Nonna and Pop-pop visit!

Doug's parents (Nonna and Pop-pop) were here for almost 2 weeks and left a week and a half ago (I'm SO behind, I know!). They were extremely busy while here, spending time in both Italy and Prague, and eventaking a day trip to Salzburg with us.

Gianna loved having Nonna and Pop-pop to play with. They were kind enough to baby-sit while I had a doctor's appointment so she even got to go to the park with them! Gianna and I did some touring with them around Munich during the week when Doug was at work. And the weekend we spent together was jam-packed with activities.

In Salzburg we met up with Pop-Pop's cousin Joe and his wife Patricia who live in Italy. It was supposed to rain there all day, but we didn't see a drop and enjoyed a lovely afternoon of shopping and lunch with family we don't get to see too much! I'm glad Gianna and I both got to meet them!

On Sunday, we went to the Chinese Tower biergarten in the Englischer Garden for lunch. Since the band plays on Sundays, Gianna was thrilled! She was finally reunited with her tuba after a long separation. After chickens, wursts, beers, and fried dough, we were stuffed!

On Monday we said goodbye. We were so happy to have visitors! Gianna still talks about the things she did with them while they were here: "crazy driving" in the stroller with Pop-pop and playing with "Nonna's things."

One of Gianna's new "Nonna's things" favorites...we may need to get some of these to tame that mop!

Oct. 8, 30 years old and 34 weeks pregnant

I had a hard time remembering that it was my birthday. So 30 came and went without too much excitement. But I had a great day (despite Gianna's less than stellar mood). I made myself a birthday cake. A much more successful venture this time since my mother-in-law brought me a Pillsbury Funfetti cake from the states. It was absolutely delicious! (Thanks Nonna/Judi!) Doug and Gianna and I went out for a Mexican dinner that was very good with unusually fast service, which is always appreciated with a 2-year-old at the table. After Gianna went to bed my in-laws returned from their trip to Prague and celebrated with me with cake and presents. Doug got me a set of 4 wine glasses that are very German in style. My grandmother had some and I'd never seen them anywhere besides her house, but here they're everywhere and I love them. I can't wait to bring them home and use them. Here are a few pictures to mark the occassion and the belly-size.

October 3, A day at the petting/feeding zoo

I'm way behind on my blogging! Last weekend, while Doug's parents (Nonna and Pop-pop) were in Italy for the weekend, we decided to visit Berg Tierpark, a petting zoo of sorts. It was quite an interesting place. Part of it was like a big (scary) playground and the rest had all sorts of animals that you could feed and/or pet like chickens, bunnies, goats, sheep, and deer. Most animals were caged or fenced, but you could walk among the deer which was kind of neat. Gianna liked the idea of feeding them, but didn't want to get too close. In the video she says, "Go away" to the deer quite a few times, but she wasn't overly scared. I don't know if she was intimidated by the big white stag, but I was a little and the other deer definitely were! We've never seen anything like him before.

Gianna probably liked the little ferret things (see video) the most. They weren't interested in our food, but she enjoyed having long "conversations" with them, though the video doesn't really capture that.

We didn't do much of the playground stuff except play in the sand because it was definitely geared toward older kids. I can see a 5-year-old really loving it there. Doug decided to check out the slide. In this case, though, "slide" was more like a euphemism for "free-fall in a pipe"! Unfortunately there are no pictures because the slide went through the ground like a tunnel, but Doug says the descent was nearly vertical. Good thing they provide rugs so that kids can go faster on them! Yowsers!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Gianna!

On Tuesday Gianna turned 2! We can't believe it! She had such a fun day. It started with the arrival of her Tweety Bird balloon. She loved throwing it up in the air and dragging it around. Then we spent the early afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa at Oktoberfest where her every whim was indulged. She was too scared to ride the kiddie rides, but she enjoyed watching them and she really loved her ice cream cone, cookie necklace, giant pretzel, and doing "cheers" with Grandma and Grandpa.

The big celebration came in the evening, but it began with some major excitement when the Tweety balloon blew out the window!! We live on the 6th floor and I thought we'd lost it for sure. But it's a weighted balloon so it floated down to the street where a man caught it and was happy to hand it over to Daddy who had run out to rescue Tweety. Daddy, you're our hero! Then we had one of her favorite dinners: Nurnberger wursts and potato chips, followed by gifts, and birthday cake (Gianna was only interested in the sugar butterflies on top...thank goodness I included them!).

The birthday cake was quite an accomplishment. Turns out they don't sell traditional cake mixes here. So I found a cupcake mix marketed for little kids and decided to make a cake out of it. Well, this box only made 12 small cupcakes (like the size of mini muffins) so the batter didn't exactly fill the cake pan. So basically I made a thick pancake. Then my attempt at icing. I followed a recipe we had, but I guess German cream cheese is different than ours because the icing turned out really runny. So I had to take the cake picture fast before the words slid right off!

The above picture deserves an explanation. This is her new knight hat. She doesn't always like it and she got very upset when Daddy and Grandpa kept lifting up the visor to look at her. So we call this photo "The Sad Knight."

Sorry there are so many pictures. They're all so cute I just couldn't narrow it down. And here are some bonus pics of some of the more insane adult rides at Oktoberfest. I guess adult rides are like the children's playgrounds: dangerous! Those swings go like 10 stories in the air and are one of the few rides that doesn't go upside down!


And for your viewing pleasure, here are two videos. One of Gianna playing with Tweety and another enjoying her new animal keyboard.

Weekend and baby update

After a few days of actually visiting relatives north and west of here (in Germany), my mom and dad were back for the weekend. On Saturday we went to Hitler's Eagle's Nest (near Salzburg, Austria about 1 1/2 hours from here). There are not a lot of Nazi or WWII things to see there, but you take a beautiful bus ride up the mountain and then Hitler's elevator ("shiny elegator") to the very top. The views are amazing! It was a great day to go, you could see forever. All of the pictures are from the top, but none really captures how amazing it was!

On Sunday, Grandma and Grandpa stayed home with Gianna while Doug and I took in one last Munich sight that we hadn't visited yet: The Residenz, which is the downtown residence (what a surprise) of the royal Wittelsbach family. It was nice to navigate downtown without a stroller. And we got to see a little bit of Oktoberfest revelry. (That's right folks, Oktoberfest starts in September!) The city is definitely different with the start of Oktoberfest on Saturday. Everything just seems busier...especially on Sundays which are usually insanely quiet! And it's neat to see all the locals in their traditional German outfits. Apparently dressing up is the thing to do. Families with kids all dressed up are the cutest! We ended the weekend with dinner at a Mexican restaurant. This was a very refreshing change of pace and we learned 3 things: 1) Gianna likes virgin margaritas, 2) German burritos have green beans in them (WHA?!?!), and 3) due to #2, get the fajitas.

Next is the baby news. First of all, we have decided to name him Mark Thomas. Mark because it's the only name we agree on for a first name and Thomas because it's my dad's name. Gianna already calls him Baby Mark. It's really fun to have a name for him. I had an appointment today. I am 32 weeks and everything is going well. Mark looks good, is average-sized, and is head down; all good things! We have decided to attempt a VBAC rather than schedule a C-section; unless I go past my due date (Nov. 18). So keep us in your thoughts for a successful attempt at labor and normal delivery! We cannot believe how soon Mark is coming!

Grandma and Grandpa visit!!!

A week and half ago, we welcomed my mom and dad to Munich. They will be in Europe for 3 weeks and will be in and out of Munich during that time. We were lucky enough to have them around for their whole first week. They did lots of sight-seeing and Gianna and I were happy to join them when we could. We were really happy to have them around last weekend while Doug was in Amsterdam for work. On Saturday we took the short trip by train to Dachau to visit the site of the concentration camp there. It was a rather grim place to visit, but very interesting and moving. On Sunday we had a relaxing day, morning in the botanical garden, afternoon napping or at art museums, and evening in a biergarten. The biergarten was nearly empty...I wonder if people are resting up for Oktoberfest?

At the botanical garden fountain with Grandma and Grandpa in her cute little outfit from them.

Sharing in a "Prost" ("Cheers") with Grandma and Grandpa at the biergarten.

Gianna in her favorite "present" from Grandma and Grandpa a give-away crown from some kind of event downtown. She mostly likes to wear it over her face and/or upside down.

After Daddy finally came home, she discovered she likes wearing his ties...especially with her crown and "queen dress" (aka bubble wrap).

Swans and palaces and playgrounds (oh my)

It was a beautiful fall-like weekend here in Munich. And for once, we stayed home! It was very relaxing, but we definitely kept busy around here. On Saturday we went downtown and did some shopping and snacking. I'm sure there were mostly tourists there, but it felt like a very German thing to do. In the Viktualienmarkt, we tried the famous weiss wurst for the first time...yuck. Actually, the taste was fine, but the consistency was gross. It did come with a delicious mustard though! We also tried warm honey wine which was FANTASTIC! (I only had a sip or two!)

On Sunday we went to, you guessed it, another castle, more of a palace actually. This one was the Nymphenburg Palace on the outskirts of Munich. It wasn't all that exciting as far as our castle experiences go, but the grounds were beautiful and Gianna loved the swans. As a side note, you may have noticed Gianna's pigtails. She has let me do them 3 days in a row and I'm so excited. It takes some bribing, but she does actually leave them in. We just think she looks so cute!

After our self-guided tour we went to a biergarten nearby. The food was much the same, but the biergarten was in a huge, really nice park. It had a place to feed deer, which Gianna kind of liked. And more importantly, this park was was chock full of dangerous playgrounds for us to laugh at. So the rest of this blog entry will be devoted to pictures and descriptions of all the danger. (EG, Yentz this is for you!)

Below is basically a slide, and your eyes are not decieving you, the only way to get to the slide is to climb this concrete rock wall or cargo net. Needless to say, Doug had to go up first and I just handed Gianna to him.

This little house isn't especially dangerous, but there was one nearby that was much higher up (about 6 feet or so) and the only way to get to any of them is to climb sand covered wood planks. So I saw a boy slip on the wood planks, hit his ribs on the way down, and then fall the six feet to the ground where he smacked his head. He was quite upset, but his mother didn't seem too concerned...and he did seem fine. But, phew, it all makes me nervous! Oh well, survival of the fittest I suppose!

And now, drumroll please, this is our favorite so far. That's right, this playground is being sprayed, or rather drowned, by water. Why? I can only assume to make it more dangerous. How else will the climbing things be super slick? And how else will the rocks to get up to the slide (that's right, there are no stairs) be as slippery as possible? I should also point out that there is no one at this playground because it was about 60 degrees this day. Seems to me, the water shouldn't even come on when it's that cold.
Doug and I agree that it would be super fun to be a kid in Germany. These playgrounds rock compared to the watered-down (no pun intended!) playgrounds in the US. The only problem for us is that there is no alternative for toddlers really. So, a day at the playground with Gianna is no relaxing trip for Mom and Dad!