Happy Mom's Day

Owen woke up this morning at 8:30 am! Happy Mother's Day... an extra half hour of sleep for mom. Best gift ever no. 1.

Best gift ever no. 2? Diaper free day. Kris has changed 3 poopy diapers today. Way to go Owen.




I haven't had to do anything today. No laundry, no deciding what to eat or drink, no cleaning or dishes. It is awesome!

Owen bought me some beautiful flowers and Bernard Callebaut chocolates. Yum.



Owen's made his first vowel-consonant combo... Yesterday morning he was laying in our bed after his morning drink. He likes to hang out with us and tell stories in the morning. He was banging his legs and made some noise at the same time and low and behold, his jaw closed and the sound was different. All day yesterday he would nod his head and make his noises. This morning, he figured out that all he needs to do is close his jaw. The combo is, you guessed it, da-da-da. Happy Mother's day.

Correction: Owen has had 4 poopy diapers today. I think it might be a record.

Owen woke up from his nap this afternoon with the craziest bed head. So cute.

Rolling over, back to front

Yesterday, we had Owen on his tummy in the living room and he was practicing rolling over onto his back. Then, the craziest thing happened. He saw the box of cords and DVD's sitting under our TV stand. He wanted it. But, the only way to get to it was to reach over, quite far, putting him on his side. He reached and reached and reached. And then... he ended up on his tummy again!!! I think it surprised even him. I am so proud.

Today, I managed to get some video of the big event. Enjoy.

Home Sweet Home

May 1 and 2 were filled with travel to get us back to Venice for our flight back to Calgary. Try as we might, we couldn't convince the airline to allow us to fly out of anywhere else but Venice. Very dumb.

We hopped a train at 9:30 in the morning of May 1 in Munich and arrived at Venice Mestre at about 5:30 pm. It was long, but not too bad, since we basically just sat around all day. There were some nice older Italian ladies sitting across from us and they loved Owen. Neither spoke any English, but I'd heard enough Italians gushing over Owen to know. They were so cute.

We took a cab to our hotel, since we didn't really know how to get there, and didn't care to figure it out. It was a lot farther from the train station than I thought. The cab cost about 20 Euro!

We ate dinner at a family resturant "about 300m down the street from our hotel" according to the innkeeper. I don't know if he was right, but it was really far! Dinner was decent, but like all resturants in Europe, it took forever for us to get the bill, and Owen was loosing it!

Owen slept in the bathroom, again. At least this one didn't smell at all.

May 2 was the longest day ever... we woke up at 4:30 to get to the airport for our flight to Amsterdam at 7:05am. We arrived in Amsterdam one hour and 50 minutes later. Our flight from Amsterdam to Calgary wasn't until 13:30 so we had some time to kill, and Kris really wanted to go to the red light district of Amsterdam to eat a "space brownie", if you know what I mean. So we hopped a train into town. I've got to be honest, I was pretty aprehensive leaving the airport, even knowing that there was AMPLE time to do so. I just don't travel very well. The weather didn't cooperate with us. It started raining shortly after we got off the train and it was pretty cold. None of us was dressed for it. However, Kris managed to accomplish his mission. We would have explored further, but we were all pretty cold and miserable, so we headed back to the airport. In through customs and ready to go.

We got on the plane at 13:30 and arrived in Calgary around 2 hours later. The flight was delayed, I think because of some course corrections along the way and to avoid Iceland all together. Yea... I watched the flight path from time to time. I know, dork! Owen napped 3 or 4 times during the trip.

When we arrived in Calgary, we got stuck in the customs line... it was, after all, Sunday. I guess there were a number of other intercontinental flights that landed all around the same time. It was brutal.

We managed to get Owen to bed at 8:00 local time and then ourselves at about 9:30. In total, we'd been up for about 26 hours. Whew!

Bier Gartens part two

After such a heavy day yesterday, we decided to stay light today, visiting beer gardens around town.

We started at the English Garden, an urban park that's apparently bigger than Central Park. There are multiple gardens there. While at the first one, we met a man who had a baby the same age as Owen. Well, he was actually 8 days younger, but who's counting? We sat for a while, chatting about baby stuff, how teething is going, whether they were crawling yet or not (neither are yet). It was nice. Owen and Jonas got to know each other too. They cooed at one another and Jonas tried to teach Owen how to say da-da-da-da. No luck though, to Kris's dismay. Then, a funny thing happened. Jonas started to cry. Owen's response was priceless. He stuck out his bottom lip, and after a few seconds, decided to cry too. It was cool to see him respond to someone elses emotion.



We ate some wurst (sausage), saurkraut, and potato wedges by the edge of the water. There were people in rowbats on the water, lots of ducks, and a few swans.

We walked through the garden to find another beer garden, called the Chinese garden. I know, that's a lot of gardens. There was a big open area where people sunbathing. Aparently the English Garden is known for having nude sunbathers, but we didn't see any. Good thing too, since most of the people we saw were dudes. It would have been a "wurst" fest.

After a bit of floundering, we found the Chinese garden. It was pretty packed, and they served Hoffbrau. While enjoying our beer, we posed Owen with Kris's 1L beer. Just as Kris snapped the shot, Owen reached over and tipped the glass to try to drink it. When we get back I'll post the shot. It's priceless.

We decided to return to Hoffbrauhaus for dinner as there weren't any places to eat around our new lodgings. Oh yea, we had to move because the apartment we rented wasn't available our last day. Good thing anyway, we got a hotel a block from the train station and had a train the next morning at 9:30. The Hoffbrauhaus was a little more lively being that it was Friday night. As always, Owen found some people to pay attention to him. It never gets tired seeing the joy he brings to the people he smiles at. They had a band and many of the guests would sing along with some of the songs.



I must admit, this time leaving Europe, I'm a little sad to go. It's been such a crazy adventure. Tomorrow we have a seven hour train to Venice Mestre.

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Dachau

We took a suburban train today to Dachau. We got a little lost which, at the start of this adventure would have really upset me, but now it's no big deal. We take it all in stride. It was a pretty hot day. There were lots of school groups visiting. One of the groups was from India I think. It reminded me of being back in school.

Actually, on this trip we've seen lots of school groups in every city. I can't imagine taking kids to another country. I've also noticed that they don't have nearly as much supervision as we are required to have. I'm not sure what I think about that.

Dachau was eerie and lonely and dark. The walls, towers, main building, and one set of prisoners baracks are all that remain on the compound.


There is a sign in the gate at the entrance that reads, "Work will set you free."


Also, just outside is the crematorium. You could go inside and see the gas chamber and the cremation furnaces. I could barely stand to be inside.

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Beer gartens

Yesterday, we took a train - two trains actually, to arrive in Munich. We had to make a connection in Stutguart. We had 8 minutes to get off one train and get on the other and we didn't know which car to get on. Needless to say, we missed the train. Thankfully, there was another, more direct, and thus faster train 20 minutes later. We sat at a bar at the station and drank a pint of Franziskaner beer. It was foggy and delicious. It helped with the stress.

We also drank German beer on the train. They serve it to you in a glass and you can take it back to your seat.



Our two room apartment is above a nice resturant about 15 minutes from the city center on the U-bahn. There's a room for Owen, and one for us with a bed and tv. No kitchenette. We ate a nice, traditional German meal in the resturant and drank more German beer.



Owen ate toast and made a mess of himself. He enjoyed every minute.



Today we headed for the city center to see what was up. We picked up a tourist map and saw there was a nearby market that has a beer garden. It was pretty cool. No fences or security like in beer gardens in Canada, they serve the beer in .5L or 1L glass jugs. Young people, old people, people in suits or leiderhosen. All sitting around having some pints. Some more than others, but all having a good time.

We did some walking around, saw some gothic buildings,




and a government building,



and then made our way to another beer garden. This one is in a famous inn. We ate more traditional Bavarian food and, you guessed it, drank more beer.









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