April Part 1

March

Christmas Break

After we returned from our Austria ski trip, Christmas break began. The kids were out of school and Steve was working just a few days a week because of the holidays. We decided to host a Tamale Party on Christmas Eve. My family in CA has one every year and I miss it, so why not start our own Tamale Party tradition. In preparation, I made 137 tamales! We even got a piñata for the kids! Overall, it was a good time and although I dread making more tamales, I think we’ll be hosting again next year.

 

Our Christmas Day was quieter, we just stayed in, ripped open all the gifts first thing, spent the whole day playing with the new stuff, and I made a Turkey and all the fixings for dinner. A few days later we put on real clothes and took the kids to the slopes in Civetta for the day for our friends, the R and M families . They had a great practice area for Brian, a nice sledding hill, and a free play area. Steve and I each got in a few runs and the kids had a great time. We also went bowling and to the movies, but our break was pretty low key overall. 

The busiest day of the year….

On December 7th, we had a day jam packed with events, as weekends leading up to the holidays usually are. Steve left the house early to fly all the way to the North Pole in an F16 to pick up Santa Claus and bring him to our Ops Group Kids Christmas Party. Both the kids were so excited and proud that their Daddy was assigned this duty. When Daddy and Santa were arriving, an announcement was made in the hanger that Santa was being taxied to the hanger in a jet piloted by a “World Famous, Highly Respected Triple Nickel Pilot,” and our kids screamed “it’s our Daddy!!!!” And Daddy had lots of time to talk to Santa about the kids because before Santa even climbed down the ladder, he waved in our direction and said in his jolly way, “Hello Emily!” It made her month. She went running up and monopolized the conversation with the Jolly Old Elf. She not-so-subtly went through her list of gift demands and prattled on about a few recent and slightly embellished good deeds. One of us eventually dragged her back through the crowd so the other star struck kids could get a word in. Brian was slightly more shy (or maybe a little skeptical) and was content to play some party games while we waited for our turn on Santa’s lap. We got the standard Santa’s lap photos and he gave each kid a book, and Emily once again chatted his ear off. Overall, the kids had a blast and Emily basically fell head-over-heels for Santa. It’s so cute to see the magic of Christmas excite the kids so much!

 

Right after that party, the kids and I headed over to the base Ballet Recital, since our friends “S” and “A” from the “R Family” were performing and we wanted to support them. Emily was dancing along in the aisles, she wants to join Ballet sooooooooo bad. So bad, in fact, that we’ve been on the wait list since May with no luck. Then, just a few hours later, Steve and I attended our Squadron Christmas Dinner Party (minus kids). A super busy day but everyone had a blast!

Turkey and Skiing

We spent actual Thanksgiving with our friends, the R Family, enjoying fried Turkey and all the fixings. Then we loaded up the next morning and drove 5 hours to the Stubai Glacier in Austria and spend the rest of the weekend in the beautiful, Austrian winter wonderland. The resort was great, with lessons for Brian, a play place for Emily to hang out in so Steve and I could ski together. It was our first skiing this season, and my first time on actual skis (last year I was on ski blades), so it was a rough day for me. I felt okay in the morning on a few easy blues, and then in the afternoon when Brian was done with his lesson, we got a little too aggressive trying some unknown blues that ended up being too steep and narrow for two beginners. But the scenery was amazing and it was snowing all morning, so the powder was fresh and everyone had fun. Steve skied on day two and then we returned home. It was a short trip but I think we found a great place we’d like to return to for a longer trip someday.

Thanks to the R Family’s oldest daughter, we got a night out with adults, our friends Khan and Tisha, and Darla and Casey.

Halloween-ish

So Halloween-ish came and went again. I call it Halloween-ish because we don’t actually do anything on October 31st. No trick-or-treating from house to house. The schools (both off and on base) don’t allow dressing up. But, the weekend after real Halloween, the base does put on a pretty cool Halloween-themed block party with all sorts of fun for the kids and lots of trunk-or-treating, so they did get to dress up and get way too much candy. Brian is clearly Obi Wan Kanobi (I had to google how to spell that). He’s clearly not Luke Skywalker (“Mom, Luke’s not cool!”) or that other guy, Hans Solo (“Mom! Hans Solo is not even a Jedi, gesh!”). And Emily was happy to just pull some Princess dress from her dress-up collection on the day of and call herself Princess Leia, although I think that’s Sleeping Beauty’s dress. Needless to say, Star Wars is super cool in our house right now!

Fun-Filled Weekend

This last weekend, Steve was off on Friday, which also happened to be his 36th birthday. And then Sunday was Father’s Day. We had no set plans other than a family photo-shoot on friday afternoon, so we did a lot of nothing and a few fun things too. Friday morning the kids and I made a cheese eggs and bacon breakfast for Steve and dragged him out of bed at the crack of dawn 9 am. And off to the beach we went. It was perfect beach weather, sunny blue skies, with a light breeze to keep you at the perfect temperature. The water was warm enough to swim in and the sand conditions were perfect for the kids to be entertained for hours just digging random holes. We could have stayed all day. But not really, because we had to go home to shower and get done up for a photo-shoot. The kids were overdue for pictures and since there is nothing that Steve despises more than a photo-shoot, we jumped in too so we can call our family officially photographed for the year. He was good and pissy by the end of the pictures and even though everyone got the standard smile bribery of starburst, he didn’t cheer up until we got to the restaurant where we had dinner and he got a few glasses of wine. Their vino de la casa was really good and happened to be from the vineyard our pictures were taken in just an hour before. His spirits were cheered even more when we got home to a vanilla and strawberry gelato cake. It was delicious! The kids loved coloring cards for him and dragging him to the beach for his birthday and they both told him “Happy Birthday!” every chance they could all day long.

On saturday, we went out to buy a bike for me and a trailer for Emily. And then we took a long evening ride to test out the new equipment. The goal is for Brian to ride alongside us on his bike, but ever since he starting riding without training wheels in the fall, he’s a little wobbly and too intimidated for a long street or trail ride. So, on our first ride, both kids were in the trailer and Steve got quite the workout pulling 80 pounds of blonde cuteness behind his bike. The next day Brian begged to practice his riding more because he said it looked like way more fun to ride a bike than sit in the baby trailer. Steve worked with him for a few hours and in no time at all, he was riding the trail with us like a pro. So, Sunday/Father’s Day was more bike riding and also a picnic at the park for lunch. And again the kids had fun making a pancake breakfast and cards for him. He was lavished with love and kisses all weekend!

Easter in Garmisch

We decided to take advantage of the extra long winter and ski season we experienced this year and spent Easter weekend in Garmisch, Germany at the Edelweiss Military Resort there. Steve and I have been to Garmisch many times as it was always a great place to bring visitors when we were stationed at Spangdahlem. Garmisch is in the Bavarian Alps, at the base of the tallest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitze, at 9,718 feet above sea level. The border of Germany and Austria run over it’s summit which means the area has a rich, alpine culture and it is beautiful year round. Our friends, the R Family, joined us there. Their 3 youngest children (out of 4) are perfect playmates for our kids and we always have a blast with Casey and Darla.

 

Steve and I had never skied in Garmisch before, so on the first full day, we got Emily a spot in the base daycare, got Brian signed up for a ski lesson, and Steve and I skied part of the Garmisch Classic Resort. I’m still working on becoming a skier, but Steve was nice and stuck with me most of the time. Even when, on a icy part of a steep red run, I removed my skis and slid down 50 yards on my bottom. He did pretend not to know me but waited at the bottom for me anyways. Brian’s lesson was over at lunch time so we grabbed a bite to eat with him at a chalet on the mountain and then hit the blue runs a few times. Then he showed us his skills on the kiddy-area jumps.

 

The next day, we woke up to clear skies and decided to summit the Zugspitze that day since the weather was promising a good view from the top. Steve and I never summited the Zugspitze before and had always wished we had. None of us have ever seen a glacier before and the Zugspitze is home to 3 of Germany’s 5 glaciers. We joined the R family on the train from a station nearby the resort and then at the Eibsee station, we switched to a cog train that would take us through a long tunnel to the top. When the train first entered the tunnel, it halted and an announcement was made in German. None of the Germans aboard the train seemed worried, so we figured everything was fine and it was just a slight delay. But not Emily. She was all doom and gloom and predicting the train was going to slide backwards and never stop and we were “all gonna die!” Even when the train started up again a few minutes later without incident, she continued her doomed prophecies from my lap and it was all I could do to keep her from having a full-on panic attack. It was a long half hour and she was shaking as she ran from the train when the ride was over. From the train stop at the Zugspitzplatt, you can ski on the glaciers or take a short cable car up to the summit. We skipped the skiing that day and summited the mountain. Luckily Emily had no aversions to cable car rides and we made it to the top without any fits. Most of the R family stayed below to ski, but their oldest daughter, C, and their youngest, S, rode up with us. Little S is who you see in the pictures with our kids. The summit was unbearably cold, like your fingers freeze when you take your gloves off to snap a picture kind of cold! So we snapped a few pics and then got in line for the cable car back down to Eibsee, since there was no way we were taking the tunnel train back down! The cable car takes only 10 minutes from the top down (the train takes about 40 minutes) and it’s mostly straight down. It was a little scary but we made it down in time for a quick lunch back at the resort and some wandering around Garmisch and some time at the resort pool.

 

The next morning was Easter and we attended the resort’s egg hunt, got pictures with the Bunny himself, who Brian later told me was “just a guy in a bunny suit Mom!” Uh oh, he’s getting too big too fast! Then we had a lovely Easter brunch with the R family and we all hit the road back home, about a 5–hour drive. It was a great vacation, so great that 4 days later we were back in Garmisch for another long weekend over spring break. More on that soon!

Above: taking the cable car up to the summit. Below: at the summit of the Zugspitze. It had clouded up a little by the time we made it up to the top so we could only see the mountains and not the valleys at the base.

Above: taking the cable car from the summit down to Eibsee, 10 minutes, almost straight down!

An American Easter Tradition

We of course just had to dye hard boiled eggs for Easter. Even though I am the only one in the family who will eat them! The kids interest in it lasted just long enough for each of them to dye 6 eggs. I went simple this year, the 99 cent kit with 5 colors and the white crayon. Then we (we=me) fancied up a few of them into bunnies using pipe cleaners from our craft bin. We gave these to Rina and Claudio and I explained to him that American children must must must dye eggs every year but they never ever eat them, so we try to give away as many as possible to keep Mommy from having to eat egg salad sandwiches 3 meals a day for a whole week. I remember loving dying eggs as a child but I would never actually eat one (eww!) so my sisters and I would bring them to our Easter dinner at Grandma’s house and hand them out to our family there. I can only imagine how appetizing those eggs must have been 6-8 hours later when our gracious family members got them home and into the fridge. I hope we never caused a case of food poisoning!

An Italian Easter Tradition

The weekend before Easter, we woke up to two gigantic chocolate toy-filled Easter eggs on our doorstep, placed there for the kids by our sweet landlady, Rina. I had noticed these all over the place at the Italian market but I wasn’t sure what they were. We’ve had the little chocolate eggs with a tiny toy inside, but I didn’t know they came even bigger. It seems that this is a traditional Easter gift for an Italian child. Our children were thrilled. And even though Emily can’t have chocolate, she didn’t seem to mind and loved the giant pink egg inside the chocolate egg that held the toy. Oh and an FYI: I didn’t realize this but these chocolate toy-filled eggs were illegal in the US until this year! They weren’t allow before now, something about there being inedible parts mixed with candy and that is bad? Not bad. Chocolate + toy = happiness! I think we have adopted a new Easter tradition!

Carnivale

On Sunday, we attended a Carnivale Parade one town over in Maniago. Carnivale is a festival that occurs before lent in Italy, sort of like our American Mardi Gras, only less crazy, no beads, more confetti, and more kid friendly. It consists of a parade with floats and dancers and lots of confetti and loud music. Everyone is in costume in the parade and in the crowd almost all the children were dressed up too. Very similar to our Halloween, only without trick or treating. The kids had a blast watching the floats go by and dancing along to the most popular song of the day: “Gangnam Style.” (2012 called, they want their song back.) About an hour into it, we started getting cold and restless so we walked to the town square, where all the floats and dancers ended up and grabbed some Vin Brulee (hot spiced wine) and little sugared pastry chip things that came with the wine. All were hungry and tired so home we went but we are looking forward to our small town’s Carnivale parade tomorrow!