Ski Trip - Winter break 2018

Giant Man made of snow. 

This week is Emmy's winter break from school. We had originally planned to go visit friends in Italy, but their plans changed and so we shifted around and we'll visit them later this spring. We haven't been skiing since we left CO (and by we, I mean Charles and Emmy because I have no intention of strapping sticks to my feet and attempting to move around on them), so we decided to go to the mountains a few hours from us along the Polish-Czech border.

We found an apartment in a little town called Rokytnice nad
Jizerou, Czech Republic.  A new Polish friend recommended the next town over, but we found better lodging in Rokytnice.  Then we found our some friends/colleagues from Szczecin had also rented apartments here for the week. I love that the Americans, Estonians and Lithuanians living in Poland met up in the Czech Republic. Haha.

Top of the mountain, taken by Charles. 

Emmy came down with strep throat again (January and the first week of February have NOT been kind to our immune systems) and so we had a little delay departing on Saturday.  I'm glad we still decided to go, she felt much better with antibiotics on board.  We got into town Saturday evening and got settled into the apartment. I'm super glad I understand a little Polish because the owner didn't speak any English, so all his instructions were in Polish. (Since it's close to Poland, many Poles come here to ski and a good many Germans so most of the folks spoke Polish and/or German but not that many spoke English). Whew.  Best I understood it, we were supposed to go to the building next door where there was a ski rental shop and go to the office to take care of the bill, paperwork, get a discount card, etc.

The most amazing egg rolls. Worthy of a photograph. 

The next morning after pancakes, we went next door and success! We took care of the paperwork and used the discount to rent skis for the kids, get some new ski goggles for Charles and Emmy, and get some information on the area from the lovely English speaking woman who worked there.

She recommended we get a quick lunch from a lady across the street who set up a booth in front of the Tesco grocery store. The woman sells homemade Chinese food that she said was quite good, and boy was she right! Those were the best egg rolls I've ever had and the lo mein was fabulous.

After quick naps we took the kids up the mountain to their ski school class. It had been 3 years since Emmy took lessons and Matthew was new so we put them in a beginners class. Emmy said it was baby-ish and seemed bored and didn't seem to put a lot of effort into it. Matthew, our shy one, basically refused to let us leave his side and didn't want to participate (which shouldn't have surprised us, he's done this with gymnastics) so we just took him out. After some hot chocolate, he was in a better mood and wallowed in the snow for an hour.

He was over ski school before it even started. 

Charles was unable to ski essentially because of bad communication with the non English speaking man at the ski pass booth, which made him grumpier (after dealing with shy boy in ski class), but t it was later in the day and he decided just to forget it. A beer put him in a better mood.

After ski school, we headed back and got ready for dinner at another place recommended by our friend at the ski shop/apartment office.  Cafe Restaurace Kino was wonderful and we enjoyed delicious Czech food and beer. Well, it wasn't my favorite Czech beer but it was good.

The next day, I drove Emmy and Charles up to meet our friends to ski for the day. I'm SO glad that Lina, my friend, invited Emmy to ski with them. Her daughter is in Emmy's class and they are friends. Charles said the mountain was much bigger and more difficult than he'd done before and Emmy had never done anything remotely like that, but really she needed that for her confidence. They both just got out there and skied! And fell a lot but had a good time.  Emmy really just needs to be pushed a bit and she does better. Charles enjoyed using his new skis he'd purchased here.

Emmy and Charles, photographic evidence he was there! 

Matthew and I hung out in the apartment and watched a lot of the Stinky and Dirty Show cartoon (about a dump truck and a "digger") on Amazon.  I wasn't feeling great so it was ok with me to just hang around. We walked over to the grocery store again and fixed lunch. He took his nap and Emmy and Charles came back early afternoon on the ski bus (which stopped right in front of our apartment, it was such a great location!), tired but happy.

After another nice dinner of delicious Czech food at another restaurant just down the street at Dendip, we headed to bed.

We came on home Tuesday and of course we wish we'd had more time. We decided you really spend one day renting skis and figuring out how everything works and then you have time to enjoy skiing.

A big thank you to my friend Lina for taking some photos, Charles forgot to take many and without her photos we'd have no evidence that Charles went skiing at all!

 Here are a few more photos from the trip.

Post ski school attempt selfie. His mood had improved greatly. 

It was quite cold so as the snow started falling again we could see lots of details on the individual flakes. I'd never been able to see them quite like this, it was amazing. 

Doing pretty well! 

Dinner at Cafe Restaurace Kino

Delicious fried cheese. 

Emmy and her pal Austėja skiing.

 

Another view from our apartment. The sun was finally coming out late Monday afternoon. 

Town Hall, across from our apartment.

Family selfie in front of the town hall. 

A fall day at the beach

August was a good bit cooler than usual, even for this area I think, but September brought some sunnier days and warmer weather. We were even able to head to the beach in Germany the 2nd weekend in September for a few hours. It was lovely, we'd never been to this beach. The kids had a blast, Rags had a blast, and we ran into some other friends there. We also were reminded that we should really not plan any more picnics on the beach, we always wind up eating a lot of sand, ha!

This time we headed to the beach in Ueckermünde, Germany, about an hour away. It is on the Szczecin Lagoon instead of the Baltic, so it is not only closer, but warmer and calmer than the Baltic. And it was less windy! There is a dog friendly part of the beach, so Rags was able to run around ad have a good time. Of course it is also next to the nude part of the beach. Hey, bodies are bodies! But I was glad that curious Emmy didn't seem to notice, so we didn't have to get into any discussions about that.

It was a lovely couple of hours there, we were so glad we went and checked it out!

I have long said that Emmy is never happier than when she is at the beach. Still true! 

They could walk out so far and the water was super shallow. Matthew had a blast! 

Gosh I love these two! 

Rags and her new friend.

That is the best daddy right there playing with his kiddos.

Time to build sand castles! 

First days of school

Emmy started P3, 2nd grade, on September 1st. She is having a good year so far!

All of the children in her class last year have returned for the new school year, and three new students have joined the class. The new little girl visited last spring for a day, and Emmy and she instantly connected then, and picked right up when school started. Emmy is excited to have another girl who is "little, like me!" Emmy is one of the smallest in her class and she likes having a pal her size.

Overall, she has a good class. Her teacher from P2 told me the other day she really misses their class, they are a wonderful group. Her teacher this year is also lovely and she said that when the kids came into class the first day they all said "Good morning Ms. Edyta, how are you?" which Ms. Magda taught them to do last year. She loved it, and I love that they not only were taught that, they remembered!  She likes her teacher this year, she knew her already, so that was nice. It is the first time that she can remember starting a new school year as an "experienced" student from that school. The last time this happened was in CO when she four months in the 3 year old class when we moved there, so that fall she started Pre-K back at the same school. Anyways, it was nice for both of us this year, we knew the routine, she knew the children and the students, I knew other parents. It has been a good transition.

Waiting on the opening ceremony to start. 

Two handsome dudes. Matthew was as patient as one could expect a 2 year old to be during a very long ceremony. Thankfully it was on the playground, and there were other little friends running around. 

Emmy chose KFC for supper that night. Then she got sick overnight and had to miss school the next day. We aren't having KFC again for awhile. 

 And then, Mr. Matthew started preschool! He's such a big boy! Originally I thought he would not be starting until the end of September, when their new building was ready, but when I went to go pay the deposit and fill out paperwork, the director said, oh he can start Monday! That was on a Monday, so then the teacher in the class said to bring him an hour or two the rest of the week for "adaptation". So, I took him again Tuesday and Wednesday while Emmy was still in Summer camp. Then that Thursday was the first day of her school, so we did not go to the preschool. And, unfortunately, Emmy woke up Thursday night and threw up. So, Friday we all stayed home. The next week, he went for a few hours each day before he finally stayed for naptime. By the 2nd week, he was waving good-bye to me and walking on down the hall on his own! His best pal is named Hania and he seems to be doing great. They are warm and kind. He has a music class and the learn some English and some German. Several other families from the barracks send their children to this school, so it is a good place to be.

This is the main building of the preschool. 

And this is where his class is. There was a change in the Polish law, so now kids can stay in the kindergartens a little longer, so they needed more space at his school. They opened a 2nd building nearby for the littlest ones. It is very nice! 

Getting help with his inside shoes from his big sister. 

Easter Vacation

Emmy had a nice week-and-a-half long break around Easter (remember, Poland is a VERY Catholic country!), so we took off for Germany! I really wanted to dress my kids up in their new Easter clothes and go to church in English. Some of our friends stationed in Germany said they would be home over Easter weekend and invited us to come see them.  We went to Wofford with Michaele, and then she married Josh, who is in the Air Force.  They were stationed in Kansas for half of our time at Ft. Leavenworth, so we got to know Josh (both are them also are from Greenville) and Emmy and Anabel got to be friends. I don't think I posted a lot during the Kansas year, but they are our friends who offered to keep Emmy when Charles and I flew to Colorado to house hunt.

Matthew had some rockin' hair on day one of our trip. Had to capture
some photographic evidence during a pit stop at, yes, McDonald's. 

Anyways, Emmy was off the Thursday and Friday before Easter, so Charles worked Thursday while the sitter came and I packed, had one more girls lunch with my lunch bunch (one of the five of us is very pregnant  and we thought baby might come while I was gone, but as of today, he is 5 days past his due date and his mama is really ready for him to arrive!), and took the dog to the groomer so she was freshly coiffed for the pet sitter. (Funny side note, everyone calls the groomer the hair dresser for dogs in English, I guess groomer does not translate well to Polish. It makes me giggle every time someone says it, but I guess that's really what it is!)

New friends! 

Old friends! 

Friday morning, we got up early and were on the road before 7:30 This is pretty impressive for us, we are not morning people. Our goal was 6:30, but hey, we were only a little less than an hour off our mark! The kids did well in the car and we made good time. We pulled into our first stop for the night, Ramstein Air Force Base, right at 5 pm. We have old friends from the Army that are stationed in that area, so we stopped there to spend the night and have dinner with them. We have not seen them in I think eight years? When Charles joined the 63rd, his first unit out of Officer Basic Course, he took Jared's place in the Company when Jared moved up to the Battalion staff. They deployed together that first time, then after we were married and I moved there, Lila and I became friends through the FRG. During their second deployment, Lila's fill in labor coach, Angela, (the woman who was our sponsor's wife for our move to Poland!) called Charles' work phone in Kuwait to tell him to get Jared, baby Lina was on the way, so Charles sat with Jared while they listed to her being born. I still remember him telling me this story.

We quickly checked into our room (the family lodging at Ramstein is amazing, we had a 3 bedroom apartment for the night) and then followed Jared to their house in a small village a 20 min or so drive away. It was lots of fun catching up, I really wish we'd had more time. Their girls are now 13 and 11 and Emmy had a good time playing with them. We stayed way too late, Matthew was spinning in circles on the kitchen floor (not upset, just tired and silly) by the time we left, but it was a fun evening.

Also, as a bit of explanation why our Army friends live near an Air Base, this area actually has something like 5 or 6 installations clustered fairly close together, some Army, some Air Force. Ramstein is the largest, Landstuhl is probably the one most of you have heard of since it has the big hospital where Soldiers (and Airmen and Marines) are usually air lifted if they have been seriously injured during a deployment. Jared actually works at a small Army post a little farther drive from where they live, but they chose to live where they do for the school.  Even as an Army spouse, and knowing lots of people stationed in Germany at different times, I did not fully realize how many installations there sometimes are in one area. I also don't fully understand why, but I'm sure there were reason when all of these installations were established after WWII.  When we go down to Grafenwoehr, there is another installation about 25 minutes away, and the two are connected by a tank trail. Our friends that are there now are actually stationed at Vilseck, but their boys attend the DoD school on Graf.  Usually one of the installations has more services, or you don't have the same services on each post or base. It all makes us actually quite grateful we are not stationed at a US installation. Yes, it is hard not to have access to medical services, a post office, PX, Commissary, etc, and I wish there was one a bit closer (like 2 hours away instead of 5+) BUT because we are in a bigger city, we actually have a lot more things at our finger tips. Most of the U.S. installations are in more remote areas, with smaller German towns nearby. In order to get to some of the things we have easy access to, they have to drive. It's a trade off for sure.

We slept in the next morning and went over to the Base Exchange for breakfast. That place is like a mall, I have never seen a PX/BX like it. There was a German bakery inside where we were able to have a yummy German breakfast (breads, butter, jams, honey, cold cuts, cheese, and in this case a boiled egg). We ran back to check out, then went to the post office to mail a few things, to the commissary, and back to the BX for shopping and lunch. We spent way too much money (things are often more expensive on the overseas posts/bases than in the US because they have to ship everything in) but it was nice to get a few things we wanted/needed without having to order them. After lunch in the food court, we headed out again.

After a short hour and a half drive, we arrived in Gindorf and Michaele and Josh's. They actually bought a house, a 200 year old house, in the tiny town near the base where they are stationed. It was so cute and full of character. They have a big horse barn next to it that they plan to renovate and add a small apartment to. There is a neat pond in the backyard and a nice yard for the kids to play.  We had a good time meeting their youngest two daughters and introducing them to Matthew. She was newly pregnant with Eliana when we left KS (and I was newly pregnant with Sara Hawley), and she is 2 1/2, and then Emalyn is a couple of months younger than Matthew. So we had five kids 6 and under together! Michaele cooked us some delicious enchiladas for supper and Charles made margaritas. The kids had a great time playing.

Finding where the EB hid baskets, and inspecting what he brought.

The next morning after the kids woke up to hunt Easter baskets. After breakfast, we headed to church on base, and after church we enjoyed a big Easter brunch spread at the Officers' Club. The Easter Bunny even stopped by during the event for a photo up. Fun!

Pre-church photo in their new Easter duds.

Matthew liked his new hat. 

Sweet friends after church.

A bowtie and suspenders, it's too much! I love dressing this boy up.

Family photo before lunch. 

Anabel, Emmy, and Eliana with the Easter Bunny. (Matthew was sleeping on Charles' shoulder, this is naptime for him!)

After naps, some other friends of theirs came over for an egg hunt and supper. They have four children, so it was a big fun crowd! The kids played, the adults enjoyed chatting, and Michaele cooked a yummy supper and her friend Lisa brought delicious desserts. It was a different Easter, being away from home, but it was definitely enjoyable.

The back of their gorgeous house and old horse barn.

Happy girl. 

Happy boy had so much fun! 

Matthew LOVED picking up eggs.

Check out this photo, I even got all the children looking at the camera! (Except for Eliana who was taking an EPIC nap, I thought my children were good sleepers, theirs are even more amazing).

The next morning we said our good-byes (it was not Easter break for Anabel, so she had to be off to the bus at 7:30) and headed on to the next part of our journey...Bruges!