Sarah came to Visit!!!!!

Elijah eating his dinner and checking out the lime for the pasta salad.
Sarah and Elijah in the middle of the river.
Dell and Henry in the middle of the Guadalupe River.


Our dear dear dear friend Sarah (can you tell how much we love her) came to visit last week with her son Elijah. We've known Sarah since Dell's first year of medical school. She was in his anatomy lab group and he told me "you should meet Sarah, you'd like her." And told Sarah "you should meet my wife." We met and have been friends ever since.

Well Sarah brought 18 month old Elijah down for a couple of days in Texas and we had such a great time. Unfortunately I was having so much fun I forgot to bring my camera to most of what we did, but here's some highlights.

Alamo and Riverwalk. Ate outside at little Mexican restaurant on the river. Then got yummy chocolate.

Outlet shopping. Guadalupe River-- learning to skip rocks (Sarah is a natural, her first toss got two skips!) and eat rocks (though Elijah seemed to think water melon was tastier). Sonic tater tots and shakes and Elijah's first root beer float.

Kentucky Derby Cooking class (oh the mint brownies we can make now) browsing my favorite grocery store-- one of the nice things about Sarah is that she loves doing the boring things that I do. Who else would be happy to walk up and down aisles seeing what neat food is available?

Walks to parks, eating at Canyon Cafe, talking all day and night, and Henry waking up each morning asking for Elijah. When we dropped Sarah and Elijah off at the airport Henry sobbed. Miss you already Sarah and Elijah. Come back soon.

Sonic Goodness

On the way back from the Guadalupe River we stopped at Sonic for shakes and tater tots. Henry was very excited about his milkshake and Sarah got a root beer float that Elijah promptly ripped out of her hands. We all had a blast watching Elijah enjoy his first float-- he was not keen on sharing it at all! Poor Sarah had to content her self with a couple of slurps and tater tots.

Pictures (above) "don't you touch my root beer float" (below) two little boys happy at Sonic

Bathtime

Here are the two little boys having a bath together. Neither was excited to leave the tub when it was time for bed. What was amazing was how calm Elijah was when his hair was washed. It was as if he didn't even notice Sarah dumping water on him. Henry notices and requires a wash cloth over his eyes, but at least he doesn't scream.

Europe!!!

(Pictures from left to right. TOP row: Castle in Germany, Neuschwanstein, Roman area in Verona Italy, Italian street, crossing a bridge in Venice, 2nd Row: Church in Venice, chasing pigeons in St. Mark's plaza Venice, riding a gondola across the grand canal, our gondola. 3rd Row: Santa Maria de Salute Venice, Cathedrale in Florence, Riding a carrosel in Venice, camping, leaning tower of Pisa. 4th Row: Ceiling of Pisa Cathedrale, riding train to Cinque Terre Italy, One of the cities of Cinque Terre- 2 pictures, the walk between the cities. Last row: Hiking to Burg Eltz Germany, Entering Burg Eltz, lunch of chickpea and cheese pizza and stuffed spinach pie in Cinque Terre, duplicates of first pictures.)

Well at the last minute we decided to take advantage of one of the perks of being in the military and take one of the AF flights to Germany. We flew to Baltimore and spent a great day in DC with my brother and his wife and then the next day crossed our fingers that we'd make it on the flight to Germany. We did!!! And had a great flight over-- nice regular plane with two meals and Henry almost the whole way and Dell and I did too. So when we hit Europe we were ready to go.
We rented a little compact mercedes with a navigation system that we promptly named Lisele-- she had such a calm voice. "Please take a u turn" whenever we messed up following her directions. And then we headed east and south into Germany. We drove through germany, austria, northern italy, and switzerland. (though we just drove straight through austria and switzerland since it was cold and rainy in both of those countries. We'll linger longer next time. We had a wonderful trip and Henry was a star. He adjusted quickly and was a real sport about long walks through cities and long drives through countries. We played a lot of tag and I Spy and ate a lot of ice cream. It was a great trip!

Jumping the Jeffeson Memorial steps

Washington DC

Dave and Margaret were kind enough to let us stay with them and show us around their city while we waited for our AF flight on Sunday. They live in the most adorable little urban apartment and we had a blast walking to metro, riding the metro-- Henry thought it was pretty cool, and seeing some of the sights of DC.

My wonderful brother and his wonderful wife. I've got great family!

Eating Italian ice on the steps of the Jefferson memorial while listening to a band. The cherry blossom festival was going on and though some of the blossoms were already gone you could still smell them. After the Jefferson memorial we walked back to Dave and Margaret's apartment. So fun! Then we walked to a darling little pizza place down the street where we had an amazing arugula and procutto pizza. Then we went back to the apartment where Henry got to wii bowl to his hearts content. Thanks Dave and Margaret for an amazing time. It was the perfect way to start our trip.

Camping in germany

We drove for several hours after landing at Ramstein AFB (sweet base by the way-- would love to be stationed there.) It was getting dark and rainy so we thought we ought to find a place for the night. Since the hotels were super expensive we pulled out the camping gear and slept at this little camper ground. It was cold in the night-- I slept with my IVF medicine so it wouldn't freeze, but Henry was super bundled and slept great. And we learned that you really can camp in almost anything-- even practically freezing rain.

Henry in the morning. One of the other campers came by and in his German accent said "it was very fresh last night no?" Fresh, what a perfect word for the weather. 2 degrees C is definitely fresh.

The wonderful kids bathroom at the campground. Isn't it cute. Henry never used it since we only discovered it after he was dressed. The mens and womens bathrooms also had the most wonderful showers of our whole trip. Sigh. They were perfect.
Where the snow line was in the morning-- about 30 feet above our camp.