When Jay gets really excited about something he goes into "Wild Stallyns" mode à la Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. We're feeding him something yummy here and he gets so excited by the prospect of the next bite that he does the "Wild Stallyn." Rock on Jay, rock on.
And just in case you've forgotten the incredible experience of seeing Bill and Ted's air guitar, take a stroll down memory lane.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
New Years! (better late than never)
I never got around to posting about New Years. With all the exitement of Jay walking, it was overlooked. Actually, we didn't do very much anyway. Since we have a 1 year old little boy with an 8:00 bedtime it's sort of hard to get out. We watched the Armed Forces Bowl and rooted for Air Force to beat Cal, but were disappointed when the quarterback Carney was injured and the Falcons ended up loosing (but thanks to Tal and Jess for giving us the chance to watch the game!). After the game we watched the movie She's the Man (my pick) and at midnight we sat out on our balcony and watched the many fireworks go off in and around our neighborhood.
The fireworks were pretty impressive actually. German law allows people to set off bottle rockets and all sorts of fancy fireworks. It was quite entertaining. We toasted the traditional Martinelli sparkling cider, which Mike opened with his spiffy new bottle opening flip flops - thanks Mama and Papa J. We tried to get a good picture of us drinking but it didn't work out very well. Mike narrowly caught our camera as it toppled off the cereal box I had set it up on. Sparkling cider was all over the floor, but at least our camera wasn't. 
We had a nice night and Mike even let me sleep in the next morning... what a great husband! Just so we don't leave Jay out I'll add that we ate some celebratory jamón the next day, a Christmas present from Ryan and Luisana, and Jay went crazy for it. He just kept begging for more and more. He ended up eating half the package! Way to go little Spanish baby.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Recyling
We have a massive amount of recycling in our house, since we still haven't exactly figured out where to get rid of it yet and Jay LOVES to play with it. Several times a day he pulls it all out and scatters it around him. Here's a picture of him having a great time. And here's another video of him walking around. I know his biggest fans always like to see more!Thursday, January 03, 2008
Breaking News: Jay can WALK... and TALK!
Today Jay officially started walking. He must have known what I was writing about today (in the Luxembourg post). We have been wishing so much that we would just go ahead and walk. Well he did it! He's off to a GREAT start. He's already practically running up and down the hall and he can even turn around flawlessly. Way to go Jay! We're soooooooooooo happy! Crazy enough, he also said his first real word today. He's been saying mama and dada for a while, but it almost doesn't count because he often babels with those consonants too. But today he started saying ball. Isn't ball a great word? It was his daddy's first word too. He says it whenever he sees his great big green ball. He even said it when he saw it in one of the videos we'd taken of him on Christmas day. My little guy is growing up. Isn't it amazing to feel so happy for your child? There's no joy like the joy you feel for your baby. YEAH JAY!
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Luxembourg
Over the weekend we drove to Luxembourg. Just to clear things up, Luxembourg is a country which has a city in it called Luxembourg too. Luxembourg city is actually the capital of Luxembourg. A little confusing. Luxembourg is a very small country, one of the smallest in Europe but it has much to offer. I
t's the only remaining Grand Duchy in the world (a country whose head of state is a Grand Duke or Duchess). It, like all land in Europe, has passed through many hands but is currently an independent state. We only had a 1 1/2 hour drive up to Luxembourg city, where we stayed at the Hilton our first night. We had Indian food and looked around the city center a little, but it was way too cold to stay out for long. In the morning we headed back into town and explored the city. It's very small. We were surprised how short a time it took to see the main tourist attractions. We saw the ca
thedral Notre Dame, the Grand Duke's Palace and the Adolphe Bridge. We also stopped at an indoor farmers market which had a huge variety of fruits and vegetables plus a beautiful selection of tulips. It was raining a little, and again very cold, so we bundled Jay up and put his rain hood over the stroller. The window kept fogging up and Jay could hardly see anything. Poor kid. He must think we're crazy. We really liked the Duke's palace. It was very impressive. The light colored rock accented with blue trim is quite regal looking. The whole city is clean and inviting. We just can't stop commenting on how much different northern Europe is from southern Europe. After checking out the c
ity we went to a huge shopping mall to get out of the cold for a little while. The biggest grocery store I've ever seen took up about half the mall. We had pizza and looked through the discounted clothes at H&M and Zara but then we realized paying in Euros pretty much cancels out any sale price.
After getting warm and doing a little window shopping we headed to our next destination, the town of Vianden. Vianden is well known for two things. First, Victor Hugo (French writer/poet of Les Miserables and Hunchback of Notre Dame) lived there during his exile. Some even claim he wrote Les Miserables while living there, but we don't know for sure. S
econd, the city is well known for the beautiful castle that watches over it. The Vianden Castle was constructed between the 11th and 14th centuries. It is one of the largest and most beautiful castles in Europe. It was fun to see it because it was actually used as a residence, unlike many of the other castles we've seen over in Europe which were solely used as defensive castles. Another great thing about the Vianden Castle is that it was restored by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg in 1977. Seeing it really gives you a glimpse into what life was like back in the gothic/romantesque period. 
The restoration was very thorough and we truly enjoyed touring the castle. Even antique (VERY antique) furniture was found from the 11th - 14th centuries and set up throughout the castle. We're so glad we stopped into this little town. We probably never would have known about it if a friend hadn't recommended we go there. The only downside was that we couldn't take our stroller itno the castle (castles aren't exactly stroller friendly) and Jay wanted to crawl around SO badly. The little stinker still refuses to walk. He can do it, we've seen him 
several times, he just chooses to crawl instead. He's very fast and I guess he figures there's no use in walking. If he only realized we would let him down to walk/run around a little if he walked. Crawling just doesn't work as well when the ground is freezing cold and filthy dirty. I know people keep telling me I should be happy he's not walking yet because it will make things even harder once he does, but come on, I know there will be many benefits too. At least I can be sure that Jay will have excellent hand/eye coordination and the left and right sides of his brain have had plenty of time to work together. Oh well, soon enough I'll be missing my little crawler. The great thing is that he is a wonderful little traveler, which makes it easy for us to go see the country while we're here. We sure love our little pal.
t's the only remaining Grand Duchy in the world (a country whose head of state is a Grand Duke or Duchess). It, like all land in Europe, has passed through many hands but is currently an independent state. We only had a 1 1/2 hour drive up to Luxembourg city, where we stayed at the Hilton our first night. We had Indian food and looked around the city center a little, but it was way too cold to stay out for long. In the morning we headed back into town and explored the city. It's very small. We were surprised how short a time it took to see the main tourist attractions. We saw the ca
thedral Notre Dame, the Grand Duke's Palace and the Adolphe Bridge. We also stopped at an indoor farmers market which had a huge variety of fruits and vegetables plus a beautiful selection of tulips. It was raining a little, and again very cold, so we bundled Jay up and put his rain hood over the stroller. The window kept fogging up and Jay could hardly see anything. Poor kid. He must think we're crazy. We really liked the Duke's palace. It was very impressive. The light colored rock accented with blue trim is quite regal looking. The whole city is clean and inviting. We just can't stop commenting on how much different northern Europe is from southern Europe. After checking out the c
ity we went to a huge shopping mall to get out of the cold for a little while. The biggest grocery store I've ever seen took up about half the mall. We had pizza and looked through the discounted clothes at H&M and Zara but then we realized paying in Euros pretty much cancels out any sale price.After getting warm and doing a little window shopping we headed to our next destination, the town of Vianden. Vianden is well known for two things. First, Victor Hugo (French writer/poet of Les Miserables and Hunchback of Notre Dame) lived there during his exile. Some even claim he wrote Les Miserables while living there, but we don't know for sure. S
econd, the city is well known for the beautiful castle that watches over it. The Vianden Castle was constructed between the 11th and 14th centuries. It is one of the largest and most beautiful castles in Europe. It was fun to see it because it was actually used as a residence, unlike many of the other castles we've seen over in Europe which were solely used as defensive castles. Another great thing about the Vianden Castle is that it was restored by the Grand Duke of Luxembourg in 1977. Seeing it really gives you a glimpse into what life was like back in the gothic/romantesque period. 
The restoration was very thorough and we truly enjoyed touring the castle. Even antique (VERY antique) furniture was found from the 11th - 14th centuries and set up throughout the castle. We're so glad we stopped into this little town. We probably never would have known about it if a friend hadn't recommended we go there. The only downside was that we couldn't take our stroller itno the castle (castles aren't exactly stroller friendly) and Jay wanted to crawl around SO badly. The little stinker still refuses to walk. He can do it, we've seen him 
several times, he just chooses to crawl instead. He's very fast and I guess he figures there's no use in walking. If he only realized we would let him down to walk/run around a little if he walked. Crawling just doesn't work as well when the ground is freezing cold and filthy dirty. I know people keep telling me I should be happy he's not walking yet because it will make things even harder once he does, but come on, I know there will be many benefits too. At least I can be sure that Jay will have excellent hand/eye coordination and the left and right sides of his brain have had plenty of time to work together. Oh well, soon enough I'll be missing my little crawler. The great thing is that he is a wonderful little traveler, which makes it easy for us to go see the country while we're here. We sure love our little pal.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Let it Snow
We experienced our first snow here in Germany last Wednesday. It's definitely been cold enough to snow but apparently it doesn't snow around here very often. It was Jay's first time seeing snow. He didn't really react too much one way or the other. I guess he's just good at going with the flow no matter what's happening. Here's a picture of the front of the house we live in and a video of Jay. By the way, Jay's two top teeth next to the ones in the very middle have poked through. They're not all the way out, but they're on their way.
Heidelberg and the Christmas Market
We actually went to Heidelberg before Christmas, but I haven't had a chance to post about it until now. Heidelberg is about an hour away from us and we decided to head up there the weekend before Christmas to check out one of the famous German Christmas markets. The city was beautiful but very COLD. Have I mentioned how cold it is in Germany? The Christmas market was at the end of a long pedestrian street lined with retail shops. It was fun to look through the stores when we needed a break from the freezing cold air outside (which was about every 10 minutes). Everywhere w
e went merchants were selling Gluewhein, which is a hot spiced wine punch that is very popular in Germany at Christmas time. It smelled so good, but of course we didn't get any. We did buy some yummy bratwursts and fresh hot pretzels to keep warm. There were many pretty things being sold at the Christmas market. Everything from beautifully embroidered tablecloths to nativity scenes (By the way, in my family we often called the nativity a creche... Mike always makes fun of me for it and refuses to believe it's a real word. Anyone else out there ever used th
e word creche?). We didn't end up buying anything at the Christmas fair but we did buy our GPS at a huge discount electronic store nearby. After seeing the Christmas market and when our fingers, toes and noses were nearly frozen off we ducked into a little cafe and had some yummy hot chocolate. I just have to comment on how wonderful the customer service was. Maybe it seemed especially nice because we've been in Spain for so long (where store owners and employees are doing you a favor by allowing you to frequent their establishment). It was s
uch a pleasure to find a waitress who was actually trying to make our experience pleasant. All and all we really enjoyed Heidelberg. We definitely want to go back on a warmer day though since we couldn't see the famous castle due to the dense fog. We don't mind though, it's definitely a city nice enough to visit twice.
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