Germany, we love you, we miss you BUT...

we're so over the fact that it took you six months to bill us for our electricity in 2012 and your freaken' freezing winter.
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Did I mention we miss you?

Photos from our last 2 days in Germany, 01/2013

If a tree falls in the forest...

and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

If I traveled the world and never shared what I saw, did it really happen?

I think the obvious answer to this question would be... of course it did, stupid.

 I fear that if I don't post about my last few months in Europe I could lose some of my travel blog cred. And that wouldn't be right. So here we go.

Ribeauville, France. Go there. Drink the local wine. Eat an Alsatian onion tart. Be surrounded by vineyards. Buy pottery. Enjoy then repeat (if you know what is good for you).

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Stay here: Le Close Saint Vincent  

Dogs allowed. Babies allowed. Very pregnant women allowed.

To catch up, or not to catch up

Blog Boycott.
Officially over.
....
I am not positive as to what started it all. I just suddenly lost all motivation to take pictures, upload pictures, post pictures and b.s. about the said pictures. Looking back, something was terribly wrong. It's not like me at all. Well, it is like me to not want to b.s. but the taking picture part seriously baffles me.
If having a baby doesn't warrant some blog posts, I don't know what does.
....
So now I'm left with the challenge of playing catch up... you know... delving back into my iphoto library and rounding up the best of the last three months...
or....
sum it up as a blog loss and start anew. Dang.
For now I'll settle on indecision and just give a little update until I get back into the swing of things.
....
Since my last post about Spain... life went a little bit like this:

- Snow melted
-Went to France with friends
-Went pregnant swimming (awesome)
-French waitress says baby is girl
-Work
-Snow & freezing temperatures
-Cry in front of everyone at going away party
-Do AWC version of Gangnam style at 37 weeks pregnant
-Sit around the house until 39 weeks pregnant when doctor threatens to induce
-Admitted to hospital for "monitoring"
-Go into labor next morning (funny how that happens) and give birth to our Ava on 12.12.2012
-Still can't believe we had a baby on 12.12.2012
-In-laws arrive on 12.12.2012
-Love on my newborn and her big brother
-Snow melted
-Christmas
-New Years
-Say goodbye to our friends
-In-laws leave, my parents visit begins
-Pack
-Cry
-Pack
-Cry
-Snows
-Move out of only home our son has ever known
-Cry
-Life packed into five suitcases and seven shipping crates
-Say goodbye to Chad
-Leave Germany (four years and fifteen days after initially arriving)
-California
-Jet lag
-Sit in the sun daily, play outside, facetime with Chad
-To be continued...

In case you didn't notice, that was a lot of stuff to squeeze into a couple of months. I left out a couple meltdowns, Christmas markets and crying. Best to spare you.
I pledge to do better with this blogging bit but I promised myself that I would spend the next couple of months intensely focused on my children, being a tourist in the town I grew up in, catching up with old friends, playing outside everyday, eat gobs of local almond butter and enjoy this little vacation in California. Blogging comes second to that.




Ava Analise 
December 12, 2012
8 lbs. 2 oz.
20 inches
(currently weighs 13 lbs. 6 oz. at 2 months)

Maybe I should do Barcelona Part II before I go into labor...

Kind of forgot to follow up on the Barcelona post but really... at this point... are you surprised?

Me neither.

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Anyways, we did unfortunately have some not so good weather after a couple of beautiful days in Spain. This happened to be the same day that we planned to visit Montjuic Castle (conveniently located at the very top of a hill outside of the city) and the worse choice possible for a rainy day. The rain stopped pretty quickly but the sun didn't really shine until much later...

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We took the 'hop on, hop off' bus back into the city and found a great little tapas restaurant on the way to the Sagrada Familia. In addition to tapas, we had seafood paella and it was delicious. Even Rhett liked it.

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We ended up NOT visiting the Sagrada Familia this day because the lines were insane. Much like the two other times we attempted to go inside. Standing in line for 5 hours is a perfect waste of vacation time. Instead, we thought we'd be proactive and buy tickets online that evening and return in the morning. Unfortunately, ticket master Spain is horrible and we weren't able to do so. The next morning we headed back to the church thinking we'd beat some of the crowd (not possible) but we were let in on a little known secret that an ATM machine across the street sells tickets for designated time slots. We wasted about 2 hours figuring this out but Rhett played in the park and I got some sun so it worked out.

If you plan on visiting, DEFINITELY -WITHOUT A DOUBT- purchase your tickets before visiting... it will be worth it.

 

Visiting the Basilica was great but we made sure to get our Gaudi fix by visiting La Pedera too...

 

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And our last morning in Barcelona was spent enjoying some sights and getting some beach time before heading home...

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Even though I thought we were going to die on the plane ride home (this happens to me with Air Berlin  flights), we had a great time getting some Spanish sun. We were especially thankful that we could cross one last place off our list during our European experience...

Onto the next adventure...