Let it snow!

Yay! We finally got some snow here! Last year we had a ton; this year not so much. The only problem is the girlies think it's free food that falls from the sky. The first thing they do when they get out side is eat mouthfuls of snow...which has caused them to have diarrhea all week. (Too much information? Don't care.) We had to have numerous talks with them about not eating the snow.  Once London came crying to me because she had a mouthful of dirt. They will never learn. But it has been fun to see their excitement. They love the snow and check every morning to see if it has snowed.  I guess the diarrhea is worth it.  

While I was getting ready for church Sadie was living it up in the snow. 

While Sadie and I were cleaning off the car London went missing. We called and called for her and she didn't come or answer us. That's because she was on the other side of the house stuffing her face with snow. Trying to get in as much as she could before I caught her in her crime. Busted!

Thank you Sadie for cleaning off the car. Best helpers in the world, they are.

Sadie had fun running and running all around in the snow while London was MIA.

This snow eating episode is not new. Check out this picture of them last year at this time. They have problems.

 And this year... I guess the best tasting snow is right by the car.

 And this was our backyard last year. 

And a cute pic of the girls with their buddy Alyssa

A little Holiday cheer.

This year we enjoyed Thanksgiving with 4 fun families. I guess everyone know what goes down on Thanksgiving. Great food, fun games, good times... 

the kiddos...

One of our favorite Christmasy things to do out here is the German Christmas markets. They have them all over. This is the Trier Christmas market. It was way packed but always a pleasure. 

If you ever come visit us we will take you on a food tour. Here Mark is modeling some Flammkuchen. One of my FAVORITE things that I have eaten since we have lived in Europe. But we usually can only find it at Christmas time. It may be the one thing I miss the most when we leave. 

Here I am modeling the Flammkuchen before I completely devoured it in like 10 seconds. I really should learn to make it.

These girls love a good nativity. 

carousel rides are always a must with our girls. We eat, they ride. Everybody wins.

A little Christmas shopping. Trying on hats at Rofu.

Proud homeowners of gingerbread/graham cracker houses they made at play group.

Picking out our tree at the local commissary on base. 

The tree was too heavy for Mark alone.

Nothing brings more holiday cheer than the laughter of little children. Crazy mayhem going down at the Olsen home!!

Boys glued to the Wii. Girls rooting them on.

We had a fun little trip up to the Frankfurt temple. They have dorms you can stay at. Makes it nice for child swapping with some friends. You have to pay extra for this fabulous temple view. The temple view suite. I kid. 

Sadie, Molli and London

Italy with the Thomsons

September 11th-14th 2011

I have really good intentions of keeping an awesome, up to date history of my family on this blog of mine but I just can't seem to get with it. I want to update everything that has happened in the last year but that just totally overwhelms me. But I can't not blog about the fabulous trip we went on with our great friends the Thomsons. We had such a blast with them out here. We made a trip to Cinque Terre again. It is one of our favorite spots and are happy to report that it did not disappoint. We also went and explored Portofino which was way awesome. We decided that it's like the rich man's version of Cinque Terre. Very fancy. We saw some crazy 4 story yachts and day dreamed about catching a ride on one. We even saw some guy (the skipper, maybe?) getting his haircut out on the front of the deck.

We flew into Bologna and then took a train out to the coast with these two weasels.  They loved everything about the train (except parental supervision).

This time we didn't attempt any zany hikes like last time.  Just two sisters, hangin' on the beach, hamming it up to pose for the camera...

Sadie was a real fish and went for some adventuresome swims. Arggh, methinks London be more of a landlubber. And a sand-lubber.

We took the train/bus to get over to Portofino.  We were there as the sun set, and it was really nice. The calzones and pizzas we ate there were really, really, nice.

We tried to come up with a five-meal-a-day schedule while we were there in order to accommodate all the awesome food choices.  Is it okay if your fondest memory of something is a calzone?

This was a late night ice-cream stop.  This nice old ice-cream couple was closing there shop and James literally crawled under the gate to beg for one more ice cream cone.  Always worth it.  Every flavor is a winner.   It was really a beautiful night to stay up late snacking on gelatos by the fountain.  It prompted sadie to say "I wish every day was summer and we could eat ice cream and stay up late".  Amen to that, Sadie.

And we bid farewell to the Ligurian coast...

Thanks again for coming to visit, Thomsons.  Needless to say, we had a blast; a real hoot.  Come back any time!

Marks Birthday weekend

April 9th-10th 2011

One of Mark's favorite things to do is ride bikes.  And one of his most recent "life-long dreams" has been to ride in the Netherlands (I think because it's so flat there that pulling a trailer full of two enormous beasts is easy). Anyway, for his big #3-0 birthday bash we fulfilled his dream with a long weekend vay-cay.  We went to Kinderdijk first for the windmills, then to Amsterdam for the... uh, culture; and finally to Kukenhof for some tulips.  And so our magical journey began...

Kinderdijk

A lovely path that went through the canals and windmills. 

Amsterdam 

Didn't take too many pics in Amsterdam. Not sure what happened but we had a great time walking around the lovely city, checking out what they had to offer. One thing I will remember about Amsterdam is the gigantic bike parking lot. So many bikes one could not believe. Again, don't know why but I didn't get a pic. We loved seeing all the bikes everywhere. We went to a big flea market, Ann Frank house, flower market, cheese shops, ate yummy food, Rembrandt's house, beautiful canals...

We were very excited to tour the Anne Frank house.  At the same time, the girls were very excited to not be strapped in a car seat or bike trailer.  Boy did they have some energy to burn off.  What began as a relaxing stroll through history and Miep Gies office quickly deteriorated into an exercise in damage control and getting the girls out quickly, calmly, and undetected.  But the museum really had an impact on Sadie because she asked us to tell her the Anne Frank story about 50 times on the way home.  She was really fascinated by the whole situation.

Amsterdam has a really big and really neat flower market. 

cheese as far as the eye can see

Kukenhof

We had heard such wonderful stories of the Kukenhof gardens during the tulip season.  We were excited to bike around the surrounding tulip fields for a nice authentic feel.  We think that we just barely missed the peak of tulip madness; we must have been a week early :(   But, still beautiful and very fun...and we'll be back. The girls being the flower-lovers that they are were in heaven to see the rows and rows of tulips.  There were lots of daffodils and some other purple flower going on.  We did a stealthy drive-by daffodil snag (on wild, public grounds) for a special treat for the girls.  It was pretty intense.  Afterward we had a birthday celebration and feasted on chicken salad sandwiches.  In the car.  The girls loved it. (Then cake later at home.)

The whole trip really was a huge success...until the end.  We were about 1.5 hrs from home and our gas light went on.  Uh-oh.  We would have filled up earlier but we wanted to cross the border into Germany for cheaper gas.  We were just sure we would find a station. We found several, but they were all closed and wouldn't accept our American debit cards! Aughhh! Plan B? keep driving.  So we did.  Yep, we really just said a prayer and kept driving further... further... still going... Mark's seat was drenched in sweat from the intensity.  And you must understand we were out in the middle of Belgium or Germany or who knows where.  There was nothing around for miles.  Just some random, shut-down, ghost-town gas stations.  We were all surprised, but we actually made it off of the Autobahn at our exit and were just about 4 km from home when the car died.  Wow.  What a miracle we made it so far! Did we unpack the trunk, load up our bikes, and drive home at 11:00 PM with sleeping girls in a trailer? Nope.  We felt bad, but we called our good friends who were nice enough to come get us and take care of us until the whole thing was resolved.  Thanks, Millers! You truly are the best! How everything turned out really was miraculous and we are very grateful.  And we were reminded of what good people surround us in our lives.