thankful in bavaria.

Bavarian Alps anyone? Yes, please--I'll take a long weekend in the alps.

We had a marvelous weekend in Garmisch-Partenkirchen at an Army lodge called Edelweiss!  It was honestly so wonderful - the whole thing.  We drove down (about 5 hours) on Thursday morning and walked straight into the lodge for our Thanksgiving feast!  We had all the delicious Thanksgiving food without any work.  We were very much missing family that day and may have mentioned it a few times - love you Moselles & Blomgrens!

Evelyn & David enjoying some turkey.

We were mostly nervous about the hotel stay at night with the littles in the same room as us.  We weren't sure what people do - leave them there (we brought a monitor), go to bed (no way!), or do what we did and try to watch a movie while they went to bed!  It fortunately worked pretty darn good.  We just had the tv on and turned all the lights out and then once they were quiet we popped our movie in and enjoyed a little down time.  In the mornings we drank coffee, ate pastries and played around the room...

At night, we took it easy...

On Friday we decided to start exploring! We drove down this beautiful quaint road (below) and right in front of us was the ski jump from the Olympics held in Garmisch in 1936 - what a scary looking jump!

Once we parked we took about 3.5 hours exploring the Partnach Gorge.  The girls both took naps in the Ergos while we walked and we were in awe of the beautiful waterfalls, aqua water and lots of icicles.  It was very loud and windy and we had to walk through these super creepy long tunnels where there were no lights - quite the adventure!  We're sorry we didn't get a great picture but you get the idea...

 

Once we were through the gorge we took these stairs about 25 minutes up to a high mountain village where we ate a little German white sausage (Norah loved it), a pretzel, and German beer. It was a stunning view.

That evening we took it easy and ate at the lodge again and then watched a friend's kids for a bit so they could get out and talk!  It was so easy having 7 kids (they had a movie on so really, it was easy!)!

The following day we drove to another nearby village to check out a beautiful catholic monastery. It's still being used daily and has monks living in the quarters connected to the worship center.  This is one of the interior of the worship center.  One more interesting thing - the monastery has a brewery.  This makes me laugh. They make beer and liqueur and sell it.

This is Norah's "smile". Whenever we ask her to smile for the camera, this is what we get - it's kinda fugly (funny and ugly all at once).  I keep telling David - at least she looks and posses instead of running away or turning her head!

Eating in bed and cartoons - gasp! - what parents allow that?!

On the final day, on the way home, we stopped at Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that Disney modeled their Sleeping Beauty castle after. We took a bus up to this lookout area and got some good pictures and continued the walk to the castle for a tour.  The castle is unfinished because Ludwig II died before it was finished being painted etc (although the 1/3 of it that is complete took 17 years!).  Ludwig had another castle within walking distance (see below) but this castle was much more magnificent.  We were not allowed to take pictures of the interior but it was stunning and detailed and very well preserved with wood carving, painting, mosaics and chandeliers.

The front door to the castle and view from the opposite side.

You can see one of his other castles there on the hill.

We took a carriage ride down pulled by horses and Norah was elated. She just kept talking about horsies this and that (we couldn't understand what she was saying), it was so fun to see her that excited.

Evelyn, getting more expressive as the weeks pass!

norah dances & sings.

changes.

One of our walks in the woods.

David. He's mostly good.  As the leader of our family I know he's feeling the weight of all the changes we're experiencing and feeling somewhat responsible for some of the hard stuff. Of course, he's not responsible--he's the strong one sorta holding this gang of girls together!  Work is going well. He's figuring out the rhythm of things in his office and the new medical lingo. He had his first speaking engagement almost two weeks ago and did a great job. He'll speak to medical providers at bases around Europe, filling them in on new medical legal things to be aware of as health care professionals.  He's also been hard at work on our crazy yard. We have a lot of bamboo and each year we will have to chop it all down, shred it and ditch it somewhere!  There are a lot of other yard things to tend to and David's made a great effort to keep up with the German standards. Oh, one more thing... David's also been the driving force behind getting settled. I think it has something to do with the fact that he's been here for over four months!  He's encouraged us to put our clothes in the dressers (haha, you think this is simple?!), to paint our living room (exciting photos to come), to hang pictures (that hasn't actually happened yet) and still take advantage of the outdoors while it's still warm enough to explore!  I'm more than thankful for David and his amazing role in our family. He's an amazing partner and Daddy to my girls.

Another walk in the woods!

Kelly. Me. I'm, well... struggling/stuck/sad/fine. It's such a weird blur of life we've had. Literally months of transition and, I know, I have a ton of stuff to catch y'all up on. I'm not sure how but we'll get there. Anyway, I guess through all the months pre-Germany I knew I wasn't processing what was happening, but instead was coping and had emotions about it all but not exactly able to deal with things while holding things together during the move/adoption/single-parenting thing. Now that life as we knew it has totally ceased, it's all catching up with me and it's hard stuff.  I feel all over the place emotionally - not like crying one second and laughing the next...ummm, okay that has happened a few times (thank God for kids!)! Anyway, suffice to say I'm not even sure where to start with me. I think I've done an okay job with staying verbally positive and moving forward by physically putting myself out there (MOPS, Bible study, coffee with the neighbors) but emotionally I feel stunted. I do have a sense that I'm in this new place in the last few days even... sort of accepting this change and wanting, no needing, more from my new life and (non) community.  Does that catch you up on me?  Again, David has held me crying or sat across the room or on the other end of the phone many times as I process and grieve (him too) what's been changing in our lives.  The move has been hard - the adoption has been hard and both combined REALLY hard to handle all at once. I keep thinking... Lord, do you know what's you're doing here?!  Okay, I hope I'm not too much of a debbie downer just trying to keep it real here. Thanks for hanging in there with us and please keep praying if you think of us!

Norah. Even though I think these changes have been hard I look at Norah and feel refreshed or sometimes I look at her and feel worried.  She's really been enduring some hard times, too.  We aren't sure if her changes are due to her age, bringing Evelyn home, or the loss of life as she knew it in Spokane (all three?). I know kids are very versatile and she'll bounce back but she has been grieving some too.  She's never been too picky of an eater but the last few weeks she's been not eating much. We've tried to bribe her (is that wrong?!), make it fun or silly, sing, threaten, anything we can think of to get her to eat more but it just hasn't worked. Evelyn eats at least twice as much as Norah and she's not quite as big as Norah so it does concern us some.  Also, Norah's been a fairly good sleeper in the last year but since the move she's been "sleeping" 14 hours a night and about a 3-4 hour nap!  Now, I say "sleeping" because during the night she wakes up screaming and crying and we can't tell if she's having nightmares or afraid of where she is - it's all such a guessing game as parents.  We've been trying to keep things as routine as possible but things haven't gotten a lot better.  On a positive note, when she's awake (sans meal-time) she's very happy and herself. She's talking a lot, loves calling family on the phone, bossing Wrigley (and sister) around, plays very well with her sister and continues to read books all the time.  One more funny thing - she keeps taking her diaper off!  I am almost "afraid" to put her down for her nap without a onsie on because I've found her booty in the open more than once. She'll go to the bathroom and then promptly remove the diaper - I know this is a sign of her getting ready to potty train but I'm almost positive she's not actually ready (but I did buy a toilet seat cover for her!). Exciting times as a two year old!

Our little princess for the halloween office party!

Evelyn. The littlest, by only a little!  Our "baby" is seriously coming into her own skin. It's beautiful to see her really coming out of her shell and feeling at home with us. It's not that we haven't seen her happy before now but it's been a slow thing for Evelyn.  Like I mentioned earlier, she eats a lot and still takes a bottle before bed (mostly for bonding). I do remember Norah at this age seeming to eat snacks and meals through the whole day, Evelyn is no different.  One thing though, Evelyn is stubborn. She likes to be in control and likes to feed herself. She's can't quite do a spoon yet so when it's a spoon meal she's pretty resistant to letting us be in control of the intake.  She loves playing around with (or without) Norah and seems fascinated by simple things. She too looks at books a lot and continues to find Wrigley and Norah hilarious.  She is 16 months today and definitely not interested in walking at all but we keep trying to encourage her a bit (although we don't mind that they aren't both running away from us yet!). She's definitely talking a bit - not sure what she's saying but a lot of things sound like phrases Norah says like "hi sister!" She'll use the same inflection but not actually pronounce it. It's cute but scary if she starts to talk :)

 In other news...
...we are uncle, aunt and cousins for the second time!!!! We are so excited to help announce Kristin & Keith's little guy.  Micah was born Sunday November 13th weighing 8lbs 10oz. What a joy!  We cannot wait to meet him next summer.  Stay a baby Micah!!
...we were supposed to go to Paris this past weekend but we decided to get sick - really really sick.  First David got it and we ended up in the ER to get him some fluids (that was Monday) and then Thursday night we were packed and ready to hit the road Friday morning (Wrigley was already at the sitters) and I got it. So, we went back to the ER on Friday instead of Paris. It's took the whole weekend, plus some, to get back to functioning motherhood.  I'm thankful we didn't get this virus while we were away and more thankful that the girls haven't gotten it.  I would be heartbroken!