Saturday, June 13, 2009

Rhino

The kids and I are trying to catch a hop back to the states for a couple of weeks. The flights haven't been going in our favor, we are trying again this afternoon. In the meantime...here are some cute pics of our hamster!



Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Nana and Papa Mac in Germany!

In April Nana and Papa Mac came to visit! Bailey and Brycen had no idea they were coming, so when we went to the airport to pick them up it was a big surprise. It worked out great because the kids were on spring break while they were and they also got to spend Easter with us. We took a few day trips while they were here. We went to the zoo in Frankfurt, visited the Roman ruins in Tier (and got lost-even with a GPS), went to the Porsche Museum and took a scenic drive through the Black Forest. It was awesome to have them here, we all really enjoyed it, the two weeks went by way too fast!



Thursday, April 30, 2009

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Our New Pet!

This is our new rat...er..I mean hamster! His name is Rhino (of course the name had to come from a Disney movie-in Bolt the hasmter's name is Rhino) The kids absolutely love him! Guess what-he doesn't pee on the carpet and he doesn't need to be taken outside in the freezing cold-perfect pet for us! They have been so good about taking care of him! They love to play with him. We did have one little scare where he magically got out of his cage and was running loose upstairs, but we found him pretty quickly. He is a funny little guy-Bailey likes to put him on the coffee table and let him run around, but he likes to jump off and see what he can find on the floor.


Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Our Little Model

Recently I got a new lens and a backdrop, so who better to try it out on than our little beauty! These are just a couple of shots of Bailey and I playing around in the studio! (Notice the dress-it is in the 40's today and she thinks it is time to pull out the summer clothes!)



Tuesday, February 24, 2009

....as promised!

I know you are all shocked and about to fall out of your chairs right now because I actually got this posted! (You can click on the pictures to see them larger) =)

So our new friends invited us to go on vacation with them for New Year's to Garmisch-Partenkirchen and instead of me trying to go all into where it is and all that good stuff...here is a link if you want to look it up...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garmisch-Partenkirchen

It is in the Bavarian Alps and ABSOLUTELY, BREATHTAKINGLY, (is that a word?) BEAUTIFUL!! Beautiful-and COLD! There is an Army resort there-sort of like Shades of Green at Disney, that is where we stayed. It ws a lot of fun. The kids absolutely loved it! We didn't think Brycen would last in the cold but he outlasted EVERYONE on the first day of sledding! I do have some pictures of him sledding, but they are on the laptop and the laptop is in England with Bo (oh yeah, by the way-Bo is in England for the next few weeks). It was a lot of fun-but at the time-my Florida blood was nowhere near being acclimated to this cold and I didn't do too well freezing my hiney off!

This is us with all of our friends the first night we were there, well all of them except Elena, she was taking the picture! I will start on the left and go around the table, the first one is Scotty, Elena's husband, then we have the Parrish family starting with Kaylee, Will, Nickelette, and Sway, then the Riggsbees, Jenn, Thomas and thier son Jacob, then of course my handsome hunk of a hubby, me, and Brycen is hiding from the camera and his buddy Siera. Also not in the picture are Scotty and Elena's daughters Brianna (the baby of the bunch) and Alyssa, and Jenn and Thomas's daughter-Tristan and of course our Bailey.



Bailey, Alyssa and Tristan sledding...


Bailey's first crack at a snowboard-she fell in love with it!



This is our trip to the Neuschwanstein Castle, very beautiful, but again VERY COLD-I would like to go back when it warms up, a few of us didn't actually make it to the castle because after you get off the bus, there is still quite a hike to the castle grounds and we had a few of the kiddos who were absolutely miserable, so Bo and I took them back down to the van to warm up. Here is a link to the castle...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle






This is the trip to Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany. Bailey and Bo are both totally into snowboarding now-they are hooked! I think it is awesome that they can share that together! Brycen and I stayed back at the hotel with the Jenn, Nickelette and the younger kiddos and we planned to meet them up there and hang out for a bit and take some pictures, but the train ride and the gondola to the top was just as much as a lift ticket and it was way too much to pay just to go hang out, but Brycen was perfectly happy at the hotel, playing Nintendo and staying warm. Daddy and Bailey had an awesome time together!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugspitze







Hope you all enjoy the pics and such...stay tuned...we have a new little pet...I will try to get some pictures of him up in the next few days...love and miss you all!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Peas and Carrots

I know I am so far behind on keeping up with this blog! We have been so busy since we moved into the house. We are still working on getting settled. We have been in the house almost 2 months, so far so good. We are really enjoying it. It is very different than "home". The kids don't have friends in the neighborhood to come over and play in the afternoons, but on the weekends we get together with friends and they have sleepovers so they get to spend time with other kids.

We have joined a Life Group that meets on Friday night, we take the kids along and they all play in the kids room at whoever's house we are meeting at for the week. We are working on The Truth Project (www.thetruthproject.org) It has been awesome to get back into a group of believers and share our journey. It is so amazing what God has laid out for us here in Germany. He has so carefully planned out every step, every move for us and it is amazing! I get all warm and fuzzy and emotional when I think about how He has taken such good care of us-it is truly amazing-we are SO BLESSED and SO THANKFUL!

These are pictures of Brycen and Siera...they are like peas and carrots! They are so cute together. Siera has high functioning autism as well and she and Brycen are so cute together. They are best little buddies. It's like they just understand each other. They both love to play their Nintendos and Siera often gets right next to Brycen's face to watch him play and it doesn't bother him a bit, but if anyone else does it-it makes him crazy. They both get so excited when they know they are going to be seeing each other. They are just so dang cute! Jenn (Siera's mom) and I are already planning their wedding! LOL!

Lots of love to all of you-we miss you all so much! I promise I will try to be better about keeping up with the blog-I am going to try to post some pictures from our snowboard/sledding trip from New Year's soon!

~Jake~

PS
Notice Siera's glasses! She just got them a couple of weeks ago-Jenn had another pair picked out for her but Siera was insistant on these-we are thinking because they look just like Brycen's! She couldn't wait to show Brycen!