Londyn and Trip in Milmersdof

The other day I took the kids out to do Londyn's 3 year photo shoot. I have been really good about doing photo shoots of her around her birthday each year. Trip, on the other hand, not so much. Because he is a Winter baby it is not as much fun doing photo shoots because it is usually snowy outside. This year, however, I hope to do a really fun shoot in the snow for his birthday. They are both old enough to stay out in the snow for a bit so we should do something special. Snow, pine trees, sleds, maybe some outdoor lights?! The options are endless.  

Last week I took the kids to Milmersdorf. It is a neighboring town a few minutes from ours here in Germany. It is the home of one of our favorite "compounds." As you can tell from the photos it is a beautiful Bavarian countryside.

Soothing Honey-Lemon Tea

Can I just say that I have been sick for over 6 weeks!? I have started to get better a couple of times but I can't seem to get healthy. I took another bad turn this weekend and I am currently trying to get feeling better… AGAIN! When we were in Berlin a couple of weeks ago I discovered one of my new favorite things. I have gone through so many lemons lately. In the last 24 hours I've used 7 lemons and one lime… and LOTS of honey! If you would have asked me a few weeks ago I would have said that honey is not my favorite flavor. I am now a huge fan of it and it's soothing nature.

Celebrating Three Years of our Little Londyn!

Londyn Skye, our precious first born, will be turning three this weekend! You have to know how emotional I am over here. I mean, how do you function as a Mom?! It's quite near impossible in every way. But, especially as you watch your children grow up. They just keep getting better and better as they grow older, but I STILL want to freeze them. I don't want these times to end. My heart often hurts as I think about the time when I will leave them at school for the first time or the time when they would rather go hang out with their friends than be with me… their dorky mom. The dorky mom who is sitting here crying crocodile tears as she types. 

Berlin, Germany

Just about two weeks ago we made a trip to Berlin. It was last minute planning and I sort of just picked Berlin as our destination out of thin air. I am SO GLAD I DID! I seriously LOVE Berlin and I can't wait to (hopefully) go back. There is something so magical about a city so rich with history. The history is hard to take in as some of it is tragic, but still, it was so neat to be there.

Click here to see a slideshow of our favorite photos from the road trip.

Some of our favorite sites were:

Brandenburg Gate- This Gateway was built in 1791 and it is a very popular site. It was a place of major celebration when the wall finally came down in 1990. In 1987, President of the US, Ronald Reagan stood at this gate and said, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Our Family at Tropical Islands

We spent a little less than 24 hours at the Tropical Islands Resort here in Germany. It was quite the experience. Looking back, honestly, I would have spent the entire weekend in Berlin instead of splitting the weekend up. (I just fell in love with Berlin. The city and the history. Blog post to come on Berlin.)

However... I did enjoy our stay here and the kids especially loved it. It was a child's dream. There was lots of water and a HUGE kiddie area with many slides, lots of climbing and even a restaurant geared just for the child right next door. WE had slushies, lots of food and candy and we stayed up late together. There were all sorts of restaurants and the Indian food was quite good. They had a very extensive candy shop and we made a few (too many) trips there! All in all it will be a very fond memory in my book.

Tropical Islands Scenery (Krausnick, Germany)

We had the opportunity to go to Tropical Islands Resort. It was an amazing place and definitely awesome to see something so unique. 

Tropical Islands is a resort in Krausnick, Germany. It is less then an hour from Berlin and only 4 hours from our house. Tropical Islands is housed in a former cargo-lifter airship hangar. The original hangar cost about 78 million euros to build. When it was no longer needed for it's original purpose it was sold for 17.8 million euros and made into an indoor tropical "paradise." It is complete with beaches, shopping, restaurants, entertainment and lots of fun for the kids. There are beautiful accommodations and even tent camping right on site. Our room was one of the nicest hotel rooms I have stayed in (in Europe). The restaurants were high quality and the breakfast buffet was (again) one of the biggest and best I've had in Europe.

I am a Daughter of God (Free Printables!)

We are home from our vacation! We had a wonderful trip. Berlin was seriously

spectacular. It is definitely one of my new favorite cities.

A Happy Family (Free Printable!)

Family. Seriously. The best. I am so lucky to call these three family. We took these pictures over a year ago. We wanted to capture some memories before Sam deployed. I hadn't seen these in a while and I was looking back at them a couple of days ago.

Good Day to You! (Free Printables!)

There is something I absolutely love about mornings. Sometimes the morning is quiet and peaceful. The air is crisp and cool and I feel refreshed (like I said... sometimes). There is something about the night time. A time where we are to sleep, rest our usually weary bodies and renew ourselves for a brand new day. To me, it seems symbolic of something greater. But, one thing I do know is-- it is a blessing. A new morning. Another chance to do good. I have struggled with a concept for a long time. It is the concept of slowly chipping away at something. Working hard for or on something. Allowing yourself to be okay with the fact that we can't have everything now. Somethings have to wait until tomorrow. Some results don't come over night. As I have grown older and thus more wise (smile), I have learned that I can start again and again and I can do little by little and there is nothing wrong with that.

Happy Sabbath and a Free Personal Progress Chart!

Today was another good day. We made some new friends. They are a super cute couple. The wife is from South Jordan, Utah and the husband is from here in Germany. He served a mission for our church here in the Ansbach area. We were able to hang out with them for a couple of hours today. Let's just say they are kind of amazing. He is getting his PHD in medical engineering, she, her masters in nutrition. She served a mission for our church in the Ukraine, speaking Russian. So, let's get this straight. She speaks German, Russian AND English. Smarty pants. It is fun to meet people that inspire you.

I designed this chart for the young women in our ward (church) to track their Personal Progress goals. I enjoy working with the young women and I also enjoy using my creative skills. So, I put the two together and created this...

Saturday Showers

Happy Saturday! Today was a great weekend. We had a "hail 'n farewell" for Sam's unit here at the beer garden. I made 110 ten snickerdoodles and passed them all around. I even gave a bunch away to lots of Germans I didn't know. Half the beer garden was laughing about all the cookies being passed around. One elderly German lady ate 1, then another and then asked for a 3rd. About an hour later Sam brought the cookies to their table and she took THREE more! Apparently the Germans love snickerdoodles. They don't really have cookies here so it was a treat a lot them enjoyed. I loved being the cookie lady. It was worth all the hours it took to make the tripled batch. (I had no idea how much more work a tripled batch would be!!)