Vacation Pics

We just got back from a nice two week vacation, wanted to share a few pictures. We spent our time at two Alpine lakes, one in Slovenia and one in Austria, with a night outside of Salzburg on the way. A great time altogether, we'll probably be looking back fondly on these pictures for a long time.

August 2011 Family Trip - Austria and Slovenia

Emma Hermine Elisabeth Brocks Biegansky

I have heard quite a few stories about my grandma (Oma) Emma Brocks (my Dad's mom) like when she stood in the wrong line at the German border looking for her POW husband and ended up in a prison camp for about a year while her 6 children lived on a farm during war time practically fending for themselves. My Oma had 6 children during the 1930's which actually isn't true, she had 7. My Dad's older sister had a twin brother who died at 6 months of age. My Dad didn't share this with me until after I told them I was having twins which initially completely blew me away. I can't blame him for not remembering or not thinking to tell me. He was born 6 years after the little baby boy Elmar died and it was war time. One of my Dad's earliest memories was running to a bunker during a bomb raid. I can't even imagine how his parents survived those times. Keeping lots of stories, photos, and keepsakes of the twin probably just wasn't a priority like staying alive was.

I am having a boy and girl as well just like my Oma. I never got to have a relationship with her. I lived far away and she died when I was still young. On one hand, I really wish she was here to share this twins experience with her but on the other hand, I already feel so much closer to her just knowing I am the one who will keep the twins tradition alive in the Biegansky family, hopefully with more success this time thanks to the time we live in. I find it so odd that of all the grandkids, I'm the only one pregnant with twins. My Dad has passed on a lot more than interesting stories to me, also the twins gene. With all the fear I have about not only having twins but being a mom to 3 kids, I do find comfort when I think about how special it is that I share something quite rare with my grandma.

Here is a picture of my grandma and the whole family. My dad is on the far right and you can guess who my grandma is.

The Elaine

Last weekend already feels so long ago but definitely not forgotten. My spa getaway was wonderful, felt almost unreal how beautiful it all was and how spoiled I felt. I feel the need to give a shout out just in case any of you might ever get the chance to go here. It's the Kranzbach hotel right by Garmisch. It's a modern spa hotel plus a castle for lodging surrounded by the Alps - yes the weekend was too short.

This past week was nice and low key. Sure seems like Germany closes up shop in August. My 2 playgroups and one movement class closed up shop this week until September. Good thing we'll be very German-like and take a nice long 2 week vacation (more on that in a future post).

I have a big appointment tomorrow with the twins specialist center to make sure all is ok. We also find out the sexes, woohoo! I've been more nervous lately because of how I feel and just the fact that I have officially cracked open the books and started reading about being pregnant with twins. I feel A LOT of pressure down you know where and I'm not that big yet. I also feel a lot of pain, especially in the evening, which I assume is just everything stretching but still, it scares me. My level of fatigue still is abnormally high even though this is when I should feel best. What I've read so far is about the importance of gaining a lot of weight and taking it extra easy to best ensure the babies stay inside me for as long as possible. My main takeaway from the books so far is that I have to be extra careful because carrying two is risky and not natural for our bodies. I was hoping to read more reassuring statements instead of warnings but maybe I just started with the wrong couple books.

Anyway, looking forward to finding out the sexes and hopefully not getting any kind of scary news about the twins or the doctor telling me to go on bedrest.

Here's a picture from this morning going out for Breakfast. I also included a short video of Lily dancing today at the train station by our place. Our station plays classical music and Lily does the Elaine dance from Seinfeld to it. Maybe I shouldn't sign her up for a dance competition.

Disaster Averted

Well, it finally happened. It took so long it's almost embarrasing. It had been rumored to be happening soon for a long time, and the time finally arrived. Nicole spent a night away from Lily. In fact, two. And I know it's amazing, but everyone survived.

Nicole had intended to do a weekend getaway with a girlfriend or two quite a while ago before we left Oregon, but it just never happened for no particular reason. And with the chaos that will arrive in a few months, it was really now or never. So Friday afternoon she packed a bag and set off with her old high school friend for a spa getaway near the Alps south of the city.

Let me just say it really could have been a horrible, horrible weekend. About an hour after Nicole left, Lily was playing but kind of laying around and mentioned that her tummy hurt. I didn't really pay it much attention and we went for a little bike ride. But during dinner she was obviously not herself, not really eating and acting really tired. And after more laying around and acting very sleepy, as we were heading up to her room she puked all over. Uh oh. The only other time this happened, Lily was puking for hours and it was a miserable night with all of us getting sick. She had a fever so I gave her some medicine and decided to proceed with bedtime as normal. After that I prepared for the worst, taking a preventative dose of Advil and taking care of everything that might need doing in the next 24 hours in case we were a complete mess. I decided that night not to tell Nicole about our little mishap unless we ended up in the ER or something, I didn't want her to worry. I went to sleep early fully expecting to wake up within a couple of hours with either or both of us grossly ill.

But lo and behold, I woke up as usual, with Lily calling from her crib at a normal hour. Her fever was gone and mine never arrived. We played it safe that day and just went for a couple of short bike rides to the center of town to see the "tower dolls", but everything was fine. Crisis averted.

Anyway, besides that whole misadventure, the weekend went really well. We had fun together and did things that we don't usually do with Mommy, like eat Döner. I think my takeaway from the weekend was twofold, I'm ready to do it again whenever (at least until the twins arrive), and I have a little better insight into the realities of the routine we're pretty rigid about: there are a few hours after breakfast and before nap time to go do something fun, there's nap time (at least in theory there's napping going on, probably a subject for another blog), there's time after the nap for a small outing or combine it with dinner out, and then it's time for bed. There's not a whole lot of room there for getting creative, especially without a car. When Nicole's around, we're ping-ponging between us with errands and getting out for exercise, but when it's just one of us it's like we are very much locked into the routine.

And of course now I realize I didn't take a single picture the whole weekend. Oh well, hopefully Nicole can have another getaway while she's still feeling pretty good.

Giggly Lily Thanks to Silly Daddy

Wanted to share something that I just think is really cool and fun to watch....silly Nate with his giggly Lily. Here is Lily at 5 months and again now at 2 years giggling to the same silly kissing technique from her Daddy.

Good Times

Things are looking up here. We had a great weekend and the past week was really good as well. We even managed to hang a couple of pictures on the wall today. Of course Nicole feeling better has a lot to do with the good times, but a lot of the credit goes to Lily. Lately she's been fun to be around more often than not, really putting smiles on our faces just by being herself. She's surprising us a lot with new words or actions, it's almost hard to keep pace.



Now if she sees someone crying she'll point out that "she's sad", and will sometimes offer the sad person food or a toy to "make them feel better". Really cute to see. She's also a big singer now, loving to sing her German songs even if she has no idea what they mean and her Music Together songs from her classes back in Portland. This past week or so she's started joining in when we sing some of her songs to her... guess we have to figure out three part harmonies now.



Ok, this feels braggy now so I'll take it down a notch to share something Lily got from her Mama. Nicole loves to grunt when she plays tennis and has managed to pass this along to her daughter. Video proof is below.



Another funny one... she knows that Mama has babies in her belly, and one of our neighbors has a rather large grown son. You probably can guess the rest, but yes, Lily pointed out that this guy had babies in his belly too. And yes, he understands English just fine.

Ok, ok, enough for now.

Portland Flashback Pics

Shortly before we left Portland, we had our friend Chippy take some 2 year pics of Lily as well as family photos around the Portland we love. We just got them the other day and wanted to share some of our favorites.