Tiny Dancer

I slowed down the tourist part of me and went to a couple playgroups I found online and through a friend this past week. One was in English (all British moms) and the other was in German. I learned that Lily doesn't like me speaking German for too long and she's all about music and dancing and playing with any doll she can get her hands on. Ever since we left Portland, she has started to really cling to dolls. She has to have her baby "Ana" with her much of the day and she sleeps with 4 dolls in her crib right now. It's pretty cute...when I put her to bed, she's holding 4 dolls in her arms. When I get her up, she's standing in her crib holding all 4 dolls. Ana is like Toy Story's Woody though...the #1 doll Lily always asks for. As a quick really cool side story, Ana is the same doll my sister was attached to at Lily's age. When we first arrived in Germany, my mom led Lily to a room full of dolls and stuffed animals (I'm talking at least 20 choices here) and Lily chose my sister's special doll.

As for Lily's other new things recently, I would say the main thing is her ability to now either lead a game or order us around. She will now tell me where to sit and when to get up, asks (who am I kidding, orders) me to spin around and then she spins kinda like the first signs of a simon says. I am more amazed by how much she understands than by how much she's talking at this point. It's cool to hear her put 2 words together once in a while but wow, I could be talking to Nate about some pigtails that look like horns in passing and Lily will suddenly start making the horn sound with her mouth.

No question Lily loves to dance. Here's her first time listening to music on head phones.




We did have a perfect fall day so I had to take her to Olympic park and see the view from the tower.

At the German speaking playgroup. Lily's first attempt at painting. She was more interested in checking herself out in the mirror off to the side.

A nice walk along the Isar river. I love this shot because I asked Lily to smile for the camera and this is what she gave me.

Day Trippin

As of this coming Thursday I'll have been in Munich for a month. We're pretty settled into our routines at this point, but it seems we're still settling into our apartment. I'm writing this from our living room which is a bit of a jumble. When we arrived it had a couch, two normal chairs, two weird chairs that are like pool deck chairs but on rockers, and a hammock (don't really know why there's a hammock in the living room, but it's here). Since then we have brought in the patio table and chairs to use as a dining table (the huge dining room table is in Lily's room and is too big to move it out) and a futon which is about four feet from the TV which is where it needs to be since the TV screen is literally the size of my laptop screen. We don't have any real complaints, it's just quirky.

Our routines are basically this. On weekdays I hop on the train and head to work, Nicole and Lily do some kind of touristy outing in the morning then come home for lunch and naptime, then out for errands or a short jaunt. I usually come home a bit early because I have evening phone meetings a couple of nights a week. Since I'm heading to an office Nicole hasn't seen and she and Lily are off visiting places I've never seen, it kind of feels like we're living dual lives here, but at least we have weekends to share some good experiences. And Nicole and Lily are planning on coming out to the office for lunch one day this week, so that should be fun.

For weekend days we get out of the city and do day trips as much as we can. We've done this twice now, and I'll give you our photo tour...

First we went to a strange amusement park in Wolfratshausen called Marchenwald. It's centered around the fairy tales of the brothers Grimm, and there are a bunch of animatronic sets around the park to recount the (oddly morbid and disturbing) tales. There were also a bunch of random rides, most of which Lily could do, a few of which she loved.

Here she is riding the miniature train through the forest. Three notes: 1) the "what the heck is going on here" look on her face. This would be a theme for the day. 2) the pictures from this day were shot on my cell phone, so the quality isn't so good. 3) we got there early and it was cold, so we had the place almost to ourselves for a while.

She LOVED these cars, we probably rode this six times.
I don't know why I find this one so hilarious, but I do.


After the park we drove over to Chiemsee (see = lake), and the sun came out so we could see foothills of the Austrian Alps as we drove. We also walked around a quaint town next to the lake called Prien. This pic is in the town square.


Ok, so that was last weekend... this weekend we started Saturday at an animal park, sort of an overgrown petting zoo. Lily enjoyed checking out the different animals, and she said afterwards that "ee-aw" was her favorite - the donkey. Here are a couple of shots from there.

Then we were going to drive to Tergensee but wanted to give Lily an opportunity for a longer nap plus the weather wasn't great so we drove down into Austria. The clouds opened up a bit and the scenery was amazing. We were driving along a long lake with sort of rolling hills/mountains on the other side, really beautiful. On the way back to Munich we stopped in what our book said was possibly the most prototypical Bavarian town, Neubeuern. A nice town square with one lane town gates and a castle on the cliff above the town. We hung out in the town center for a while admiring the flower boxes and murals painted on the buildings. We managed to get a nice self-pic too.

Then we noticed that the small statue on the water fountain at the center of town had a little quirk. Here he is.

I'll leave you with that one. Until next time...

Snack Trap

After our first full week in Germany, I know I have learned a lot but there is so much more to learn that I have to take the time and stop and look back to see how far I've come already. All I'm doing is looking forward on what else I want to figure out. The snack trap has turned out to be a great conversation starter with 2 moms so far. Apparently, they are not that common here; I should start an import business. The playgrounds here are pretty much all based in sand so you'll see the little kids wearing what look like oversized fishing overalls. As far as shopping goes here, I'm still overwhelmed by all the shopping options from farmers stands at street corners (imagine a fruit stand every few blocks on 23rd street), organic only stores, bigger USA size stores with organic sections, and then those cute little bakeries and delis that are tough to pass without stopping in to take a peek (great place to practice German).

Nate has had to work a lot this week with evening calls with the US, and he's off to Copenhagen for 4 days next week. We haven't had as much family time together as we're used to and it shows in just how clingy Lily is to me. It would be nice for her to want to play with only Daddy for a while so I can just take a break even if I'm in the same room but as with all things with little ones, this too shall pass. Lily and I have been tourists in the morning and more like locals in the late afternoon with going to parks and running errands. A friend asked me what my favorite thing about living in Munich is so far and at this point, it has to be the touristy adventures Lily and I have taken. I love that even I can go explore something new which is usually something really old around here. My biggest challenge is how lonely I already feel at times. The people here are much more reserved at first so I just have to be patient as well as gain more confidence in my German speaking abilities.

Here are a few pics from this past week

At the English Gardens (HUGE urban park with of course beer gardens mixed in)

In the kids section of the German museum, music part with oversized instruments.
At the Munich zoo which feels more like an open preserve.
Frauenkirche tower in the background
Here's a cute little video of Lily and a Chimpanzee.

Mathers are in Munich

Tonight is the first night in our Munich home together. It's a great apartment with a few quirks - hammock in the living room, sexy blue lights in the bathroom, no window coverings, tiny TV (can see in picture), and a washer but no dryer in the bathroom, come first to mind. We visited the first park just a couple blocks away and even though it's not really great for anyone under 4, it was still great to see lots of other kids around. It gave me confidence knowing that I could at least converse with some 6 year olds in German without asking them to please speak in English. There's a lot of foot traffic, much more than even Portland. I can watch lots of people walk by from the kitchen window.

Here's our first family pic in Munich in our living room. Nate is busy watching the Michigan Game on the computer and I'm busy feeling wide awake from jet lag. I think I'm having a harder time than Lily is but I wouldn't trade that for a second.

Special thanks to Oma and Opa for spoiling us and helping so much the last few days both in Chicago and Heidelberg.