My first trip away

My dear, dear friend Katy came to visit for TWO whole weeks!!! It was so, so completely wonderful. And, as a fun and special treat, mommy worked up the gusto to take her first trip ever away from Calvin. Ahhhh!!!! It was hard to leave .... but once I was out the door I had a blast! I had forgotten many, many things about life before children ... what it is like to stay out late, sleep in, go wherever I want, do whatever I want, stop for coffee whenever I want, have an uninterupted conversation, etc. (of course, it goes without saying, yet I will say it ... Calvin is 500% worth giving those things up ... but a few days of revisiting it was fun ;).

Anyways, Katy and I went to London!!! And we had a ball. We saw the sights, took in a couple of shows, did some shopping, drank lots of coffee, ate lots of great food, and overall just had a really wonderful time together. Sadly, I have like, no pictures to show you because even though I carried my camera around the entire time, I rarely used it. Here is one of me in front of Big Ben ... my one piece of proof that I actually went ;).

Meanwhile, Matt and Calvin had a ball. They went to the zoo together, took in a museum, and just enjoyed some good daddy-son bonding time. Matthew also had some new insight into the life of the full-time stay at home parent, which is always good ;).

Christmas Part 2: Bavaria & Salzburg

After a week in Switzerland we rented a car to spend two days driving through Bavaria. We mostly just weaved across the German and Austrian border. It was a lot of fun and Calvin did absolutely awesome in the car.

Our first stop was the cute little town of Lindau. We had our first Bavarian meal for lunch - brats and beer! It was also really, really cold so we walked around the city for about an hour and then ran back to the car, stoked to crank up the heat! As a side note, I should mention that on our initial flight to Zurich one of our bags was "delayed". Whatever. They lost it. Anyways, we were thankful it wasn't the bag that had all of our clothes in it. However, it did have Calvin's crib, winter jacket, my walking shoes, and Calvin's medicine bag. Grrrr. And yes, it is still MIA. Prayers for it being found are appreciated! That is why in all of these pictures Calvin looks completely bulky. Because we were missing his winter coat we super bundled him every time we went outside.

"Can I have that beer please daddy?"

One thing I really wanted to see was castles! Especially Neuschwenstein (sp?) that always looks so beautiful in pictures. What a disappointment! First of all, the town is totally a tourist trap. Secondly, and most importantly, the castle was covered in freaking scaffolding! Big strike against Rick Steve's for not letting his tourists know that. But it was also just kind of small, compared to how romantically large and Disney-esque it looks in pictures. So rather than take the tour up to actually see the castle, we just waved at it from the street below. Lame.

The only redeeming part of our castle disaster was the cute little nearby town of Fussen. We spent a few hours walking around there enjoying the Christmas lights before heading to our very cute little B&B for the night. And yes, Calvin is in his pajamas because right as pulled into Fussen he pooped ALL over the place - carseat, pants, legs, shirt, etc. Thank you for acquiring diarrhea in the car.


The next morning we woke up to falling snow! That was a fun treat. We headed deeper into the mountains to find the highly recommended little village town of Mittenwald. It was so cute! But Matt had decided he really wanted to visit Munich, so we walked around for about an hour and then headed the extra hour to Munich. But Mittenwald was SO cute! I wish we had more time to explore it! Maybe next time ;).

Here's Calvin loving his carseat on our way to Munich!

And the beautiful mountain drive! Snow!

And Munich! And what better thing to do in Munich than to find a beer hall and eat goulash soup and drink big beers? Yay! It was great fun.


Exploring the city! Which was really quite beautiful.

And then ... 30 minutes outside of Munich and on the Autobon ... diarrhea hits again. Here was our very exciting diaper change. And no, it was not dangerous. It just looks like it is.

The next big plan was to spend three days in Salzburg before flying home. The first day we decided to take it easy and hang out at home to give Calvin some good rest and let him run around. That afternoon we went out for a short walk to explore the city. He seemed a bit fussier than normal, but we're traveling so who knows what is to be expected.

That night he woke up a few hours after going to be absolutely burning up. His first fever. And, thanks to Air France and our stil lost bag, I had nothing with me. No thermometer, no tylenol, nothing - in a foreign land at night. I felt SO helpless. We were up with him every few hours trying to keep him hydrated and gave him some of our adult tylenol after speaking with a good Dr. friend to check our dosages. He ran a pretty good fever the whole next day, New Years Eve, so we stayed home. That night his fever seemed to break and the next morning he was much better. So after one final day of rest, we flew home.

Here was a short walk we took the last day in a frantic hope to see just a wee bit of Salzburg before flying home.


We were SO happy to get home!!! Calvin was stoked to see all of his toys and it was the first time that we could really tell that he actually understood that we were home, which was fun. Anyways, after just a few days back home, this kid has been doing nothing but sleeping. He's been pulling 12-13 hour nights and taking 3 hour naps every day. He finally seems back to normal -happy and healthy! While it was a great vacation, it's also great to be back "home"!

Christmas Part 1: Switzerland

We had a WONDERFUL time in Zurich with our dear friends from Princeton, the Altmann's. Peter and Birgit were our wise friends that we loved spending time at when we lived in Jersey, and they have two great kids - Reuben is 8 and Eliana is 10. We had so much fun being with them, and it was so hospitable of them to invite us into their home over Christmas.

They also have a dog, Dina. This was wonderful news to Calvin. He followed Dina everywhere, trying to do exactly what he's doing in this picture - touch her nose. That's all he wanted to do. Touch her nose.

Here is Birgit showing Calvin the stuffed horse - the things adults will do for a toddler ;).

This is just very Calvin - he is carefully inspecting the beads and touching them oh so carefully.

On Christmas Eve we took the train into Zurich (about 15 miles away) to see the town. What a lovely city it was! Here's Calvin and I preparing for our walk ... Calvin is becoming a train pro.

This is the Swarovski tree in the Zurich train station. It was unreal. In fact, when we first saw it from afar I joked to Matthew that something that beautiful must be adorned with diamonds - "haha, maybe they're even Swarovski crystals since the Swiss are so loaded!" ... and indeed they were. Funny.

There were parts of the city that were old and antique, there were parts that were rich and glamorous, and there were these parts (our favorites) that were just plain old cute.

The swiss are very proud of their water and there are public fountains like this one everywhere.

Sadly I started to feel totally nauseous about two hours into our big Zurich day, so we ended up heading back home and spending a quiet Christmas Eve afternoon resting together as a family, which was quite nice.

And then - Christmas morning! Calvin still has no idea about Christmas and had more fun just following the dog and kids around while they opened their presents. Here we are, waiting for the kids to get up!


And what is more fun than pulling a basket around the house?!

The next day the clouds finally cleared up and we went out for a hike! Matthew was yearning to see mountains so we hiked up a hill that overlooks Zurich. From there you can see the city and the alps! Win, win. And, more importantly, I saw my first swiss cow ;).

Reuben laughed at me for caring about a cow so I made him take a picture with me.

And here we are at the top! Beautiful Zurich is below.

The next day we went to Lake Luzern and took a gondola ride up Pilatus mountain. It was so much fun! The weather was absolutely perfect. Blue skies, no wind, and not too cold.



At the summit.

Reuben got a remote controlled car for Christmas and he and Calvin spent about 3 hours at the summit playing with it. Reuben drove, Calvin chased - both were thoroughly entertained.

Lounging in the "sun" ... and under the thick and cozy swiss blankie.

Family picture!

Calvin the mighty. One of these days I want to make a book of him standing in front of fun places - this kid gets around after all!

The gondola ride back down. Calvin LOVED it!



The next day Calvin and I took a break and stayed home to rest while Matthew and Peter went snowshoeing with a friend. They had beautiful weather for it!


Pictures from the rest of the trip soon to come ...

Sinterklaas!

Here is what we have learned in our few months in Amsterdam ... the coming of Sinterklaas is a HUGE deal. He arrives in the Netherlands via boat in mid-November and then is officially "here" until they celebrate Christmas with present opening on December 5, therefore preserving the actual day of Christmas as a more religious holiday (I think, anyway). Instead of watching Sinterklaas come into Amsterdam, we hopped on the train to my favorite little nearby town of Haarlam to watch him in a smaller, more intimate town setting (and less touristy). Oh my goodness what a show! The weather here has been COLD, but gorgeous. Sunshine and blue skies, which is saying something.

Adding to the fun is that Matthew's mom is here for two weeks! So she joined us for Sinterklaas viewing ;).

Anyways, here we are riding the tram to the train to Haarlam.

Heading over to the water to watch Sinterklaas arrive via boat.

Cute boys ;)

And here he comes!!!


Flanked by hundreds of dutch folk on their own little boats to get a better view of the show.

Obviously, Calvin had no idea what was going on and the horn on the boat made him cry. But he liked all the people and found that the dirt between the bricks on the road was especially interesting. I love my kid.

After Sinterklaas comes by boat, he rides back through town on a HORSE (very regal) and here are the boat-folk watching the parade.

I personally thought he looked more like Dumbledore than Santa Clause, but whatever.


We had a great time! What a fun cultural thing to take part in!