Easter Pictures!

The base had an Easter Egg hunt, this is Reilyn before the hunt standing in front of the field of eggs! She was so excited.

Reilyn getting all the eggs she could-- she found 26 eggs!

They had a "Kinderfest" with a bunch of blow up toys for the kids. Reilyn loved it. She kept going and going and going.

Reilyn just finished going down the slide, and ready to go again.

James was getting pretty worn out-- but he was having a blast too!

We had a good Easter. We did miss rolling the eggs down the hills with my family. Reilyn loved finding all the eggs all over the house. James got frustrated because his Easter basket was hidden, and he couldn't find it for a while. We told Reilyn the Easter story, and it's been fun to watch her learn and enjoy learning. We've realized how well she remembers things. When I was putting Reilyn to sleep on Easter night, she told me, "Mom, I love Easter!" That's when I knew it was a good Easter.

Our family is growing another two feet!!

If you don't understand the title-- we are expecting our second child! We are very excited about this, although- I'm not really looking forward to the being pregnant part, but I guess you have to take the bitter with the sweet!

I'm due in the begining of October. I've been sick, but not as bad as I was with Reilyn. I think I'm starting to get over all the sickness part, which means that the heartburn, and shortness of breath are on just around the corner. I actually was able to see an ultrasound of the baby earlier this week. I have a German doctor that I think will be very good. He is seeing most of the expecting Americans now. The Army hospital in town is starting to shut down some of their departments, and the Labor and Delivery floor will be closing in June. I will be delivering at a German hospital- which makes me a little nervous because they don't really have the luxurious birthing/recovery rooms that America does.

Spring hasn't come to Germany yet. It's still kinda cold, and we're looking forward to the refreshing days of Spring.

Several of the military units are being transferred to other areas or countries, and in turn several of the bases will be closing down this summer. Many of our friends will be leaving, and we're a little nervous about how empty it will seem here. In our church ward, we will be one of five american families after this summer. It will be very small and we're deciding that we should really start making an effort to learn German, not "just enough to get by..."

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We hope you all had a great Christmas and a fun New Years. We have enjoyed being together as a family, and it's been nice to relax during the holidays. We missed all of you back home, and getting together with the family. It's been nice to keep in contact with our families through webcams! Technology is awesome!!

On Christmas Eve, we went to a small German church and listened to the mass in German. We sang the songs that we recognized, and just enjoyed the rest of it. It was fun. When we were driving back home, we were telling Reilyn that Santa is going to come that night. As we drove up to the security on base, there was an older security guard that had a big white beard and a jolly smile. I pointed to him to show Reilyn that it was Santa. He saw us and waved to her. He stopped us so that he could give Reilyn a piece of candy. Reilyn was so excited! It was perfect timing.

Christmas morning was fun, especially since Reilyn is understanding Santa Claus now. She got excited about each present and wanted to play with each toy after she wrapped it. James kept giving her more to unwrap-- so she didn't know what to do. But she definitely has had fun this past week with all of her new toys. James was able to have every other day off, so it was fun to have him home to play with us.

New Years was fun because we were able to see how much the Germans celebrate it. They light off fireworks well into the early morning. There were fireworks going off everywhere you looked, and the church bells rang for about 10 minutes after midnight. It was a celebration. On the way home we saw some German's still lighting off fireworks, and so I waved to say Happy New Year--- they just looked at my like I was crazy. Oh well!

Happy New Year to each of you!! Love to all!

Lichtenschtein and Rothenburg

This is the castle of Lichtenschtein. I believe the princess still lives there.

Reilyn is all bundled up!!

This is in Rothenburg, outside of the famous Christmas Museum.

Innsbruck

I thought this was a fun one because my maiden name is Glauser-- which is Swiss-German

The inside of St Jakobs kirche (church).

This is what most of the churches around here look like inside.

The famous gold tiled place. The roof is all gold.

Salzburg

Reilyn found her Mercedes! The lady in the store said she could ride the red one,

because it was the cheap one at $600-- while the others were probably $2,000

This is one of the places from the Sound of Music!

Neuschwanschtein Schloss (Castle)

King Lugwig's Neuschwanschtein Schloss.

He only spent 10 days in the castle in the condition that it is in today, before he died, or was assassinated. Only 1/3 of the castle is finished. It is such a beautiful, fairytale castle.

This is where he grew up. It is a castle across the mountain from the one he built.

This is the beautiful view.

Munich

the Rauthaus in Munich

Rauthaus in Munich (city hall)

Lion statues all over the city

more lions

the Chinese tower in the English Gardens

check out all the swans in the background

the dome of Love

This Lion is in a courtyard where Hitler would make alot of his speeches

Update!

Are you suprised that I am updating our blog? Sorry it's been a while. I need to block out an hour once a week, so that I can update this! Sorry.

Well, since I've posted last, we had the chance to visit Munich. My cousin Becky Glauser was staying there for a while, so we were able to stay with her. We had a fun visit. Munich has lifesize statues of lions everywhere. Each lion is painted a different way, and has a different theme. That was Reilyn's favorite part. She was on a quest to find as many lions as she could, and wanted me to take a picture of her with each of them! We were able to visit the beautiful castle Neuswanstein (I know I'm spelling it wrong.)

Becky was able to come back home to Wuerzburg with us. We decided we wanted to travel a little bit, so we went down to Salzburg, Austria. We stayed there for a day and night and loved it!! It's where Mozart was born and grew up, and it was also where the Sound of Music was filmed. It is a beautiful city. Then next day was a pretty crazy one for us. We woke up early, and went straight to Innsbruck-- which was also a very charming town. The drive there was amazing! We were driving the huge Alps the whole time, and actually going through them in dozens of tunnels. One tunnel was 14 km long. We were pretty nervous in that one.

From there we drove to the smallest country called Lichtenstein-- which is only about 40 miles long, and probably 3 miles wide! It took us less than an hour to drive through it (the long ways).

Then we decided to go to Zurich, Switzerland and stay the night there. Well, once we got there, we drove around looking for a hotel, and discovered that the cheapest hotel we could find would have cost us $150! We decided that we would just eat something there, and drive back up to Germany and find a hotel there. We did, and found the most charming little hotel, that was beautiful, and only cost us $5o. So we thought it was pretty cool that we were in 4 different countries in one day.

This past month has been fun to see all the little Christmas Markets. But we are difinitely getting homesick as Christmas approaches. We got snow a couple days after Thanksgiving, and it stayed for about a week. Reilyn and I built a little snowman, and she loved it! She still talks about how sad she is that it melted.

I'll try and find some good photos to post from our trips.

Nurnberg

This past weekend we decided to visit Nurnberg. We had a lot of fun. We went inside the walled city, and saw a few of the old churches and buildings. We had to taste some of their famous Nurnberg bratwurst and Lebkuchen (their famous spiced cookies). Nurnberg is also famous for their Christmas Market, so we are planning to visit again in December.

Most of our day was spent at the Zoo. It was beautiful and definitely comparable to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Reilyn was so excited to see the elephants, and just our luck, the elephants were not there! :) We stayed in a hotel in a small city outside of Nurnberg called Furth. As we drove up the street our hotel was supposed to be on, we saw a big carnival which was blocking the street. We drove around for about 45 minutes trying to figure out how to get the hotel, then we decided that we would just park, and walk through the big crowd. We ended up enjoying the carnival and all the different foods. We took Reilyn on the Ferris Wheel, and then put her on a kids version of the swing ride. She was a little timid at first and then got into it, and wanted to go more! It was really interesting to see all the different booths and foods. They had a lot of meats and sausages, and dried fish and pig. We enjoyed it. Here's a few pictures from Nurnberg...

Church doors

A closer look at the details of the doors

Reilyn being a little cutie at the marketplace. She was excited to see the gords!

Reilyn acting little a monkey at the zoo. (This one's for you Dad-- Monkey man)

This is an Orthopedic Hospital located in a small town close to ours. We thought it was a palace, and when we got up closer to it, and saw a lot of people with crutches, we realized it was a hospital!

Rothenburg

Rothenburg

Rothenburg 

Rothenburg a little side street. All of the buildings in the town are like this. 

Reilyn likes to collect rocks from all the different places that we go to. 

View from the castle. The church and the city call to the right. 

Heidelburg castle 

Sept 15, 2005

Well, it has been a while since I've posted anything. We went to Heidelberg over Labor day weekend. We walked around town and took in the sites. We hiked up to the castle that is on the hill. It was really pretty. Great view of the town. It had a little museum about pharmacies in it. It also had one of the worlds largest wine barrels. There was a TGI Fridays on post there. It was nice having American food in a restaurant. Free Refills!!!! The autobahn is quite the experience. We were driving 80-85 mph and cars were flying past us. They had to be doing at least 105-110. It was crazy. Our little car could not handle that kind of speed. I think we may need to upgrade to a car that is built for it. We found a outlet mall not to far from our town. It was really nice. Lots of shops that you would find in the US. Reilyn played at the playground there, German kids would come up and talk to her. She would look at them with a blank stare on her face.
We finally got our car from the US. It is nice to have. Our little stroller that we brought has gone to stroller heaven. It was used to carry Reilyn and tons of groceries from the store. So it was begening to fall apart. We talked in church this last Sunday. Kailey spoke in integrity and I spoke in self mastery. It went alright. You only have to prepare half a talk due to the fact that it has to be translated as you are giving it. So it wasn't to bad. Our desktop didn't survive the trip. So we have to claim that. Other then the computer and our dresser everything made it.
We hope and pray that everybody is doing well. We are doing pretty good. We miss everybody. For those that would like to come over and see us. Kailey said that she found tickets on priceline that were $200.00 around trip from Seattle and Frankfurt. Take care.

Hello everybody

Here is our Blog. I hope you enjoy it. We thought it would be easier for everybody and us to see what we are up to this way. So we will see how it goes. A couple of weekends ago we went to a city called Rothenburg. It is famous because of the brick wall that surrounds the city. It is doesn't have any new style buildings inside the city walls. The streets are narrow so cars don't do well with all of the tourist. It is a very cool city to visit. It is only a 30 min drive or hour train ride. It is a definite town to visit for those that are able to visit us. Some of the pictures are of the city.
We finally got our house hold goods. Kailey has done a awesome job getting everything unpacked. The only thing that didn't make it was our dresser. The movers over packed it with books and clothes which caused it to almost completely fall apart. So the army is going to take a look at it and see what they will do about it. It is nice to have our stuff with us.
We enjoy going out and seeing the sights. Our little town Wurzburg is a nice area. There is the Main river that goes through town. About 100,000 people live here. Reilyn loves riding the trains and buses. She gets excited when she sees them. She also loves the "hot dogs" bratwurst. In town instead of McDonald's they have little bakery's and bratwurst stands. They both are really good. They bakery's have all kinds of breads, sandwiches and really goods desserts.