I love that you posted all these videos of your traveling. I especially love the autobahn one, Ben was the same way on the autobahn. Let's see how fast we can go!!! Scary!
I think you did such a great job of documenting your trip in so many different ways!!
I love your autobahn video. We had a similar experience well really exactly the same but we only had one sleeping daughter in the back. Me trying to get Kalani to slow down and him pointing out all the BMW's whizzing by us. I love these themed recaps. They are great!
Nope, no Big Gulps in Europe! Aren't those Smart Cars funny? I took several pictures of those too. Loved all the photos, especially SJ holding on to the loop on the bus -- Eva loved to do that too. I love traveling by train. You really used a lot of different forms of transportation! Sorry about the flights -- I have been there and am not anxious to do it again anytime soon, but I love that you were not worried about flying when the plane was filled with soldiers.
Now, when is your vacation? hahaha:D Traveling in airplanes with children can be rough as you just experienced. Love the autobahn video. I would have been dying to see it get to 200....scary!!
I have completely enjoyed the way that you have documented your trip. It is so fun to read. All of your pictures and videos are so good. I feel like I am really there. :D Thanks for sharing.
This is so great. Fun video. I will say this wears me out though. haha When were 'your' naps? On the go constantly to see the sites with kids would do me in! Glad I get to see 'your' pix though ;)
WOW!! All your missing is a boat :o) I get so excited reading your posts about your trip. Sounds like you had an amazing time.. Keep sharing the pics and memories!!
Definitely going to have to share this with my girlfriend whose husband is AF and tell her that she cannot NOT take advantage of the great military perks. It looks incredible!
I had no idea there were so many ways to travel! I enjoyed all your pics and memories. I especially liked the rail, tram and alpine sleigh--cool views. Interesting cars, so tiny--of course I'm used to the American perspective of SUV!
How fun to actually ride an Alpine slide in the ALPS! No other will ever compare. I loved watching the video with Jeff on the Autobahn. It shows just how fun he is. I'm happy that you took those videos.
Germans do drive the most delectable cars - but then they do churn them out like mad over at Wolfsburg where there's a HUUUGE Volkswagen factory.
My husband worked there for a while as an automotive illustrator. He says it's breath-taking (but with rather a tainted history, as Hitler held the reins for a while and used slave labour in the factory!!).
The sled you took would having me giggling/laughing nervously on the way down. Love that you recorded your autobahn experience! What a cute video of your girls playing with the soccer ball. Craig and I were in Strassburg once years ago - what a neat experience it would be to have my girls there. I know what you mean by looking around and seeing no one else to sympathize with you! We went downtown last week to meet Craig for lunch in the underground - not one child the whole time - not even an older child! Crazy! Lastly, love that you shared with us your feelings about the plane ride and the 200 troops. What a neat experience. Happy vacation documenting!
Such a great idea to document the actual TRAVEL part of your trip. When we go out of town I take pictures of what we do while we are there, but never of us getting there.
I think I would have loved the alpine sled. Tobogganing in the summer. Could it get more perfect?
it is sure fun to read about your trip.. sweet about riding home with the soldiers..such a neat picture of their boots.. so sweet that you weren't afraid to fly.. no way that they wouldn't get home with all those people praying for them.. so sweet!
It always amazed me how differently people live in Europe. I wish that we were able to live, transportation wise, like they do. It's no wonder they are more fit than we are! What a wonderful show of support for our military and all they are doing for us:)
It's hard to even know what to respond to with this post because it's all so cool. But since I just finished reading it I'll say that I loved your last paragraph and the fact that you knew your plane would make it home safely because of all the prayers for those soldiers to return home safely, that's truly touching.
I love that you took pictures of your feet in every country, love the video of Jeff driving on the Autobahn. I couldn't watch all of the slide ride or the tram because it was making me queasy, but I think it's cool that you did that and loved hearing all the voices in the background in the different languages.
I guess I just want to say wow, wow, wow!
11:11 AM
Anonymous said...
I loved looking at all your pictures and videos. They were awesome!
I have to ask about your shoes in your picture of "My feet in France?" I love them! They look comfortable and stylish. Could you tell me where you got them or what they're called?
I'm new to blogging so I don't even have a username yet. Thanks! Heather
Loved the postssssss. Thanks for sharing with the rest of us. What a fun trip full of fun memories to last a lifetime! Did get chills about your flight home too. It's sooo great to see so many men and women serving our country. Glad you got a chance to see some of it up cose.
8:51 PM
[Image]How we traveled
Along our two week journey we traveled many different ways. [Image]Jeff making use of every inch by packing the car perfectly, is this not such a dad job?
{ by car}We rented a Ford Gia mini van. We were so hoping for a Fahrfanugen, but they didn't have GPS in their Volkswagens at the car rental place and that was a must! It was a really cool car with a full moon roof all the way to the very back, built in sun shades for the girls, very small and very few cup holders (i guess they don't have Big Gulps in Europe),[Image] great rear view mirror to monitor the going ons in the back.[Image]It took us a few days to manipulate the car seats and the luggage so that the girls were in the front row and Annie Kate was in the back. Once we did that the drives were much easier.[Image] We brought the video players to strap on the front head rests and Annie Kate had her own video player. This is so excessive but such a life saver.
On day one Jeff was loving driving on the Autobahn. Since we have been home we feel like we are driving so slow. [Image] We never saw one truck or SUV driving on the road and were amazed at how small all the cars were. I even made a smugmug gallery of the cool cars we saw. Those Smart Cars were awesome.(surprisingly expensive at $28,000 We never saw one accident on the road until our last day and it was on base. All the cars in Germany seemed like they were so new you didn't see any old beat up cars on the roads we were driving on. Kind of interesting. [Image]Train from the top of the Zugspitze
{by train} When we got to Switzerland we had to take the train to get in and out of the city we stayed in, Wengen. The train station was in Lauterbrunnen. [Image]This was the girls riding on the luggage cart waiting for the train to come. They loved riding the train and the rides were absolutely beautiful with a view of the mountains. They were never longer than 20 minutes and you could pull the window all the way down and just hang your head out. We went through tunnels and past many waterfalls. One trip the girls counted 8. [Image]train down off the Zugspitze Our train rides: off the top of the Zugspitze (tallest peak in Germany) From Lauterbrunnen to WengenFrom Munlichen to WengenFrom Staubach Falls to Murren
[Image]This was a photo of us leaving our mountain top town of Wengen, it was a sad day. We had just had the best three days and leaving the mountain, the view and the chocolate was very sad. The girls hung their head out the windows the whole time down just watching the mountains. [Image]Caroline sleeping on the train. We always seemed to be smiling when our energetic Caroline was sleeping
[Image] {by sled} One day in Germany we went Alpine Sledding. It was one of the girls favorite days. It was inexpensive, we had more rides then we had the energy for and the weather was incredible. In regards to the weather we said after the trip that we never had a day be affected by the weather - so lucky!
You can watch the minute and a half ride here.[Image]Getting ready to go to the top of the Zugspitze
{by Tram}
we took a few large high speed trams. I was so proud of myself for not freaking out! I think it helped on our first one when we were going to the top of the Zugspitze we went through a snow storm so I could not see down.
[Image]Sally Jane on the tram [Image]Annie Kate eating the best gummy bears they gave us before we got on. We were never able to find that brand anywhere the rest of our trip. [Image]Jeff and I became pretty good at hanging on to the ceiling straps while trying to keep the kids from falling out of the different trams. I started taking photos of all the different hangers above.[Image] this was the ceiling of the tram we took from Ebsee down to the train, cool pink emergency ladder.
Here is us taking the tram down from Murren in Switzerland. It is fun to hear all the languages being spoken in the background. Even watching this gets me a little woozie. [Image] { by Bike }
One day in Garmish we rented bikes and rode through town and along the river. We told the girls this was our day off to just relax. Annie Kate never figured out how riding all over town was relaxing - I think she was think more day at the pool. [Image]We had a great time and even found a little part of the river that a place for the girls to throw rocks and play on the beach, that we would not have found if traveling by car. [Image]my feet in France
{ by foot } I tried to take a photo of my feet in every country. We did a lot of walking - I kind of wish we would have had one of us wear the Garmin to document how far we walked. Annie Kate did all of the walking too and she really did great. Barb made a comment on my blog as to this past year in D.C. prepared our kids for this adventure and I could not agree with her more, and I really appreciate her pointing that out to me. [Image]my feet relaxing in Switzerland
[Image]my feet in Salzburg
I think all this running these past few months really paid off as I never felt like I was too tired and my feet never hurt. I was able to go running the first week and get in 11 miles but week two was just too busy and I needed as much sleep as I could get to gear up for the next day. [Image] {by bus} We only took one bus on our whole trip. It was from the base of the Neuschwanstein Castle to the entrance. [Image] I loved this photo of Sally Jane hanging on so we would not fall over on the crowded bus that was going up some windy roads. [Image] We chose to walk down which was about a 30 minute walk. Sally Jane screamed the ENTIRE way down. Not just a crying scream but a "my leg is falling off scream". Since I still felt we were the only people in the entire country with kids - I had no one to give me the sympathy " been there done that" look. We were actually walking behind the horse and buggy that you could pay to take you down the hill and these poor people had to hear the hills come alive with Sally's Screams. One of the buggies stopped I think to let us go by so they didn't have to hear it anymore.
{by backpack}
Jeff never complained or let on that he was tired of carrying dead weight on his back. He is lucky he has dainty little daughters[Image][Image][Image][Image]I will second Emily G.'s comment that I had seen a lot of people in the airport with the Ergo carrier's and they were awesome! [Image]this is a sample photo of a C5 plane that we flew on to get there. It is a cargo plane they drive the cargo in at the bottom and have about 60 seats on top for passengers. { by Plane } I had to save the best for last. The big unknown for us on this trip was if we were going to get there or not and if we did what day. We were so lucky to get on the first flights going and coming home. Our wait was not too long.[Image]
The plane ride home will forever be a unique part of our trip because we flew home with over 200 troops returning from Iraq. I wanted to take a million photos but it just didn't seem right. So I took one photo while we were standing in line in customs in the U.S. It was a military passenger plane they use to transport troops and they were nice enough to let us take 5 of the extra 39 seats.
It seemed very emotional to land and have the stewardess say "Welcome back to U.S. soil" She was awesome and each of them walked by to get off the plane she said, "Thank you for all you do" over and over again. I wanted to start a hugging line and hug them all!
When we walked into the regular part of the BWI airport there were about 50 people just standing there clapping as each group would walk through. When we walked through they stopped as we were in civilian clothes but after we walked out the clapping began as another group walked through. [Image] As far as the plane ride with the kids - oh it was crazy. In the first hour Sally Jane spilled a cup or orange juice on me and then 20 minutes later peed through her diaper and it was all over me. and pouring diet coke in my kids sippy cup was a pretty low point too. The only thing that saved me is that I was wearing the only pants I brought on the trip that were water repellent. Thank goodness. Caroline used the bathroom 4 times - which always seemed to be a major event.[Image]The Guardian We watched three movies as the ride was 9 hours. A Night at the Museum, The Guardian and Are we home yet? We felt lucky that they showed movies on the plane. They served two hot meals and passed around full size European candy bars that were incredible.
The kids had many crying fits and it was really hard and I felt bad for all the soldiers on the plane having to fly home to the ringing in their ears.
But take away the normal kid factor when flying I just gained a whole new respect for our country. I looked at each person on the plane and thought with each one is a family making banners and blowing up balloons excited for the arrival. I have anxiety of flying and I was totally calm thinking no way will this plane not make it home - there are so many praying for it to safely make it home.
I also added video in the post below at the Cathederal in Strassburg with the bells ringing while the girls were playing soccer at 10:00 pm at night.
posted by everything pink! at 1:53 PM on Aug 8, 2007
Untitled
22 Comments -
I love that you posted all these videos of your traveling. I especially love the autobahn one, Ben was the same way on the autobahn. Let's see how fast we can go!!! Scary!
I think you did such a great job of documenting your trip in so many different ways!!
1:10 PM
I love your autobahn video. We had a similar experience well really exactly the same but we only had one sleeping daughter in the back. Me trying to get Kalani to slow down and him pointing out all the BMW's whizzing by us.
I love these themed recaps. They are great!
1:35 PM
Nope, no Big Gulps in Europe! Aren't those Smart Cars funny? I took several pictures of those too. Loved all the photos, especially SJ holding on to the loop on the bus -- Eva loved to do that too. I love traveling by train. You really used a lot of different forms of transportation! Sorry about the flights -- I have been there and am not anxious to do it again anytime soon, but I love that you were not worried about flying when the plane was filled with soldiers.
2:32 PM
I love that picture of the soldiers boots. So amazing!
What a great trip!
So good to talk to you today.
2:43 PM
Now, when is your vacation? hahaha:D Traveling in airplanes with children can be rough as you just experienced. Love the autobahn video. I would have been dying to see it get to 200....scary!!
I have completely enjoyed the way that you have documented your trip. It is so fun to read. All of your pictures and videos are so good. I feel like I am really there. :D Thanks for sharing.
2:46 PM
This is so great. Fun video. I will say this wears me out though.
haha When were 'your' naps? On the go constantly to see the sites with kids would do me in! Glad I get to see 'your' pix though ;)
3:32 PM
WOW!! All your missing is a boat :o) I get so excited reading your posts about your trip. Sounds like you had an amazing time.. Keep sharing the pics and memories!!
3:42 PM
kacey, it is so funny you say that we were going to take a boat tour in france, but were seriously so worn out we opted to sit and eat instead.
3:50 PM
Definitely going to have to share this with my girlfriend whose husband is AF and tell her that she cannot NOT take advantage of the great military perks. It looks incredible!
4:09 PM
I had no idea there were so many ways to travel! I enjoyed all your pics and memories. I especially liked the rail, tram and alpine sleigh--cool views.
Interesting cars, so tiny--of course I'm used to the American perspective of SUV!
4:09 PM
I love the way you've organized documenting your trip Kristi, it's really clever and readable.
This line sounds so you: "I wanted to start a hugging line and hug them all!" and I wanted to join you.
What an incredible experience.
4:43 PM
How fun to actually ride an Alpine slide in the ALPS! No other will ever compare.
I loved watching the video with Jeff on the Autobahn. It shows just how fun he is. I'm happy that you took those videos.
4:47 PM
Okay...I don't know if the end of that post should have made me cry, but it did. I love traveling abroad, but I am definitely proud to be an American.
5:08 PM
Germans do drive the most delectable cars - but then they do churn them out like mad over at Wolfsburg where there's a HUUUGE Volkswagen factory.
My husband worked there for a while as an automotive illustrator. He says it's breath-taking (but with rather a tainted history, as Hitler held the reins for a while and used slave labour in the factory!!).
LOL so much at Jeff and the speedometer!
5:52 PM
The sled you took would having me giggling/laughing nervously on the way down. Love that you recorded your autobahn experience! What a cute video of your girls playing with the soccer ball. Craig and I were in Strassburg once years ago - what a neat experience it would be to have my girls there. I know what you mean by looking around and seeing no one else to sympathize with you! We went downtown last week to meet Craig for lunch in the underground - not one child the whole time - not even an older child! Crazy! Lastly, love that you shared with us your feelings about the plane ride and the 200 troops. What a neat experience. Happy vacation documenting!
6:53 PM
Such a great idea to document the actual TRAVEL part of your trip. When we go out of town I take pictures of what we do while we are there, but never of us getting there.
I think I would have loved the alpine sled. Tobogganing in the summer. Could it get more perfect?
8:43 PM
You are doing a great job documenting your trip. It makes me want to go to Germany and eat gummy bears. The story about the soldiers is so touching.
9:27 PM
it is sure fun to read about your trip.. sweet about riding home with the soldiers..such a neat picture of their boots.. so sweet that you weren't afraid to fly.. no way that they wouldn't get home with all those people praying for them.. so sweet!
9:20 AM
It always amazed me how differently people live in Europe. I wish that we were able to live, transportation wise, like they do. It's no wonder they are more fit than we are! What a wonderful show of support for our military and all they are doing for us:)
10:26 AM
It's hard to even know what to respond to with this post because it's all so cool. But since I just finished reading it I'll say that I loved your last paragraph and the fact that you knew your plane would make it home safely because of all the prayers for those soldiers to return home safely, that's truly touching.
I love that you took pictures of your feet in every country, love the video of Jeff driving on the Autobahn. I couldn't watch all of the slide ride or the tram because it was making me queasy, but I think it's cool that you did that and loved hearing all the voices in the background in the different languages.
I guess I just want to say wow, wow, wow!
11:11 AM
I loved looking at all your pictures and videos. They were awesome!
I have to ask about your shoes in your picture of "My feet in France?" I love them! They look comfortable and stylish. Could you tell me where you got them or what they're called?
I'm new to blogging so I don't even have a username yet. Thanks! Heather
4:08 PM
Loved the postssssss. Thanks for sharing with the rest of us. What a fun trip full of fun memories to last a lifetime! Did get chills about your flight home too. It's sooo great to see so many men and women serving our country. Glad you got a chance to see some of it up cose.
8:51 PM