United States of Gluttony

Kate, Elizabeth, and I came back form our three-week trip to the States exactly 18.4 pounds heavier than when we left. (Kate’s most cited quote was, “Really? More donuts? OK.”)

Yes, our trip was pretty much three weeks of nonstop eating and family. Which is better than this 31-year-old Czech woman who is accused of combining those words in different ways: http://tinyurl.com/6ljqne. You know, the worst part about this (aside from the uncouthness of bringing this up) is the ease of finding that story online. God bless the internet.

Anyway, here’s our story of the States:

Maryland Part I

I don’t even think we were outside airport property when I started talking about food. Chipotle. I-hop. Donuts. Bagels. Cheesesteaks. I was ready for indulgence.

But first, Elizabeth had to help us unpack so we could all spend more time eating … and of course sharing stories with family. Mostly this revolved around watching Elizabeth interact with two very large and somewhat dim dogs. “Oh, she pulled his hair! Uh oh, she just went for the whisker! Oh look, he’s scared of her now ….” The fun never stopped.

Apart from pulling dogs’ hair and extremities, Elizabeth also tried a few new foods (chicken, cheerio-type puffs, peas, pears, pumpkin, chipotle) and hung out with her old man while Kate bided her time working.

Leonardtown

A short visit to Leonardtown started off with Elizabeth meeting this crazy lady who thought it was a good idea to have a baby play with and put in her mouth not just a plastic bag (a known choking hazard) but a plastic bag filled with trash. We later brought Elizabeth to her first “real” Mexican restaurant where the crazy lady allowed her to use a fork as a toy).

Seeking to flee from this woman as quickly and far as possible, Elizabeth and I ran off to the nearest safe haven we could find – a children’s playground where I helped Elizabeth go through her first wormhole on the swings. She was apprehensive at first, but after my lessons about how swings can actually take you through worm holes and even time warps, she found them to be quite fun.

Also during our time down there, we hung out with some great friends, Kate worked, and I showed Elizabeth how NOT to play Wii tennis, Randy us all the intricacies of Tetris, and Kate (when she wasn't working) tested her "Wii fitness" level to determine she was, in fact, an 87-year-old. She later got her fitness age down to 66. We're very proud of our mom-grandmom.

Alabama

Although the prospect of going to Alabama conjured up images of strange men on the Chattahoochee commenting on her dad’s purty mouth, she went along anyway because she knew there would be more family down there to ooh and ah her every move. Plus she was excited to go in her first body of water below the Arctic Circle.

Although most of the trip was spent hanging out with her father, learning all about the wonders of air conditioning, and watching her mom get frustrated at the slow internet connection, she also managed to find an inner tube and make her way into some pretty awesome portraits if I say so myself.

Philly

I had a one-day work trip that allowed us to hang out in the City of Brotherly Love for a night with William Penn (in focus in the background. For the longest time, no building in the city could be higher than his hat).

While in Philly, Kate tried one of the city’s famous artery cloggers from Jim’s on South St. (The Yoo-hoo was mine. Kate wouldn’t dare fill herself with empty calories like that!)

And, when Kate wasn’t working and Elizabeth wasn’t napping, they managed to find a children’s park to play in where Elizabeth tried to explain the concept of worm holes to Kate. Kate then complimented her imagination and kept pushing her at a speed far too slow for intergalactic transport. They also discovered this glittery netherworld called Magic Gardens, which was closed when we went by: http://www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org/.

Maryland Part II

Finally, we were back in the Old Line State for a few days where Elizabeth could relax while pulling brainless bow-wow whiskers, learn Hebrew on Shalom TV (her favorite), and, again, wait for Kate to be done working.

We did manage to get out of the air conditioning a few times. Here she’s sitting with GG watching one of the dogs do a comedy routine about missing every single pop-up thrown at him. Elizabeth thought this was hilarious. We all thought the dog had palsy.

The trip ended with an excursion to I-hop to see the crazy lady again who, according to Elizabeth, was indeed off her rocker but was still pretty fun.

Iceland

We’re back from the valley of the ice and snow and ready to share our adventure with you faithful blog followers. But as this was one of our longest and most nature-based trips, we think the pictures will provide you with most of the detail you need. Plus I’m lazy.

Bottom line: Iceland helped me realize that Earth is a neat place. Here’s a rundown:

Reykjavik: Small. Lilliputian really. Also reminded me of a frontier town. We had Indian.Thingvellir: Think Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale. Europe and America meet here and are continually tugged in opposite directions by super strong (tectonic) forces (to continue the metaphor, think their careers). But no matter the tugs, they just love each other so much that they stay together… and in the process create lots of cool geographic features (babies?).
Gullfoss: One of Iceland’s biggest waterfalls. This was perhaps the most wind I’ve ever felt. My lips were literally blown open at one point like a skydiver’s. It was crazy wind.Geysir: Geysir is where our word geyser comes from. Unfortunately, it stopped routinely spouting in the 1950s when tourists through rocks in there. Next door is the smaller but still awesome Strokkur. It splashed me with superheated water. No fun.


Kerith: This is the caldera from an old volcano. Or perhaps not. No one knows for sure.

Hveragerdi: As the most geothermally active town in Iceland, this place takes the steam pouring out of the ground and does great things with it: Warming greenhouses so they can grow bananas and papayas, cooking food, and heating buildings, pools, and roads. Crafty.

Skinny dipping: Yup. Cold outside but warm in the water.
Seljalandfoss: The most amazing waterfall I’ve ever seen. You get to walk behind it. Very enjoyable.
Skogafoss: A huge waterfall by the North Atlantic. Very nice to look at, especially the rainbow (which you can't see here).

Vik: Meaning “bay” (as in ReykjaVIK, KeflaVIK, VIKing, etc.), this place was only a small town on a bay. But it had black sand, awesome views, and a gas station with food.
Solheimajökull glacial walk: We walked on a glacier. Scarier than I thought because you’d have to step over these huge and jagged ice caves that were as much as 10 feet below you … with flowing water at the bottom. And ice can be sharp. Trust me. Scary.
Krysuvik Seltun: A big depression where the earth’s crust is super thin, meaning lots of bubbling pits, sulfurous mud pots, and masses of gasses.

The Blue Lagoon: It’s like taking a bath with 200 of your closest friends. As Iceland’s only tourist trap, we had to go to this place. It’s basically a large swimming hole carved into the rocky landscape where a local geothermal electricity plant (which boils water with the heat from the earth) dumps its used water so tourists like us can pay lots of money to swim in it. By the time it gets to us it’s like bath water. Elizabeth enjoyed this.

A few pictures and videos of Elizabeth at home

The last few weeks have been filled with us giving Elizabeth different foods to try and taking advantage of her new-found dexterity. Here are a few shots and movies showing those things off.

Here she is showing off her grip by loving on Dusty, Jay and Linda’s newest canine addition.
These pictures and videos are from what has already gone down in the record books as THE messiest meal yet.

Here are two more eating shots; one where she’s rocking the skullcap and another when she was just kissed by Slimer (from the Ghostbusters movie).

And then these two videos are just cute ones where she again shows off her ball handling agility and is attacked by her lovey. Pecos must have heard her screams and came to rescue her in video #2.

K&A in Prague

A marvelous confluence of low gas prices, an improving exchange rate, and a bad economy brought forth one of the best environments for cheap airfare to Europe I’ve ever seen. Not since the dawn of time when barnacles snuck free rides to Europe on the back of mammoth dino seacows has getting to Europe been this cheap and easy. (The seacows especially liked Paris in the spring but were also known to occasionally hang out in Albania before the country went crazy.)

Not to miss an opportunity, Kathryn and Antonio came for a short 11-day visit in late April. We frolicked in the fresh springtime air around central Germany – making sure to visit the Rhein – and saw most the pleasant sites of our fair city Wiesbaden (including the pastry shop below our apartment). They even bore witness to the Elizabeth’s first munchy morsels of food: sweet potatoes.

But our biggest touristic foray was a visit to Prague.

This marked my sixth time to the “City of a Hundred Spires,” as Wikipedia claims it is called, and it was no less enchanting than it’s ever been before. In fact, we had a few firsts: It was Pecos's first time wearing a muzzle. It was also his first time boarding a subway (hence the muzzle). 

It was Elizabeth's fourth country. 

It was the first time we actually went to Josefov, the old Jewish Quarter, which was actually quite quaint. And it was our first celebrity spotting in Europe. Here's a shot of Andre Royo (Bubbles from HBO's "The Wire") behind Kate. We were eating at a Mexican restaurant. 

But it was May 1 – the International Day of the Worker, something understandably important in former Soviet Bloc countries. This meant more tourists than usual came out of the woodwork. May 1 also fell on a Friday this year, meaning even more tourists. And, because that wasn’t enough tourists for us, we had beautiful sunny San Diego weather all weekend long.

So although we sightsaw (sightseed?) as a group the first day, the rest of the weekend mostly involved Kate, Elizabeth, and I hanging out in various parks around the city while Kathryn and Antonio independently excursed (the past tense of excurse … as in excursion? no?) the cobbley streets of downtown Prague.

My favorite part was when Elizabeth showed off her green thumb by “weeding” all the unnecessary flowers from the park.

And then she had to take a nap in the grass.

After Prague we drove to Nürnberg to see our friend Marc, who allowed us to park for free outside his place and gave us a tour of the castle. What are friends for if not to mooch? 

You say potato, Elizabeth says meh

Today was a big day in our little girl's life; Elizabeth ventured into the world of solid food consumption. We initiated her with sweet potatoes and she had mixed feelings about them.

At first she was excited, but then she got a little overwhelmed by the whole swallowing concept. I'm sure the blinding camera flashes and the exclamations of four doting grandparents didn't help much. We'll see how she feels about sweet potatoes tomorrow.

Also Elizabeth is now the proud owner of two teeth. Fortunately she made it through the teething process without too much fuss. She's a little trooper.

Elizabeth's six-month birthday

Hello, faithful blog fans. Just a quick update to note for historical reasons that, no, we didn't forget Elizabeth's six-month birthday. Here's proof of the commemoration:

And here's a blurry picture of her first tooth. No, despite all the vomiting, this isn't a tic-tac.

I have to go now to call the Tooth Fairy and set up a payment plan.