2nd day of our German Adventure

Man I love Friday's, there so good, yes? No. Not when they're good Friday...

A major plan for our day today was going to be taking Lacey and Troy to the amazing shops in Kohln (Cologne), but they were closed; everything was closed. Before we knew all this, this is how we began our day: 

After being extremely wary of the quality of this hotel after pulling up yesterday, all our faith was rewarded when we showed up to the included breakfast this morning; it was heaven on a plate. THIS made the Lublin hotel breakfast I raved about look like our dinky continental breakfasts back home. We had EVERYTHING, and we ate like kings. 

Afterward we drove along a road that paralleled the Mozel (river) in and out of miles of trees, and there were old towns and churches just built into the mountains. The drive was beautiful and it took us to the Haribo Candy Factory (the best gummy/candy manufacturer there is). When we got there we found it closed; we found the whole town closed and not a single person out and about. We snapped photos and left.

NEXT we made our way to the Kohln Cathedral which I found myself blown away by. It-was-HUGE. We went it and walked up the winding staircase all the way to the tallest tower. It made me sick. It wore me out. It was amazing.

We then made our way Aachen (awkhin) where we checked out the town building, a church, some more CLOSED shops... grr.. and just did some sight seeing. We went to a quaint Chocolate shop where I had a new experience. We purchased Hot Chocolates by selecting a flavor of hard block chocolate with a spoon stuck in it. Then, before paying you take everything you selected to a little table on the patio and they bring you some hot cream/milk. We placed the spoon with the chocolate on the end into the drink and stirred it until it was completely melted. I don't like hot chocolate, but I LOVED this stuff. We enjoyed this little cafe while Travis ran off to find a friend he had that he'd planned to meet up with. When we found him we then made our way to tour through the church where CHARLEMAGNE was crowned King and now housed his remains. We saw his tomb and and the church was immaculate. It was quite the experience.

~  We also ate some Italian ice. ~

My FAVORITE part of the day was when we made our to this fountain in the middle of a large courtyard and found two little boys scooting around on these two little wooden bikes that were self pushers. Maddix chased them around the fountain over and over again. Eventually one of the boys shared his bike and Maddix took many a turns chasing the boys. The parents explained to me that the dad was from Turkey but had lived in Germany for a long time, the mom was Romanian but lived in Hungry just before Aachen and that their boys spoke German, Turkish, Romanian, and a little Hungarian... and they were only 5 and 3... TRAVIS, teach our son German please. So a bit later our boys attracted another set of parents with a baby boy Maddix's age. He got down and played with them and the parents told me they were from Switzerland but were visiting Germany on Holiday:) By the end we even had one more friend join us. She was the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen. She was riding a long on her scooter keeping up with they boys and her father told us that he was Syrian and his wife was french... resulting in this gorgeous little angel. Maddix had so much fun with those kids and they all played so wonderfully. None of them knew each others language, or the cultural differences, and yet they worked together harmoniously. In fact I I've never seen kids share their toys the way they all did today. The boys kept rotating Maddix in on their bikes (Maddix was the poop SCREAMING every time his turn was over), the little girl kept sharing her scooter with the Swedish boy and it was just cute. It was by far the highlight of this trip:) 

We then had Travis' friend take us to his favorite restaurant and we dined on some "food for the common people," or what you would eat if a German woman invited you into her home for dinner; it stuffed us for the night and we were all done for. We barely made it back to the hotel and I had to hurry and write this day down before I forgot it! This trip has so fun and Troy and Lacey have been so amazing to be here with. Hope they know how much we appreciate their company!

1st day to our German Adventure

1:05am: Alarm rings and I think, "can it really be time to get up already?" 

After packing the rest of our things we hopped on a taxi van that we shared with another student and made our way for our 6:30am flight from Warsaw to Frankfurt. 

10:00am: Made our walk (with all our bags, car seat, and Maddix in hand) to the Frankfurt temple, only to find out to that our stupid late flight made us miss our opportunity to do any temple work:( So we walked around the grounds then made our way back to the Train Station to hop a train to the car rental shop. 

Beginning of our trip:

We began in Wetzlar- enjoying all the gorgeous sights, made our way to Braunsfeld where we had lunch and Maddix found a puppy to play with and we walked around a castle. When then ended the night in a town called, Limburg an der Lahn which had a lot of narrow streets with tons of old buildings. We walked around a few churches and took it all in. 

To end the night we made our way to the hotel Travis found on the internet.... The rooms we're in are decent with comfy beds, but the outside of it is... quite an eyesore! It looks like a Mexican joint that was trying to be Greek :) Hopefully Troy and Lacey can handle it ha ha. oh boy. 

So you can bed that after having Maddi up since 1:45am, with him NOT sleeping in the van, or on the plane, that he finally fell asleep right when the plane touched down... boo. We carried him around like a heavy rag doll in our arms for around an hour before he woke up (he was surprisingly good on the flight), he held it together through the day with some touch and go fits, and passed out in the car and off but never for long enough, and was NEVER happy to wake up! But he was a trooper and hung in there with us. When we got up to the room we bought him some milk, changed his bum (which was FULL of cranberries from the car ride... OOPS), and then he passed out; now it's my turn. Goodnight.

That's all for day one. Pictures will be uploaded to facebook later. 

P.s. Colors were inspired by our colorful Hotel:) 

Germany Trip's Eve

Today... Well you can imagine how today went with it being the day before our big trip:) It was everything preparatory for leaving at 2am tomorrow morning! We cleaned, did laundry (which I'm still waiting for my jeans to dry from; this is one of the moments I dream of having a laundry machine), packed, Trav and Maddix went for a walk, and ... well everything else that needed to be done.

We're going to be heading to bed here shortly, hence this early post. But in 6hrs our taxi will take us to the airport in Warsaw and by 6:30am We will be boarding our flight and on our way to another new country. Maddix is just shy of 18months and we will already of been to three countries!! Well the next post you receive from us will be in GERMANY:) Night!

Our First Few days of April

Yesterday: Travis was mostly free from school and finished his last midterm in the morning! So he came home around lunch time

• Scriptures and family prayer
• P90 X for Maddix and I (he is getting strong)
• Had the elders over for Omelettes and Settlers of Catan (Which Trav Dominates at)
• Had some awesome playtime with Maddix including Hide and seek, coloring, dancing, and cars
• Something BIG and AWESOME happened
• That night we held our first ever Family Home evening! It was amazing. We sang Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam and threw Maddix back and forth on every 'beam' portion of the song. Then we watched the fourth session of conference as a family and then ate a quick dinner. 
• We did a little reading time and put Maddix to bed. And for the first time in a LONG time without it being late, Travis and I enjoyed a movie that he stayed up for the entire portion of and then went to bed by 10:30am. 

So this Big thing that happened: As I may have mentioned before, we have recently purchased a big boy potty seat for Maddix that sits on top of the toilet seat and well... HE DID IT! We've eased him in to comfortably enjoying sitting on the seat into relaxing enough that he allowed himself to pee into the toilet! I made such a big deal of it and gave him a cookie; which he enjoyed! He's getting so big!!

Today:
Travis didn't have to wake up and study! And Maddix stayed in bed until 7am! We had a very pleasant scripture reading this morning and then Travis left to school while Maddix and I went about our morning routine. Travis quickly returned home only having one class and I ran across the street to go running with his classmate, Ceena, whom I ran with  the other day.

When I picked up her up I found out that three of the boys decided to come running as well. It was such a blast! Because there were so many of us... and all colored (except muah) we flagged a LOT of stares from the people. Seriously... I thought I was running in a parade the way people jumped out of our way and stared at us. At the end Kohsee challenged me to a sprint and it felt SO GOOD to open up and run as hard as I could! I've been constantly holding back here as to not leave anyone behind, but this time I didn't have too. I really hope something like today's running group forms again.

When I got home Maddix was napping so Trav and I enjoyed some more Settlers of Catan; I'm addicted, I don't want to give it back to the Elders:) Then tonight we had YW/YM.

And also, today Maddix went number two on the toilet!!!! He was just standing in the front room, looked up at me and said, "poop," so I rushed him to the bathroom and he did it!!!! This earned him another cookie, although I probably shouldn't have after what he ate this morning. Ceena was sweet enough to by Maddix a GIANT Kinder egg for an early Easter present and well.. you'll see what happened:

He ripped the egg out of the foil and was eating it before we even registered what was going on

Building the toy that came in the egg

Shoveling it in like he hadn't eaten in days

Annnnddd.... done. In about a minute flat he had half the Kinder egg devoured!

 And those was our amazing two days!

~Conference is the WORST...... April Fools! Ha Ha, We LOVE it!~

Oh how I love conference weekend. I have two favorite times of the year and they're not Christmas or July 4th as some would think. It's actually the first weekend of April and October. Nothing makes me happier than getting ready for conference and really taking in the words of the Prophets and Apostles! So you won't be surprised that this conference has been on of my favorite of all...
Saturday's Session:
This is Maddix helping me prepare a list of questions we wanted addressed during conference... and enjoying some snacks.

It was very odd to wake up Saturday, knowing it was conference weekend, and that we still needed to go about our day BEFORE we watched conference. To be honest... I really liked it. I loved fully waking up, getting the house all in order, preparing a list of questions, listening to church hymns, and just fully preparing to receive our answers.

We were fortunate enough to have the Elders and an investigator (same one we had for dinner last week) come over for conference. We plugged one of our lap tops into the T.V. and streamed the online version, while we turned on our second lap top with some headphones and streamed the Polish audio so the investigator to watch the T.v. while hearing it in Polish. It was an incredible session. I had written down three questions and in the first two talks they were directly addressed, and one was answered almost word for word from what I'd written. Then we put Maddix to bed and prepared for the second session to begin (10:00pm-12:00am). I really enjoyed that session (Trav was out in the first 5mins) until the last 45mins hit and I was exhausted! But I made it....took care of something.... and went to bed.

Sunday's General Conference/ April Fool's
Trav woke up this morning and heard Maddix in the other room, as well as the sun beaming through the window. He looked at the phone and it said it was 4am. He was confused so I mumbled from my sleep, "What's the matter?" He was very confused so I added, "Just check the other phone." It again said 4am, and as we have no clocks in the apt he had to go off the phones:) he was so confused, and so BUGGED that the sun was up... waking up Maddix if it was still in the middle of the night and just stood there confused. APRIL FOOLS!! I'd switched the phones before bed ha-HA.
Oh I thought I was so clever. But then I looked out the window to see that Mother Nature pulled an even BETTER April Fool's joke:

We have snow. April Fools to all those who thought Spring was here.
I think maybe the Lord was just making it that much easier for us to stay home inside to watch Conference:) And to play as a family again while we waited for the next sessions to start:

Maddix had his first 'color on myself' moment today.. Can barely see it here

This is their new game that play. It leaves Maddix screaming " 'gain, a'gain!"

While Maddix took his nap we had the Elders back over for Priesthood session. At least that's what we planned, but the website was down for maintanence so we talked for awhile and then about an hour it was back up and we watched the priesthood session, and later Maddix joined us. After they left we played some more and talked to family.

So I folded up our bed into a couch for when the Elder's came over and moved on to cleaning another room and the realize Maddix had disappeared. I found him in the base of our futon, hiding:O) He thinks he's so cute; and he's completely right!

The Elders came back for the 3rd session. The investigator was going to come back with them, but he got in a car wreck (not major; fender bender) and so the four of us (and Maddix) enjoyed some more of conference and now as the last session is starting I'm torn between listening to it live and partaking of the spirit right now and saving it for Family Night tomorrow when I'm more awake; I think that's best.
Goodnight then. I hope this April Fool's Day/Conference Weekend has been everything you needed to be and that we can all be better people from it! Love Conference! Love it here in Poland. Love having the Elders over for Conference.

TGIF... Almost

This morning I woke up and didn't even realize it was Friday. Perhaps THIS week has gone by the fastest of all our weeks here. It's hard to think we've been here almost two months. And so, once I realized today was the weekend I was extremely excited for the day. I even woke up to Maddix playing with a new toy that came inside of one of our Kinder Eggs

A kinder egg is a hollow chocolate egg with a toy inside. And this toy is a 3-wheeled toy with a sail that you blow into to make it move... He got the hang of it. 

Travis went to his classes while Maddix and I did some exercising. I love when he actually does the work outs with me. Then we waited to go swimming only to receive a text that the day plans would be different. I was sort of glad because I was feeling off today.
Instead we went to the Mecham's and made some homemade fudge for our Conference and Dessert party Travis, Maddix, and I are having with the Elders and one of the investigators and helped them get ready for their weekend trip. When we got home I was feeling even worse.
I made dinner, Minestrone Soup. It's a recipe that I've been extremely excited for, but with my stomach off tonight, it tasted awful (Travis loved it).

I came into the room tonight snacking on my dried peaches to try and settle my stomach and told Travis that even my peaches tasted off with my stomach upset. Travis ate one and looked into the tub... "Well I think they're bad." SO... I think I've been eating bad dried fruit and now I have, I don't know, food poisoning? It's no fun. Stupid Polish standards on food being so low. Well that ruined our Friday night Party plans... if we'd had any.

THEN to end the night I went into the the bathroom to get ready for bed, only to find a giant puddle on the floor and a nauseatingly overpowering smell wafting into the hall. Come to find out somehow our airfreshener got a hole punctured in the bottom of it and the ENTIRE full can is now fuming up our apartment. So now I feel like I'm getting high... and I want to vomit. Why would people purposely choose to stiff fumes? Seriously? What morons! I probably could've written more interesting things about the day, but I am about to pass out from this smell. Time to open more windows!

ReAdY or nOt HeRe I CoMe

It seemed like today everyone/thing was operating on a hide and seek timeline. The weather for one, was extremely odd. We joked that the Lord was trying to answer everyone's prayers concerning the weather... looks like someone prayed for a little snow, sleet, hail, rain, extreme winds, and beautiful sunshine because we got it all and in 2 minute intervals. Finally the sun stayed long enough to entice Maddix and I out for a walk... then we got stuck in a short rain for a couple of minutes. Right when we got home it started to hail again. Weird.

Travis also made random and quick appearances in and out of the house today. He kept forgetting all his books and coats and would only come in for maybe.. 2 minutes at a time. Funny.

And then there was Maddix's first real game of Hide and seek! I SO enjoyed it! He loved to look for me and would start shouting my name when it was taking too long. He's still learning however; every time I told him to hide I would say, "ready or not here I come..." and he would run into the hall laughing. I didn't even care, it was just fun to have a new game. We also rough housed, read some books, played this funny screaming game, played superheros, and then colored while watching t.v. while the heater guys put knobs on our heaters!!! Hallelujah the apartment is cooling down.

And then tonight when Travis knocked on the door Maddix jumped off the couch and yelled, "coming!" He was SO EXCITED to see Travis, he didn't leave his side the rest of the night. He even went to Travis and said, "hand," led him to the couch, sat him down, and shared his bucket of pretzels... he rarely shares food:) He was so sad when it was time for bed. Shh.. don't tell anyone, I was feeling guilty for taking him away from Travis so I snuck one of his cars into his bed. He found it as I was leaving the room and was as happy as could be that 'he'd hid a car and forgot until now...'
Here are some pictures from the day:

This was our first ever puppet show. At first I was performing it and then he took over and saved the show

He controlled the puppets while I sang different Disney songs that fit each scenario:)

Then it was super hero time. Did you know blankie's double as capes?! Duh mom

At this moment it was both raining and hailing... and was sunny. Just couldn't make up it's mind

I wish I could've captured how I found him before he rolled. You know how babies sleep with their butts in the air? Well he was, plus his pants had slipped off his bum so his diaper was just highlighted in the air

And then finally our daddy came home!

Sharing of the pretzels

This picture melts my heart. Travis layed down to pretend to sleep so Maddix hopped up and was pretending to sleep, but the look in his eyes is just pure admiration for his papa. I hope it's always that way.

Today was a fun day and it was all over the place, and I was just glad I could burn some of Maddix's energy for once.