Germany

Made it to Germany...

Celia and Dean were SO excited to ride the trains.  (Celia's sporting her new "German" headband. :)

The excitment of the train NEVER got old. 

I kept telling Celia about THE pretzel the size of your head that we used to get when we lived in Germany.  She was quite happy when we finally were able to have one.  

Our old stomping grounds-Romer Platz near our old apartment in Frankfurt.

Dean's new hat we got while in Germany.  Nowhere near cold enough for this hat, but as you can see he loved it and couldn't take it off (even when his cheek color started to match the hat :).

Another highlight while we were in Frankfurt, Germany was the kid festival.  Celia and Dean had a great time at this and it helped me feel less guilty for taking them to so many stores. :)

When we first moved to Germany in '05, we saw this "slide" and giggled at how it would never be legal in the U.S.  So glad Celia and Dean got to ride on this.

While we were at the festival we saw this...a "beer bike" (while everyone on the outside peddaled and steered this huge bike, someone else stood in the middle with the beer taps filling up everyone's cups).  HILARIOUS!  It was a group of high school seniors that were celebrating graduation.  Only in Europe...

Here's how the Watsons do breakfast and lunch when we travel.  I mean, when you are in Germany you can only handle so many bratwursts. :)

Dinner another night where we had one of our favoriate Frankfurt meals.  Schnitzel with Frankfurt sauce = YUM.  (Yes, somehow Drew and I both have the same kind of shirt (see top of blog...kinda cute, huh?  Right?  Tell me yes, please.  Dean called me out, saying "Mom, you wearing Daddy's shirt! :).

Natural History Musuem in Frankfurt (a favorite place of ours from back in the day).

After four days in Frankfurt, we headed back to the U.S.  All Celia kept talking about was getting apple juice on the airplane.  She's loving life here.

Dean slept like this for three hours!  Best he's ever done on a flight, which was a good thing because the movie system was down for our ENTIRE flight.  YIKES!!!

We are now back and "settled."  Celia had her kindergarten orientation toay and starts tomorrow.  Our shipment from Italy will hopefully be here this week.

Friday was our last night in Italy, so we headed to our local pizzeria to indulge and celebrate.

We got out of Italy today with a planned 6-hour drive to Strasbourg, France, which was one of our favorite places to visit when we lived in Germany. Little did we know that along the way was a single-lane, 17 km tunnel through a mountain in Switzerland. The backup on the highway was unreal – at one point it was 2 ½ hours to go 6 miles! Luckily we have GREAT kids, they were fine, no meltdowns, and we finally made it in 10 ½ hours of driving in one day. Luckily, the scenery during the traffic jams was amazing, since we were stuck in the middle of the Swiss Alps.

We went to a LATE dinner (9:30) and the kids shared a rotisserie chicken. Of course, Celia pretended to be a dinosaur eating off the bone. At the end of the meal, out of nowhere, she breathes a breath towards Drew and says, “does my breath smell like carrion?” Only our daughter.

We’ll be headed to Frankfurt tomorrow!

YUM.

Just got back from dinner on the mountain.  Some of Drew's co-workers and their families took us out.  They had dinner "early" for us since we'd have Celia and Dean with us (7pm! Said that in the summer they typically have dinner around 9pm :).  A beautiful setting with ridiculously delicious food (still kinda amazed at how much olive oil I consumed tonight).  Kids were great, especially considering they went to bed almost 3 hours later than normal.  And, they loved the drive up the mountain and then seeing the stars when we left.  Ahhhh...these last few days here have been blissful.  Good for the soul.

Last Official Weekend in Italy

To celebrate our last weekend here, we headed back to the beach for a few days and then hit Venice one last time on the way home.

The boys were partied out and couldn't even make it to the hotel room while the girls splashed on the beach.

These little "visors" on the sun chairs are fabulous!

Visited the same pizzeria as last time and tried to recreate our photos.  I think we did a good job. :)

On the way home from the beach, we stopped in Venice one last time and FINALLY found Harry's Bar.  Supposedly this is where Ernest Hemingway frequented and is where the Bellini was invented (yum).  Felt the "writer vibe" here...this is going to be my photo in my future book jacket.  :)

Dean was EXHAUSTED and this was the best he could do.  Normally I wouldn't push him through, but with it being our last weekend, I needed him to rally.  After this stop, we got some ice cream and he was much better.

During this time (Dean entirely sad that he's stuck in an air conditioned place) the girls decided to entertain themselves with some silly picture taking (note-this is kinda a swanky, bartenders in tux, no kid type of place).

I mean really, how many smiling photos do you really need? (quoted from a friend's blog :)

Ok, one last smiling pic before we left. :)

Cute photo, huh?  Celia wouldn't know because all she could focus on was the bottle that she saw in the water behind us.  Wanted to jump right in and get it.  Our little environmentalist.

Riding on the water taxi back to our car.

See the boy behind them?  He and his family were here visiting from Israel and were in awe of Celia and Dean.  Took photos with them, kept touching their cheeks.  Really cute.  Dean was in awe of the sister's very long nails. :)

Ciao Venezia!

Castello di Velbona

We had a relaxing weekend around town.  On Saturday we visited a local pottery place where they make ceramics for Tiffany, Lenox, and Williams & Sonoma.  Kids were great = many treats on the ride home.  Husband not only went a long with the idea of taking the family to a super-no-touch store, but also helped me pick out some dishes (which by the way was so much more fun that it sounds. read:  stuff WAY cheaper than in stores).   

Enjoyed our park again now that it's a cool 83 here.  Dean and I used to come here most mornings when Celia was in school.  I love, love, love it. 

Some other kids there heard Celia and Dean talking so they came over to us to try out their English on us. :)

On Sunday evening we headed to a local castle for dinner.  One of the most unique dinner experiences ever.

THIS is Italy to me. :)

Even though Drew thinks this picture looks like the kids fell and he just left them, I still wanted to post it because I love the way it shows the view from the top of the castle.  And, no, the kids didn't fall...they just found some type of bug, ant that was way more interesting than a view from the top. :)

On the same castle grounds there was a playground and farm animals.