Late Christmas CD (now known as New Years CD)

We are mixing things up this year. For the last 10ish years, we have made an annual end of year CD mix for friends and family. We continue to love finding new music and enjoy how our love for music helps us remember time gone by, and while we don't feel like we came across a lot of new music we loved this year, we wound up with thirteen tracks we really like. We weren't able to burn CDs for friends and family as we usually do, so we're doing it blog-style this year with links to YouTube videos (well, some are videos and official, some aren't so official). We'd be happy to make hard copies for people once we get back to Portland next week, just let us know if you want one. And let us know in the comments which are your favorites!

The Cinematic Orchestra - To Build a Home: Discovered it on So You Think You Can Dance, a very unique voice.
arcade fire - half light II: Actually found their new album a bit disappointing, lacking the sweeping anthems of the previous albums, but the end of this track is pretty close to perfection.
beach house - zebra: Nate loved this album of down-tempo rock
the national - bloodbuzz ohio: This got a lot of play in the car this year
vampire weekend - giving up the gun: Another somewhat disappointing album but a good song
la roux - bulletproof: catchy tune
Hi-Lili Hi-Lo: One of the reasons I love the name Lily is because of the old musical "Lili" and this song from it.
Bruno Mars - You're Amazing : Lots of play in Germany, loved it instantly
Knaan - Wavin' Flag: WORLD CUP! Geh' Deutchland!
Gossip - Heavy Cross: (live on ZDF) : Another song with a lot of airplay in Germany, catchy guitar riff
New Pornographers - My Shepherd: the worst band name of all time, but a very sweet song
Aloe Blacc - I Need a Dollar : Heard this on the radio and assumed it was Bill Withers from the 70's, but nope, just a great new soul song
Sie Liebt Dich - The Beatles : Had to throw a German language song in for kicks.

Happy New Year!

Auf Wiedersehen and Hello

Making our way back to the US tomorrow. 3 months flew by way too fast. Nate gets to celebrate his longest birthday ever tomorrow, 31 hours. Hopefully that makes up for our long flight with Lily way too early in the morning tomorrow.

Here's our little German girl. She came a long way here. She was barely talking and walking but not running when we got here and now her mouth is running just as fast as her feet.

Winter Wonderland

We've been enjoying quite a white winter here in Heidelberg. As I type this I'm watching snow come down quickly as Lily takes her afternoon nap. It snowed about eight inches since I arrived in town Tuesday, then most of it melted overnight. But now it's snowing again and we've probably already had another three inches today. I guess it's an ideal time to be on vacation because I definitely wouldn't want to deal with the traffic that this causes.

Lily has had a love/hate relationship with snow so far. For a while she refused to wear a hat and gloves, which made going outside difficult. But she's turned a corner on that and now likes to run around outside in the snow with her gloves and hat on. At least as long as everyone else is wearing hats and gloves too. She still doesn't like touching snow though. If you pick up some snow and offer it to her she'll whine and walk away, kinda strange but funny.

We've borrowed a tricycle with a long handle out the back so we can push her on it. She's been playing with this on Oma and Opa's dead end street the past few days and likes to alternate between riding it (being pushed) and helping push it. This was great until today when we were walking back home from the library and there was about an inch of wet snow on the ground. The snow kept packing onto the wheels until they couldn't turn, so pretty soon it turned into Lily riding on Daddy's shoulders while Daddy dragged the kaput tricycle home up the hill. Needless to say by the time we got home we were both ready for a nap. Whew.

Lady and The Tramp...oline

Scattered around the room are all the puppets and Barbies (Ken too of course) I played with back in the day. When I brought them out for Lily, first thing she went for was Ken and she asked me to take off his clothes. He does have a good body. Lily is living it up with Oma and Opa. Whether she's opening up her daily gift from her advent calendar or getting spoiled with lots of tasty food, she's living the high life and I'm tagging along for the ride. It's been great getting such a good amount of time to bond with Oma and Opa. It's only going to get better when Nate returns on Tuesday.

Lily's fascination for the trampoline has been really cool. She got the timing pretty much right away and likes to grab other kid's hands and jump with them. Here are a couple videos. The first one shows signs of Lily being coordinated and then the 2nd video nixes that thought quickly.

Tschuss Munchen (Bye Munich)

And just like that, our Munich adventure is over. Poop. Nate is already back in Portland for a couple weeks and Lily and I are now at my parent's place in Heidelberg.

Looking back at our time in Munich, October was all about being a tourist. November ended up being much more about being social for both me and Lily by going to regular playgroups with Lily and seeing friends. Throw in a side trip to Vienna and it was a month to remember.

Here are our November in Munich pics.

November 2010 Germany

I have a feeling I'm going to get quite a few silly photos of Oma and Opa playing with Lily this month. I've already caught my mom cradling a cabbage patch doll while baby talking to it while on the stationary bike because Lily asked her to. We'll see what's next.