Munich - July 2015

This blog post is dedicated to Travis' Aunt Sandy, who told me in no uncertain terms that she's tired of waiting for a new post.... hahaha

So here's the deal.  I like to edit my pictures for better coloring before I post them online, but when we go on vacations, we take HUNDREDS of pictures.  So, in order to post them, I have to sort through, pick out, and edit each individual picture before I can post them.  Ummm.... who has time to do that?!  So I've decided that I'll stop editing.  I'll stop putting the pictures in collages.  I figure that you'd rather see a few, unedited pictures shortly after our trips than a lot of more colorful pictures months and months later (or, let's face it, never).

This bring us to today.  April 20, 2016.  I am finally going to start posting things from our trips that have yet to make it on the blog.  Some things will be skipped - sorry about that.  I'm going to show you some pictures from our biggest trips.  The first big trip we took that didn't make it on here is from last summer.  We took the train to Munich, then to Salzburg.  I started editing the Munich pictures back in August, but didn't have time to finish.  So here we go:

Day 1 in Munich -

We went to see the Residenz Treasury.  It was pretty awesome!  There were all kinds of jewels set in all types of things.  Can you tell that the crowns were my favorite?

Then we walked (hiked??) to the English Garden for dinner.  It was a very hot, long walk.  Exhausting, actually.  You can rent bikes to ride, which would've been awesome, but we didn't have a way to do that with the kiddos in tow.  The top picture below is where people like to sunbathe completely naked - we were too far away to see anything, though.  We passed by loads of people swimming in the river (bottom left).  We were totally and completely jealous as we watched while sweating bullets.  I thought it was kind of amazing that there were so many of them when there was a very clear sign right there forbidding any swimming.  We finally made it to the Chinese tower, where we were able to sit and eat.  What do you think of the size of that pretzel and beer??  Germany at its finest, nein?  :)

We couldn't stand the thought of walking allllllll the way back to the metro station, so we rode a buggy pulled by a bicyclist. It was totally the way to go, and we hem-hawed enough that we got the guy to drop his price for us.  The second picture was taken right when Natalie spilled her ice cream ALL OVER the seat.....  Oooops.... ha!

Day 2 -

We started the day at Marienplatz! Really cool!

Next was St. Peter's Church, which is Munich's oldest church.  We saw several churches in Munich, and I think this one was my favorite.

Next we walked to the Viktualienmarkt (open-air market), where we grabbed a quick lunch of brats and pretzels.  Sometime between taking the following pictures, my banana was stolen.  I kid you not.  It was lying on top of the stroller, I took the picture of the maypole, and then my banana was gone...  *sigh*

These pictures were taken as we walked around Munich.  The bottom right picture is of the Michael Jackson memorial.  It's located on the base of a random statue (which is NOT of Michael Jackson), which is outside the hotel that he apparently stayed at when in the city.

We also saw the Residenz Museum this day.  It was huge, and had some really beautifully painted ceilings.  We actually skipped part of the palace in order to get out more quickly.  The kiddos did alright, but it was a long walk through it all!

Day 3 -

This day was reserved for the Deutsches Museum, which I personally don't think was worth our time.  It seemed kind of outdated, to be honest.  We enjoyed the areas with old musical instruments, though.

Now on to the unedited pictures...  After the museum, we went to the Cuvillies Theatre.

We ended the day by eating dinner at the Hofbrauhaus.  There was a live polka band playing, and it was good fun.  The people sitting at the other end of our long table totally skipped out on their bill after ordering and drinking several giant beers....  There were people wearing lederhosen, too.  :)

 
Day 4 -

Our last day in Munich, we went to the Nymphenburg Palace.  We chose to skip the inside tour, and just enjoy walking around the grounds.  I'm sure that inside the palace was nice, but we've been inside many palaces at this point, and just wanted to be outside.

At the palace, they had a museum of coaches and sleighs which was really fun to see!  I'd never seen any in real life before this.  These people went all out for their transportation....  Gotta keep up appearances, right?  And don't forget the king's favorite horse, which he had stuffed when it died...

The next day we took the train to Salzburg!  Unfortunately, even without editing pictures, this post took me entirely way too long to write up....  So Salzburg will have to wait for another day.  I gotta say, going through pictures that were taken 9 months ago.... my babies look so tiny in them all!  :)  Time flies when you're having fun.

Bavaria, Castles, Alps... Amazing

Believe it or not, I actually do try to use this blog for more than just updates on the baby.  It's hard to find the time to sort out and edit all of our pictures, though, so I rarely post about things right after they happen.  However, I will do what I can to post more often.  For our family and friends who want to stay updated on our every day life events that don't make it to the blog (and who want to see vacation pictures when they happen), I have an Instagram account that I post pictures on pretty regularly.  My username is chrissytx21 for those of you who want to follow me there.  (Make sure I know who you are when you request to follow me, because I'm pretty picky about who can see my pictures.  If I don't know who you are, I won't let you follow!)

Anyway, back at the beginning of April, we took a vacation to Bavaria!  It was beautiful!  We left on Easter Sunday and drove a couple of hours to the city of Stuttgart.  We spent the afternoon at the Wilhelma Zoo, and, believe it or not, it was Natalie's (and Aidan's) first time at the zoo!  We really enjoyed our day!  We got to see a lot of animals up close.  It was dinner time for the elephants and hippos, so we got to see them really up close and personal.  I have never seen a cheetah so close, and it was awesome!  (Trivia for you, cheetahs are my favorite wild animal.)  Wilhelma used to be a palace, so the grounds were very pretty, and even had a botanical garden in the zoo.  After the zoo, we checked into our hotel for the night.

The next day we drove a couple more hours to the city of Füssen.  Driving into the Alps was just beautiful!  There is no other word for it.  It was frigid and snowing that day.  We didn't have anything planned, except to check into our hotel apartment and buy some groceries, but even those plans were foiled.  Did you know that Easter Monday is a holiday in Germany?  We didn't.  Ha!  All the stores were closed...  oops.  So we checked into our hotel and went hunting for some dinner.

{Outside our apartment ... The hotel's front door ... The snowy streets of Füssen}

Luckily, the snow was on its way out.  The rest of our trip was cold, but sunny and clear!

{The view from our hotel apartment.}
{5 p.m. ... 7 p.m. ... 8 a.m.}

We spent our first full day walking around the town of Füssen (and buying groceries).  The view was amazing!  We saw more of the Alps, ate schneeballen (which means "snowballs" - delicious!), found the end of the Romantic Road, walked along the river, and enjoyed the city that we chose as a home base.

The next day was by far my most favorite day of our trip!  It was the day we got to see Schloss Neuschwanstein!  We had been wanting to see this particular castle for a very long time.  It's the castle that Walt Disney used as a model for Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World.  Neuschwanstein is right next to Schloss Hohenschwangau, which I thought had a really cool and historic interior.  (Our guide for Hohenschwangau was awesome!)  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside either castle.

For our last full day, we drove about an hour away to see Schloss Linderhof.  It was set in a gorgeous location.  Thanks to the snow, though, we didn't get to see the grounds in all their glory.  They had boxes covering most of the statues and plants.  I would like to go back sometime in the summer, I think.  Still, it was a neat palace to visit, and nothing can beat that view!  Poor Natalie got car sick on our drive out there, so she had to wear my jacket and Travis' hat to keep warm.  On the drive back to Füssen, we stopped to see the Wieskirche.  It was (is?) a pilgrimage church, because supposedly the wooden statue of Jesus inside actually cried once... or something.  (I don't believe it, but the inside of the church was beautiful!)

{The 3 pictures in the bottom right corner are at the Wieskirche, the rest are from Schloss Linderhof.}

Our last day was just a day in the car.  We wanted to ride the summer luge, but it didn't open until 1 p.m., so we didn't have time to stay and ride it.  Instead, we spent a little bit of time playing at a playground, ate lunch, then hit the road.  The 4 hour trip took us 7 hours, thanks to traffic.  Our poor babies were hating the car, and the ride was just miserable... but we survived.

What fun we had!  Natalie now has a true love of castles, and gets very excited at the thought of seeing one.  We have learned to never attempt a 4 hour car ride with the kiddos again.  (At least not out here...)  Can I just say that I love the Alps?  Gorgeous.  God is so awesome.

2014 in Review

There have been so many things that I intended to blog about this past year, but I just didn't have the time (or internet) to do it.  I have promised y'all lots of pictures, and this post fulfills that promise!  haha!  Rather than post about each thing individually, I decided it would be easier for me to just do a year in review of sorts.  There are activities that have been left out, and many many pictures that I just didn't have the time or energy to edit and post, but I hope you aren't disappointed!  Some months had more activities than others, as I'm sure you'll be able to tell.  (I obviously didn't add anything that I've previously posted.)

If you want to get a better look at the pictures, don't forget that you can click on the picture and it will make it larger for you!  If any of you would like a picture or two, let me know which one and I'll be happy to email the individual picture to you.  Collages just seemed the easiest way for me to get all these pics on here this time.

So without further ado, here is our 2014:

January:

After months of planning trips to Muir Woods and then cancelling, we FINALLY made it out there! 

I accidentally brought the wrong lens for my camera, so I didn't get the greatest scenery pics, but that's ok.  After the hike, we went to the lookout point for the Golden Gate Bridge and enjoyed some awesome fog.

February:
We had a picnic at a park in Vacaville one sunny day!  Natalie had a blast running around in the grass.  Man, she looks so little to me in this picture!

March:
As previously posted, my baby brother came to visit us! On his last day we were able to go hiking at the Rockville Hills Regional Park.  It was beautiful weather and good exercise.  :)

April:
This month, Travis' dad and aunt were able to come visit us!  These pictures were all taken on the day that we went to the V. Sattui Winery in Napa.

May:
Travis' mom flew out for a visit this month, and we got to take Natalie to her first air show.  She loved those planes!

June:
My parents were able to come see us this month, and we took a long weekend to go to the Monterey Bay area.  It was gorgeous!

July:
We made the big move to Germany and lived in a hotel for a month!  Our first big sightseeing adventure was to Trier, Germany, which is about an hour from our house.  We had a good time looking at the sights until we got caught in a HUGE thunderstorm with no umbrella!  We hung out in a tunnel for an hour before the rain let up a bit and we attempted to make it back to our car.  Still plenty of things to do in that city that we missed because of the rain!

August:
We drove to Heidelberg, Germany, for the day to check out that town and castle.  We took the tour of the castle, but they didn't allow pictures to be taken inside.  Boo.  It DID rain on us this day, too, but we had already learned our lesson and had an umbrella ready!

September:
Travis had his first tour, and at the end of it we rendezvoused in Vienna!  It is our biggest trip so far, and was so fun!  We got to spend 3 days in the city, and saw some amazing sights.  These pictures don't even scratch the surface of all the pictures we took.  ha!

October:
I have been on quite a crochet kick lately, and this hat and scarf set was the first in a long line of projects that I've completed.  Natalie just looks so cute in it that I had to take her out for a little photo shoot!  Also, we were thrown an awesome baby shower for Baby Boy on the weekend of Halloween!  We got some matching shirts to make the occasion even more fun.  hahaha

November:
At the end of this month, we got to go to our first German Christmas market!  We decided to go back to Trier, and it was great fun.  Looking forward to more Christmas markets next year!

December:
This month Natalie turned 2!  But that is worth its own post.  We stayed home during the Christmas break, since it's so close to Baby Boy's due date, and I've been so achy that we haven't even done much in the area.  We enjoyed a nice, quiet Christmas at home, and watching Natalie open presents this year was so fun!  It has snowed a few times, which has been beautiful.  2014 has been a great year, and we're looking forward to all that God has in store for us in 2015!

The Silverado Trail

The Silverado Trail is a road that runs parallel to the highway which goes through Napa Valley.  I read about it a couple of years ago.  Supposedly, the Silverado Trail is one of the best places to drive during the fall.  I wanted to take the drive last year, but, being huge pregnant, I knew I wouldn't be able to survive the "just for the heck of it" trip.  So we went this year.  We actually drove out there on the weekend before Thanksgiving, so this post is quite late.  No surprise there, right?  ;)

The trail starts around Calistoga, which is a good hour from our house, so we drove up the highway to get there and drove back on the Silverado Trail.  We decided to start off by going to the petrified forest that's up there.  These are petrified redwoods, y'all!  Huge!

The View from the Petrified Forest

Next to a small piece of petrified wood.  Yes, I said that it's small.

I thought this was so cool!  A tree grew up in the middle of a petrified tree.

After walking through the petrified forest, we drove down the Silverado Trail.  It really was beautiful!  Most of the grapevines are (were) covered in yellow leaves.  We were out there right before sunset, so we had a beautiful view!

I sure do love my tripod!  :-D

We didn't stop to do any wine tastings, but we did pull over so I could snap some pictures.  :-D  The following winery is called Darioush.  I actually read a review that said the wine is no good, but the building was cool.  I can't speak for the wine, but I agree that the building is pretty cool.  ;)

Sorry there aren't more pictures.  We mostly just drove and enjoyed the view.  The northern half of the trail was gorgeous!  Closer to the city of Napa, not so much.  I am glad that we made the trip though.  I've always thought that Napa Valley was beautiful in the fall!