Prague Picture Slide Show

A Summary of Prague

Well, we met some friends in Prague and stayed for a long weekend in a rented out apartment.

Chris and Elizabeth

Jeff

Brian had been here before, but since it was new to all of us he served as our tour guide. The girls did not do as well as they usually do on trips. They were pretty feisty and cranky at times, but managed the LONG car ride there and back and the restaurant scene pretty well. I did better than I thought I would with the walking (especially the uphill trek to the Castle,) but the kids were wearing on me a bit.

Prague was nice, a little dirty, but otherwise an attractive city. I'm more of a country girl as far as vacations go. I prefer the mountain scenery over the city sights. The food surprised me a bit by exceeding my expectations. I wasn't expecting to enjoy the cuisine since I had read it is very meaty and starchy. However it turned out to be pretty good and had more of a selection than most of the German restaurants do. We searched all over for sausage kolaches, but only found fruit kolaches and sausages wrapped in a croissant which were both good.

The main things we saw were the medieval Prague Castle and Cathedral, Wenceslas Square, Old Town Square and its astronomical clock. The astronomical clock drew quite the crowd every hour when a skeleton would ring a bell and the apostles would parade across a window.

The strangest thing we saw was a man with a pet rat walking around on top of a sleeping pit bull. He drew a crowd! Here's a picture.

Hannah got a big group of tourists to give her a round of applause after an improv photo shoot in front of a fountain. She even bowed for them afterwards. What a ham! I wish I could put her in a comedy class instead of ballet.

I am still working on the captions in my Picasa web album for the pictures, but they are coming! It has been very busy around here lately, but it should slow down after the weekend.

A language of their own

The girls have started this strange, but admittedly cute, thing where they make up these letter combinations and talk to each other like they know what the other is saying. Genna will say, "Hey Hannah, look at my POI pants." Hannah will crack up and reply with something like, "Genna, do you mean they are AOB?" Genna will then say, "Yeah, they're ALS." Then they all laugh again. What are my children talking about? Are they trying to spell a word or have they heard mom and dad talk about DNA or ATP one too many times? Or are they just weird?

Side note: I haven't been posting as often because we've been traveling again. We got back from Prague, Czech Republic on Monday evening. I've got tons of pictures, but I also have a lot to do this week. So I will have to work on the blog in my wee bit free time. I'll try to catch up soon!

Oh, the terrible twos have arrived!

I was hoping I would get out of it this time around since Genna is usually such an easy going girl. However, she seems to have developed a rather bad habit. She is hitting Hannah when Hannah tries to make her do something she doesn't want to do. So far it is only Hannah that she is hitting. It started out as barely a hit just to get her to stop and get out of her face after a lot of pestering from Hannah and has quickly progressed to harder hits if Hannah doesn't listen to her first, "No" or "Leave me alone." So we are working on impulse control and using our words more than just the once. So far all the mini lectures and time outs haven't worked, but I am hoping if I really buckle down and am consistent in how I handle it it won't last too much longer. For Hannah, I am just not sure how to get her to stop trying to control everything Genna does. I keep reminding her that she needs to listen to Genna when she says, "No" and let her do things her way. I think these are typical first born and second born traits that I am dealing with now.

I think Hannah did go through a hitting faze with me when she got angry. I got her to stop relatively quickly by punishing the behavior as well as giving her something else to do with her hands to control them instead of hitting. I kept telling her when she got angry to ball her hands into a fist and say, "I am so angry." It worked pretty well. I need to think of something like that to reinforce with Genna that applies to her situation more.

Matching doll dresses from Nanna

Nanna sent the girls some pretty dresses with matching doll dresses for their dolls. They really got a kick out of them. They chose their Agnes dolls to dress like them today. (Hannah named her Christmas doll Agnes after her favorite saint and, of course, Genna had to name her Christmas doll Agnes too.) Here are the cute pictures!

Thanks Nanna!

Neuschwanstein Castle

On our way home we went to the Neuschwanstein castle, known to many as the Disney castle. This was the only day the weather was bad out of the whole week, so I'm not complaining. It just rained and was a little chillier than it has been. We ended up not taking the inside tour because we wouldn't have made it back home in time for Mass based on the starting times of the next tour, but we walked up to and around it.

Here are the pictures, but as our friend who was with us put it, it's kind of a "can't see the forest for the trees" situation when you are so close to something so big.

Here are my princesses in front of their castle!

They each picked which Disney princess they would pretend to be for the visit. I think Genna picked Belle and Hannah picked Sleeping Beauty initially, but then they changed their minds a lot.

Daddy's trip to the gorge with the girls!

Since we had already been there once and it is a lot of walking, I skipped out on this trip. Brian dropped me off on the way in downtown to do some leisurely shopping ALONE! I had a great time, and ended up walking back to the hotel because it was a good 4 hours before I heard from them on the phone. So I ended up doing more walking than they did, but I had such a great time! Did I mention I was ALONE? :)

Here are the pictures!

Brian said Genna slept about half the time in the backpack.

Here are the girls with their friend after the hike getting some serious ice cream. Daddy spoils them! I never get them double scoops! :)

Brian's fishing pictures!

Well, I am sure my sweet husband does not get his share of space on this blog, so I am going to throw in a few of his fishing pictures.

The big catch of the day!

JUST KIDDING! I actually don't know what this picture is about. I just thought it was funny!

The hotel and a trip to Eagle's Nest

Well, here is our view from our balcony at the hotel!

The girls and I spent a lot of time swimming in the hotel pool with our friends while the daddies were all at the conference. The big kids helped try to teach Hannah to swim. She made some progress, but we definitely need to get swim lessons going this summer. Hannah LOVED the attention from the big kids! Genna sat on the side of the pool while she warmed up a bit. By the end of the first swimming excursion, she was jumping off the steps to me and going under water. She enjoyed floating on her back (obviously with help) and jumping up and down in the 2 ft deep water holding my hands the most. I didn't get many good pictures since it is hard to take pictures while trying to keep a 2 and 3 year old from drowning. :)

Hannah is right behind Genna and me with her floaties on.

This is my friend (due 5 days before me) and I after lunch, before the Eagle's Nest tour.

For the Eagle's Nest tour, the conference provided childcare for this tour so the girls were not with us during this little trip. I don't know how many of you know what the Eagle's Nest is already, but I will explain briefly for those of you who are not history people. I sure didn't know what it was before this excursion. Hitler's Eagle's Nest or Kehlsteinhaus (in German) was a sort of diplomatic retreat for Hitler's guests. I believe they said it was the last strong hold to fall in WWII, or something like that. It is on the tip top of a very tall mountain and the roads were designed, as well as the house, to go with the natural flow of nature so that from below you can not tell there is anything man-made on it. Well, no one told me how incredibly nauseating this trip up the mountain would be. The bus weaved up this mountain while the tour guide reassured us every couple of sentences or so how often they inspect and change out these buses. Then you still have to go up this elevator to the very top to enter the actual house. Again the tour guide kept reiterating how many times the elevator is tested each season. I didn't actually feel unsafe (especially with all his reassurances), however, I was really concerned that my kase spaetzle that I had for lunch was going to end up all over the tour guide. On top of that I got an altitude headache once we were at the very top. So, all this is to explain the first picture where I don't look so excited, but am thinking about how I got tricked into this in the first place. That's what I get for sleeping through history classes all my life.

This is the entrance to the tunnel that leads to the elevator.

Here is Brian and I before going up the elevator to the very top.

This is a shot of the Kehlsteinhaus from the bus drop off before going up the elevator.


This is inside the Kehlsteinhaus with the actual fireplace that the American soldiers were chipping off souvenirs from after the take over.

Here I am resting and trying not to be sick while others enjoy themselves. :)

Here's my handsome husband at the very tip top.

Here I am, happy that they announced our time is up! :)

Grüß Gott!

That is the common Bavarian greeting instead of the Guten tag, meaning Good day, that is standard around where we live in Germany. Grüß Gott means God bless you.

We just got back Sunday from Garmisch, Germany which is in Bavaria. We had a great time! The hotel was wonderful! Brian surprised me with a maternity massage at the hotel for my Mother's Day gift. It was fabulous! That is my most favorite gift to get for Mother's Day! Here are some pictures from Mother's Day of the girls and me (and Isaac too, I guess!)

Genna pooped out on us at this point :)

I couldn't be more happy with the family with which God has blessed me! Happy Mother's Day!

The Dentist

The girls went to the dentist today. Last time I tried the dentist with just Hannah, she (the biggest talker ever to have lived) wouldn't even open her mouth to say "Hi." However, this time went much better! Hannah sat in the chair, opened her mouth, chatted the dentist up a bit in between mouth openings, and did it all with a smile! Yea for Hannah! She has come a long way with her doctor and dentist trip behavior. In fact, she is looking forward to getting a shot at the doctor later this month! Strange child!

Genna was a model patient for her first official dental appointment! She sat in the chair, leaned back, and opened her mouth with a series of "Aaaah's" until the dentist was finished. The dentist said she has a posterior cross bite which is what her daddy has. Brian's, unfortunately, was not caught early enough and is having major and painful things done to his mouth at 29 years old. They said if you fix this around age 5 that it is easy to fix with a palatal extender retainer and not a problem later on. I'll have to talk to her godfather (who is a dentist) about this one to make sure. Anyway, the dentist left the room a minute after the exam and Genna tells me, "I sit in the chair, and I say 'Aaaah' and the dentist looks in my mouth." When I told her it was time to go, she just kept saying, "One more time again!" I had to really talk her into getting out of that cool chair! The dentist said it looks like she is a future dentist! I am sure that will make her godfather happy!

We will be gone for the next week at Brian's vet conference, so I probably won't be posting until we return! If I happen to have any daily blog checkers, you can take a week off! Tschüss!

Speyer Cathedral

Well, Brian found a place where our priest has agreed to baptize Isaac! On Saturday, while I was in training, he took the girls to Mass at Speyer Cathedral with a group from our church. There was a tour guide after Mass that showed them all around. It looks beautiful!

The Cathedral from the outside

The baptismal font (Hannah was talking the tour guides ear off)

Here are some of the beautiful frescoes in the cathedral

Princess Genna and her "Prince"

Genna has always loved the boy dolls. Hannah has several of the Disney princes that go with her princesses, and Genna has always played with the boys the most. Mimi got her this doll for her birthday and she LOVES him. She named him "Prince" and constantly refers to him as "My prince."

She hugs him...

She rocks him...

And she dances with him...

Playgroup

This is an American organized playgroup that we have been attending since we got here. We went yesterday on Genna's birthday even though I really thought we should go outside (the weather has been too good to be true for Germany lately.) Genna really enjoys the group, and she said she wanted to go. They sang her Happy Birthday and everything!

Story time pictures: My girls are usually the most enthralled in the book! Can you tell?

Here is a video of a part of one of the songs after story time. They girls love to sing, especially my musical Genna!