Bam" like the Flintstone's character. Since he was able to hold a stick, we thought he'd grow up to be a drummer or some other like minded profession as he likes to bang on everything, including our wood and glass coffee table which no longer has the glass inset. Lately, as evidenced by the recent video, he likes to bang his head (or lead with his head) on various hard surfaces like floors, walls, and table legs. He always gets up and says "Okaaaaay" dragging it out for dramatic effect. In October, we had our first visit to the emergency room to glue back together his split ear. Last night, we had our second visit to the ER to glue back together a gash in his head.

Rhi in Snowpants that Make her Look "Fat"

Jim signed Rhiannon up for ski lessons and last night was her first lesson. I decided we should all go and while Rhi and Jim were skiing, Brad and I would watch and take pictures safely behind glass windows in the Snowworld restaurant. Snowworld is an indoor ski park and also contains a fitness center, bar, restaurant, gift shop and hotel. It is a rather large place and thank god contains a first aid center for all those negligent skiers and snowboarders who bust themselves up coming down the hill, or in our case a 2 year old who likes to fall backwards from a standing position into a table leg. I knew the second I started rubbing his head that he cut it open because my hand was covered in blood. He cried for a minute and then said he was ok and continued eating his sandwich. The first aid team wrapped his head in a bandage and helped me retrieve Jim and Rhi from the slopes and off we went to the Dutch hospital to assess the damage.

About 1" Long Cut Only Required Super Glue

The Doctor used some of Brad's hair mixed with the glue to hold the wound together and said not to mess with it for 5 days. I think next week we will sit out the ski lesson and let Jim take the pictures. As much of a pain as it is to visit the ER, I am glad we've been so lucky. Brad could have seriously hurt himself both times and managed to escape with superficial cuts requiring the most minute repair. At least he didn't need staples!

In another crazy story, last week Brad swallowed a plum pit at the dinner table. I tried to get him to spit it out but he choked it down after having grabbed the leftovers from Rhiannon's plate. I never did see it come out but I wasn't about to sift through his diapers either. If it had landed in his appendix I think we'd have known by now. My god boys are such a challenge! Hopefully things will stay uneventful for awhile and next week we will have happy ski pictures to post.

I should say something for Rhiannon. She was so understanding when we had to leave her first lesson. She loves her brother so much and just wanted him to be ok. She cried when he swallowed the plum pit because she is the one who gave it to him, but she didn't know he wasn't supposed to eat it. She is also doing very well with learning to read. She writes us notes in her little black notebook with black velvet flowers on it. She sounds out words and draws pictures and I am so glad I got it for her because she takes it everywhere and is practicing all that much more. She has also been reading the BOB Books completely by herself! I am so excited for her. Last week I also taught her how to use the knitting spool. Now we can "yarn" together (her word). She is hard at work on a scarf for her stuffed horse Harry. I'll be sure and post the picture when it is finished.

January 11, 2009

Sunrise Behind Our House

Well it has snowed here a few times contrary to the general consensus that it does not in fact snow here and if by some rare occurrence it does, it washes right away. Well, it has been over a week now since this last non-existent snow storm has graced us with 5 inches more than a dusting and has since frozen in the 12 degree (fahrenheit) temperatures that we've also enjoyed for as much time. This is the kind of cold that freezes your legs when they touch your pants and you can feel in your bones, and in the snot that hardens in your nose the instant you step outside. I always hoped never to have to endure this kind of cold again after leaving New England but apparently it follows us around the world, special folks that we are, as it seems we are able to change the usual weather patterns wherever we may be living considering the locals maintain that it never snows here and is never this cold. In Florida last January we had a week of freezing weather that killed all of my plants and burst a water pipe in the outdoor shower. That hadn't occurred in the Panama City area for over 8 years! So I must conclude that it is our fault and we must bring a little piece of home with us wherever we go. That being said, winter can still be a beautiful sight and I was fortunate enough to get some pictures of the ice before it started to disappear this weekend.






I am not sad to see it go and I am not sad to see our illness go either. This new year has not started off well with a house full of sick people for over a week with the nastiest cold I've seen in years. It consisted of fevers up to 104 degrees, and hacking coughs which were not helped at all by the dry night air in our house. We have just barely started to get back on track and we are not usually ever sick. In my feverish state it seems that I forgot to post some funny anecdotes from our recent travels and I also have a new video of Brad escaping from his bedroom. The baby gates are all useless now and I must say that Rhiannon was 4 years old before she ever climbed a gate, and only after we suggested it so we didn't have to open it for her.



We drove for many hours through Germany during our travels. Normally we bring the DVD player for Rhiannon for long trips. Sometimes it's more of a hassle because she gets frustrated with various things on her movie and she will whine and complain from the backseat for me to make it louder or rewind it or whatever. This time she was watching Rudolph and she kept complaining that the snowman wasn't talking right. Well I couldn't figure out what she was talking about so Tori took the headphones and listened. Turns out, Rudolph was in Spanish! We all started dying laughing and set about to fixing it but that was easier said than done because for some reason the DVD player was defaulting to Spanish. I still don't know how it was fixed but next time I will think twice about bringing it. She seems to do fine without it anyway.

When we were at the Louvre Rhiannon commented that the place smelled like Nonna Donna's house. I couldn't stop laughing because anyone who knows my mom knows her house is like a museum. You can look at lots of nice ceramic figures all behind glass but there is absolutely no touching, no running, and everything is impossibly clean, until my family gets there anyway. Rhiannon is so insightful.

Anyway, Brad's got a bunch of new words under his belt. He repeats back to us pretty much everything we say now. He loves to say "yeah" and "ok" and "hi" pronounced with a thick New York accent. His eye check up went well and they still seem to be pretty straight but we are rechecking again in 3 months. Hopefully we can head off any potential future surgeries with constant monitoring.

Jim is well into his training by now and should be flying by the spring. He also starts his masters degree next month. I am still trying to get graphic work online and hope to see results soon. Another friend from Florida arrived this week. It seems a lot like old times lately, only much colder. Well, that's it for now. Will keep you posted on anything new and interesting.

January 3, 2009

Christmas

So we took a few days off from traveling and spent Christmas at home. Unfortunately not every package made it in time but that's life here in Europe. So all of you should be getting Christmas cards in January. Brad was still more fascinated with the paper and Rhi loved all her new princess gear. We now have a new camera and have been taking pictures of everything with it. We enjoyed a nice relaxing day and took a walk around our village. The real excitement began a day later when we hopped a train and went to Paris.

Pictures taken in our backyard and in the fields between the villages.

Paris was freezing! It was also so beautiful and it reminded me a lot of New York with all the traffic, expensive everything, cafes on every corner, and just plain dirty streets. The subway is considerably easier to navigate in Paris and the architecture is more like that of New Orleans. I loved it there and hope to go back in the summer.



We took a train from Geilenkirchen and it was only a three hour ride. Our hotel was quite interesting when we discovered there was no shower curtain and apparently Parisians are not bothered by this as most of the hotels are this way. (Maybe that's why they smell, because they don't shower much because they don't have time to shop vac the water off the bathroom floor every day.) We also had inches to spare on either side of the bed for the kids to sleep on the floor. We had to sneak them in because we would have had to get two rooms. Our hotel window looked down on a blue neon lit sex shop and we discovered a whole street near the Moulin Rouge with one after another of those. The hotel elevator was a joke if I can describe it correctly. It was triangular in shape and said 3 persons max would fit. Well maybe 3 small children would have fit in there. Kelly and I got in with some bags and we were pressed up against the walls all twisted up laughing about the elevator. Poor handicapped people would be better off trying to navigate the stairs in that place. The stairs were another story. We were on the fourth floor and the stairs go up in a kind of spiral. They sloped downward from the wall to the middle column (if that makes sense) and they were uneven. Bradley took forever to get up or down them because they were so unpredictable. Somehow I think in the states that this hotel would have been deemed in violation of building codes for the elevator and the stairs. And this was a 3 star Best Western! The Europeans only operate on a 4 star basis. At least it was clean and close to the train. I guess the standards here are lower and once we get passed being spoiled Americans, we have a really good time.

So the first night in Paris we went to see the Moulin Rouge. It is far too expensive to take in a show but Tori was able to get into their gift shop at least. The next day of course we went to the Eiffel Tower which looks a lot smaller from the ground than it does when you are in the glass elevator going up the legs with nothing between you and the ground but a few thousand tons of twisted metal. It is not a kid friendly attraction unless you go without a stroller and don't mind smashing into small spaces with lots of people. Jim was gracious enough to take our screaming and freezing kids to a cafe while the rest of us braved the elements for a beautiful view of Paris. It was worth it but my god all those stinking people... I think we spent more time waiting in lines than we did in the tower itself.

Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower

The River Seine

We also saw the Louvre which is enormous and nearly got mauled to death trying to see the Mona Lisa, the Notre Dame cathedral which is also enormous and gorgeous inside, the Arc de Triomphe and Pere Lachaise Cemetery. For those of you who know me well you know that I would never go to Paris and skip seeing Jim Morrison's grave. I have to say it was a bit depressing to see how such a larger than life person with so much to offer the world had been reduced to a such a small plot of land squished in as almost an afterthought next to at least four other graves and surrounded by a fence to ward off the vandals. That being said, the rest of the cemetery is amazing! I think Jim took the best pictures in there. It is so old and so filled with family mausoleums many of which have fallen into serious disrepair. They are stuffed in next to each other often times it seems with no rhyme or reason. It looks like it started off orderly and then people were just stuck wherever they would fit. I want to learn more about this cemetery because it was such an amazing and peaceful place. Next time we are in France it would be nice to check out Versailles, or maybe a certain film festival... Yeah right.

Pere Lachaise

Notre Dame Cathedral

We had to try escargot. Yummy!

The Louvre

At last the train ride home. We were all so exhausted that we started to get silly. Brad has taken to screaming lately for his own amusement mostly but to our fellow train passengers it was not funny. A man and his wife who were seated behind us felt it necessary to comment to Jim that he should tell his wife to keep his son quiet. It did not go over well and luckily we were within 15 minutes of our station and were able to depart without an international incident. The story is actually much funnier now than it was then because I really did think this man would attack us. You can't force a two year old to be quiet, especially one who is a week past his bed time and has been to three countries in as much time. They obviously didn't have kids and I always laugh at these people who are so quick to lose their patience with other people's kids in public places. Guess what? We have to take him home with us, they don't. You know what I say to those miserable and cranky childless folks? Get over it. If you don't like the noise, walk away. If you can't walk away suck it up for a little while. We have to deal with them forever! And most of the time we love every minute of it. It's only when they misbehave that we bring them out in public to share them with the rest of the world.

The End