Girl's day at the Zoo

 McKenna and I spent a day at the Frankfurt zoo during Mark's recuperation from surgery.  Bailey was under the weather so I left her in charge of the fort.  I was about to go crazy in that house with FMO furniture and nothing of comfort.  We had to break free!!  So here are a bunch of random shots of our day.

I have no idea what this sea creature is.  If you look closely you can see little bitty white circles coming out of the top.  So weird but so fascinating.  Maybe when we find a zoo in California, we will be able to read the description in English and learn something.

Sea horse!!

Leaf ants!

McKenna was a little disappointed to find out that she could not speak parcel tongue to this fella.  But it did look just like the snake in Harry Potter so I wonder how they found him and brought him back!

Don't even ask, I have no idea . . .

The Frandsen's love monkeys!

Break for free play and trying to imitate the monkeys:

Just another example out of many of the cool German playgrounds.

McKenna is in her zone:

I love this picture, I took the shot just as they let all 7 of the giraffes in for lunch.  She was so excited.

Tree mouse:

Mr. Lion at lunch time.

Piano Recital

Last Sunday we attended the girls' piano recital.  So fun to watch all their hard work pay off, they both performed so well.  Mark and I were so proud!

Here is a picture of the girls with their piano teacher Jill

The Hartungs, our friends from way back at Scott AFB, also performed.  Amy and I always reminisce about pool parties at her house when the girls were pre-schoolers. 

McKenna with the Peacocks!

McKenna just started piano this year.  She is so excited about it and never complains about practicing.  Jill has told me that she is picking up concepts so quickly and has tons of potential! 

Bailey has really become an accomplished pianist.  Just like McKenna, Bailey never complains about having to practice piano.  She can spend hours playing music.  We just have to remind her to practice her lesson songs before she moves onto other fun songs.  Mark and I are so proud of her and see lots of potential.  I really hope we can find the right teacher for them when we move to California!

Spring Ballet Showcase

Bailey and McKenna at their ballet Spring Showcase.  So supper fun to see them do something so feminine. 

Back into my most non ballet shoes ever!

When I asked Bailey how she felt about her dress and dance, she said, "Mom, I feel so pretty!"  Love that!

Garmisch again

Exactly 3 weeks after going to Garmisch with family, we returned with Mark to visit while he worked. We drove down with Nina Peacock, Matthew the keyboard player's wife.  We had a great road trip, we listened to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to and from our destination.

This is by far my kids favorite spot in all of Bavaria, the pool at Edelweiss.  I have to tear them away to go sightseeing.  When we go down, I usually take them to the pool first thing in the morning when it is empty, then we go get ready for the day.  My kids are fish!

Nina, the girls and I went for a little day trip to the Weiskirche (white church) which is the most famous Rococco/Baroque church in Bavaria.  It truly is so beautiful!

This is a picture of the altar at the front of the church.

This picture is looking to the back of the church where the organ pipes are on display.

Later that evening, we crashed the AWAG party so that we could listen to the band play.  The girls enjoy this so much!  Here is Bailey getting her groove on!

McKenna even got a treat, Craig lifted her on stage for the very last song where she danced and danced and even sang a little.  She told me, "That was a miracle mom, don't you think?"

We got a kick out of the "ice cream" rest stop on the way home.

Busy girls

Just wanted to add an update to the things going on with the girls.  They are so super smart and talented and I enjoy them everyday.  I feel very blessed to have the resources to provide these experiences for them, and I hope someday they look back fondly on their childhood and think, "Man, my childhood rocked"

Bailey was awarded the Silver level on the honor roll for the 1st quarter of 7th grade.  This year was a transition as her curriculum is getting closer and closer to preparing her for high school. Still, she continues to grasp concepts quickly and loves learning (or is it socializing)

 

McKenna performed in The Nutcracker with her ballet class.  She has really loved being a ballerina and during the dress rehearsals she enjoyed watching the older girls dance.  She has the body for it, long lean legs and the love of being all that is girly.

Here is a video of McKenna's performance.  She is the third "party guest" to run to the tree.  She enjoyed this so much, we've come such a long way from cowering in the corner and clinging to mom.  But to be honest, I miss the cling.

Salzburg = random

I didn't even realize how random our Salzburg experience was until I got home and perused our pictures. I was also surprised to find that I didn't have a picture that included Grandma, but she was there! The first time we visited Salzburg we did the Sound of Music Tour and not much else could fit into our schedule. This time, we expanded!

First stop: Mozart Wohnhaus which is a museum in the house where Mozart lived and composed. The house has original pianos that he played on and you could hear his works during the whole tour. I really liked this museum. Our favorite part was at the end. There is a glass case containing volumes of his works, it stacks to the ceiling. It was so visually cool.

We also visited the Salzburg city graveyard. Interestingly enough, it is not the one they used in the Sound of Music movie, but the one they did use was patterned after this one. If you look into the mountain above the graveyard, you can see a panel with a window. These are Salzburg's catacombs. Except when you enter you climb up instead of climbing down like all the other catacombs I have read about. Random!
In this picture you can see the white castle on the hilltop.
More randomness, this is actually an art piece that is in the middle of the square by the cathedral. Don't really know what the point of it is, and couldn't find anything about it in our travel books. Just randomness, a guy on a ball.
Here is our random mime, levitating. . . so random!!

Part of our day was spent at the castle where we visited a random puppet museum (I'm going to be using the word random alot, just sayin). The girls got to work an actual puppet, and it took two to get all the limbs working.

Didn't really understand this random wall in the museum. Maybe they were putting on a puppet show for "Night of the Living Dead" or "Any Zombie B movie".

This picture of Bailey is taken from the castle, looking down on the city of Salzburg. It really is a beautiful city. Full of interesting, albeit random, things to see and do.

After stepping out of the puppet museum we ran into this . . . well, uhm . . . . princess? She looks like a princess but nobody else was with her and I really didn't understand the point. She wasn't even asking for euro. But the girls were thrilled to get a photo with her. We'll just call her "Random Princess".

Will you look at the size of these pretzels?? They looked so good, soft dough (a must for me), and every topping you could think of was offered. We randomly picked the chocolate one of course!



One of the best random things we ran into was this group of Russian musicians. I love the bass! It is so unique and I have never seen one shaped like that before. I included a video of them so that you can see how great they were.

13 Reasons . . .

What a month! It was a little ridiculous to be honest. I'm realizing that it has been a whole month since I last blogged. I hope that is not going to be the norm. This is what I did this month: 4 nutrition classes, 3 commissary tours, a Relief Society service activity, an office move that ended up being utterly too complicated (if I elaborate I will become obscene), dental appts (see, I have resorted to abbreviating everything), middle school band concert, and all this on top of an already busy life.

But the highlight of the month was taking Bailey to the Taylor Swift concert in Oberhausen. It was a complete surprise for her, she thought we were going away to a relationship building retreat. Once I said that, she stopped asking questions and I was able to breeze through the secrecy. We revealed our surprise to the girls right before driving to the concert. Here was their reaction:

Every time I watch that, traitor tears leak out of my eyes, why is that? It is a bit goofy.

In honor of Taylor Swift's lucky number, here are 13 treasures about our trip:

1. It is Taylor Swift combined with a 12 year old girl . . . that's some big magic.
2. We got to go with a bunch of fun gals
3. Moms rocked and will continue to hold the "rock" title until the day we die just because of this weekend:
3. Costume changes, lots of them.

4. Pretzel vendors as opposed to hot dog vendors. That was really the only clue that we were still in Germany:
5. This smile, oh and an indoor mall across from the arena:
6. And this smile too:
7. Together with my main girl, oh and the fact that we both wore red but didn't plan that ahead. THAT is AWESOME:
8. I really love TS, she has original, creative songs that are sweet and clean. She sings, plays the piano, guitar and ukelele all while dancing. And yes, she was in key! Plus she gave her band a break but she didn't take one. Pretty please don't ever let the world change you, just keep putting out this type of quality entertainment for our impressionable girls.

9. We got to stay up late, and when we finally got back to the hotel, it was really hard to fall asleep so we just stayed up and talked and re-lived it all over again.

10. Paying for shirts that were exceptionally over-priced was not a treasure, so I won't expand on that. That is show-biz baby. But they look awesome in them:
11. I had so much more fun than I thought I would. Sure, I really enjoyed surprising Bailey and watching the girls reaction to the concert. But, I really enjoyed myself outside of being a mom. I danced and sang along with the songs. The show was SO gosh darn entertaining!

12. I got to drive the Volvo with a Diet Coke in the drink cup holder and Swedish fish on the side.

13. I got to spend quality time with my daughter, who I love so much that it squeezes my heart sometimes, and I can't breath for fear of loosing her or missing anything before she grows up. She bring bright sunshine into my life!

And if you want to see our very Rock and Roll treasure, look here: