The Journey Home

Our last days in Germany were quite chaotic, trying to get everything in place for our big move. We had boxes to ship, suitcases to pack, floors to clean and goodbyes to say. That’s the hardest part of course, leaving the people that become your family overseas. My last day of work was on Wednesday, which turned out to be a half day! They owed me a half day vacation and realized it that morning. What a nice surprise! All the girls brought in food for a potluck lunch and man, what a great idea! We should have started doing that months ago. We had some great stuff, and said our goodbyes.

Wednesday night we had dinner with The Pollards at the Stables, one of our favorite restaurants in Schweinfurt. They serve greek food and love the kids. We had a fun dinner, and will really miss eating there! Thursday we had our housing inspection that we spent days preparing for. We took out so much trash and recycling and donations and consignments. We scrubbed and swept and mopped and cleaned until our fingers were shriveled and our house sparkled. For once, I remembered to CLEAN the oven after spraying oven cleaner instead of cooking it! We moved appliances, scrubbed baseboards and lime-awayed until we were green in the face. I was a little nervous, but knew we had 2 days to fix anything that wasn’t up to par. Wouldn’t you know the inspector spent about 90 seconds in that house and didn’t even open the fridge! We hadn’t taken Hayden’s border down in his room, but other than that he didn’t need to see anything. All that work!

Hayden was in school right up until the last day we were there, to keep him on his schedule. We picked him up just before dinner Friday night and let him say goodbye to all his classmates. What a great experience this had been for him! We headed to dinner with the Kings, Stockdills and Williams for one last round of bruschetta, pizza and tiramisu at Rimini’s. We had a great time, told some old stories and said goodbye to some really good friends. Luckily for us, they’ll all be in the states soon enough! We spent our last night in Germany with the Pollards, to make things easier all around. Jay went out with the boys while Amber and I hung out with our little guys. We stayed up too late of course, instead of being smart and going to bed early.

6am came pretty early for us and we got our bags ready for the trip. Ryan came to get us and we loaded up the van for the ride. We stopped for breakfast and Oscar’s benadryl, and we were on the road by 8 for our ride to Frankfurt. Luckily we used Jay’s new shortcut and saved ourselves some traffic. Hayden was uninterested in sleeping, which we thought would bode well for plane napping. We got all 7 of our checked bags, Hayden and his carseat and stroller, Oscar and his crate and us with our 3 carry-ons into the airport.

After waiting in the ticket line, we were told we had to get in the other line to purchase Oscar’s reserved ticket. 30 minutes went by with us in line and no movement; we sent Ryan away, anticipating a longer wait. Good thing, since we were waiting over an hour. What a mess! They were unprepared for Oscar apparently, and it took forever to get a vet there to approve everything. We thought we were finished, but then they told us we had to wait for security to come over and check out the crate. They sent me and Hayden through security and “hoped” to have Jay and Oscar ready for our flight in time to board. Hoped?? Yikes.

Luckily our flight was delayed boarding so we all made it. We got settled into our seats and I told Jay, “Wow I was so worried about Oscar getting on the plane I didn’t even have time to worry about the plane crashing.” Needless to say, Jay was not pleased. We watched “Despicable Me” on the plane and Hayden and I ended up watching it three times. We love it! We can’t wait to pre-order it for its release on December 14th. Hayden fell asleep about an hour into the flight and we thought we were home free. Not likely. He slept 30 minutes of our 9 hour flight. Yikes! He just wanted to run and play and I can’t blame him. He was a typical two-year-old which means he was kind of loud and a little pushy but everyone around us had kids as well so no one seemed too put out.

We arrived on time to Dulles Airport in Washington, DC and had to get all our bags and Oscar to be re-checked and clear customs. It wasn’t too much of a hassle surprisingly, and soon we were waiting at our gate for our flight to Raleigh. That was a short hour, but Hayden slept the whole time! Bless his heart he was too tired. Once at RDU, Hayden and I left Jay to get the bags and Oscar and we picked up the rental. After playing a little Tetris with all our bags and Oscar’s crate we were on the road for the hour drive to Greensboro. We arrived around 830pm and stopped to grab some food for us and some food for Oscar and then we were HOME. What a long, long day to get us back to where we grew up but it was worth it!

home, just busy!

 We're home and loving it.  Just can't sit still long enough to blog.  Lucky for you guys, I have a few written that I will put up as soon as we get back to NC!

A year's worth of stuff

Right before Hayden's birthday, I started to think about all the things he's accomplished since turning one. It's quite a list!

*walking
*feeding himself
*learning to use utensils
*learning lots of words
*turning words into phrases
*drinking from a cup
*putting himself to sleep without a pacifier
*climbing
*sign language
*learning songs
*brushing his teeth
*brushing his hair
*putting on lotion
*pulling up/down a pull up
*using the potty
*dancing
*recognizing faces, people, etc.
*recognizing inanimate objects

There's a whole host of things he seems to learn on a daily basis, but what a list! I love how he soaks up everything around him and loves to try new things. He is fearless! I can't wait to see how much he grows and learns this year!

Check ups all around!

Hayden's two-year check up was on Tuesday, the day after his actual birthday. He was very reluctant to let the doctor touch his belly and was really shy when she needed to take a look inside his pull up. I guess it's good that he's uncomfortable with strangers messing with his baby parts! Everything looked good, except his little ears. He's been battling an ear infection that's been lingering since about September, and just can't seem to shake it. We are trying another, stronger antibiotic to see if it that will knock it out for good. It's hard since Hayden doesn't have a fever and doesn't seem to be in pain. Let's hope it works!

Oscar also needed a check up before the flight, so we went today. He needed one shot and an intranasal vaccine, which proved to be pretty difficult. Oscar has lost TWENTY pounds in the past year, so his svelte body makes him more limber and wily. I ended up having to sit on him, backed in the corner while holding his head up just long enough for the vet to put his nose vaccine in. He passed all his tests and his weight loss makes him run around like a puppy again: he is so full of energy! He definitely knows something is up, and I'm nervous for the flight with him on Saturday. But the good news is that we only have to do it once!

Happy Birthday Hayden!

Hayden's 2nd birthday fell on a Monday this year, so we celebrated the day before. Hayden was excited to see his friends and we were excited to have one last birthday party with the people that have become family during our time here in Germany. Since everything was packed up and it was so close to us leaving, we had a small get-together at our house. We had hot dogs and all the fun sides, and decided cupcakes would be easier than a cake. What a fun day we had!

All Hayden's friends were here, big and small, and two of our friends returned from deployments just days before the party...what a great gift! Hayden played with his new toys and books and was really good at sharing his new stuff. He decided for his birthday lunch, he'd skip all the stuff mom cooked and eat yogurt instead. His birthday = his rules! We put in Toy Story 3, a gift from mom and dad, and enjoyed a few hours with some of our favorite people. We will sure miss them when we leave!

Hayden visits the dentist!

We have been waiting forever to get a pediatric dentist here in Schweinfurt, so I was super excited to meet her by chance at the bank one day! I immediately called and scheduled Hayden's first dentist appointment on November 2nd. Jay and I both got to go with him, which was awesome. We walked into the room and let Hayden look around and take it all in first. We decided to let him try to lay down in the chair by himself first, with mom's lap as a back up plan. He was cautious but brave, and spent the entire appointment in the chair alone! What a champ!

Dr. Carol checked out his jaw and gums first, and then his teeth. When she started to put the toothbrush in his mouth to brush a little, Hayden actually took it from her and showed her how he does it at home! She was so impressed with him. He had a little bit of plaque buildup on his front teeth, and even let her use the "scary" tool to scale them! We had no idea what to expect from his first dental experience but Dr. Carol was absolutely blown away by how well he behaved and what little resistance he put up. She finished up and gave him his new toothbrush, and took him to the toybox to pick out a toy. Unfortunately, he was less interested in the give-away toys and more interested in the books that have to stay. We promised him a new book for being such a good boy, and he seemed okay with that. We are so proud of him!

Happy Halloween!

This year we knew Halloween would be a little different! Hayden wasn't quite walking last year, so he spent most of trick-or-treating in his stroller watching all the action happen. But this time, he got to do his own trick or treating! He got very shy as we walked up to each house, but he managed a few thank you's and some big smiles!

I got my dinosaur wish this year, and it was too cute! We liked his costume because it came with the suit (tail included!), the head piece, gloves and the feet just strapped over his real shoes. Perfect! We anticipated having trouble getting him in it, since he's pretty particular about headgear and new things. We tested it out on Saturday for some Halloween photos, which was a giant FAIL. He wouldn't wear it, so we decided not to push the issue and got his hair cut instead. Which was the easiest one yet! On Sunday we tried it on again, snapped a few photos and took it off so he wouldn't get tired of it. We figured once we got to the Pollards' house, he'd see everyone else in costume and understand a little better.

We got to the Pollards and everyone was so cute in their costumes! Hayden warmed up to the idea, and since we were going outside he knew he'd need a hat and gloves so he didn't put up a fuss about those either. He was shy going to the houses for candy, and definitely confused as to why they were putting it in his bag instead of his hand, and why he couldn't eat it all then.

Every few minutes he would get tired of the gloves or head, so we had a lot of on-off until he decided he was done with both and we decided that was okay. After a round on Jackson street and a few other stops, we figured the kids had enough candy and we headed back to the Pollards for some soup and yummy desserts. The kids all had a great time playing and we were grateful to be relaxing with good friends on our last holiday here in Germany!

And so far, Hayden prefers a lollipop to chocolate, and M&Ms are a front runner since they're his "treep" (treat) when he goes potty. Good choices, little man.