What do you do to memorialize your trips?

Big R and I absolutely love to travel. Long before we even found out we were moving to Germany, we were jetsetters and tried to travel and see the world - or at least the small part of it we could afford. From talking with other people that also enjoy traveling, I've noted that so many of them collect things from their travels to memorialize them. Do you do this as well? My sister and her husband collect magnets, which I thought was such a cute idea. And our friends, Meg and Robert, send post cards to their families each time they take a trip somewhere. Some people enjoy picking up little souvenirs - the cornier the better. When I went backpacking in Europe for a month with my best friend after college, she was certain to collect shot glasses from a Hard Rock Hotel from every city we visited because her brother-in-law collected them. It was kind of fun because it ensured an adventure at every stop.

It might seem a little strange, but Big R and I have never really collected things from our trips. More than anything else, I think our pictures hold our memories. Big R is so good with his camera, that it seems he is always searching for that perfect photograph, and I have to say, he often gets pretty close to perfection! It has been fun to see how much his skills (and cameras) have improved over the years as well. We have promised that in addition to recording our memories in this blog, we will also create some photo books to hold our favorites that we can easily share with friends at dinner parties or pull out and look at over the years to remember all the places we have been.

I used to collect all of my tickets - bus tickets, plane tickets, train tickets, theater tickets, museum tickets - and create a scrapbook from them with the pictures I took with my camera. This practice has sadly gone by the wayside. I still can't seem to throw many of those things away, so we now have a basket where I keep these items along with our guide books, brochures and maps that we bring home from each location.

I did start to notice that we do tend to pick up something nice from nearly most of the places we visit. Our tastes have exceeded corny souvenirs though, and now we try to bring back something we can use or admire.

We entered adulthood and bought our first oil painting in Rome, and I was finally able to get the canvas stretched so we could hang it on our living room wall. We bought the expensive piece for next to nothing, and we were almost giddy about our sophisticated purchase (yes, occasionally Big R can be a dork right along with me - haha).

Our new oil painting of Tuscany purchased while we were in Rome

In Prague, Big R bought me a handmade canvas bag from a vendor at the Easter Market. The man was making the items at the weaving wheel next to the booth as we shopped. I fell in love with it right away, and was happy to bring it home.

Handmade satchel from the Easter Market in Prague

When we went to Fussen, we came back with our cuckoo clock. As corny as it is, I really love that clock (although, I'll confess, we have the cuckoo function of the clock turned off most of the time). I really never thought we'd buy one, but I'm now glad that we did. It'll mean a lot to us later in our lives to remember the time we spent here in Germany (especially when our lederhosen and dirndls no longer fit us!).

Our traditional German cuckoo clock purchased in Fussen

Our trip to Sweden sent us home with many different things, mostly as gifts for Big R's family so they could feel connected to their relatives. Big R was sure though to bring back one of the traditional Dalecarlian or Dala horse statues for our collection. The Dala horse is a wooden statuette of a horse that was traditionally used as a toy for children. It's now more commonly known as a symbol of Dala and Sweden. Big R grew up seeing these in his grandmother's house, so our new item was purchased with quite a bit of pride.

Traditional Swedish Dalecarian horse, which is now often the symbol of Sweden

And one of my favorite purchases from our adventures is our latest from Mallorca. I absolutely fell in love with the mosaics and the pottery from the region. One store in particular, I felt we could have purchased nearly everything we saw. As much as I really like Polish pottery and I'm hopeful we'll be able to return to the States with a nice collection, there is something about the Spanish style pottery that really draws me in. Despite having very little space in our bags to bring anything home, Big R encouraged me to buy a pitcher and glassware set that I couldn't take my eyes off of. If we had had more room, I fear we would have left with an entire plate and bowl set as well!

Beautiful pottery we purchased in Port de Soller in Mallorca

So, I suppose in a way, we do have a small tradition of collecting precious items from places we visit. We can't really afford to get something nice from everywhere that we go, especially since we've been blessed with the opportunity to see so much while we are stationed here in Germany. I do think I'd like to develop a small tradition, something we can do on every trip, as long as it keeps things fun and doesn't result in the unnecessary collection of random trinkets in the house.

Do you have a tradition you enjoy doing to memorialize your adventures and trips abroad? I would love to hear about them :)

 

 

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A good day for yoga daydreaming...

It's a warm summer day here in Bavaria - a perfect day for daydreaming and doing yoga (or perhaps a little bit of both). Around the time we moved to Germany last year and I became a full-time mom, I started using yoga to release the stress that comes with daily life and help me feel a bit more grounded in heart and mind. I try to practice daily, although some weeks are definitely better than others. With a mere 20 minutes a day I find I am able to moderate my sanity.

Doing yoga with some regularity has also greatly benefited my practice. I'm much stronger now and less afraid to try challenging poses. I have a better understanding of what I'm capable of and how to make the poses really work for me so I'm enjoying my practice instead of focusing on how tired my body is staying in one pose for too long.

After I attended a few yoga workshops with my friend, K, back in May, I started trying to take my yoga practice to a new level. During those workshops I managed to get into yoga poses I never in a million years thought I'd ever be able to do. It was motivating and invigorating for my yoga practice.

I owe the Internet for allowing me to do yoga nearly every day. Although I'm still a regular user of yogadownload, I also became a member of My Yoga Online (another one of K's influences), where I can choose a class from the site's vast database for any length of time at pretty much any level and stream it directly to my iPad from the internet. Several weeks ago, the yoga class that K teaches at the gym on post had to be cancelled, so we made arrangements to do a fun advanced class together from My Yoga Online. The class was so incredibly challenging, and it was fun to try the advanced moves with a friend. It was somehow more fun to laugh at myself with company.

I was completely taken aback at some of the poses I was able to do (and equally as complacent with those crazy poses I knew would take some serious time). At one point I went from crow pose, into headstand, and then back into crow. Crazy! Obviously you need to be strong enough to do these poses, but what I'm realizing is that you mostly just need to be willing to try them. I remember taking yoga classes and practically ignoring my instructor when she would say, "just see what you can do and try to get into the pose." The poses seemed far too difficult and I always accepted that I was anything but flexible. Denial was easy, failure was not.

So, what am I dreaming about now that I have this newfound way of approaching my yoga practice? Eventually I would really like to get my yoga certification to start teaching, but right now I'm daydreaming about finding a yoga retreat to lose myself in and take my yoga to another level. It sounds so amazing to me to spend a week at a resort doing nothing but practicing yoga, meditating, and eating healthy food. Am I a weirdo that this sounds like heaven to me?

There is a beautiful retreat I recently came across set in Mexico just south of Cancun. The yoga at the retreat is being taught by Gina Caputo, who was one of the instructors I was introduced to at a yoga workshop in May. She was amazing, and I would do anything to be able to take a workshop from her again.

The retreat is called the Winter Solstice Yoga Retreat in Tulum, Mexico. You spend one full week at the beautiful Amasala Resort on the Mexican Riviera. How amazing would that be?! Mexico is not exactly a destination on our map right now, but I would love to find something like this nearby. Can you imagine spending a week on the ocean doing yoga twice a day with two amazing instructors that challenge you, like Gina Caputo, eating nothing but incredible food that is good for you, and relaxing? That is something worth daydreaming about... Ahhhhhhh...

What do you daydream about on beautiful summer days?





 

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Fresh New Look...

Now that we have been in Germany for a year, I figured it was time to give my blog a fresh new look.  I feel as though this could still be a work in progress, but life always is, right?

I tried to capture the essence of my blog with the new design, and I would love to hear your feedback on the how it turned out.  Tell me what you think :)

I've really enjoyed this blog and sharing our adventures and our life's trials and tribulations as we have adjusted to our new world.  Thanks for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy this blog with it's brand new look!

The perfect bag

I am obsessed with organizing my life, and I feel like with every change comes the need for a new way to carry all my crap. It's been eating at me for awhile now, the search for a perfect bag. I thought I finally found it at a Christmas market last year, but that one broke not even a month after I purchased it, so the search continues...

Well, I think I have FINALLY found it: the perfect bag for my crazy and adventurous life. And I'm excited enough about it, and quite frankly just that much of a dork, that I have to share how awesome this bag really is.
The minimalist that I am, I have rarely had a purse or day pack that is large. In fact, I usually carried a tote or backpack to the office and would use a wallet that would slide out of that bag when it was time to shop, etc. This method didn't even change much when I had little r.

My life shifted again though - big surprise, right? The office is no longer calling, and my purse needs to carry diapers, bankees, cars, yum bears, and...oh, yeah, my wallet. Little r is also constantly on the move and always asking me to pick him up for a bit, so finding the right bag that isn't overly cumbersome, fits all our adventure needs, and stays put when I carry and chase little r is critical.

So, I got a backpack, but it's not just any backpack, it's pretty much the perfect day-tripper for the adventurous mom on the go. A little bigger than a purse pack but a little smaller than those packs we all carried in grade school. It's a backpack, so the straps don't fall off my shoulders or provide too much weight to one side. Poor little r would get smacked in the head with my purse every time I leaned over. Hopefully those days are over.

If you are super anally organized like I am and you obsess about silly things like finding the perfect bag, you might just have to check this thing out. It's from REI, pretty much my favorite store on the planet, and it is made from 28 recycled bottles (SWEET!). My sister gets all the credit for turning me onto the idea. She has had the REI day tripper backpack for years now. When I saw her use it on her trip here, I decided I just had to have one. I'm super excited to try it on our mini-vacations this summer.

I'm going to go about my day dreaming about all the fun and dorky things I'll be able to do with my new bag. It's pretty freaking awesome, and I'm pretty stinking happy that I found it ;)



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My keychain broke...

Such a sad, sad day, and an even more bizarre attachment for one to have. My keychain did, in fact, break, and it's leaving me feeling rather lost at the moment. There's actually nothing special or alarming about this particular keychain. There isn't even a memorable story or any significance associated with how I acquired it. But the truth is, I've had this keychain for a very, VERY long time.

I got this keychain when I was in college. Like I said, there isn't really a memorable story for how it ended up in my hands, just that I wasn't the first owner, and from the picture you'll see that it's not even a keychain - it's just a bangled bracelet attached to a keyring. I've used this keychain to carry my keys since 1995 - I was shocked when I did the math and realized that was now 17 years ago!

This bad boy has moved with me and held the keys for 16 different residences (and yes, all mine) in seven different states and two different countries. It has held the keys for eight different cars and three different bike locks. This is providing an interesting picture into my life. Can we say, "unstable", people? Geesh! When you live a life that is continuously changing, I suppose having a few constants is never a bad thing, and is probably more of a necessity. This keychain provided that to me in strange way, giving me a constant familiarity when I grabbed keys to that new residence. It gave me some sort of reassurance that I am actually able to hold onto some things despite the constant change in my life.

Just for fun, I decided the other day to count the number of times I've moved in my life. Have you ever done this? From what I've told you here, you can imagine what the numbers look like on my end. Nothing to brag about, but the answer to this question seems insanely crazy to me. According to both my memory and my mom's, I have moved no less than 32 times in my 37 years. Holy bananas! Some moves were rather insignificant like moving from one apartment to another during college or law school, and some were definitely drastic and life-changing like my move from California to Vermont or our big move last summer from Virginia to Germany.

My hardest move was definitely when I went to law school. I left a great job that I just happened to be pretty darn good at, and took off - literally across the country from California to Vermont - to pursue my dream of getting a law degree. Looking back, California was the most stable I had been in my life having lived in one place and stayed with one job for over four years. There for awhile, I really thought I might never leave. Turns out that move to Vermont ended up being one of the best decisions of my life and without a doubt, one of the most rewarding experiences.

So, what does this mean now that my keychain is broken? A whole lot of nothing, most likely. I'm not going to try to fix the darn thing either. I'm thinking instead it might be time for a change. Lord knows I should be used to a little change by now, don't you think?

Do you own anything small or otherwise that provides a peek into facets of your life? I am definitely craving a little stability in my life. One of these days, Big R and I will own a beautiful house on a big piece of property in Vermont. Until then, we'll just keep on keeping on :)

 

 

Fun music

It's been an interesting week in our household. We're all a bit out of whack as we muscle through jetlag, nightmares, and busy schedules. All of which are individually tasking. It has taken every will in my bones not to fall into the trap of sticking little r in front of the tv so I might be able to steal a couple of much needed zzzzzz's. Instead, we are staying busy. Unfortunately, my Rani-dog is nursing a pull of sorts in her shoulder, so our old fallback of taking a nice long hike has become a quick trip down the street. That leaves lots of time to keep a sleepless toddler occupied. We've planted gardens...

reorganized the garage, cleaned the house, played cars and trains, drew pictures, and read some books...

Some of the best fun we've had though has been watching music videos on YouTube. Little r is a huge fan of watching dance routines and an even bigger lover of music. I posted his favorite dance video on Facebook about a month ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F52daJLbUo). It's a lot of fun, but we've seen it at least a dozen times, if not more, so I was on the search for something new. We came across this video during our last searching session and I just had to share it. The video is by a group called Walk Off The Earth (WOTE), and the video is a cover of the song "Somebody that I used to know" by Gotye (same song as the dance routine, so little r was an instant fan). It's more impressive if you actually know the song because they sound so much like the original band and the five of them are all on one guitar!

I'm probably somewhat late in discovering this. As I was searching for it to put into this blog, there are already several parodies of this video. As someone that grew up not only loving music, but having it played in my house (especially by guitar) all the time, it's hard not to appreciate how freaking awesome this video is though. As far as I'm concerned, I think the craze is worth it because these folks have some serious talent. And hey, maybe there are a few of you that haven't had the joy of watching it yet :)

Until next time, you'll find little r and me dancing around the living room snapping our fingers to this fun beat.

 

Bye-bye, 2011

Oh, 2011, what a crazy year you were for this family. We started off the year in Virginia and now we are settling into our new, albeit temporary, lives in the old world.  When I think back at all the things that we did in 2011, it's hard to imagine that it somehow managed to fit into one single, solitary year.

The Army took its time letting us know where Big R's next assignment would be.  We were repeatedly told this was normal, but that didn't make the unknown any easier.  Our Type A personalities are not exactly patient.  It wasn't until March that Big R finally got his orders and we couldn't believe our luck. Germany, freaking GERMANY!  It was so unreal...

Now that we knew we were heading overseas for a few years, we started planning.  Knowing that living across the ocean might make visiting people a little more challenging, we made sure to put some trips into our schedule before we boarded that plane to Germany.  We visited friends near St. Louis,

we visited family and friends in Las Vegas and California,

we had family and friends visit us,

we went camping on the beach with friends on the Outer Banks,

and we took a trip to New England to see good friends get married and visit more family.

We threw parties,

 looked at wedding venues,

and said goodbye...

After three long and sometimes grueling months of transitioning, planning, packing, sorting, more planning, and traveling, we finally found our family reunited in our new home in Germany.

And so our European adventure in the Old World began.  We wasted no time starting our travels to discover all the amazing places in this part of the world. We dove right in and cozied up to the German culture and Bavarian charm.  Amidst struggling our way through our broken and horrific German to get our cable installed and our home in order, we managed to have some fun eating far too much Bavarian food and drinking ridiculous amounts of German beer.  We enjoyed ourselves at wine festivals and beer festivals, bike rides along the river, dinners out at beer gardens, and swimming in the fabulous outdoor German swimming pools.

Our first trip away from home was to Italy where we saw Trento...

on our way to Cinque Terre, which was a place I had always wanted to visit so Big R took me there for our anniversary...

We stopped in Dresden and Straupitz....

on our way to Berlin for Big R's birthday...

Then it was off to Garmisch for Big R's annual training with TDS.  Wow, what a beautiful place.  The mountains in this region are magical...

The traveling slowed down just a bit toward the end of the year as we waited for little r's passport to finally arrive.  That hardly kept us from exploring our corner of Germany though.  We took a side trip to Nuremberg,

Rothenberg ob Tauber, 

Erfurt,

and Munich...

If this is a taste of what we have in store for 2012, I like it.  I like it A LOT!!!  

Music

My little bear loves music, and this makes me a very proud mama. Not only does he love music, but he is hip and has an ear for groovy tunes. Could be all the commuting I did when I was pregnant blasting the most recent pop rock tunes or all the times we danced to Brittany Spears and Lady Gaga... Yes, I am that mom... the one that still thinks she's 15 and listen to all the pop rock tunes that makes Big R's head spin. Even though I agree that music is just not what it used to be, there's some sort of release in blasting the number 1 song from the radio and learning all the words to the song every kid in high school knows by heart. Of course, memorizing such a thing is easy when it's played on the radio 5 times an hour. That said, my all time fave is grooving to the Shins during a car ride, or singing KT Tunstall at the top of my lungs.

All that aside, I'm not all about pop rock music, but better yet, neither is little r. This girl has always loved it all, and I'm hoping to raise my son to be the same way. Little r does love his Lady Gaga though.

The latest music love for our family is Broken Bells. If you haven't heard of this band or its music yet, you should give it a spin - it'll truly change your life! Not only is the music awesome, but the lead singer (from the Shins) and song writer is a poet with the most incredible lyrics. Little r loves this music so much that he cheers every time we put it on. He jams in his carseat or does his beloved Frankenstein dance (promise to get this on video soon!) and then claps screaming "yay" when the music ends. The only other band he gets this excited about is the Beatles, but then again, who doesn't?? (I have one friend that hates the Beatles, you know who you are, so just look away, my dear, look away.)

My hope is that little r continues his adoration for music. For now, here is his favorite tune:

Great beginnings...

I'm entering a new chapter in life - yet again, and this time it has inspired me to share the adventure through writing. Being as this adventure is going to take us across international waters, it seems only right to bring you along for the ride. My life is one comical satire after another fueled continuously by little R, my 18-month raucous bear, and my adoring husband whose Army career helps keep him grounded. Add into the mix a 12-year-old pup, a wild tiger, and a fluffy ragamuffin, and the stories abound! My life has been one adventure after another, and I find myself still wondering what my adult life is going to look like. Suppose you could say I'm refusing to grow up, or maybe it's just that I'm enjoying taking my time or I've somehow lost the ability to know when I've gotten there.

Army life is an interesting one. I'm not a stranger to the military, and you could say based on the love-interests of my past, that I've been drawn to men serving our country. My mom was an Air Force wife for nearly 20 years. Being as I saw it from the eyes of a little girl, I can't say whether it was different than being the Army wife that I am now. In many ways though, I find myself paralleling her life. The Army is taking us on a new adventure to Germany. Little R will be nearly the same age I was when my dad took our family to Germany. Man, I hope Germany is ready for my crazy little bear. He will be in German kindergarten singing German songs and doing his little Frankenstein dance (maybe it'll be more hip over there). His blond hair will hopefully win over the locals (ok, yes, it's red some days, but I'm sure that the red will flame out!).

The biggest part of this adventure for me will be staying at home. It is truly a new chapter in my adult life. The stars will align, won't they? If my past has taught me anything, it's to believe in myself and let life lead me where it may. So, I'm diving in, or taking off, or tripping? My past has also taught me that too much work can weigh you down, and balance isn't just a cliche, but a necessity for sanity. So sanity, here I come! Did I mention that before I get to experience such sanity, I have to prepare my life for this move? Ah yes, and so the blogging begins. The adventures start with the preparations, as they always should...